Well by now most of you know about this buck that I saw 3 times last bow season and missed my chance at during gun season, with Julie there to see him as well. I figured its time to give him a name so I have named him "the sactuary buck" named after where he is living and spending most of his time, well last year anyway. I have become quite obsessed with him, especially recently after finding one of his sheds. (see my post 2x ago) He is going to be a 4.5 year old deer this year and that is going to make things even more difficult but this is the best chance at a deer of this caliber I have ever had, so I have to give it my best try. Well the sanctuary is a small 5 acre area that is all tall grass, scrub brush and thorns. It is tucked behind some houses and the topography makes it a very secluded area and perfect for holding a big mature deer. It has little or no trees to hang a stand in, well one tree and that is where I sat last season. Its an ok spot for a stand but I was just a little to far away from the action and my approach route was to much in the open. If you look below at the ariel photo you can see what I am talking about and see why I needed to move. The blue "X" on the top left is where my treestand was last season. The blue "X" on the top right is the ground blind where I missed him from. The yellow circle is where he was when I missed him. The dotted lines are the different routes he took everytime i saw him last year. The area inside the yellow line is the corn field, I know part looks like grass but its all crop field now. The green dotted line is my new access route through the corn field and the red "X" is where I put my tri-pod stand last sunday. The yellow arrows are the only wind directions that I would hunt this stand, south or southwest. Also, one more thing to note where the blue and purple lines converge in the upper left those are apple trees. They did not have any fruit last year but he still was bedding down in there. If there is fruit on them this year its going to be even better. 2 years ago the corn field was beans and I watched dozens of deer pour into this area every night for a week strait from accross the property early season and I didn't know why. I found out that these trees were in here last spring but the late frost killed all the blossoms I believe.
So what I did was move my tripod stand into this area. I put it as far into a white pine tree as I could and even dug the feet of it down about 18" into the ground to get the platform lower into the tree. You can see by the pictures below that it worked really good. I will be able to get into this stand when the corn is up undected and when I am in it i am shielded from the sanctuary because of the two trees, so if he is laying anywhere in the sancuary he should not see me get in or sitting in it. Also, this spot is uphill from where i was last year and I can see much better into the sanctuary. I am going to bring more branches in my first sit and zip tie them onto the stand and that will give me even more cover. So now that I have it set up, I am not going to go by it or near this are until Oct. when I hunt it for the first time. I want him to think its safe and to go back in there again and I have learned that if he senses the least bit of pressure he is gone. It would be nice to have a trail camera in there to know what I am up against but I can't risk it so I just have to go off of what I learned last season and my instincts that he will be back in there or worst case scenario, another shooter buck. Anyway to say I am excited about this stand is an understatement.
You can see how well the platform is hidden. My only concern is being silohetted against the sky if the deer are withing 15-20 yards of me so thats why I want to bring in a few more branches.
Barry was on Spring Break but he let me use his tractor and hay wagon which worked awesome because we moved it with just Julie and I. Thanks Barry.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share with everyone because I am pretty excited about this stand and this buck, but also to show what process I use to decide how to set up a stand and that sometimes you have to be a little creative. I love using ariel photos(even on property I know very well) and mapping out the information I know, it gives me the big picture and I use that to determine where I need to be, how I need to get into that spot, what wind, etc. Then after that I figure out how to set up in that spot, hang a stand, ground blind, or what I did here. Hopefully I will get a crack at "the sanctuary buck" and I can feel really proud about how much thought and work myself and Julie put into going after him.
So what I did was move my tripod stand into this area. I put it as far into a white pine tree as I could and even dug the feet of it down about 18" into the ground to get the platform lower into the tree. You can see by the pictures below that it worked really good. I will be able to get into this stand when the corn is up undected and when I am in it i am shielded from the sanctuary because of the two trees, so if he is laying anywhere in the sancuary he should not see me get in or sitting in it. Also, this spot is uphill from where i was last year and I can see much better into the sanctuary. I am going to bring more branches in my first sit and zip tie them onto the stand and that will give me even more cover. So now that I have it set up, I am not going to go by it or near this are until Oct. when I hunt it for the first time. I want him to think its safe and to go back in there again and I have learned that if he senses the least bit of pressure he is gone. It would be nice to have a trail camera in there to know what I am up against but I can't risk it so I just have to go off of what I learned last season and my instincts that he will be back in there or worst case scenario, another shooter buck. Anyway to say I am excited about this stand is an understatement. 
You can see how well the platform is hidden. My only concern is being silohetted against the sky if the deer are withing 15-20 yards of me so thats why I want to bring in a few more branches. 
Barry was on Spring Break but he let me use his tractor and hay wagon which worked awesome because we moved it with just Julie and I. Thanks Barry. 
Anyway, I just thought I'd share with everyone because I am pretty excited about this stand and this buck, but also to show what process I use to decide how to set up a stand and that sometimes you have to be a little creative. I love using ariel photos(even on property I know very well) and mapping out the information I know, it gives me the big picture and I use that to determine where I need to be, how I need to get into that spot, what wind, etc. Then after that I figure out how to set up in that spot, hang a stand, ground blind, or what I did here. Hopefully I will get a crack at "the sanctuary buck" and I can feel really proud about how much thought and work myself and Julie put into going after him. 
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