out, so I started poking around the areas I hunt on days no hunters were afield. What I soon learned was that I had more company than I expected. One hunter I accounted for: he hadn't changed his hang-on-stand setup in two years and, he, or someone else, added a trail cam. A couple hundred yards from that stand, another hunter set up a blind in poplar timber; it stuck out like a shiny elephant in the vertical symmetry of the woods. Deer movement in the vicinity of both stands seemed limited. But whitetails still used the general area, preferring to sneak along shadowy alleys through mountain laurel and hemlocks, and sprawling patches of multiflora rose and greenbrier; the habitat I prefer to hunt over. While scouting one morning within one of these sticker-infested patches, brush-breaking noise to my left drew NOVEMBER 2024 17