TAKING STAND A BY TYLER FRANTZ T HE STAGE WAS SET, the morning crisp and clear. As for the buck's arrival, the odds leaned more toward " when " than " if " he'd show. I had watched the respectable 7-point travel through the CRP field enough times during archery season to know that now, on the dawn of the 2020 Pennsylvania firearms opener, I stood a strong chance of killing him - even if it meant sitting all day to do so. That opportunity came around 10:30 a.m., when the buck stepped into the field and offered a clean broadside shot at 80 yards - a job swiftly accomplished by my Ruger M77 Mark II .308 carbine, with one steady trigger squeeze off the stand's shooting rail. Wheeling around upon impact, the buck fell just a few steps inside the nearby timber. Not a matter of " if, " but " when. " That's the kind of confidence that comes with sitting in a well-prepared gunseason stand - at a location that reliably produces year after year. LOCATION Pinning down the ideal spot for a firearms-specific hunting stand doesn't happen overnight. The site I chose for the 2020 opener has a productive history on our family hunting property, yielding A PLAN FOR SITTING PRETTY IN GUN SEASON NOVEMBER 2021 57 Doyle Dietz