Can a woods be too thick?

[Bushman]

Scouting around this last week and I got into some really thick stuff 15' high or so where you could see no more than 20 feet in any direction. Not evergreens, but some kind of deciduous foliage about 1/2-3/4" diameter. Probably like a lot of you, I have tried to carry rattling antlers and they get snagged on lots of brush along the way. There were some trails in there and it would be good security cover, but I'm questioning if even a lot of pressure would put a buck into that stuff by choice. The only way to hunt it would be really high over the top of it. Would you try to hunt that or stay to the outside of it on the higher ground where a deer would have easier walking, but only be a jump or two away from disappearing? This would be a post rut gun hunt.

[Sabre]

They'll use it alright and they won't need to be pressured to do it. If you go into it you'll likely find spots that aren't quite so thick where visibility is a litlle better. I've hunted cover so thick around here that you need to carry a little set of pruning shears with you to help clear a way through.Deer have no trouble at all moving through that stuff. Several of my best bucks have come out of such thickets.

[Bill Gunn]

My wife and I use to hunt some state land that had an area that had super thick pines and scrub. I hunted in a stand, and she hunted the ground. It was almost impossible to get over a 30 yard shot, and we both hunted with Ruger SBH .44 mags.
One day we dragged out 3 deer, 2 bucks and a doe, and another hunter came over to our truck and said "What the hell??, How did you get 3 deer? My friends (2 other guys) & I NEVER seen a deer all day (Opening day)!!"
I said "I hate to burst your bubble, but I still have to go back in and drag out another 8 pointer"
He said "Where do you hunt?" I said, "Do you know the area about 200 yards down the creek with all the pines?"
His answer was "That area is way to thick to hunt, you can't get a good shot in there, and we don't hunt there."
I look at him like he was an idiot, and said "Good" :rolleyes:

Here's the 4 deer..

http://pic90.picturetrail.com/VOL2250/777751/13525437/36083780.jpg

My wife got both of hers' at about 8:30.... first a doe, then right after the doe ran, a buck (6 point) walked to exactly where the doe was shot. She got them both in about 7 seconds, both lung shots at about 20 yards.
That put me in a bad position :o
It took me all day to get a 4 point at 10:00.... 10 yards, and an 8 at 2:00.... 23 yards
She had me sweating for a while there :p

We shot well over 20 deer in those pines over the years, all post rut....

[Sidekick]

The local area around here tends to be wide open farm ground with small patches of woods and very thick areas of brush. You can always find deer hiding in the thick stuff. The last day or two of the season deer are usually spooked pretty well and hide all day and that's when we'll try to drive them out. Done right it can be very successful.

[postoak]

Around here, you have to use pruning shears almost everywhere, but there are some areas so thick that you literally can't see more than 20-30 feet and even with the shears, it can take 1 minute to get across that 20 feet. Deer may well be in there, but they'd clear out when you went in and you'd be sitting in an area where the chances of another deer coming by within range are virtually nil. I say hunt the edges. I've noticed that around each ravine here (which, themselves, are cloaked with laurel cherry thickets), there's a somewhat open strip before you get to the thick stuff. I think perhaps these were bulldozer or truck-made for pulling out timber. Anyway, that's where I would set up on, except for the fact that I'm hunting the creeks this year.

[rimrock]

a great deal of Florida is like that,and it makes it a real challenge to get close to deer/hogs . most of my friends cut a couple shooting lanes like spokes from a wheel hub about 50-80 yards long from a low tree stand they build or use the power line right of ways,and the game soon use those as travel routes and we soon found that a 44 mag revolver,445 DAN WESSON SUPER MAG, or carbine IN A CALIBER LIKE 450 marlin,444 marlin,45/70 govt,or a similar firearm, seems to be ideal, as a shot over 40 yards is very rare, in that stuff,and theres nothing Ive found yet that even a 44 mag loaded with a 300 grain hard cast lee bullet over 20 grains of H110 won,t stop and Ive shot some fairly large hogs in that crap.
now Im sure that someones going to point out a 500 S&W, or 460 S&W has more power, but honestly if the 44 mag zips thru , and leave a large hole now,whats extra power going to accomplish.
one of my friends,JACK, used a 45/70 with 405 factory loads with great success, and bragged how it zips thru large hogs.....until the day (with his permission) I zapped a huge boar he had killed with my revolver, and showed him it also zipped thru with ease, a 300 grain hard cast 44 cal bullet is a formidable projectile, when cast from 50% Linotype and 50% wheel weights plus 5% tin added alloy

http://www.midsouthshooterssupply.com/item.asp?sku=0000690858

[MOGC]

A lot of public ground in the Ozarks has small scattered selectively placed timbered clear cuts that grow back up into some of the dankest tangles you've ever seen. Biologist place these to break the continuous oak/hickory dominated forest up and offer a difference in the ecozone, edge cover, sunlight and new growth, ect. Deer love them! I love to still hunt the edges of these tangles and catch a buck prowling out of the thicket trolling for does that are feeding on acorns along the oak studded ridges or hillsides.

One of my best hunts involved seeing a very large bodied buck sneak into one of these over grown clear cuts just after daylight on opening day of rifle season. I thought about trying to “Injun” up on him but realized I’d spook him out long before I could actually see him in that tangle. He was bedding in the tangle out on a big high point overlooking the mountainside with the wind at his back. He could look down the mountain and if anything approached from downwind below him the old boy could slide back deep inside the thick cover. If anything came behind him he would smell it and could bail out the bottom side of the clear cut and bust down the very steep mountainside to safety in a creek bottom far below.

Before daylight the next morning I was sitting on an old tree trunk that was lying horizontal along the point. The large tree had knocked down some of the smaller slash growth when it fell and I could actually swing my rifle around in there to cover all sides. About fifteen minutes after daylight I could hear the leaves crunching as something heavy came my way fast. I guess the old buck was a little late getting into his security cover because he was coming on the trot, swinging his rack around to keep from tangling it up in the brush. I couldn’t see him until he was less than 25 yards away and I shot him in the center of the neck straight head on at 15 yards with a 180 gr. handload from my .30-06. He hit the ground so fast and hard he plowed a furrow with his nose in the dirt. He is a 144+” nine point that dressed 187 pounds. That is a hog of an Ozark mountain deer. I don’t know how old he was, but he had some smarts and experience behind him.

[Sabre]

Around here, you have to use pruning shears almost everywhere, but there are some areas so thick that you literally can't see more than 20-30 feet and even with the shears, it can take 1 minute to get across that 20 feet. Deer may well be in there, but they'd clear out when you went in and you'd be sitting in an area where the chances of another deer coming by within range are virtually nil. I say hunt the edges. I've noticed that around each ravine here (which, themselves, are cloaked with laurel cherry thickets), there's a somewhat open strip before you get to the thick stuff. I think perhaps these were bulldozer or truck-made for pulling out timber. Anyway, that's where I would set up on, except for the fact that I'm hunting the creeks this year.

Hunting the edges of such thickets can be very effective, particularly if you can get set up so you can see where several trails enter/exit the thicket. However, you'd be surprised how reluctant deer can be to leave such areas, even when they know a hunter has entered. In fact it can be hard to push deer out of really thick cover even with several hunters doing their level best to move them out. Many will just move out of the way and let the hunters pass or circle and stay put. At any rate deer have short attention spans and will soon forget the disturbance and it's a mistake to think you won't be able to kill deer in a thicket if you make some noise going in. Deer do tend to enter and move about in these places throughout the day so even if you kick some out you can still get one a short time later. A few years back I killed two bucks and a doe out of just such an impenetrable thicket in one day. I was situated in a ground blind on the edge of the thicket at first light and killed a buck skirting the edge at 8:00 am. At 9:30 I shot a doe that exited the thicket on one of the numerous trails I was watching. At 1:30 pm a doe with a high racked buck in tow entered the thicket at the limit of my view and I was unable to get a shot. Since it was raining and I knew I could move quietly I decided to enter the thicket and see if I couldn't find them. I had picked my way slowly up the trail they entered on for about 100 yards when a big doe crossed on an intersecting trail about 25 yards ahead. About two seconds later the buck stepped out into the trail and I put a slug squarely through his lungs.;)

[GF.]

Hunting the edges of such thickets can be very effective, particularly if you can get set up so you can see where several trails enter/exit the thicket. However, you'd be surprised how reluctant deer can be to leave such areas, even when they know a hunter has entered. In fact it can be hard to push deer out of really thick cover even with several hunters doing their level best to move them out. Many will just move out of the way and let the hunters pass or circle and stay put. At any rate deer have short attention spans and will soon forget the disturbance and it's a mistake to think you won't be able to kill deer in a thicket if you make some noise going in.

That's probably the best, tightest how-to piece on deer hunting I've seen in a long, long time :D

My brother has bumped some GI-FREAKINORMOUS bucks at very close range while grouse hunting. You get close enough, and they just can't stand having you stopped right near them, so they'll bolt outta there when they would have stayed put for a guy who just kept trudging through.

Your favorite grouse gun loaded with slugs (or buck, where legal) wouldn't be a bad choice at all for shots like that, especially if you shoot like my brother. Not real archery-friendly, though.

So no, woods can never bee too thick for deer, provided that we're talking about native vegetation and not some invasive creeper that chokes and kills everything in its path. It's not easy hunting, though.

[postoak]

Oops, I didn't read the OP closely enough. He's referring to a small area of thick vegetation. I got sidetracked into thinking about my own situation -- 200 acre blocks of thick vegetation. You push into there and the deer can move away from you and yet never have to leave cover.

[rimrock]

if you can find a location where two larger thick areas narrow to a thinner neck and place a tree stand and run the shooting lanes out so as to form an easy path thru the thicker areas to two adjacent thinner areas you will almost always provide a preferred route for the deer to use, and over time a deer hot spot for hunting, the thinner areas don,t necessarily need to be real large,or similar a field near a lake shore, that's separated bye a wooded strip, or a strip of high ground thru a swamp,are examples, but it helps to research the deer bedding and feeding areas, before selecting a site.
and obviously you don,t want it in an area of high human traffic or easy hunter access from near-bye roads, edges of power line right of ways and agricultural field corners ,or edges of ponds or lakes that border on wood lots or currently un-used fields frequently can provide the locations, and where legal on private land a mineral block placed near bye, won,t hurt

[Bushman]

It is national forest so much as I would like to take my Stihl FS90 brush cutter in there, the Feds take a dim view of people modifying their forest. The key I think is "post rut" because while I have seen 10 point mega bucks standing in the middle of a plowed field during the rut, security is job one post rut. It is not so much that I need a brush busting cartridge, given that there is even such a thing, but the first problem in shooting a big buck is seeing a big buck. I've scoped out a tree that overlooks this hundred acre tangle pretty well and the thick stuff connects high ground to an evergreen swamp and a cattail swamp behind that, so it does have some edge to it. Nothing is going to move through that very quickly or without making some noise, me included even if I leave out the expletives. Interesting that you Texas guys are faced with some thick brush areas and from what I see on Verses, you get some nice antlers down your way. My shoulders are 21" across, just about the same size as the antlers on the buck that I'm looking for and I don't fit through that stuff very well. So I'm just wondering how a deer with antlers will?

Actually I did form a contingency plan and scouted around the thick stuff to where the green swamp meets the higher ground. There is more deer sign there, but October isn't post rut and deer are going to take the path of least resistance if there is no one around to bother them. Being public ground that can all change come November.

[Twanger]

In the WMA where I hunt there is a place I call the beauty spot, though if you shoot a deer there it becomes the hell hole. :D It is an open marshy area with a stream running through it that is quite picturesque and you can shoot as far as 150 yards if you pick the right spot to hunt from. Problem is that you'll never see a mature deer there during daylight hours. However, in the trees to the south about 100 yards there's a great spot where I've killed a nice 9 and 10 pointer coming out of cover on one side of the creek and heading to cover on the other side. The big deer skirt the open area which concentrates them on the sides in the cover.

[GF.]

You'd better make friends with Dave's canoe :eek:

Either that or get yourself a belly-boat and throw the deer in a 1 or 2-man inflatable rowboat. With the belly-boat, you can put a cap on how wet you get, and usually, if it's too deep to get much traction on the bottom, it'll be too deep for the deer to get hung up.

Of course, I'm assuming that you can get outta there by going DOWN-stream :D

[Bushman]

Boats are a great way to get away from the crowd and into some great hunting. I've used one of those donut floaters myself to get across water. Heck even a set of chest waders will get you places that stops everyone else in a pair of Sorel boots. Basically it comes down to you being willing to do something that most other guys won't do to be a consistently successful deer hunter. That might include a boat, camping out, going in the extra mile, staying out dark to dark or climbing up higher for a deer stand. It has worked for me.

Twanger, my experience hunting those thicker places mirrors your own. I'm not sure what the buck to doe ratio is in my area, but post rut I've seen more bucks in those overgrown areas.

[Herne]

Thicker the better IMO, and if you have to get on your belly and wiggle in on a deer trail. It can take forever to get in and then sit tight til it settles, but very effective. Gorse, rhododendron, all that sort of stuff.

They don't expect to see people in that sort of stuff. Takes them by surprise a bit - that delay can be a little fatal. :D

[Bushman]

I was hoping that you would weigh in on this question Herne. Your deer aside from the reds, are a little more streamlined of antler and since you get to hunt when everything is leafed out, wouldn't rhododendron be a softer thicket that a deer could push through? The stuff that I found was finger thick and woody. A doe I think would move through that okay, but what about a big buck with wide antlers? It is a transition area between higher ground and an evergreen swamp. That evergreen swamp is where they would be headed, but in there I can't see very far and going higher in a tree would even make visibility worse. At least I can cover a lot of this woody, thick section by being high over the top of it. It is all thick moss on the bottom and no food value to the stalks because they branch over what a deer can reach. Being public land, I suspect that guys will be walking the trails and pushing through the high ground, but human nature being what it is, no one will go through the thick stuff by choice. Like you say, the deer know that too.

[Herne]

Muntjac and roe are quite streamlined and relatively small. Closing up on muntjac can be very very difficult because they live in the thick stuff all the time. But if you just take time and then stop and let it settle it pans out.

The bigger deer - fallow and sika can use very thick stuff. Fallow will spread wider than whitetail - or a mature one will. The bucks seem to be able to lay their heads back and run through it when they want to! They shouldn't be able to, but they can.

The worst stuff is gorse because every "leaf" is a spike, and just snows this stuff. The only way to hunt big clumps of it is on hands and knees, but since its always dry under gorse, its well worth the effort. Its where they go to when every deer in creation has vanished off the face of the earth.

The other approach with smaller thickets is to wind them out. Takes a 2 man team. One person drops downwind of the thicket without winding the thicket - of course. Not even in a scent locked silly suit, because this is important. Helper then walks upwind of hte cover and reasonably close. Then you turn about. That can be quite effective because they cannot compute more than one threat, so its usually pretty easy to stop them and get a shot, because you "shouldn't be there".

Best done with someone who knows what they are doing of course. Get some hotshot f***wit take his turn and it can get very interesting!

[ncboman]

Thicker the better IMO, and if you have to get on your belly and wiggle in on a deer trail. It can take forever to get in and then sit tight til it settles, but very effective. Gorse, rhododendron, all that sort of stuff.

They don't expect to see people in that sort of stuff. Takes them by surprise a bit - that delay can be a little fatal. :D

:)

lot of hunting wisdom in that post.

[Sidekick]

The other approach with smaller thickets is to wind them out. Takes a 2 man team. One person drops downwind of the thicket without winding the thicket - of course. Not even in a scent locked silly suit, because this is important. Helper then walks upwind of hte cover and reasonably close. Then you turn about. That can be quite effective because they cannot compute more than one threat, so its usually pretty easy to stop them and get a shot, because you "shouldn't be there".

That's exactly what my cousin and I do and it works pretty well. The upwind guy usually only knows there were any deer around when he hears the shot.

[Bushman]

Wanted: Hotshot f***wit. :D

I often thought that if two guys that knew what they were doing could gang up on the local deer herd, both of them would score nice bucks pretty regularly.

[Herne]

Well you know what I mean. Like Sidekick says - the guy upwind often never sees the deer - only hears the result. The man downwind doesn't know where the winder is, so you need a team who trust each other and who can keep their marbles about them in terms of backstops and direction of fire.

But, as a means of getting deer when sometimes they have vanished off the face of the earth it can work well.

[Bushman]

I've gotten lots of nice bucks like that... for other people and never got so much as an honorable mention. I wonder how many of us think that we have the deer all figured out when in reality the deer has been bumped by the guy going in for lunch or taking a walk because they got cold. I used to think that I could still hunt up on a deer, but the deer were making it pretty clear that I was just too clumsy to pull that off with any regularity. A man has got to know his limitations.

[Herne]

I agree - still hunting is very effective, but you do need woods in which you can move - or be prepared to spend a lot of time getting in.

If you can't move quietly, then you have to get in and just sit very still - and hope hte wind remains constant.

The worst is that sh*t thats in between. Sort of too open to provinde a focus, and too scrubby to stop you moving, too spindly to shoot in over any distance. You end up falling between two stools and getting nowhere.

[GF.]

We've got a lot of that up here, especially in the mountain laurel. There's no understory, but the stuff is too dense to get through it at all stealthily unless you're right on a well-used deer trail... And of course, it's often too thick to thread an arrow through the holes that you do find in that stuff.....

Keeps it interesting, in a low-percentage sort of way....:rolleyes:

[Herne]

I take it that mountain laurel is similar to ours which in turn is similar to rhododendron. Evergreen, medium height, sort of clumpy stuff - sometimes you can squeeze though between bushes and sometimes it closes right in. Clear of growth underneath, but lots of tangled branches and dry leaves? Can go on for miles?

I just pushed into that as far as I could sort of working round the outsides and then when I had to stop, just lay down - on a deer trail if need be. Not exactly subtle and comfort depended on goretex. Plan would to get a front on shot low in the chest, usually at very short range. Actually it was quite succesful, simply because they don't recognise a human lying down - at least I think thats what it is. Also in that cover they are not so wary.

[ncboman]

They don't expect a human to be in that stuff so they don't look for humans or believe it when they see it. Catch deer where they don't expect danger and they become arrogant. :)

[GF.]

When I tried hunting a state forest up north of here, I spent almost all of my time in there. Probably should have been doing the leopard crawl, though, from the sound of it ;)

Could probably get away with that using the muzzleloader, but it would be a tough way to get a shot off with a bow :D

[Hink]

Its even a little tougher when the acorns only came in up high on the ridge tops and the laurel thickets have a lot of oak throughout them. In those years we often set up on the very edge of the laurel as high as possible and hoped. They don't have to come out. In a normal season it was always a matter of catching them going in or coming out.

Have you ever been on a stand and heard 75 or more deer coming out of a laurel thicket right toward you that are being driven by 8 to 10 drivers. When they break through the ones that head off from the pack at a 90 degree angle are usually the ones with antlers. In all the excitement though sometimes its hard to keep your wits about you unless you are behind a substantial tree.

I miss those after dinner Thanksgiving day drives. Sweatshirt and jeans regardless of the temp and it was always a lot of fun.

[ncboman]

In much of the area around here, dogs do the driving ... but they usually only have one deer going. You get the added excitement of hearing the dogs running off in the distance, then turning, and getting closer and closer. Usually by the time you figure they are actually coming toward you, ... you should be very ready. The deer is sometime 1/4mile or more ahead of the dogs. Although not my favorite hunting, it can be very exciting and sometimes is the only game in town. You can be sure the deer in front of the dogs IS moving. :D

[dave-t.]

My prefered bow set up is where visibility is around 25-30yrds or so. If there is honeysuckle, honey locust/bean pods, persimon, greenbriar, or any other type of whitetail food in it, you can have a lot of action. With that type of hunting, you have to be at the ready practically all of the time. You don't get a lot of chances for big movements once one is in view.

If you can find a doowned tree, creek, fence crossing, etc in that type of sanctuary cover, you're golden.

[Bushman]

A downed tree to hide behind Dave? I've got one of those in a new area that I am scouting for gun season, but I've been spotted from the ground fairly often so I am weighing that hide verses getting higher in a tree stand.

[ncboman]

A downed tree to hide behind Dave? I've got one of those in a new area that I am scouting for gun season, but I've been spotted from the ground fairly often so I am weighing that hide verses getting higher in a tree stand.


doan matter if you can't be still ...

just sayin ... hunt the deer, not the spot. :rolleyes:

[Bushman]

NC, I've never been able to get away with very much from the ground. It seems that in the last 5 years or so since we have a larger influx of wolves and even cougars they tell me, that the deer are way more spooky than they used to be. Last year I had a small 8 point coming past me at ~25' and a fabric turkey blind helped, but he was highly suspicious of that new thing. I could watch him through the holes in the blind, but if I was going to shoot him, he would have spooked from any movement. I guess I could shoot a rifle from a ground blind and get deer, but it wouldn't be the perfect shot angle that I can often wait for from a tree stand. I think with a bow, my deer would get me every time from the ground. What I'm thinking is that blow down tree is a natural part of their environment now and getting in behind it if the wind is right might make for a good natural blind without making much noise getting into there.

[DaveHawk]

I like to hunt next to the thickest stuff I can find. This way the deer are not looking up when they emerge they are looking out. About the time the leaves fall my season gets shorter and art season comes in these days.

[GF.]

The less you change, the better, o' course :D

The hard thing for me about downed trees is staying low enough for them to do me any good. I just can't sit or kneel on the ground for any period of time without my legs going totally numb on me, and it's really bad for those 3 damaged & degenerated discs in my neck to be crouching down and trying to keep my head up. My best position for glassing is basically lying on my back with my shoulders propped up on something. Not a great shooting position, but it keeps me low and not looking too human...

Maybe if I packed in some kind of a low chair with a back support to it, but you can't shoot a bow out of one o' those, and you still have to make sure that you break up the outline of whatever part of you is higher than the log... But maybe if you could tuck in close to the root ball....

[ADK Jakes]

Yes...where I hunt in the Adirondacks there are patches of thick cedar and swamps. These areas hold deer, especially big bucks. We drive the thickest areas to push the deer out. This can be effective but more often than not, the deer often circle and re-enter the thicket. At times, we are able to move them out and shoot them. We know they are there and if we are lucky, we get them moving in a straight line. That puts them on the meat pole for us.

[dave-t.]

No I don't hide behind deadfalls, not yet anyway. In a place with 25-30yrd visibility, any little thing that steers deer in that crap is just one more tiny funnel. When a 70' tree is down, that blocks movement for 23yrds (or lets light in for browse/feed). If a fence, ditch, river, or creek crossing is within 50-60yds of that obsticle, BANG! Those all steer movement, and any advantage you can find to funnel deer is worth figuring out when you can only see 25yds left and right. The area is very tight, so find the spots that eliminate animals taking routes around you. Any advantage is better than none.

I set up a stand last night between the corner of a grass field and a deep channelled creek. The creek has a bend that reaches out toward that field corner, 120yds of woods is the major funnel. There is an old fence that runs into the ground about half way down hill toward the creek, cuts the travel route in half. 25yrds from the stand is a gulley/ditch that extends up from the creek, which cuts that travel lane even more. As I was setting up my climbing sticks, a respectible 3.5 yr buck came out of the creek right up that ditch as the easiest way across that deep sided creek. In this spot I have two major obsticles that are situated east and the other west, a travel lane heading north to a field of beans and south to a huge block of woods. The easiest travel between the two with the smaller obsticles (fence and ditch) comes down to a spot that is fairly flat and about 15yrds wide parrallelling the creek. I couldn't shoot 25yds in there even after I cut my one and only shooting lane. Don't really care, that is where the deer will move anyway, so I don't have to see what is going on in the rest of it, imo.

My biggest issue is if they cross the creek and head along the creek in the wrong direction. I can easily fix that with a 20yd move of stand placement if I need to.


If you can't tell I'm all about looking for the minor funnels in bigger funnels, to maximize deer movement into that 20yds that I can cover. Especially in the pre-rut/rut, when bucks are just wandering trying to find fresh doe sign themselves. Why would that buck wander 120yds of hill side looking for sign, when 90%+ of the travel is in one 15yrd area? He'll check that funnell for sign too, as well as using it to travel along the creek, checking feeding/bedding trails. He'd be missing the action if he didn't check it. Will I be there when he comes by is the only question.:o

A blowdown is a small obsticle in the scheme of things, but it steers deer travel, even if only a little bit.

[Bushman]

GF, Summit makes a strap onto a tree chair called the Summit Folding Trophy Chair for $69.99 that is very comfortable. (HJ-41-7537 in the Cabela's catalog) I've got two of them and can sit all day either using it in conjunction with a tree stand or at ground level. It isn't as portable as a cushion, but it is way more comfortable. That turkey blind that I mentioned earlier rolls up and fits in my pack and weighs only a few ounces. I've used it a couple of years now and have hidden my ground movements pretty well behind it. Cheap too at less than $20.

"My" blow down is actually in a pretty good location just on the higher ground coming out of a green swamp. It a spruce with lots of low branches that is being held off the ground about 3' with other trees behind it to sit against. Probably 30-40 yards off the two main trails that come out of the really thick stuff. NC, I know what you mean about hunting the deer and not the spot. I've got a friend like that who says: "I really like this spot because it has a very nice stump to sit on. If I like it then the deer should too." My trophy room trumps his by a long shot.