Building a treestand for bowhunting

[tnmusky]

A friend and I are completly new to bow hunting and he wants to hunt out of the same stand. I was looking at building a 6x6 tree blind to accomedate the two of us. I want to put the blind about 10 feet up and my biggest question is at what height should I make the windows to be able to comfortably be able to shoot a bow out of? I eyeballed it by just drawing my bow and came up with the idea that I should make the window from 42inches off the platform to 60inches. This would allow for a 18 inch shooting window does this sound reasonable?

[DouglasSpear]

First, I'd like to welcome you to the site and the hunting world! But, I have to say that sounds like a lot of work when you can go buy a double person ladder stand at a sporting goods store. You can even put up 2 single person ladder stands near each other on a pair of neighboring trees or you could put 2 hanging stands in the same tree, one above the other. It's too close to hunting season to be in the woods cutting, hammering, and making a big tree blind and I don't know if you'd have it finished in time to be honest. Just my 2 cents.

[jmp51483]

First, I'd like to welcome you to the site and the hunting world! But, I have to say that sounds like a lot of work when you can go buy a double person ladder stand at a sporting goods store. You can even put up 2 single person ladder stands near each other on a pair of neighboring trees or you could put 2 hanging stands in the same tree, one above the other. It's too close to hunting season to be in the woods cutting, hammering, and making a big tree blind and I don't know if you'd have it finished in time to be honest. Just my 2 cents.

In total agreement here! By the time you purchased all of the materials and built the stand, you'd be right up into the cost of a 2 person ladder stand.. They've gotten a lot cheaper these days. Saw some in Bass Pro just the other day for 120 bucks...

[tnmusky]

Thanks for the input. I want to build one so it will be somewhat inside so we can sleep in it. Also unfortunatly we wont be able to hunt till later in the season so we would have time to build it. My biggest question was if the 18 inch windows( between the heights 42-60 inches) would be suitiable for shooting a bow out of?

[DouglasSpear]

You could probably get away with 18 inches but I would recommend a 2' wide by 3' tall window with shutters that open and lock from the inside. You never know what kind of shot you will be presented with and you may have to lean out at an angle to shoot. Safety is first so make sure the window isn't too low to the floor.