I did a thread like this last year and it worked out well for me so here's another for this year.
We had some logging done in the Spring....a few patches of planted loblolly thinned along with some other select cut. A smaller patch of loblolly butted up against a couple of acres of mature cedar. These cedars were very heavily thinned out by the loggers (used for fuel chips). There's always been a lot of deer activity in these cedars. I never hunted among them because it was too thick. I did have a stand in some more open hardwoods on a steep hill above a small stream that wraps around in front of the cedars. I decided to move that stand about 100 yards into the thinned out cedars. Here is a pic of the stand. It is 20' to the platform. This pic was taken from about 25 yards away. I was standing in a hay field that is about 20 acres and forms the uphill boarder of the cedars. The stand is facing the other direction, down the hill.
This is the view from the stand back into the field. The hay has already been cut. There is always lots of deer feeding activity in that field through winter.
There is a very pronounced skid trail about 60 yards down the hill from my stand and to the right, that emerges where the cedars and the loblolly meet. It peters out in the cedars. I took a weedeater and cut a swath from the skid trail out into the field. I did this so that the deer would be less likely to use the path I had cut from the the field to my stand as their travel path. Here is the view form the stand to the left. You can see the trail I cut. I had a cam hung over the skid trail earlier in the summer and got lots of deer pics so they were already using the skid trail then.
View straight downhill from the stand.
Looking to the right where the cedars end into hardwoods....former location of this stand.
Ground level view of the path I had cut from the field.
View of the area right after logging was finished.
This stand should be good for bow season. There is lots of pokeberry and alanthus coming up that has been heavily browsed. Plus this has always been a natural travel corridor from deer bedding on the neighbors coming up to feed in the field. However, I have found a few trees dropping acorns which seem scarcer this year, so I may hunt them during bow season and save this for muzzleloader.
I've been getting pics of this buck all summer....so hoping to get a shot at him from this stand or another.