So many hunters never even consider the wind direction, whether the thermal is in their favor, if they can approach their site without being detected, and a dozen other details that will ultimately factor into their success. “I have the day off of work! I’m heading to the treestand!” If you try and foretell their travel patterns this way first, when you add the physical obstructions back to the picture, it can sometimes seem obvious where they will pass through. Look for the points, topography breaks, steeper angles, edges or turns that will force or encourage the animal to go one way over another. When looking over an area I like to imagine it without any trees, brush or blow-downs. Whitetails always want to take the path of least resistance or the safest from predators. An aerial photo or satellite image won’t show you the terrain breaks, so it’s difficult to tell whether it’s flat ground or a steep incline. It’s actually best if you can use both a satellite image and a topo-map. Wherever you can limit their movement to a smaller zone there will be more traffic, and if you can confine their movement to a smaller area it’s easier to position yourself to beat their astonishing sense of smell. With agricultural land and more populated areas, funnels are easily located because of the sections and man-made dividers, but there are bottlenecks everywhere. I don’t care if you’re hunting big timber, agricultural land or rural lots, there are funnels in your hunting area. The first spots to focus on are the funnels. One of the first orders when approaching a new area is to obtain an aerial photo, satellite image or topographical map. Learning to recognize the transition areas, access points, and travel corridors is a crucial to choosing “the spot.” As with most animals, whitetails travel from place to place using cover and terrain to their advantage. In fact, I submit that structure is much more significant to whitetails than fish. In the same way that an angler finds the “spot on the spot,” the lay of the land and topography differences that confine or guide movement are keys to stand placement. Much of choosing the proper stand site has to do with structure. Following are a few “rules to live by” when it comes to hunting from a tree stand or elevated platform. ![]() Ambush location selection, site preparation, quality equipment and choosing an appropriate time to hunt the site all have a huge sway over how victorious you will be. Let’s be clear you can’t just nail a bunch of neon-yellow two-by-fours in the crotch of a tree and expect great results. ![]() Even if there aren’t any trees, tripods or quadpods can get you up off of the ground so your scent isn’t concentrated at a deer’s “nose level.” In an elevated position, you can see further and your movement is concealed somewhat because you’re out of their normal line of sight. Regardless of the time of the season and no matter where you roam, an ambush aloft affords you advantages you wouldn’t normally have on the ground. Whether you pursue whitetails with a gun or a bow, hunting from a treestand yields the highest success rate of any technique by a large margin.
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