Inside Out Outdoors

As July is coming to an end (and yes I know we were hardly as active blogging wise as I said we were going to be on the blog this summer, apologies are in order for that so please forgive me) and August looms on the horizon, mine and Paul's focus is getting turned to the upcoming hunting season.  There is still lots to do in the final preparations department with certain spots on public land we have to get ready for camera setupds as well as equipment to be bought and weapons to get dialed in and practiced with, but the other week I start giving my Summit Viper a little TLC and the finished product is discussed in the video below.  Give it a watch and maybe it will give you some ideas on how to spruce up that treestand you've had a few years.

-Cory

I purchased my first Ladder stand this past year.  I've hunted from homemade ladder stands quite a bit but given my limited time this past year and the opportunity to hunt some private land I decided to purchase one to save me some time.  The benefits of having some ladder stands set up is that it gives you much quicker set up time in the morning.....no need to attach a climber and climb a tree.  However the drawback is that it is not easily or quickly moved to a new spot and would most likely need to wait until the next season to move it.  So my first recommendation is scout, scout and do some more scouting of your location before setting up a ladder stand.  Since this stand is not going to be my primary hunting spot, nor is it close to my home I did not want to spend a lot of money for the stand.  I did however wish to have something roomy and comfortable that would hopefully last multiple hunting seasons.
 
I bought the Summit Solo Pro here for about $170.  I really liked that this stand was under the $200 mark and that it had a full size platform and a fold up bench seat and shooting rail.  The bench pad is removable and I'd recommend removing it and replacing it each time you use the stand so you have a dry seat to sit on.  The pad is not the most comfortable thing to sit on for an all day hunt so I usually brought an additional seat pad with me.  I like to use the following hot seat to compliment the seat pad.


I found setting up the stand was at least a two person job.  I did it with the help of another person and it would have been much easier with a third.  Overall the instructions were spot on and easy to follow.  I did however find I was missing a few parts and contacted Summit and they promptly sent me the missing parts with no questions asked!  So a big thumbs up to their customer service department!  After hunting from the stand for an entire season and taking two deer from it I'd buy another one in a heart beat!  It was much roomier than many of the other stands I was looking at.  The shooting rest and bench fold up out of the way to make bow hunting and standing shots very easy.  It attached to the tree pretty securely but I did add an additional ratchet strap to the platform to give it just that little bit of extra stability.
   
In closing, if you need a ladder stand that is roomy and hunt-able all year long then I think this is a good one to try out.  Summit has many other stands to look at in the same Crush Series, advertised as their economical line without all the bells but they have the necessary features for a comfortable hunt!

-Paul Nicolucci