Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

I do too, my first deer was a doe in a cornfield. Everyone went in for lunch and a warm up during a high wind. I decided to walk crossways thru the corn rows and there she was laying down. Snuck in behind her and game over...surprised my dad and crew when they were coming out and here I was dragging in a deer.

I sat alone at 12. Didnt get one that year, but the next year at age 13, I shot the biggest doe our group has ever shot (since 1982).

I am taking the next couple of days off to hunt ducks, roosters and work on deer stands. Take that!

In my youth..hunting in Michigan started at 14. Similar to Tom...at age 11 I was installed in a stand..."This is your stand...no one will bother you here...don't bother anyone else...." So I didn't...until a fork horn walked by and I shot it.....then the whole camp showed up! I'll soon be back in that stand for the 43rd season.....

MN is the same as WI Dave for the youth hunt, which is 10 - 15.

The old man was never very far away. 3-400 yards. I spent my nearly every day in the woods as a kid. Pa knew, that I knew what to do. I had been with my uncle and he from the time I was 3 or 4 in the woods. Learned how to light a fire, make a small shelter, stuff you like to do as a kid anyway.

i was on my own my first year, ive been going deer hunting since i was 3 yrs old, thats when my dad first carried me to a deer stand, and i STILL remember it, because it was snowing like a som beotch, and dad smoked a nice big 8pt at about 250yrds that was on a trot. At 12 i knew the woods better than most of the adults did.

my first hunt was when I was 12, that was when you did hunter safety in the fall a month before season, meaning you couldn't apply for a doe tag, mandatory buck for your first hunt. I didn't see a buck that year, but I did fill 2 doe tags for members of our party. my first deer was a button buck, who woulda thought......

I guess bagging to many kids has made me a worry wart...just scares the hell out of me thinking about one of them alone w/o me right there.

big drift...no one can blame ya for being carefull...I sure don't. Like some of the above mentioned...my woods training started before kindergarten. I could read a compass and find my way around by age 8...witnessed my first deer kill about that time too. I was running our dogs with grandpa and shooting pheasants on our own farms and I need to point out the early deer hunting was also on private property. This in a time without the distractions or outside influences of life today. It's just what we did in the fall. Damn I was lucky....

Oh if it was the days of when I was a kid I wouldn't be as concerned,growing up in the rockies we learned real quick what was what. Even later in the early 90's in Southern MN I had my ball cap shot off my head once when some idiot was shooting in a standing corn field, I was on the road watching and the slug went thru the brim of my hat. My dad, brother, and two friends piled on top of me while they got the idiot out of there and told him to never come back.

Nowadays there are way to many idiots out there, one dumbass put his deer stand 30 yards away from mine. I didn't even know he was there until he shot a doe out from under my youngest.

Azzholes taking potshots from the roads, CO's sneaking thru the bush and not wearing orange until they are right up on ya, it just scares me.

My youngest has taken his first deer at 8, but I was right with him. My oldest is pushing hard to prove himself but I am concerned with him rushing just to get his deer to show the big guys he can do it.

Maybe I am just not ready for them to grow up yet....anyway sorry for the rambling just some thoughts on mind I needed out.

Can't believe nobody gigged me on my typo "supplies for a deer stands"

It was a bit open to interpretation as to one stand or multiple stands...

multiple, as in 2

One for my daughter and one for my self.

(my first stand for ME at our camp )

I'm pre fabbing them at home, screwing the floors/walls/roof together on site.

I see a trend.

I was going to build another, but I went to fleet and bought a ladder stand for now. If the spots are good, I'll build something in them, but for now the portable gets the nod.

I've got metal ladder stands that have been in the woods, attached to mostly the same tree for 12 years. They're in great shape. Visit every year, tighten up, seat ladder on a hunk of treated 2x4, good to go.

Most woods built stands aren't going to hold up that long. Some woods built stands scare the crap out of me.

The ladder stands have gotten so cheap, I don't know if I could build something as nice and safe for the price. You might grow fond of that ladder..

4

I hunt mostly out of ladder stands.

When I say I'm building a couple of stands I actually mean a couple of small shooting houses, little enclosed stands.

They will be 4'x4' floor, 3' high sidewall to a 1' high window slot then another 2' of sidewall to the ceiling. 6' high overall, a bench seat along the back wall about 16" high, 16" deep. For us medium sized people it works out really well, line of sight is centered in the 1' high window that goes all the way around, all 4 walls.

RWS helped me cut all the pieces last night, they are all cut and numbered, leaning against the wall in the garage. We put the 2 floors together and put one wall together.

All screwed together, low buck project.

I figure about $87 into each enclosed stand. They won't have windows quite yet. Plexiglass is expensive but it does work really nice for these stands.

Usually it's around 50 bucks worth of plexiglass per stand.

Weezy is very excited about having a nice enclosed stand, I guess I am too.

I'll be sure to post some pictures.

That's important.

If you can do something like that and anything else necessary to ensure the ladder legs can drain then you will be good for many years.

I've had ladder legs accumulate water inside the ladder tubes from rain etc, then freeze and expand the tubes. It turns square tubing into roundish tubing and eventually it will split the tubes open.

If you make sure your ladder tubes can drain in cold climates they will do well for many years.

ND, Lestifer and I just finished his enclosed stand last night, it was balmy t-shirt weather in there. its a 6x6 box about 6' high, so i can stand in there. 8x8 roof so its got overhang all the way around it. He snagged an old 7k btu camper furnace for it. 74degrees when i left about 7:30 last night. we've got 1-1/2" insulation floor to ceiling in this thing and then its all sealed around the edges. used a couple hinged basement windows on 2 sides and made a couple plexi windows for the other 2. on e of the nicest stands we have. and don't forget the little cooker for the beans in there too. 2 bar stools and good to go! He's got fascia all the way around a steel sloped roof on it. should last many moons!

Dave,

Where are you putting those stands up? I though weezy had a good enclosed-ish stand at the gate?

Enclosed-ish is about right.

Looks like a tree fort built by a couple of mentally challenged 12 year olds.

It's served it's purpose for 4 seasons. A couple of deer have been taken from that stand, but it's terribly noisy and it's becoming unsafe.

I'll be taking that stand apart this weekend. I will probably salvage the floor suport beams and just place one of these new stands on top of those supports. I'm also going to try to utilize the steps (ladder) that's already in place there.

Mine will either be placed where your ladder stand is at now (pam's spike buck spot). Or I will set up along our south property line basically straight ahead as you come through the gate.

There's some nice timber back in there, it's a transition from the tamarack swamp (north) to the spruce/cedar swamp (south).

Always deer sign back there but we've not hunted it yet.

It's a terrible place to go to just shoot a deer... But because it's so terrible, it's an excellent route for the smarter bucks.

What weve been doin the last few years is buy old gravity boxes put wood planks on the inside and the out pop up blinds where you secide to pull it to. We can get them arouns us dor 30-60$ usually