You will find a lot of us here are "your age". I suggest:
1.) ALWAYS USE A STEADY REST. There is way too much testerone in off-hand shooting. It sucks to miss. It sucks worse to maim and lose the wildlife. Take at least a monopod up the tree and use it.
2.) Use a rope to transfer your gear into the tree stand AFTER YOU HARNESS YOURSELF SAFELY IN. Use both hands (and feet) for climbing. Your gear will follow you up when you are ready. Take your time. You want to live to hunt a lot longer.
3.) SLOWLY turn your head from side to side to scan the woods for wildlife with ONLY your head and eyes - keeping the rest of your body stone cold still and STOP SCANNING REGULARLY to give your peipheral vision a chance to detect motion. Gaze out as if into a void. Let your more aware senses detect motion. Peripheral vision is also relaxing. You may spend a lot of time on stand seeing only the woods around you. You may see deer immediately. Regardless, prepare to be there ALL DAY; and as you will have no where else to go, scan slowly and I mean REALLY SLOWLY. If you jerk, flinch, scratch, cough, wiggle, sneeze, sniffle, or move in one of a million eratic ways while on stand, the wildlife will see and avoid you. Learning to sit still is exhausting and not easy to do, but it is rewarding.
4.) TAKE A PEE BOTTLE with you (its an "Old Guy" thing). Stop, stand, and stretch once in a while. It's OK. You may even see a deer when the "wrong gun" is in hand. We've all done that. But you won't have to get down. Never pee where you or others want to hunt.
5.) ENJOY THE MOMENT. There will never be another like it whether you kill a deer or not. How many time have you just sat in one place FOR HOUR UPON HOUR UPON HOUR and enjoyed the passing of time? Not too many I'll bet. Don't RUSH the moment. Sense the stars - the cool crisp night air - the flush of additional coldness as the morning sun peeks over the horizen - the chill up your spine as your body warmth is diminished in its attempt to theromdynamically heat the surrounding atmosphere - the first bird singing - a crunch in the leaf litter to your left - the stiffening of your senses to alertness - the desire, but not the reaction, to turn your head with a jerk to look (if you do the jerk the jig is up) - agonizingly slowly (like molasses) turning only your head in the direction of the sound and stopping when the preception is found that the deer is standing there LOOKING DIRECTLY AT YOU - the visual recognition of a good buck standing "statue still" searching for danger - waiting while your heart pounds in your ears, the adrenaline rises in your veins, your breathing shallows and becomes labored - you begin to sweat in the frozen air before seeing the deer relax to forage for a cormb - you fight your rising adrenaline and anxious desire to jerk up your rifle and take aim - instead you watch and when it "feels right" you SLOWLY raise your rifle into a steady rest being ever ready to stop in mid-air and HOLD YOUR POSITION FOR WHAT WILL SEEM LIKE AN ETERNITY if the deer snaps its head up and looks in your direction - when all is right you will take aim without the deer being the wiser - and squeeze the trigger.
6.) AIM SMALL, MISS SMALL.
7.) After the shot, the fun is OVER and the WORK begins.
Our modern senses, modern routines, adherence to modern schedules, and the inner voice in each of our heads want to dictate what we and the wildlife should do. Forget that. They are on their own time, their own wandering walk through life, and you can bet their agenda includes safety. It's their yard. They know it better than you or me. They are in it 24 hours a day/7 days a week/52 weeks a year. Us? If we're very lucky 2.5% to 7.5% of a year (15-30 days or parts thereof in daylight only).
Good luck. Hunt Hard - but really really slowly.
