Treestands the most effective in PA?

[ca2pa]

From what ive been seeing in sportshops and such, it seems that treestands are how plenty of people hunt in PA. Im not familiar with these and i had never seen them be used in CA (where i just moved from). Is it common to hunt from treestands with rifle or only bow and arrow?

[markheck1]

Mostly archery for smaller portable stands, quite a few people build semi-permanent (or Permanent) Tree Cabins for Rifle Season.

[JIMMYC308]

OK I'll be the odd man out. I hate treestands! I have only taken 3 of my 30 or so deer from a treestand. With archery it's great to use a treestand but with any Shotgun,rifle or muzzleloader I'm on the ground. IMO a ground blind or even sitting against a big tree can produce great results that I have experienced. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[ca2pa]

OK I'll be the odd man out. I hate treestands! I have only taken 3 of my 30 or so deer from a treestand. With archery it's great to use a treestand but with any Shotgun,rifle or muzzleloader I'm on the ground. IMO a ground blind or even sitting against a big tree can produce great results that I have experienced. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

I've never used them as they are not too accustomed in CA, the only hunting ive done is stalkin, or walkin around trying to see something, and of course the occasional postin up somewhere there is cover. So i guess its a matter of choice, as there isnt one way better than the other, right?

[Karys]

I hunt from a tree stand more often than I hunt on the ground. That's just because I hunt more often with a bow. I usually hunt from a stand during the regular buck/doe season with a rifle, but not always. I'm almost always on the ground during the late muzzleloader season after Christmas.

That just reflects the different style of hunting here vs. CA and the different terrain. I would think you would do more spot and stalk hunting out there. Hunting that way here is much less effective because the forest is so thick, you can't see that far and you can't move quietly enough. The longest shot I've taken on deer with a firearm on my property upstate was about 65 yards.

It depends on where you're hunting in the state too. I have friends that have taken 200+ yard shots on deer in the farm country of Lancaster, York and Adams county. The northern half of the state is heavily forested though and the shots you get are usually close.

Generally, if you've got fairly thick cover where you're hunting and you're going to sit near a food source or along a trail then a tree stand will be more effective.

[Zef_66]

Where I hunt with, we don't really stand much. We do drives. Or 'polish drives' as we like to call them. We hunt on my family's farm, so the woods are separated by fields. A patch here, then a patch of woods there. So we all meet at the farm house in the morning and organize. Decide which woods we are going to drive off first. Drop off a few walkers and the rest surround the woods, standing in the fields. Then when everyone is ready, the walkers will walk through the woods making noise attempting to scare the deer out towards the watchers. When a deer runs out, the watchers shoot and drop em (hopefully). We call them polish drives because you have to be careful how and where you shoot or you will shoot right back towards the drivers. This way works great for us because many times the deer will just sit still and not want to move. So we push them around. We typically have 8-12 people hunting and it works well.

[ca2pa]

yea the terrain point makes sense. the shortest distance ive shot a deer was 126 (thats what the rangefinder said), and farthest was over 300yards. you can see a long ways away in some areas, but it is definately not wooded like it seems it is here. Once i get all my licensing taken care of, ill have to check out some areas.

[Karys]

Once i get all my licensing taken care of, ill have to check out some areas.

There's big controversies these days over herd reduction and antler restrictions. There are hardly any deer left in the big woods in the north central part of the state. The northeast can be good and I hear it's pretty good out in the counties around Pittsburg.

There's tons of deer around our area here in the southeast. Finding a decent place to hunt them is the problem. You'll see more orange guys than deer walking around on state game lands around here on opening day of buck season.

[Zef_66]

There's big controversies these days over herd reduction and antler restrictions. There are hardly any deer left in the big woods in the north central part of the state.

This is correct. Deer numbers around here are really down.

[bt-99]

We hunt chester county farms and try not to allow any shooting from ground level if we can help it. I think there were over 40 deer taken last year off about 200 acres and all but two were from tree stands or elevated positions. We use stands in clumps of woods or tree lines and the take turns either stand hunting or driving. awe also have unlimited doe tags and a 8 week season.
In these populated areas it is very inportant that shots don't carry. we shoot down and generall at less than 35 yrds.