The whitetail deer is North America’s #1 big game animal, pursued by thousands of bowhunters each fall. Below you will find bowhunting tips and tricks to help make you more successful this bowhunting season.

How to Choose the Ultimate Bowhunting Stand

The task is to go out to a well-scouted spot and hang a tree stand for a cozy, broadside or quartering-away shot at a whitetail. You can never go wrong hanging a stand downwind of a major deer run.

The task is to go out to a well-scouted spot and hang a tree stand for a cozy, broadside or quartering-away shot at a whitetail. The job is not nearly so easy as I just made it sound. In fact, it is your ultimate challenge. If you do everything right but miss your mark by just 10 or 20 yards, you’ll sit 18 feet up a tree and watch a buck glide by a whisker out of arrow range. He might be a Pope and Young...or heck, even a Booner! Don’t let him and other deer get away. Hang the ultimate bow stand and you’ll get more shots.

Preliminaries: In and Out

Any tree in which you even think about putting a stand should have easy and quiet access. You can scout and find great trees in great spots blazed fresh tracks, rubs and scrapes, but if the access to those trees is poor, you can’t or shouldn’t hunt them.

A straight, solid tree might be located too far from a field edge or logging road where a short, quiet hike to it isn’t an option. If you clump too far through the woods, especially when the leaves are down and dry as Corn Flakes, you’ll sound like an elephant and spook deer. Also, a great-looking oak or hickory might grow on the wrong side of a thicket or a major trail that runs to it. If you try to bull your way to a stand and jump bedded or walking deer along the way, you’ve obviously messed up.

It’s important to have a good exit strategy as well. After a hunt, especially in the evening, you should be able to climb out of a stand and sneak back to your truck without spooking too many deer. If you can’t get out of a crop field or mast flat without clearing it of animals, it’s not worth hunting that place because that ruckus will quickly cause an old buck to change his pattern. Pull that stand and re-hang it in a nearby spot with better getaway access.

Survey an aerial for potential stand locations on edges, corners, creek crossings etc.

Your goal should always be to slip quickly and quietly to and from a stand without disturbing a single deer. To do it, look for stand locations that are not too far off old roads, trails, power-line rights-of-way, etc. Or sneak to a tree along the edge of a pasture. Use aerial photos and topographical maps to determine the easiest and most convenient routes to stands.

Anytime you can creep up or down a creek or river, do it. You can wade a creek toward a stand like you’re strolling down Main Street without deer seeing or smelling you. Plus, the water helps to rinse traces of scent off your boots.

As a rule for evening hunting, choose a tree with easy access from the food-source side. For example, sneak down the edge of an alfalfa field or clover plot early in the afternoon, turn a few yards into the woods and climb into a stand. You shouldn’t bump a single animal. You certainly never want to angle cross country toward an afternoon stand along a brushy ridge or draw that runs from a bedding area back in the woods—you’ll spook deer moving from the timber to the feed and ruin your hunt.

For morning hunting, try to find a tree near a bedding area that you can get to before dawn. Sneak in from downwind as quietly as possible in the dark, climb the tree and get settled. Some deer in or near the cover might hear you, but they’ll usually settle down before first light. By getting there extra early, you’ll beat some bucks back to their beds. If a big deer comes skulking along at sunrise or later, you’ll be 20 feet up a tree waiting for him.

Play the Wind for Bowhunting Success

The perfect stand has good acccess in and out, and provides you with good hunting visibility.

Every day that you scout or hunt a farm or woodlot, monitor the various wind directions at morning, midday and afternoon. Mark those wind currents on a map and in a journal. Over time you’ll determine the prevailing winds that accompany various weather patterns at different times of the year. That is vitally important info because the majority of the trees you pick for stands will be based on the most common winds. You know to focus on spots where deer will likely come in upwind of your stand. That is important, but it is not enough. When picking a tree, you need to determine where to put your scent so you’ll alert as few deer as possible in the area. If a mature buck circles in downwind of your stand and catches your stench, he might just melt away into the brush. But an ornery old doe might stand out there and stamp and blow for 15 minutes, bringing your blood to a boil and, worse, alerting every deer within a half-mile that something is bad wrong. Either way your hunt is probably ruined.

Determining the best wind for a stand definitely involves some trial and error. You might look at an aerial, point your finger and bark, “Okay boys, a northwest wind will work best right there.” But until you go in and sit the stand several times, you don’t really know if a northwest is best or even adequate. You need to study the topography of an area because ridges, bluffs, draws and other terrain and foliage features can and do affect wind direction, sometimes dramatically. You also need to glass a lot and observe the overall deer movement throughout an area as it relates to various common winds. Most of the time mature bucks work into the wind, or at least into a crosswind.

More often than not, your instincts will be good, and your theory about the best wind or winds to hunt a tree will be on the money. Once you’ve hunted a tree a few times and feel confident you’ve pegged the best winds, stay with that strategy when planning daily hunts from season to season. Unless the terrain or cover changes (i.e., a landowner cuts or thins 20 acres of timber) those winds will hold true over time.

Specifics: Bowhunting in High Places

Hunting from 17 to 20 feet provides a great shooting angle to a buck's vitals at 20 yards.

How high should you bowhunt? I depends largely on the amount of cover in and around a tree. I like some cover to the front and sides of a stand, but background cover is the most important. You always want to set up where limbs, leaves, forks, vines, etc. behind your stand help to break your silhouette. Given my druthers, I like to hook a fixed-position stand 17 to 20 feet up a tree. It’s a comfortable height, and a good position for shooting. When a deer is broadside at 15 to 25 yards out and 17 to 20 feet below, you’ve got a great shooting angle. You can see plenty of lungs.

Don’t just stick a stand on a tree, but angle it to maximize your opportunities. I always face a stand dead into the wind, or at the very least quartering into the wind. That way you’ll see the most deer out front or off to the sides, and be ready to set up a shot at a buck.

Treestand Tips for Advanced Bowhunters

At a new stand site, be quiet. Don’t throw or bang steel or aluminum stands and steps around. If you’re hanging with a buddy, don’t talk or laugh too loudly. Set up and sneak out of an area without alerting deer that might be bedded or walking nearby.
It’s always best to hang a stand perfectly level. When a tree is not truly straight, set the foot platform so that it tips slightly up. When you sit, this raises your knees slightly and makes you comfortable. When you stand to draw and shoot, you’ll be firmer and safer than if the platform were to tip slightly down.
Sometimes, especially when cover is sparse in the treetops, it can pay to set an evening stand on a tree so that it faces a crop field or food plot. Deer will come from the woods and thickets to the rear, and the tree between you and them will provide good cover. If you shoot right-handed, set up where deer will pass within 30 yards to your left (vice versa for southpaws). You can draw and shoot with ease and little movement as a buck quarters past. Since you’ll be facing downwind in this setup, shoot a deer quickly before he walks too far past and smells you.

Never hang a tree stand without wearing a climbing belt. The Treehopper 3-in-1 Belt allows hands free installation of hang-on tree stands and steps.

Say two deer trails run down a ridge or through a bottom. Which one will a buck take? Well, make him walk the one that runs closest to your stand. Drag a bunch of branches or a big deadfall into one trail to block it. When a buck comes along he’ll skirt the obstacle and veer over to the trail you’re covering.
After hanging a stand, look around on the ground and remove any big logs or brushy tops that might block a buck from walking within 30 yards. If the cover is real tight, pull out your hand clipper and cut a small path 20 yards or so on the upwind side of your stand. When you come back to hunt in a few days you should see some fresh tracks in the new, clear trail.
In areas where many trees have lots of low limbs, use hang-on stands with stacking sticks or drilled-in bolts. But if you’ve got a lot of straight, limbless trees in your area, try a climber. You can pack one into a spot, run it 18 feet up a tree and hunt a buck in minutes. If the wind changes or you simply don’t like that setup, you can shinny down and move quickly and easily. A climber is versatile and gives you an element of surprise that you can use to kill a big whitetail on occasion.
You’ll need a clipper and a folding saw to cut out spots for tree stands. A pole extension is a hassle to carry, but it makes your job a lot easier.
It makes absolutely no sense to hang a stand in a spot where you can’t shoot. You don’t have to cut pulpwood, but trim at least three good shooting lanes to the upwind sides and front of your stand. Drag limbs and brushy tops away so deer won’t smell your scent on them, or so they won’t block a buck’s approach. After cutting, it’s best to sneak out of a spot and rest it for a day or two before hunting.
Try to hang a morning stand facing somewhere west, and an evening stand pointing toward the east. With the sun at your back, you’ll have great visibility of the woods out front and below. You’ll have the most shooting light at dawn and dusk. You’ll be shaded nicely, lessening the odds that deer will look up and see you.
Mark your stands not with gaudy flagging tape, but with “bright-eye” tacks or wraps. Flash a quick light on your markers as you sneak in or out at dawn or after dark, and you won’t stumble around looking for your stand and spooking deer.
Never run a climbing stand up a tree, or attempt to set steps and a fixed stand, without wearing a climbing belt. Once 20 feet up and hunting, switch over to a full-body harness.

Bowhunting From the Ground

If there are no good trees in a spot with big-buck sign, try a ground attack.

Often there is no large, straight tree within bow range of a field edge, thicket or narrow funnel where you’ve spotted a monster several times. Or you might find what looks to be a good tree for a stand, only to find that the wind, cover, visibility or shooting lanes are poor there. Well, don’t sweat it. Go for a ground attack. More and more hunters are doing it these days, and they’re killing some mighty fine bucks. Actually, a lot of times you’re better off on the ground than trying to squeak by in a marginal tree setup.

Most people worry about their scent when bowhunting at ground zero. Well, stop your fretting. On the ground your scent doesn’t travel as far, swirl as much or disperse and pool as widely as it does from a tree stand, so fewer whitetails might actually smell you. Of course you still need to setup downwind of where you expect a buck to show up.

The key to any ground setup is thick background cover. You can get away with little or no brush in front, but you’d better cover your back, completely and with no air holes. A thick backdrop of sticks, brush, cedars or the like hides your silhouette and covers your moves as you draw your bow. That is the tough part.

Shooting a buck at 20 to 30 yards is the tricky part. Pull your bow and shoot either when the deer is looking directly away from you or back over his shoulder at another deer, or when his eyes are obscured by a tree or brush. It’s pretty much the same as when shooting out of a tree. Only now a buck is right there at your level and larger than life. It’s a pretty cool deal.