Pennsylvania Game News - August 2022 - 56

RELOCATING YOUR SETUP
" Location, location, location " is an allimportant
mantra in the real estate world
for a reason. Where a home or business
sits plays a large role in determining its
value.
That's true of deer stands, too.
You can know how to play the wind,
be an expert shot, have the patience to sit
for hours, days, even weeks on end. But
if you're not set up in a place where deer
are or will be, all that other stuff goes for
naught.
Plain enough, right? But here's the
thing. The " right " location can change for
any number of reasons. As hunters, we
must be willing to adapt and move when
once-productive hot spots go cold, are
rendered off limits or otherwise disappear.
Think " relocation, relocation, relocation. "
MOVING
ON
I did most of my early archery hunting
on State Game Lands 81 in Fulton County.
It was fine but a strenuous three-hour drive
from my Chester County home.
That prompted me to join a local gun
club with a 200-acre lease. The club's
main purpose was to give members room
to work and train sporting dogs on stocked
pheasants and quail. Yet bowhunting not
only was permitted, but encouraged, by
the farmer who owned the property. I hung
multiple stands in the years that followed
and harvested my share of modest bucks.
But private land hunting opportunities
can be fleeting. In this case, after more
than a dozen years, the elderly farmer
and his wife passed away. The farmer's
grandson-in-law - an avid deer hunter
himself - inherited the land, canceled our
lease and directed all those of us with tree
stands there to remove them.
It was time to relocate.
Fortunately, after knocking on too
many doors to count, I found a smallish
patch of woods just big enough to accommodate
a single tree stand. I tucked it next
to an active bedding area near a trail that
eventually led to an expansive cornfield.
It ranked second to none among afternoon
hunting locations. I could count on tagging
a modest buck there each and every
year, usually during the first week of the
season.
Until I couldn't.
For five years, deer routinely paraded
by that stand on their way to the cornfield.
Then, one opening day, not a single one
appeared. I stubbornly hunted that oncelucky
stand throughout the first two weeks
of the season, but things got no better.
The mystery was solved after the
distant barking of a dog, coming from
the direction of the cornfield, drew my
attention. Investigating revealed that the
cornfield was gone, replaced by a housing
development full of fenced-in yards and
manicured lawns. The deer had moved on.
It was time for me to do the same.
NEW BEGINNINGS
A lucky break of sorts led me to my
next location. A high-school teacher at
the time, I mentioned my bowhunting
conundrum to a colleague. She said much
of her 1.5-acre property - though in a
well-established housing development
TO GET BETTER RESULTS
56
Pennsylvania Game News - August 2022

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