Sunday, January 15, 2006
Remembering Old Stand From Yesteryear
Today seemed to be one of reflection. My topic on this somewhat snowy day concerns some treestands and ground blinds from years ago.
It is rather amazing how a stand will be productive for several years, and then fall into disfavor. It’s not so much that the blind or stand wouldn’t still produce a nice whitetail buck, but for whatever the reason, I don’t hunt there anymore.
Sometimes a stand dies a sudden death because crops are planted elsewhere, or because another nearby stand turns hot. In some cases it is because the stand is no longer just right for the prevailing wind direction, is uncomfortable to sit in, or for many other reasons.
Thirty years ago I had a crooked tree that was so uncomfortable to sit in that a person needed a Posturpedic mattress and time in bed. The tree produced plenty of bucks over the years but anyone who hunted there needed a new mattress, and that set became known as the Posturpedic tree.
Another old favorite tipped over years ago. It was a dead popple tree near a fence crossing, and it was in steady demand by me and some of my friends. Hunters could sit there, watch deer walk toward the hole, step through and offer a clear shot.
I hunted it one night, heard a creak deep in the wood, and didn’t move around much after that. I climbed down, and walked away, looking back at what once was a popular stand. It fell down the next day, and no other nearby tree could offer such an advantage. When it went down, a long-standing tradition went down with it.
The old Execution Knob was a pit blind on a hill. It offered a great view of the area, and it was made for firearm hunting only. I can’t remember how many bucks were taken from that stand. but if I had a Ben Franklin ($100 bill) for each one, it would go a long ways toward paying my feed bill and property taxes this year.
The Knob grew into disfavor. Why? Who knows, but I quit hunting it once we were able to hunt from elevated stands with a firearm. A new bow coop now sits on Execution Knob, and it produced a really big whitetail buck for me this past season.
The Beaverpond Corner coop was another favorite. There are two elevated coops, one on the south and one on the north side of the beaverpond, but this corner coop set on the ground alongside the main north-south road.
If offered clear shots for 200 or more yards to the north and to the south, and people who sat there during the firearm season always shot bucks that the hunters in the other two nearby coops never saw. It too fell into disfavor, and was moved somewhere else.
There used to be an old foundation back in a field, and it was crumbling and falling into the basement. One day I had a bright idea, and pushed the rest of the cement into the basement with a dozer, filled it with dirt, packed it down, put more dirt on top, and built a 15X30-foot building filled with windows on all sides.
It sits outside of my enclosure, and offers shots in four directions. The only bad thing is that hunting in the old foundation was like hunting from a gigantic pit blind. Every day an ermine would come out for a visit, stare at the hunter, and go on about his business of killing and eating. The ermine disappeared when the foundation was filled in.
Another stand that died a death stood 15 feet up an old willow tree. A person could only hunt from it on a calm day because it swayed in any kind of wind. It got hit by lightning, and lost most of its branches. The tree is still there, but it hasn’t been used as a stand in many years.
There are many other ground blinds and treestands that have disappeared, but whenever I pass one of the better ones that is no longer being used, a bit of nostalgia settles over me.
Nothing lasts forever, and that can certainly be sad for ground blinds and treestands. The deer change that patterns, move elsewhere on the ranch, and they stop getting used, and new and better stands take their place.
But, on occasion, I like to remember those blinds and stands that went before. All were good at one time, and were then replaced. It like so many things in life. They get used until they are used up, and are soon discarded.
It’s fun, however, to remember way back when ...—The Whitetail Wizard