Questions About Making A Deer Stand

[Roadrunner]

I live in Michigan, and am considering building an elevated deer stand to hunt whitetails this fall season.
My father is getting a bit old now, and doesn't enjoy sitting still in the woods for long periods of time, as is necessary when hunting from a ground blind. So I was thinking about building a "large" elevated blind, in which he would be more comfortable, could move about and not be seen by the deer.

The woods that the blind will be in is a fairly heavy woods with the longest shot not being more then about 150 yards.

I'd like to build a blind big enough for us to sleep on (in bivi sacs) the night before the opener of deer season; that way our scent would have the whole night to dissipate from the ground below it. Yet I don't want to make the blind so large that one person can't hunt all sides of it by sitting in the middle of it.

Thus it's a bit of a geometry problem. For starters I was thinking of a platform 8X8 feet and 12 or 13 feet high. Hopefully this would provide enough room for two people to camp out on, yet still enable one person to sit in the middle and not have too much of the surrounding woods occluded by the platform itself.

So what does everybody think, should I make the platform larger or smaller?? Should I make it higher or keep it about where it is. I don't really want to go much lower then about 12 feet. Thanks much.

 

[Guest]

You can make it 8x8 if both of you are going to hunt it at the same time. I've built a lot of tree stands over the years, and have been partial to 4x8 for myself alone. One thing you need to do is get a deck built and then climb up and see what you need to trim or clean out of the way; for clear shots. Put any furniture on the deck and build around it. You'll be glad you did. I line mine with plastic, and carpet on the interior; which helps reduce noise. You will also need to build stairs instead of a ladder, for safer access & egress. Other than that, I would suggest that you build after Deer season, to let the new wear off of it. I would not go any taller than 7 feet on the roof, and shingle instead of metal for a quieter rain. Just bear in mind that your location is the single most important consideration; when building a tree stand. Make sure that it is the best possible place to build before starting. If you have any further questions, just reply and I'll be happy to share my experiences.