What I have experienced is that very few treestand locations have what it takes, to score a high sit value all day long. And that makes a lot of sense! While a morning bedding stand location may feature a high value for the morning and mid day hours, it may offer a very low potential for the evening. Also, a great evening food source stand location may be a very poor choice, due to a high potential to spook deer while entering, during the morning hours. It pays to score you stand location, for each sit of the day.
*It is extremely important to know if your stand is an evening, mid day or morning Rut Stand Location.
Scoring Each Location All Day
While stand locations that relate to bedding areas can be hot during the morning hours of the rut, they can be complete duds for the afternoon hours as the entire deer herd is focusing on prime afternoon food sources. If scoring that morning stand, you may figure that it is a perfect, 10 out of 10 for the morning and maybe even a 10 out of 10 for the mid-day cruising hours. However, once the last few hours of the day arrive, the value of that same great morning stand, can turn into a solid "0" compared to a great evening stand somewhere else. What I encourage you to do is to try to capture the highest potential value, all day long.
*A high quality Treestand is critical if you do find a stand location that you can sit all day!
How Do Your Stand Locations Add Up?
During the majority of the year, scoring your morning and evening stand location is a great idea, and during the rut, you can do your best to score the morning, mid-day and evening sit locations. You will find that it is very hard to find 1 stand location that offers a great value, for all day. On my own lands I hunt, including both public and private lands, I estimated that only 3-5 stands could be considered "all day stands", out of over 30 stand locations.
*When is it time for a Morning Sit?
Conclusion
Even though the vast majority of treestands are not good for all day sits, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't sit out in the woods all day, for whitetails. Learning to score each day based on the location of your sits for the entire day, is a great way to narrow down exactly if you are getting the most out your treestand and whitetail opportunities this season.
