Campfires & kids

[Okanagan]

Last weekend I tent camped with two sons and six grandkids.  Told stories about each other till midnight, especially stories about their dads when they were kids.  Slept in till 8:00, cooked breakfast all morning, skipped rocks, shot .22's, glassed for bear and elk and got incredibly dirty.



My older son makes massive blueberry pancakes and entertains the kids by flipping them with the skillet.




We camped by a small stream off a logging road, below.



Ages of kids were 8-14.  The 14 year old has become a good shot. He and I got into shooting the heads off of flowers at 20 yards instead of shooting our targets.  He shot a limit of 4 grouse one day, with five shots total.  He missed the head on one his first shot.  Mighty good eating.

On the third day we drove up higher to glass for game and did some cooking at a place where we could see country.





View of Mt. Olympus from our impromptu campfire.




   

[Okanagan]

I must have tried to load too many pics because photobucket locked up on me.

The three oldest boys made up a prank because archery elk season was starting the day after we left, and hunters were scouting roads.  They made a series of bull antler rubs on saplings along the road and leading off on a trail across a partial meadow 200 yards from our camp.  They gathered elk droppings where a few cows and calves had been hanging out and piled them natural looking along the road.  They thought it was hilarious that some elk hunters would come around that bend in the road and get all excited about how much fresh bull elk sign there was.  It was realistic enough that my younger son was going to phone a friend who archery hunts that area and tell him to ignore all the elk sign along the road in that creek bottom.

[FinsnFur]

Looks like an awesome way to spend a couple days.
I've never seen Mt Olympus from a view like that,  it's an amazing land feature for sure. Thanks for sharing it

After reading about the three oldest ones and their Elk prank, I think I could get along with those boys just fine
By the way they didnt learn that lil trick from Grampa did they?

[Okanagan]

Jim, you would enjoy those boys alright!  You're awfully nice to reply to such a post, and I appreciate it.  Those kids are going to come up fishing with me for pink salmon this Tuesday.  Hope we get into them so thick we can't keep them off.  Pinks are kid friendly salmon.

As to misdirection from Gramps, come to think of it he may have had some input to that elk rub shenanigan.  He's been known to mislead hunters on occasion, give them some sign that will influence where they go, what they do, etc.  And then there's straight pranks like palming a Milk Dud candy, pretending to pick it up from a pile of deer turds and taste it in front of a city newbie, to see how fresh the deer sign is.  Lots of us my age have pulled that one.

A partner and I wanted to be first down a moose trail one morning in a fairly heavily hunted area.  We walked into the trail in the snow late the night before and walked carefully backwards out to the road.  Sure enough, each rig that came by in the morning would take a look, see man tracks going into the trail ahead of them and drive on.  We had it to ourselves and didn't have to start two hours early in the dark.

[coyote101]

Looks like a great time with the grandkids.  And beautiful pictures to boot.  Thanks.

Pat

[iahntr]

Sounds like a great time,
and looks like a beautiful area
to do it in !