Knowing when to hunt where is the baseline issue that determines success or failure in our pursuit of mature whitetails. In this regard, bowhunting from a treestand. at its core level, is the ultimate test of wit and foresight. A hunter must position himself not where a buck is, but where a buck will be during daylight hours, all the while remaining undetected. A hunter's insight into deer movement and seasonal buck behavior -- along with his personal ability to apprehend divine favor -- plays into his success in the tree.

Every hunt in a particular stand location leaves some impact on the area. Choosing your timing is crucial to early-season success.

The hunter's gamble is that he can predict where a mature buck will be even before the buck knows. An intuitive sense accompanied by principled thought aids the bowhunter in choosing his ambush position. The ingredients of this challenge are what make harvesting a mature buck with a bow arguably the most rewarding bowhunting feat on earth.

When considering the many variables and decisions involved in treestand hunting, the issue of stand management becomes critical. Stand management could be defined simply as strategically hunting your best stands sites in a manner that produces the highest probability of harvesting mature deer. Practicing wise stand management is, effectively, not over-hunting or under-hunting your best areas, but utilizing your hunting area to produce its maximum level of productivity.

Stand management takes into account three ideas. First, every hunt has some impact on your property and applies hunting pressure to your herd. Second, every stand has a limited number ofhigh-probability hunts each season. The implication of this statement leads us to number three: Since each stand has a limited number of high-probability hunts, a hunter must determine when his chance of success is highest for each particular stand location based on factors such as wind direction, timing of the rut, temperature, moon phase, food source and hunting pressure. This article will deal with three stand management issues likely to impact your early-season hunting. In the second article of this series, I will discuss in greater detail the baseline factors that affect season-long stand management.

THE INTEGRITY OF YOUR 'BEST STAND'
On the properties I hunt, I have a single "best stand" or area that has consistently produced mature bucks over the years. These spots are the keys to success year in and year out. Many hunters, however, compromise the integrity of these sites in various ways, blocking the site from performing to its highest potential. The idea of preserving your best areas must be No. 1 on the priority list of the serious buck hunter. Success depends on your ability to execute this concept.

The baseline factor in compromising the integrity of a stand has to do with human disturbance in the area. Simply put, you've got to keep humans out of your prime areas as much as possible before the season starts, and that includes you. The mantra of Don Higgins' book Harvesting Trophy Whitetails in the Real World is that hunting unpressured areas is a major key in harvesting mature deer. On properties that Higgins has hunted for many years, he often does no preseason scouting. He simply climbs into a pre-hung stand during primetime in a prime area and has success.

Human disturbance can come in a variety of forms, but perhaps one of the most common forms has to do with trail cameras. Well-intentioned trail camera enthusiasts can overly disturb prime areas before the season starts by checking them too often. The solution to this issue lies in where you place your trail cameras and how often you monitor them.

They need to be hung in areas that can be accessed with minimal disturbance. If your objective is to simply check the inventory of your herd, drawing the deer in with bait to areas that you can easily access may be a good option where legal.

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