..I have known and loved.

I think most of us here have spent some time up in trees watching everything below. There is just something about being up in a tree that links one back to ones childhood. I have at times returned to places in the woods just to see places where I spent so many happy carefree hours..much like visiting an old friend.

Just wait till Frisky gets a hold of this thread he's going to rip you Sandy and tell you to get out of trees and hunt for real on the ground. Mean while he waits till a road kill lame animal comes buy that his brother called him in on to dispatch. Shoots more arrows at him than the BS he slings and calls it a hunt.

Imagine that.LOL

That's our Frisky no wonder he calls himself Frisky. I think truth is he got nipped up and got Frisky with Cat lady and it was love at first nip.LOL

Every now and then I'll drive by custom home developments and look at trees I once was in and shot animals from them.

Brings a tear to my eye that someone had to build there and take away my hunting spot. One tree the remains of the stand are still there and went to a party at the lady's house one year and told her about it. She told me about the deer that still visit her tree and work along the edge of the property. I said that was a good tree indeed. Progress may take space but nature still resists.

Yes Glenn, I know the feeling. I once had a stand on a fenceline. One morning I watched a nice buck with the rising sun shining on him, rubbing a sapling. I got him with my Robertson 50s style recurve. He gave a few jumps and was down and out in sight. A few years later I went back and there was a new home right on the spot.:-(; Sandy

The first time I bowhunted for moose was in that beautiful land of lakes and rivers north of lake Huron..Greyowl, country. I became infatuated with this beautiful Tamarack in the middle of a tag alder swamp. After about 3 days hearing moose but with none coming by my tree I ralized I was in the wrong spot. Just as the real estate people say, location, location, location. Picking the right one is all important.

The first time I bowhunted for moose was in that beautiful land of lakes and rivers north of lake Huron..Greyowl, country. I became infatuated with this beautiful Tamarack in the middle of a tag alder swamp. After about 3 days hearing moose but with none coming by my tree I ralized I was in the wrong spot. Just as the real estate people say, location, location, location. Picking the right one is all important.

This same housing development when they were building homes I just refused to give it up while they were building these homes. I just couldn't so I moved to the back of the property. Dozers were working towards me one day and I figured I better get out of tree and just then dozer stopped for the day guess it was quitting time. A deer came out and walked along edge and I called him in. I didn't shoot him though waited and got down and pulled stand and said good bye with a saye. I was sick over it this property. Me and my buddy had like 10 trees we would sit in on this property was like 50 acres and a real travel route hub.

Yep..! Riverwolf..that's what they call progress. Progress..I detest that term. Sandy

Back to my moosehunt. I left that beautiful Tamarack and set up over a moose trail in a half dead pine as there was no other decent tree. Next morning as the sun came up and warmed the tree and myself, I became aware of ants just below my feet. AS I watched in fascination each ant would come out of a hole and dropa grain of sawdust then return fo another. I got to wondering..which grain might be the one to break the camels back. I got down from that tree and never returned to it. Lesson #2.. never hunt from dead trees. Sandy

Oh yes! And 'developement' usually meaning more plazas etc.. and don't get me started on Green energy..meaning damming up free flowing rivers. However most of us are part of the problem as we drive our pickups down the asphalt highway to W Mart. Does that make us hippocrites?? I'm afraid I am guilty. Sandy

This is so sentimental, it almost makes me want to shed a tear for the tree huggers.

Joe

I too can relate, but keep in mind that probably nearly 100% of all LW'ers homes used to be somebody's hunting ground at some point in time.

I went back to the property in East Texas my father bought in 1979, just for us boys to hunt on. It wasn't much. 42 acres purchased on his VA loan at $700/ac. But it was ours and it was lovely. Shortleaf pine in the drains and slopes and Post Oak on the ridges. Lots of relief too. You wouldn't know you were in East Texas.

Eventually, thanks to my mother-in-law, he lost the place to the bank. She stopped making payments on it because she didn't think they "needed it." I found this out on a hunting trip in 1990 from the new owner. I was shocked.

Fast forward to 2016, and I stopped by the old place to see what it looked like. While most things (as noted above) have gone to hell in the name of "progress" I was thrilled to discover that 42 acres was more beautiful than I remember it. The pines were huge and the Oaks were as grand as ever. Untouched in a quarter century. I was so happy even though it was no longer ours.

I looked for the tree I shot my first deer from, but it had grown old and fallen and mostly rotted away. I was however able to find the old 12" spikes that we drove into that Post Oak all those years ago, and I took those home with me. I didn't think the current owner would miss them.

Oh how we get attached to places where we have great memories. Not sure if other species do this, but I know us humans do.

I took my first deer with a bow on September 30, 1964 at approximately 5:30 p.m. That was from a blind I built along a sandy fire lane in Jackson County Wisconsin. Fifty years later, to the minute, I was back at that spot taking it all in. I'm not sure my wife completely understood what it meant to me to return to that special place at that special time.

"Oh how we get attached to places where we have great memories." Ditto, and amen to that.

Truth is where you find it...

On a coffee mug.. ..'A tree represents everything in nature that is a benefit to, and a victim of man.' Sandy

My favourite tree overall is the spruce. Branches you can trust. Rain protection overhead and branches that hide you. But the spruce has a nasty habit of keeling over in high winds, of course you would'nt be in it in such conditions.. However. Where I deer hunt I like to put ladder stands in clumps of white cedar.In Winter here the deer yard up in and around cedar swamps.They feed on it later. Sandy.

My favorite tree was a big hemlock I hunted out of for years. Killed some bucks and saw a lot of cool stuff like bobcats, bears and turkeys. They put a pipeline thru about 15 yds from it. I sat in it one time after that. Pulled the stand and never hunted there again. Felt like I was sitting along a fair way. Not to mention a four wheeler race track. But I still have some favorite trees. Getting in them is like visiting an old friend. Non hunters would never understand but you guys do.

I too hate to see beautiful and bountiful land lost to "progress". Several places I used to hunt now have a house in the center of the property.

But I don't see how y'all can get so attached to a tree. Hell, boys, that beautiful bow in your hands, those wood arrows, your house, furniture etc. It's all made of wood. It's gotta come from somewhere! And it'll grow back...mother nature will replenish herself when left to do so. Sorry...just a loggers thoughts on it.

I will say, I don't clear cut. Select cut hardwoods only in my part of the world. When done correctly, timber can be harvested every 20 years or so. I'm a fourth generation logger. And I've cut boundaries of timber that my grandpa and great grandpa cut in the past. Only cut the biggest that needs cutting, take special care of the young growth and don't ravage the land. And the deer hunting usually gets better in the few years after cutting when the canopy is opened up and new growth begins...great browse and cover. Killed my biggest buck ever the year after we cut the timber one of my hunting leases.

Of course, when land is cleared for apartments, roads, subdivisions etc, it is always sad. I can truly relate there.

To this day, my favorite tree is a Post Oak.

The smell is so familiar to me, and the fact that I shot my first deer from one is big.

Plus they are very reliable.

"Lord Have Mercy On A Country Boy"....Josh Turner

Well, I grew up wild and free Walkin' these fields in my barefeet There wasn't no place I couldn't go With a .22 rifle and a fishin' pole

Well, I live in the city but don't fit in You know it's a pity the shape I'm in Well, I got no home and I got no choice Oh, Lord, have mercy on a country boy

When I was young I remember well I'd hunt the wild turkey and bobwhite quail The river was clear and deep back then Had fishin' lines tied to the willow limb

Well, I live in the city but don't fit in You know it's a pity the shape I'm in Well, I got no home and I got no choice Oh, Lord, have mercy on a country boy

Well, they damned the river, they damned the stream They cut down the Cyprus and the Sweetgum trees There's a laundromat and a barbershop And now the whole meadow is a parking lot

Well, I live in the city but don't fit in You know it's a pity the shape I'm in Well, I got no home and I got no choice Oh, Lord, have mercy on a country boy

Well, I live in the city but don't fit in You know it's a pity the shape I'm in Well, I got no home and I got no choice Oh, Lord, have mercy on a country boy

All true..Shag. wise use..not abuse. S

Pines:- Pines are great stand trees.. ..white pines are anyways..red pines not so much.However I did take my best buck from a straight red pine, with few branches. White pines usually offer weather protection, cover, multiple branches and are easily climbed. Crush the needles for cover scent. I have a big pine near my home that still wears an old metal stand that I neglected to remove some 20 years back. Tree and stand are now one. Another big plus is that they are hard to fall out of :-)

Sandy

My favorite tree?...... the sawtooth oak. What else? It's beautiful in the fall and from late September to mid October they are wildlife magnets! I bought my little patch of dirt seven years ago. It's the farm that I grew up on. My father kept threatening to clearcut it for the money. He was determined to sell it or cut it and then sell it. I planted a bunch of the little sawtooths and they are coming along nicely. And other than what is necessary for the woods to be healthy, I will never put a blade to any of these trees.

Good for you..Sawtooth. In 89 we bought an old 300 acre farm here and in the next year my wife and I with help from my parents planted some 2, ooo seedlings, mostly spruce and w8hite pine. In 2003 we sold it and today it is a golf course. They cut most of the trees that we had planted..but better that than town houses or such...I guess.sandy

Riverwolf, I like how you see things.

Seems everyone needs a brand new cookie cutter house and a strip mall within spitting distance. The woodlot I grew up hunting in is now just another "stepfordville". As someone already said, makes me want to puke every time I drive bye! But yes, I have several special trees that I revisit year after year. Multi trunk pines are my best friend when hunting in the air;-)

Trees are some of my best friends, and they seem to grow old right along with me. I see them age and change, crack, break, and wither, or go from spindles to stately monarchs. I've known and,climed alot of trees, yet do not hunt from up in them, rather, near or next to them. Or just among stands of them. They are too numerous to mention here, but it one particular southern Washington unit where I lived, there was a mountaintop called Little Baldy. This was a special place and it was pretty sparsly frequented, except by a few locals. A lightly traveled offshoot of the Pacific Crest trail passed over the top of the mountain, through a stand of huge oldgrowth doug fir. This was a fairly narrow, quarter mile wide patch, about a half mile long, that connected a big chunk of reprod to a very brushy and elk infested side hill, followed by another vast chunk of old timber. Bulls in particular loved this little top chunk of old growth, and I grew real attached to the whole area since I only lived a mile below it along the Little White Salmon R. In the 12 years I went to that spot, I never got sick of it. I got elk there, blacktails, and I camped...I found sheds. But one year, one day, I drove up hoping to find peace, and I found loggers, skidders, and a spar tree. And felled old growth. My heart sank. My travel corridor of beautiful dark cover was lying prone like a defeated regiment on a battlefield. Like a wounded kid I parked on the road, walked up to two of the timber fellers and quietly, sullenly said, "You guys just cut me right through the heart, the same as the trees, killed my favorite all around spot in this whole state. They just stood there. I turned and drove off, and went back once or twice, but it sucks now. That was 15 years ago. I went back there a year and half ago again, and it still makes me want to puke to see it gone.

'They took all the trees and they Put them in a tree museum, And they charged all the people A dollar and a half just to see them.' Joni Mitchell.

Beech trees. A clump o beeches can be a dynamite spot to hunt when the beechnuts are falling. Deer, turkey, squirrels, all love them. A beech tree was probably the worst tree I ever had a stand in. The bark is hard and slippery as ice esp when wet. A ladder stand is the only way to go in my mind. I cut an old beech for firewood last yr and I worked like a dog splitting it with my splitting axe. I'll never do that again. It does make good firewood though. Sandy

Trees are the lungs of the world; trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, they exhale oxygen which is essential for us. Another thing about beeches..I always check them for bear claw imprints..and human initials. Sandy

Fo me it's never been as much about the trees I sat in as much as the memories and places themselves. It may have been at one time though. Yesterday my wife and son and I did some stump shooting. Man, the memories, the stories the feeling of connection.........what a wonderful day! I started hunting there 41 years ago sitting on my dads lap.

With both my parents Gone now. I've spent the last three years cleaning up remnants of old tree stands. Some, I admit, I had a hand in. I don't hold it against guys who hunt that way, I just don't have a need for it much anymore. I prefer hunting on foot and pretending I'm the first guy to ever walk there. Grown in chains and platform scars, bits of tin or palat wood are memories but also trash. Take these remnants away, and the memories are just as strong.

Funny, I recently removed spikes from a large oak. It has been lying over the creek for at least ten years now. Once i a heron land next to me. Another time a great horned owl just before dark. I even watched a bobcat catch a mouse from that spot. Thought one of those spikes would make a cool knife ?

Everyone is different and everyone gets a little something different out of theire own experience in the woods or the way they hunt or the type of tackle they use. But in the end, it's that special feeling we're all sharing and relating to. Happy hunting.........

Well said! Eric. S

This is a great topic. Thanks for bringing back some great memories. Places change but we still have those experiences forever.

There was a time in this fair land when the raulroad did not run, when the wild majestic mountains, stood alone against the sun. Long before the white man and long before the wheel; when the cold dark forest Was too silent to be real. The Canadian Railroad Trilogy. Gordon Lightfoot.

It would be remiss of me to leave this topic without mention of the maple..our national emblem. On our Canadian flag and coins. I have spent many contented hours up in maples. A tree you can trust often with mutiple branches that hide you well. The natives showed the early settlers how to make syrup from the sap of this tree. When you drive in the country in the fall, you often smell the wonderful odour of maple smoke from many wood stoves on frosty mornings. Sandy

One thing most of us can do is be a bit of a Johny Apleseed and plant a few seedlings..along a roadway perhaps. If we can't do a lot..we can all do a little. Thanks for listening. Sandy

Sandy, We love our maples here too. Maple syrup is my favorite sweet. Uncomparable taste. Here is one a mile or so behind my house. One of very many.

Another old soldier, distraught at the loss of limb...

Me being a treeple, I can't get enough of them...

The 'Half-soldier'...

Another wounded warrior... Got nothing against loggers, and I'm not a 'Hugger' but I sure do like the trees. Esp the ones that grow to max age...I've been to the Sequioas, the redwoods, the WA/OR coasts, and to the west flanks of the British Isles, where there are some incredible big trees. Nothing quite like these monarchs...

Home of a porky. Visited this tree yesterday looking for sheds. Deer beds all over the place, but the porky probably ate up any sheds near it. The pile of pellets is on top of the snow, all three feet of it (now melting).

Further up it...

FWIW, I make or have made memories from many years past until the present at all these trees.

Back in 1986 I killed my first Buck with a bow, I had killed several from this tree. This was right outside of Nashville close to the college I was attending. Went back several years ago and there are houses everywhere, best stand location I have ever hunted..

I return more often to trees that provide fruitful bounties and memories of another kind. They tend to grow on the oldest monarchs around. I've been visiting some of them for many years.

Found this locust a few yards from where I took a buck and groundhog one evening.

Hey Jeff, I have one like that nearby... only now thanks to you, I know I can eat them.

And upon closer inspection...

Got far too many tree pics. This one is a Doug fir on the Pacific Crest trail that I go by every time I go back to WA. It's huge. Pic does not do justice.

Brave bee tree pic Jeff.

The Buttree. Near Chittenango Falls, NY.

Ok done with this for now... :)

Some wonderful pictures.. Trapper, Jeff.

Vancouver B.C Some real trees out there. See the judo?

Try again.

Maple of memories.

At my archery club just outside Toronto.

I apologize for the horizontal pictures, I now know that you have to hold the s phone vertical. Sandy

Nice shot with the Judo. I once missed a squirrel at the base of a giant red oak and buried a broadhead deep enough that I couldn't get it out. You know, the raw power of a selfbow. LOL Anyhow, I made it a point to come back and check on the tree's progress every year or so as it swallowed it up. I wish now I had taken pictures along the way. It was neat to watch. It's gone now, and has been for years. It's out near one of my favorite turkey hunting and hiking areas. Maybe I'll get out there in the next few weeks to visit that old tree again.

Here's one that's taken a roundabout way of grtting where it's going:

Another one:

In my part of the world its the ponderosa pines and Douglas firs that make us feel at home. Like old friends they welcome us back each time we return to the forest. JW

Sometimes life can break them... and like us, sometimes they they stick with it.

Here is one of my favorites, an old tree that still stands long after the fire has burned the life from it. Home to insects, squirrels and woodpeckers!

Trees have been a safe haven for me since I was young.

I'm glad for others too!

Home...

Inter racial...

Parasite...

Maple.

Back to WA along Pac Crest trail.

Legs and a tail..

The one titled 'maple' above was the old home of porcupines for many years before it broke over. Their new home is the one further up in the pics, with the pellet piles below it. Yesterday I walked over there and Trapper found two dead porcupines about 100 yards apart buried in the snow near that tree. They were both about 3/4 grown, not full adult size, and one had crawled under a root wad to die, under the snow. The other was buried in snow. Trap sniffed 'em out and dug 'em up. Not sure what happened to them, unless it was the three feet of snow that did them in. It kinda made me feel bad, seeing them dead before they grew old.

Pac Crest trail tree... If you ever get to hike here, you best take your camera esp. if you like trees and memories...

You may come across these right away.

Its magical country in the Pac NW, WA.

See what I mean?

And then I come back home, and there is magic across the road. I saw this one yesterday again on my hike. Gonna tank a new pic of it this week. Fungus is growing. You'll see what I mean.

Not sure how that double pic happened. Here's another one near the porcupine tree.

The shelf fungus two years ago. It has since grown.

A tired pine!

Good on him for using protection!

Letting go...

Squirrel hotel

Inter racial!! I love that.:-)

Can't resist posting the Trunk Monkey Tree. 8:0

I'm a Monkey.... Man.... Rolling Stones.

I discovered this ancient oak on my ancestors land.. For all I know my great great granfather may have climbed this tree as a kid.. So I climbed it too !

Great posts guys. Gotta like the old trees. The stories they could tell.

Deno

white birch stand in NF

looking to heaven

Green Spring Park Deltona Florida

Big Tree Park Longwood Florida " The senator ". Said to be 3500 year old at the time...

LS, cypress? Fire starter tree...

I got to play, this Popular is on some property I hunted. I named it Quattro Picture doesn't do it justice. Each trunk is probably at least 18 inches diameter

Big knot tree

Spanish Moss near Beaufort SC

Well don't know how that got upside down.

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