Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1058: Foundations - Treestand Setup Mistakes that Could Cost You a Buck

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Ep. 1058: Foundations - Treestand Setup Mistakes that Could Cost You a Buck · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
0:05
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
0:09
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
0:14
Speaker 1: First Light, Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host,
0:19
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
0:22
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm rouse
0:23
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and this episode is all about hanging stands
0:26
Speaker 2: in the preseason and what we often get wrong. We
0:34
Speaker 2: are all experiencing some weird form of time compression where
0:38
Speaker 2: the days and weeks and months and years are just
0:40
Speaker 2: all flying by. It literally feels impossible that we are
0:43
Speaker 2: only weeks away from a lot of the early bow
0:45
Speaker 2: openers cross country. That means it's time to leave the
0:48
Speaker 2: fish alone start thinking about the deer they're scouting, you know,
0:52
Speaker 2: of course, but also the work of hanging stands in
0:54
Speaker 2: the preseason, which is what I'm going to talk about
0:56
Speaker 2: right now, or more specifically, the mistakes we often make
0:59
Speaker 2: while hanging stands in August and then not revisiting them
1:02
Speaker 2: until the fall is firmly upon us and it's too
1:05
Speaker 2: late to change anything. When I was growing up, I
1:17
Speaker 2: had two dreams. Well, actually I had three. I guess
1:21
Speaker 2: when I was really little, I wanted to make pizzas
1:22
Speaker 2: for a living, because at some point I saw one
1:24
Speaker 2: of those guys who can twirl the pizza doll in
1:26
Speaker 2: the air to get it into a nice pizza shape,
1:29
Speaker 2: and I thought that was about as high as a
1:31
Speaker 2: fella from a small town in Minnesota could fly career wise. Now,
1:34
Speaker 2: if I'm being honest, I achieved that dream pretty early
1:37
Speaker 2: in my life. And let me tell you, cooking pizzas
1:39
Speaker 2: for a living isn't as glamorous as you might think. Shocking,
1:43
Speaker 2: I know. My other two dreams were to become an
1:45
Speaker 2: outdoor writer and host a phishing show. I hit the
1:49
Speaker 2: outdoor writer thing hard and it worked pretty well for
1:51
Speaker 2: a long time, until people stopped reading magazines and newspapers
1:54
Speaker 2: and well reading mostly anything. But the dream of being
1:58
Speaker 2: a big time fishing shows just eluded me, no matter
2:01
Speaker 2: how much I flirted with it. This year, that all changed,
2:04
Speaker 2: and soon you'll get to watch me host a fishing
2:06
Speaker 2: show that I can't really talk about yet. I can
2:09
Speaker 2: say that I fished for a lot of different species
2:11
Speaker 2: and a lot of different lakes and it was a
2:12
Speaker 2: lot of fun and a lot of different types of frustrating,
2:16
Speaker 2: as is the case with you know, filming anything in
2:18
Speaker 2: Mother Nature. One of the shows I did put me
2:21
Speaker 2: in a musky country, targeting the fish of a whole
2:23
Speaker 2: lot of casts. Now. I caught my first muskie when
2:26
Speaker 2: I was in high school on Dumbell Lake in northern Minnesota.
2:29
Speaker 2: That little thirty inch fish hit a pop bar and
2:32
Speaker 2: was a real touch and go fight until he got
2:34
Speaker 2: in the net and we marveled at the barring on
2:37
Speaker 2: his sides and the reality that one of us had
2:40
Speaker 2: actually caught a fish that to that point was pure myth. Later,
2:44
Speaker 2: while working out of the in Fisherman office in Brainerd,
2:47
Speaker 2: I wet waited the crow Ring River for smallies and
2:50
Speaker 2: I was just standing there and wate deep water, you know,
2:52
Speaker 2: this tannic, nice water. When a fish flashed at my
2:55
Speaker 2: swimming jig. I was in smalling mode, so I thought
2:58
Speaker 2: maybe I was onto the state record, but my follow
3:00
Speaker 2: up cast showed me that it was something much bigger
3:02
Speaker 2: and much toothier. I landed that forty inch musky while
3:06
Speaker 2: my buddy swam across the river with his rod in
3:08
Speaker 2: his mouth to help me take photos. Since then, I've
3:11
Speaker 2: got a few more muskies, largely by accident. And to
3:14
Speaker 2: put it bluntly, I'm not a real musky fisherman in
3:17
Speaker 2: kind of the same way that I'm not a real
3:19
Speaker 2: duck hunter. I know what both pursuits consist of, but
3:22
Speaker 2: I take the easy way out and don't take either
3:25
Speaker 2: too seriously. Well, you have to kind of take it
3:28
Speaker 2: seriously when you're filming a show dedicated to fishing for
3:30
Speaker 2: a certain species like muskies. But I'm not conditioned, you know,
3:34
Speaker 2: doing a figure eight on every cast. I'm super distractable
3:37
Speaker 2: on the water, And well, I like to catch fish
3:40
Speaker 2: more than I like to not catch fish. While trying
3:41
Speaker 2: to catch a trophy fish, I do a poor job
3:44
Speaker 2: of being a musky fisherman, even though I did end
3:46
Speaker 2: up putting a few in the boat. But when I
3:48
Speaker 2: engage in something like that, I'm reminded of how there
3:51
Speaker 2: is sort of a buttoned up best practices kind of
3:54
Speaker 2: approach to things that the real diehards engage in, and
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Speaker 2: then a whole bunch of levels below that, which can
4:00
Speaker 2: result in success, but generally not the kind of success
4:03
Speaker 2: that the diehard's fine. This exists all over in the
4:07
Speaker 2: things we love to do, including you guessed it, golf,
4:11
Speaker 2: just kidding, it's deer hunting, and in this case, hanging stands. Now, I,
4:16
Speaker 2: like most of us, have some holes in my deer
4:19
Speaker 2: hunting game that really bother me. But one area I
4:21
Speaker 2: have supreme confidence in is the stand hanging game. I
4:25
Speaker 2: don't know how many stands I have hung in my life,
4:27
Speaker 2: but I'm going to round up to an even one
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Speaker 2: million here. I honestly love the task. I love reading
4:32
Speaker 2: spots and trees and trying to figure out exactly how
4:35
Speaker 2: to get the best setups going and then how to
4:38
Speaker 2: access them. And even with all of that backslapping I'm
4:41
Speaker 2: given myself, I also have to say this, I screw
4:44
Speaker 2: up a lot. And the times that I screw up
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Speaker 2: the most are when I'm setting preseason stands that I
4:49
Speaker 2: won't return to until the season is open. When I
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Speaker 2: walk in and hang a set to hunt, I just
4:56
Speaker 2: tend to get it mostly right or at least more right.
5:00
Speaker 2: But when I'm hanging a stand six weeks before the season,
5:03
Speaker 2: I often get crucial parts wrong. There are some obvious
5:07
Speaker 2: reasons for this that you should pay attention to, because
5:09
Speaker 2: I'll bet you get some of them wrong as well.
5:11
Speaker 2: The first one is simply not reading the tree or
5:14
Speaker 2: the spot correctly for when you'll actually hunt it. If
5:17
Speaker 2: you've never hung a preseason stand, if you've never hung
5:20
Speaker 2: a preseason stan, only to return and, say late October,
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Speaker 2: to realize that you stick out worse than I don't
5:27
Speaker 2: know someone drowning worms for trout on one of those
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Speaker 2: snooty Bozeman trout rivers where mustaches and fish whistles are
5:32
Speaker 2: mandatory and you have to hold your rod in your
5:34
Speaker 2: mouth for every photo of a twelve inch rainbow to
5:36
Speaker 2: let your ninety seven followers know you've caught a fish
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Speaker 2: the hard way, like a real man. Anyway, when the
5:42
Speaker 2: leaves come down, that stand sticks out. This only gets
5:47
Speaker 2: worse if you're the kind of hunter who faces his
5:49
Speaker 2: stand toward the most likely approach. I've said this a
5:53
Speaker 2: thousand times, and I suspect this won't be the last time.
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Speaker 2: But an easy insurance policy against getting busted is to
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Speaker 2: hang your stands facing away from where the deer going
6:01
Speaker 2: to approach from. Not every tree demands this, though, but
6:04
Speaker 2: a lot of them do. And if you have the
6:06
Speaker 2: option to shoot around the tree while keeping the trunk
6:09
Speaker 2: between you and the deer. You've just given yourself a
6:11
Speaker 2: real advantage. It's not always necessary in the early season either,
6:15
Speaker 2: but if it can be done, I always do it,
6:18
Speaker 2: and I mean always. This point sort of walks in
6:21
Speaker 2: lockstep with something else that I see a lot trimming mistakes.
6:25
Speaker 2: There are two ways this goes. The first is that
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Speaker 2: you get into a tree and you get your stand up,
6:29
Speaker 2: and then you use a pole saw to cut a
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Speaker 2: lane here and there and there and there, and pretty
6:34
Speaker 2: soon you're like, well, I can shoot three hundred and
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Speaker 2: sixty degrees around my stand to every single trail. This
6:39
Speaker 2: only gets worse when you have a buddy, you know,
6:41
Speaker 2: with you who can walk around and trim everything up
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Speaker 2: according to your direction. Now, don't get me wrong, cutting
6:46
Speaker 2: lanes is important, but what you cut in August that
6:49
Speaker 2: doesn't seem like much will appear to be a lot
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Speaker 2: of cutting as the season progresses. You don't want to
6:54
Speaker 2: leave yourself with no cover. And I know this is
6:57
Speaker 2: hard to do, but at most ranges we are in
7:00
Speaker 2: white tails. A basketball sized hole is more than enough
7:03
Speaker 2: to shoot through. Bigger is not always better, but try
7:07
Speaker 2: to think about how much you'd really need to get
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Speaker 2: an ethical shot through and don't go much bigger if
7:12
Speaker 2: you don't have to. It's also a good idea to
7:15
Speaker 2: hinge cut limbs instead of fully sawing them off if
7:18
Speaker 2: you can use them to hide yourself in any way.
7:21
Speaker 2: The goal is to give yourself the shot opportunities you
7:24
Speaker 2: think you'll need without going overboard and exposing yourself too much.
7:28
Speaker 2: Of course, you also have to factor in the under
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Speaker 2: trimming game, which is an easy one to play when
7:33
Speaker 2: it's one hundred and four degrees with one hundred percent humidity.
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Speaker 2: The good enough attitude on stand hanging has saved a
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Speaker 2: lot of bucks, and a great way to avoid this
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Speaker 2: trap is to have that buddy with you who can
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Speaker 2: walk the trails and eyeball you in your stand. If
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Speaker 2: you don't have that option and are more of a
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Speaker 2: solo stand hanger, get down and walk all the way
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Speaker 2: around your stand and eyeball your setup. How would you
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Speaker 2: shoot sitting down or standing up? At each trail and
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Speaker 2: needs to be trimmed to open up some of those lanes.
8:13
Speaker 2: To take this a step further, let's say you have
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Speaker 2: a trail that is twenty yards out. You don't really
8:19
Speaker 2: have any good openings to shoot, but you need a couple.
8:22
Speaker 2: What I look for in this situation is something that
8:24
Speaker 2: will block a deer's view, like a big old tree
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Speaker 2: close to the trail where he has to pass on
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Speaker 2: the far side, because when he's back there, I can draw,
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Speaker 2: and when he walks out, I can shoot him. Now,
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Speaker 2: he might go down the trail one way or he
8:37
Speaker 2: might go down the other way. So I want to
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Speaker 2: be able to shoot on both sides of that tree.
8:41
Speaker 2: That's never a bad move. The key is to understand
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Speaker 2: why you're cutting those lanes, where you're cutting those lanes,
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Speaker 2: and to give yourself a nice little advantage by using
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Speaker 2: what's already out there to block his vision and allow
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Speaker 2: you to make the biggest movement that you probably need
8:55
Speaker 2: to make. And speaking of big moves in your stand,
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Speaker 2: when you hang one, sit in it and get a
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Speaker 2: real feel for it, is it crooked at all? Because
9:04
Speaker 2: a tiny bit crooked for five minutes in August will
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Speaker 2: feel like the Titanic going down during a five hour
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Speaker 2: sit in October. It's so much easier to fine tune
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Speaker 2: them in the preseason when the pressure is weeks away
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Speaker 2: than it is when you go in there. During the season,
9:20
Speaker 2: and you do not want to be uncomfortable on a
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Speaker 2: stand because you'll move more and you'll willingly sit for
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Speaker 2: less time. Both of those things will cost you deer eventually.
9:33
Speaker 2: Take a look around at the limbs, the lanes and
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Speaker 2: what you be dealing with. To draw a bow while
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Speaker 2: both sitting and standing, Where would you put your bowhanger
9:40
Speaker 2: if you use one? How about where are you going
9:43
Speaker 2: to hang your pack? This is little stuff, but it
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Speaker 2: matters the first time you go in, especially if your
9:48
Speaker 2: first cit is in the morning. Does your stand shift
9:52
Speaker 2: or squeak at all when you move either one of
9:55
Speaker 2: those things now might seem like a non issue, but
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Speaker 2: it'll be a different story when it gets it's cold
10:00
Speaker 2: and you have one hundred and thirty five inchro walking in.
10:02
Speaker 2: Trust me on that one. Make a note on your
10:05
Speaker 2: phone what winds would be absolutely perfect, what would be questionable,
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Speaker 2: and what would be a for sure no go. This
10:13
Speaker 2: one seems obvious, but it's not. We go in, hang
10:17
Speaker 2: a set, tell ourselves as good for a west wind,
10:19
Speaker 2: and then we head back to the truck. Then the
10:21
Speaker 2: season hits and we get a west wind, but the
10:24
Speaker 2: conditions have the deer coming in from somewhere we didn't
10:26
Speaker 2: anticipate way back in August, or we now realize that
10:29
Speaker 2: a straight west wind would be fine, but it's always
10:32
Speaker 2: got a little, you know, north kicker to it, or
10:34
Speaker 2: a south kicker, and we have think that through in
10:38
Speaker 2: the moment we have that moment of weighing risk. Do
10:42
Speaker 2: you sit with a thin margin? Maybe, but maybe that
10:45
Speaker 2: costs you a deer. I don't want to make this
10:47
Speaker 2: sound like a neurotic, detail obsessed hunter, because I'm not.
10:51
Speaker 2: I've just made a lot of mistakes, and when I
10:53
Speaker 2: make those mistakes, I hate myself a little more with
10:55
Speaker 2: each one, particularly when I could have easily prevented myself
10:59
Speaker 2: from making such dumb mistakes. And of the dumb mistakes
11:03
Speaker 2: I've made, the ones that bother me the most are
11:07
Speaker 2: the entrance route mistakes. I've talked about this a lot,
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Speaker 2: so I'm gonna skip some of the basics. I'll just
11:12
Speaker 2: say this, mark your routes well, trim them well. Imagine
11:17
Speaker 2: walking down them in the dark with a great big
11:20
Speaker 2: backpack on while trying to be super quiet, and give
11:24
Speaker 2: yourself a real shot of success by clearing them correctly.
11:29
Speaker 2: The key to this is to think about what you
11:31
Speaker 2: have to step on, and basically, if it's not bare dirt,
11:35
Speaker 2: it's going to be loud. Leaves are an obvious noise maker,
11:39
Speaker 2: but sticks and branches and rocks are both loud and
11:42
Speaker 2: sound a hell of a lot like a big animal
11:44
Speaker 2: going through the woods. Now, leaves can sound like a
11:47
Speaker 2: lot of things, but squirrels don't crack big sticks, and
11:51
Speaker 2: bunnies don't step on rocks and make them clunk hard
11:54
Speaker 2: against other rocks. Walking through water is loud, too, but
11:59
Speaker 2: I've come to not care that as much. I don't
12:01
Speaker 2: think there's a critter out there that can tell the
12:03
Speaker 2: difference between a boot and the water and a hoof.
12:05
Speaker 2: But it's also a good idea to go slow and
12:07
Speaker 2: try to stay as quiet as possible. These days, not
12:10
Speaker 2: only do I tack my trails, but I also use
12:13
Speaker 2: my track or feature on ONEX to record my exact route.
12:17
Speaker 2: I like this for obvious reasons, but also because it
12:19
Speaker 2: shows me how long it takes to walk it. In
12:21
Speaker 2: good conditions, I can add in a buffer for it
12:24
Speaker 2: being dark and me trying to be quiet and plan
12:27
Speaker 2: my hunts a little better. I honestly find myself using
12:30
Speaker 2: that feature a lot and if you aren't, you should
12:32
Speaker 2: probably check it out. In my experience, it has proven
12:35
Speaker 2: to be useful in small game hunting, upland hunting, and
12:38
Speaker 2: definitely during blood trails when things aren't going super well. Now,
12:43
Speaker 2: while I'm on the topic of entrance and exit routes,
12:45
Speaker 2: I should say this, The whole route needs to be
12:48
Speaker 2: planned out. This isn't just a point A to B
12:51
Speaker 2: thing where you try to get there quietly. Think about
12:54
Speaker 2: what the wind would be like walking in for an
12:56
Speaker 2: evening sit, or what you'd have to walk out and
12:59
Speaker 2: throw after a hunt. Does your morning route take you
13:03
Speaker 2: super close to the only beanfield on the farm you're
13:06
Speaker 2: gonna spook deer. You might need to swing wide and
13:09
Speaker 2: take three times as long to get there, but you'll
13:12
Speaker 2: get there safely. And then when you plan the route
13:15
Speaker 2: close to your stand, think about how you'll approach your stand.
13:19
Speaker 2: You know, I use knee high rubber boots and I
13:21
Speaker 2: try to keep my scent signature low. But deer really
13:24
Speaker 2: good at smelling people, and I'd rather not have them
13:27
Speaker 2: have to walk over my entrance trail before they get
13:30
Speaker 2: to where I can shoot them. That's just asking for trouble.
13:33
Speaker 2: I've hung a lot of stands in my life where
13:35
Speaker 2: I got within, say, I don't know, fifty or seventy
13:38
Speaker 2: yards of the stand and then cleared my entrance route
13:42
Speaker 2: to sort of loop way around the rest of the
13:45
Speaker 2: route might be pretty straightforward, but there are often times
13:48
Speaker 2: where I anticipate deer to come from a certain direction,
13:51
Speaker 2: and I want them to be able to walk through
13:53
Speaker 2: that as far as possible before they have the potential
13:56
Speaker 2: to hit my trail. This does one obvious thing and
13:59
Speaker 2: one not so obvious thing. The first is that it
14:02
Speaker 2: keeps them from smelling where I walked when they first
14:04
Speaker 2: get into range. That's huge, honestly. But the second is
14:07
Speaker 2: that in a lot of situations, it puts the deer
14:10
Speaker 2: well out of my danger zone. If they do happen
14:13
Speaker 2: to smell where I walked, that cagy dough with two
14:16
Speaker 2: fawns might get a whiff of something she doesn't like,
14:18
Speaker 2: But I'd rather have her do that when she's fifty
14:21
Speaker 2: yards out instead of fifteen, because if she is fifteen,
14:24
Speaker 2: she's eventually going to look up, and when she does,
14:27
Speaker 2: she's not going to stop looking at me until she
14:29
Speaker 2: blows and blows and clears out the section. If a
14:31
Speaker 2: deer is going to get wiggy at all at my presence,
14:34
Speaker 2: I really want them as far away as possible. This
14:37
Speaker 2: is one way to do that, but not all spots
14:39
Speaker 2: are conducive to that sort of entrance route. Many are,
14:42
Speaker 2: especially staging areas, setups or stands on funnels and pinch points.
14:46
Speaker 2: The other way to look at this is if there
14:48
Speaker 2: is a way to choose a tree next to a
14:49
Speaker 2: washout or a gully or something you can use to
14:51
Speaker 2: access it. You know, for the last however, many yards
14:54
Speaker 2: and it's a kind of thing that deer are very
14:56
Speaker 2: unlikely to enter. That's great. It takes a lot of
14:59
Speaker 2: work to hang stands correctly, and you really don't want
15:02
Speaker 2: to put in all of that sweat equity only to
15:04
Speaker 2: take a lazy approach to actually getting to the stand,
15:07
Speaker 2: which could cost you a buck. There are probably a
15:10
Speaker 2: million things I'm missing here, but I feel like this
15:12
Speaker 2: is a good starting point, especially when you think about
15:15
Speaker 2: hang on tree stands, which are generally my go to
15:17
Speaker 2: type of stand for private ground that I can set
15:20
Speaker 2: up beforehand. I realize though, that a lot of folks
15:24
Speaker 2: are leaning on ladderstands these days, which makes sense and
15:26
Speaker 2: is a topic that I plan to dive in on
15:29
Speaker 2: for next week's episode, So come back in a week
15:32
Speaker 2: because I'm going to keep talking about how to haunt
15:33
Speaker 2: America's favorite game animal. That's it for this show. I'm
15:37
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. This has been the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
15:40
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. As always,
15:42
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support. I can't tell
15:44
Speaker 2: you how much we appreciate it. You guys show up
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Speaker 2: for us with every project we do is truly incredible.
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