How Early?

How early will you guys start hunting your stands, before the season?  without weapons of course.  I think I will start about a week and a half, just bumpin around to see if I can get an early pattern figgured out in the areas where I can't do long range survellance all summer.

I pretty much stay out of my stands till season. Having access to my hunting area from the house and atv. I can run cameras most of the summer and can see what's there..
 
The patterns here just changed dramatically..Bachelor groups are breaking up and the falling acorns are changing their routes...
 

I never sit in any of my stands till the first week. Last year on the first morning of the archery season I had a mature doe coming right in to my stand. At 50 yards she stopped and looked right up at me!! Turned around and snorted about 6 times, that ended that day early for me. I am always amazed how some mature doe are so smart! The wind was even in my face.  Then in Nov. I was bow hunting So. Ohio and another doe did exactly the same thing! Didn't bother me too much cause I had killed a 6 point the day before.

Good points by all.

Doin good DC.  I have seen two really nice bucks in my core areas, a 21-22" 8pt and a 18-19" 12 pt.  But knowing me, I'll shoot the first scrubhead that walks by.  Plus I have to try and get my daughter (14) a deer (she got a doe last year with her bow, so we will see). 

I have several observation stands in that I think I will check out.   I agree that the first couple times in a stand is the best.  However I have found that sometimes you can catch a bigboy stuck in his summer pattern for the first 3 maybe 5 days of the season. And some of my spots don't provide an opportunity for long range survellance.  

Noplacelikehome, one of the best hunters I know told me a long time ago, that it was a lot tougher to shoot a 4 or 5 yo doe than a nice buck, I think that is very true.

I have a buddy who is my huntin partner, we help each other put all our stands in and hunt all the same areas.  It makes it nice to cover two stands on a piece of ground in the same evening.  He gets excited about the cameras and I had to pull the reigns on him this year, he had it too close to our best stand and I was afraid of being in there more than the one time to get the stand in in August.
 
My wife said she can tell Archery season is coming, I don't sleep as well and get antsy, according to her.

First time in is the first day.
 
We're set up on a droptine 12 point for the first day.  Dad keeps telling me to go in and put cameras up to get a pic.    ahhh... for what?  How about no.  He wants to see what trail he's using.  Guess what.  He's coming down a different place everytime I see him and that's why he's big.  Next time we're going in is October 4, if and only if, the wind is right. 

Same here.  Put up my stands last weekend and I won't be in the woods in that area until the season starts.  I may do some spotting in the surrounding fields but that is about it. Looks like all the local fields went into soybeans this summer, which is good for me.  When the local fields are corn, I don't seem to see the nicer bucks in my prime hunting area, just lots of smaller ones.  When anything other than corn is planted, I tend to see better quality bucks through the season.  I think the big boys in this area just bed down in the vast corn fields and don't move too much during the majority of the season.  Shaping up to be a great season though...

perch, i know a spot where deer cross the road from private property that no one has access to at 7am and are in bed by 7:05. Its about 75yrds from the road tops.