Tom - 47 years
Scout and prep in late winter/early spring when pounding every acre won't effect your hunt. Sign and movement patterns are much easier to see and analyze during that time of the year and patterns generally remain the same from year to year. September is for low impact scouting.
It sounds obvious, but when you look for stand trees, look for trees that offer the greatest concealment. Our deer walk around looking up in trees almost as much as they look at ground level. Multi-trunk trees are good and also tree species that hold leaves well into the season. In my area, oak and beech are 2 species that hold leaves all the way into spring. If, while scouting in March, I see a prospective spot, and I see one stand tree possibility and it's a maple (drops leaves early) standing alone, and I see an adjacent maple that has a little oak or beech growing beside it, I'll choose that 2nd tree. Those species that hold their leaves will continue to offer essential cover well into the season.
Picking stand sites in August for a November hunt is often a losing cause. That tree that looked so concealing before the leaf drop can stick out like a sore thumb 2 months later.
Don't over hunt a stand or area. Too many hunters are so anxious to hit it hard and early. By the phase of the season when older bucks are finally starting to have consistent daylight movement, a lot of guys have educated the bucks and burned out the stands they worked so hard to develop. I hardly hunt at all until Halloween. I leave my stands and property fresh and undisturbed while all the neighbors have just about ruined their spots by mid-October. Half the reason guys experience an "October lull" is because they spent the last 2 weeks educating deer that are still in a nocturnal pattern.
Try to never touch anything as much as possible anywhere near your stands. I cringe when I see guys walk through the woods and needlessly touch brush, rubs, or anything that they don't have to. I once had a doe smell where I placed my freshly washed thumb.I was walking down a fallen log for quiet access to my stand when I started to lose my balance. I put my thumb against a sapling to steady myself. A half hour later, I watched an adult doe smell that thumbprint. The same skin oil that leaves a fingerprint also leaves human odor...and that odor remains for days.
Always carry pruners and clip stuff thats in your way as you walk. Never push is aside with your hands.
I also always carry a Judo-tipped arrow that I can use to push stuff out of my way so I don't have to touch it or prune it. That Judo arrow will also allow me to gently rake-out a spot to place my foot. The worst sound we make while walking is to snap twigs and branches, but sometimes there's just no place to step where there isn't a noisemaker under foot. A judo will allow me to sound more like a squirrel or turkey than a 180 pound predator.
Carry a dried milkweed pod for a wind indicator. Toss those stupid puff bottles in the trash. NOTHING, will show air movements as good as milkweed. Mother nature designed that stuff to float on air current for long distances. It's perfect and it's free. And it comes with it's own container. There's no need to stuff milkweed into little pill bottles. In fact, the more you handle a floater (like stuffing it into a bottle) you damage it and the less perfectly it will float. Take a green milkweed pod, wrap a rubber band around it so it stays closed while it dries. Keep the rubber band around it until it's used up. I poke a little piece of old bowstring thru a pod with a needle and attach a clip to it so it's always handy. If it's in your pocket, it'll cling to a glove and you'll eventually accidentally pull it out of your pocket and drop it from the tree...been there done that. Put a clip on that pod and keep it instantly handy with minimal movement. Keeping wind indicators in a pack in definately a no-no. you want to be able to use it quickly and easily without much movement.
I just picked a couple dozen mature pods. That'll last me 5 years. I easily get more than a week out of one.
Here's the way mine are...
View attachment 9893
Understanding wind patterns is essential and floaters are such a great tool for learning wind patterns. It's not as simple as "Prevailing west wind at my parking spot means a west wind at my stand". Air flow is so complex and dynamic. It changes throughout the day. Something as simple as clouds coming and going will change thermal flows. And terrain, cover and foliage effect air flow. Remember this---->
Air flow in one area will effect the airflow in adjacent areas. As the sun moves across the sky the sunny and shaded slopes change and then so does the thermal flow. A shady slope will have a different flow pattern that the sunny slope that's right beside it and as the sun moves those patterns change and effect each other. It's not as simple as some guys make it when they say warm air rises in the morning and cools and drops in the evening. WAY more complicated than that!
Go on Google Earth and experiment with the function that allows shading as the sun moves across the sky. There will be a slider button that allows you to simulate how the sun shades and exposes slopes and terrain. You'll see just how complicated shade vs sunny spots are during the course of the day and how they change. It's really obvious in hilly terrain. Those differences in sun exposure mean differences in temps means differences in airflows. And they draw to, and from, each other. Just try to learn those patterns with a puff bottle. It's hard enough to learn with a floater that can be seen for 70 yards...it's impossible with a powder bottle.
