At what age will/did you allow them to climb into a lock on (with a harness) and hunt beside you or in the same tree. Not talking about two man ladder stands, but a lock on. You hang it and they hunt it? with your supervision of course.
I was screwing in steps and hanging my own stand unsupervised at 11. No linemans belt. Did have a safety belt back then.
I was about 15. no harness, no safety belt. just screw in the spikes and stretch my legs as far as I could to get the most out of my 7 spikes!! so dangerous, but hey that was 25 years ago.
I was 11. I'd do it sooner with my own son if he wants to. Assuming he has the proper harness and we are using lifelines, I don't see why not. When I was 11, I didn't have any safety equipment.
well my oldest is 10. He is not very big. It would have to be me either screwing in the steps/ or using the sticks and then hang two stands in the same tree. I would of course send him up the tree with me behind him slowly..help him get in the tree and buckle him in, then i will get into the other stand. I don't think he will be ready to actually bow hunt out of one yet but maybe next year, he would just be in the tree with daddy. Now he does have a 410 shotgun and could shoot that sitting down.
Same here. I was climbing into stands with my dad when I was 7 or 8 without any safety gear. With the safety products available today I wouldn't give it a second thought.
Good to know. I just don't want to be that dad that looks like an negligent papa...I think it will be fine, but he is just so eat up with bowhunting and we have done several sits on the ground, but we only saw one deer and I believe we could improve our chances up the tree.
Hang him a stand. Put a lifeline on it. Drill safety in his head. Let him know that if you catch him being unsafe, that's the end of his hunting career for the year or longer.
Yea kids, especially young boys are very agile. I was climbing trees and sitting on 2×4's at 10. I guess it depends on how agile the kid is but with steps and safety gear i would say anywhere from 10+. Below that i would keep them on the ground
When I was first explosed to the sport my dad would take me and put up another portable stand about 10-15 yards from him in a tree. He would only put the stand up about 12 feet but still high enough being only 12/13 yrs old. I'll never forget some of the times seeing deer walk in between us and my dad watching in the other tree pointing his finger at the deer like a gun and going bang. Its amazing how you remember things like that. when I first starting gun hunting with him, He gave me hand signals to let me him know different things. Tap on the head was I had to go potty
I completely agree on the agile part. Our oldest is like a new born fawn and the youngest is like a gymnast. It all depends on the child. Our oldest will climb any tree as long as there are limbs close to the ground. A tree with a big gap to the first limb he is out.
Each and every child is different. If they grow up climbing (and falling out) of trees, I would be more likely to take them to the woods and let them be "on their own" as I watched them.
Yea me and my buddies were like spider monkeys we would climb trees and actually jump from one tree to the next sometimes. Just like squirrels hahaha. Thinking about it now i dont know how we didnt break our necks cause we did have some good falls. The good ol days. The ground was alot softer back then
They make the lifelines with two prussic knots, one for each of you...I'd get one of those, two rope style linesman's belt and go for it.
Ha!!! I took two weeks of vacation this year to hunt. On the first day I sprained my ankle so bad I couldn't walk on it for 3 days. I wasn't jumping tree to tree....I was just blowing leaves in the yard! Damn this getting old crap!!! :-)
I started taking Avery and letting him climb up in the stands with a harness on when he was six but he never hunted.. He hasnt really shown a ton of excitement about sitting out there until this year so I started taking him. As long as the harness fits them I wouldnt be scared to take my daughters( 3 and 6 ) when every there ready and wanted to go. They are a lot better at climbing than us old out of shape guys.
As long as she is still showing interest my youngest daughter will be 10 next year and I will be bringing her along using a ladder stand. Assuming she handles that well I'll move her to a Hang-on when she is 11. The 15yr old twins one id let now the other probably never. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My son started hunting at 10. He is usually sitting in a LW Alpha and I hang behind him in my tree saddle. Next year he is 12 so he'll be able to hunt alone once he finishes the hunter safety course. He shot his first deer this year!!
Like a lot have said it depends on the kid. I have an 11 year old son with MD that I have to put a blind up to hunt out of and there's no way i would let him in a treestand. Part of that has to do with maturity. Now my daughter who is 9 i would let her do it but she's watched Bambi too many times and is just a true animal lover and wouldn't go with me for anything in the world. Trust me, i've tried.
