Hanging Stands and Shootin' (at) Doves

With deer season right around the corner (this Saturday!), it's time to hang some stands.  John, Mathias (John's Brother-in-Law), and I set out on Saturday to do just that.  We set up three stands on the property we'll be hunting on opening day.  First up was John's ladder stand, which had to be assembled on the ground before we propped it up against the tree.  This Millenium Treestand is easy to assemble, and I think the platform/seat is going to be very comfortable for long sits, but I'm a little concerned about the foot room for bowhunting.  I think it'll be a better stand for muzzleloader and firearm hunting, but we'll see.

The ladder stand site is on an edge between some planted pines and a recent 40-acre clearcut.  The picture of the big buck in my previous post was taken along this edge, about 70 yards or so from this stand.

Stand #2 is my Summit Viper climber stand, but I don't have any pictures of it to show you.  I was putting it up by myself while John and Mathias found a spot for John's lock-on stand, so I couldn't really take pictures of myself putting the stand up.  It's located along a travel corridor between a bedding area and a food source (the same corridor where we have the pictures of the Big 8).  There's some thick overgrowth (too thick for a deer to walk through) on the edge of a field, and then planted pines behind that.  My stand is in the planted pines but close to the thick stuff.  I'm hoping this is where the big bucks travel through, out of sight of anything in the field.  If they do, I'll have a shot.

Stand #3 is John's Summit RSHawk lock-on located along the same travel corridor as my climber, but it's about 400 yards from my stand.  He's set up on the far side of this little finger of planted pines that is adjacent to this log deck.

Once he had his climbing sticks attached to the tree, he trimmed some limbs to make room for his stand and to clear a shooting lane.  Of course, he's wearing his safety harness with the lineman's belt attaching him to the tree.  Hunting's no fun if your legs are broken from falling out of the tree.

It wasn't all work on Saturday, though.  Saturday was also the opening day of dove hunting season, so after we hung the stands, we went to Sparta and went hunting with Dad, Andrew, and Canon.  Andrew said Canon whined quite a bit, but he's only 2.5 years old!  He sure did look cool in his brand new camo, and of course he had some electronic ear muffs to protect his ears from the sounds of the gunshots.

As always, safety first, so I had on my Oakleys and my Peltor Tac-6 electronic hearing protection.  You'll notice in the title I typed "Shootin' (at) Doves."  Man, I had a rough day.  I don't think I would have hit the ground if I had shot at it.  I probably shot 20 times, and only had two birds to show for it.  They weren't bad shots either; I just couldn't hit anything.

I can't wait for Saturday morning!