Whether you hunt from a treestand or ground blind, prepping your setup often entails some cutting and trimming. Here’s what to do and tools to use.
By FeraDyne Staff
Have you ever had a deer that you intended to harvest walk by within shooting range, only to be obstructed by a branch, small cedar tree, sapling or pine bough? You were in the right place at the right time, but just like that, the deer faded away with your bullet still in the chamber or your arrow on your bowstring. It’s a frustrating reality that most hunters have experienced.
Carefully prepping a stand or blind location is an important detail, especially in the thicker reaches of whitetail country. While nixing every branch or limb that’s in the way in order to hang a stand or take a shot is ideal, it isn’t always possible, nor is it always the best move. There are different ways to go about it and various tools that can be used.
Here are some tips on both of those fronts that can help you optimize your ground game and air assault. Let’s review.
First Things First
First and foremost, it’s important to note that sawing limbs and brush is illegal in many states on public lands and private lands open for public hunting. So, brush up (pun intended) on the regulations before you start sawing and trimming. Unfortunately, it’s illegal in most instances, which means you’ll have to live with narrower shooting lanes and get creative with positioning your climbing sticks and treestand or ground blind.
Trimming is fine on private lands, but if you’re hunting on land you don’t own — you’re just leasing or have permission to hunt on it — always run the topic by the landowner. Making alterations to trees against a landowner’s wishes can get you kicked off the property very quickly.
Trimming For Treestands
If you have the green light to trim trees in order to hang a stand and create shooting lanes, it’s best to tackle the job after green up but well before hunting season. Some stand locations require extensive trimming — sometimes you even have to cut down a tree or several. That means you’ll be making tons of commotion and also walking around a lot, which will leave behind human scent. In other words, the area will generally need to settle before it can be hunted effectively, hence the reason for handling it months before you hunt there.
If you trim and cut before green up, that’s perfectly fine, but it’s best to go back and check it again after green up. Often, you’ll find that you missed a branch or two, and the leaves might be really obstructing your view and shooting. Upon identification, carefully address those wayward branches so that they don’t inhibit shot opportunities.
When preparing a tree for sticks and a stand, trim the back side of the tree (opposite of where primary deer movement will transpire) for the climbing sticks. This will keep the front of the tree from ground height to stand height virtually unchanged on the side from which deer will be viewing it. Then, try to cut out branches or limbs only on the front and sides to allow shooting coverage, but leave branches and limbs above and behind for a little bit of backdrop cover to disrupt your human outline.
For treestand trimming, a hand saw such as the Wicked Tough Hand Saw or Wicked Beast Large Hand Saw and a pruner such as the Wicked Hand Pruner will help you address limbs and branches within an arm’s reach. But, to effectively reach everything else, go with a Wicked Ultra Light Pole Saw or a Wicked Tough Pole Saw. The telescoping design lets you address limbs at various heights so that you can reach virtually everything. Without a pole saw, there’ll always be that one pesky branch that you cannot reach, and that one branch could obstruct your shot at a big buck. So, bring all of the aforementioned tools with you on your treestand-trimming missions.
Trimming For Ground Blinds
Ground blinds should be placed well in advance of the season or the time when you’ll be hunting from them. This will give deer time to acclimate to the new fixture. Often, they’ll accept it far more quickly if it isn’t a sore thumb sitting in the wide open. In other words, try to tuck it into natural cover — a cluster of junipers, a cornfield bordering a green field or a log pile.
From there, use a Wicked Hand Pruner and a Wicked Tough Hand Saw to remove limbs, saplings, vines and other obstructions so that you can optimize shooting coverage. In addition to those, we also suggest adding a Wicked Machete to your tool list, which is great for small saplings, grass and various types of brush.
From there, use the same Wicked tools to harvest branches and brush to be used to brush in the blind so that it blends seamlessly with its surroundings. Also, try to gather a mix of dead limbs and grass to offer a nice concealment mixture. Why? Well, leafy branches will dry up and make the blind more visible as the season progresses. Using dead limbs and brush will allow the blind to appear mostly the same throughout the season even after the leaves have fallen from the trees.
Of course, setting a blind early and brushing it in and trimming shooting lanes will create as much, if not more, disruption and scent dispersal as a treestand setup, so doing this early in the summer will allow the area to cool off before opening day.
Tips For Trimming Out Same-Day Setups
Hanging a treestand or setting up a ground blind and then hunting from it the same day can be tricky. Obviously, you have to balance being in the right location to effectively intercept deer with high-percentage shot opportunities and also choosing an exact tree or ground blind location that requires the bare minimum of trimming and cutting. Extensively trimming out an area is just too risky, as deer will visually notice the changes and likely smell your activity, too.
Once you select a setup location that requires some gentle trimming and prep, dowse your boots and pants with a scent-eliminating spray. Then, choose where you walk very carefully. Avoid walking on deer trails or close to scrapes or rubs. If it’s a field-edge setup, avoid walking out into the field and looking back toward your setup, because deer entering the field where you can shoot at them will likely sense something and bolt. The more tromping around you do, the less likely you’ll be to pull off a successful same-day setup.
Same-day ground-blind sets are even tougher. You have to brush the blind in to the point that it’s invisible. Of course, doing that requires a lot of trimming and brush moving — more commotion and more scent dispersal.
When trimming limbs or saplings, touch them with nothing other than the saw blade or pruning sheers. Don’t pick up or move the trimmed items unless you’re using them to brush in a blind or they’re in the way of shooting. When trimming branches on a same-day treestand setup, let them fall to the ground and leave them there. If there is no human scent on these items, deer are likely to check them out and give you the opportunity to shoot. Sometimes deer even nibble on leaves from freshly trimmed branches.
Final Tips
To summarize, there are two schools of thought around trimming out treestand and ground-blind setups. First, you can tackle it at least a month or two before you plan to hunt, and this is best when the location requires extensive trimming. Or, if you’re the type to craft a setup the same day you’ll be hunting, choose hunting locations that require minimal prep and trimming. Be as careful as possible with where you walk and what you cut, as major alterations rarely go unnoticed. And lastly, always know the regulations before trimming on public lands, and if you’re hunting on private lands via permission, check with the landowner beforehand.
Trimming is often a critical component of a successful setup. Following these tips and using the tools outlined herein will help you optimize your ground game or air assault.