Pat Highley doesn't have to rough it in his custom-built deer stand

herald-review ^ | 15 Nov 2010 | Tony Reid

[smokingfrog]

Pat Highley is the proud owner of a deer stand to die for.

From its simply superb craftsmanship to the fine aesthetic sense revealed in its interior decoration, it’s clear this lofty platform marks a new high-water mark of civilization in the otherwise rough-and-ready world of deer hunting.

How many deer stands have you seen, for example, with a 360-degree field of fire through sliding double-glazed windows?

“Well, I am really proud of it,” said Highley, who lives amid more than five rolling and wooded acres in the sticks about eight miles north of Shelbyville. The Cadillac of deer stands sits on the edge of the timber, a quick hunting trot from his living room and effectively doubling as a second living room that’s 22 feet up in the air. It’s reached after scaling 31 steps, and the structure — Highley calls it an “elevated hunting cabin” — sits atop a rock-steady network of treated timbers that betray no movement as visitors enter via a trapdoor in the floor.

The plywood paneled interior walls of the 8-by-8-foot, 7-foot-tall cabin are overlaid in a brown paint wash that serves to accent the natural grain of the wood. Highley went that route after listening to his wife, Debbie.

“She said, ‘Oh, that’s such a pretty grain, you are not going to just paint over it, are you?’ ” he recalls. “So I watered the paint down and took a sponge to put it on.”

The windows on all four sides were a special-order item from Menards, and the 2-by-4-foot panels slide in both directions and also pop out. Highley and guests sit on color-matched brown swiveling kitchen stools he picked up from Target, and every creature comfort is catered for:

[freedomlover]

"Yeah boy I've shot me quite a few dear out here. Even shot me a few photographers - every one right in the gut. Funny how that happens."

[freedomlover]

I can remember several times going dove hunting and coming home to seeing more doves on my birdfeeder then I saw all day hunting. Or certainly more than I shot ;)

[Trod Upon]

“[W]hining like a liberal?” WTF? I guess everyone who doesn’t see the sport in sitting on your butt waiting for some (probably baited) sure thing to wander by is a “librul,” huh Buford? A liberal would want to stop the guy. I just laughed at him. Oh, what a freedom crusher I am! And if you can’t see the humor in a guy doing this a few yards from his house I just don’t know what to tell you.