Almost hunting season

The fall is officially underway with the leaves changing, cold nights, fire in the fireplace and a mix of fishing and deer hunting preparation.  We have been checking the trail cameras and caught this brute about 10 yards away from Scott's stand.  I have seen this guy three other times while walking the dogs.  He is a BIG boy.

Trail cam picture from Cheese Factory

This came off of JP's camera.  He had several others that had a bunch of does and some real big turkeys, but nothing too big.  He showed me his new stand behind his house on Quaker Meeting House which is very impressive!  He used 12+ foot 4 x 4 posts to create a sniper seat in the sky.  Last week I fell ten feet putting up a tree stand and was able to walk away with only stitches.  JP must be a cat in the trees!  I have a trail cam up at Hedges which I will check out next weekend.  Next weekend is the first time ever 14 and 15 year old gun hunting weekend.  Jessica is 14 and Hannah is 15 so we will see how it goes.  We are going to go out to the Hedges for the weekend.

Ryan first time shooting a shotgun

Yesterday Jake had Ryan, Charlie & Charlie, Jake, Jessica and Abbey went with me down to the road to the land I am leasing and did some practice shooting.  I had a .22 , .20 gauge and a bucket full of tomatoes.  We sent up a target and let them shoot at tomatoes on place atop of plastic cups on the ground.  We then tossed tomatoes and let the boys try and shoot them with bird shot from the 20 gauge.  They had a great time.

Jake tossing tomatoes for Charlie

I am getting the final touches done for deer season.  I like to put a "camo curtain" around my two person stands as it allows me the freedom to move  around without being seen.  This idea has caught on and now camo cloth and burlap is crazy expensive.  So I went to Wal Mart and bought 36'  x 4' camo fabric for 12$ which will be plenty for all my stands.  I literally used braided fishing line and sew the fabrics around the shooting rails and cut a slit down the middle.  Works great, when I see a deer I can set my book down and grab a bow/gun and the deer never sees me move.