Hello, friends. About every other year I climb into a tree and sit there from late afternoon until well after daylight the next day and write about what I see.

I write notes while in the tree, which pretty much becomes the following week’s column.

Thursday, July 24

High 84, low 54

Originally, I planned on spending the night in a tree overlooking active bear bait. The powers from above must not have felt that was a good idea, as that plan did not work out.

A friend of mine who has a 160-acre piece of wooded hunting land in western Clark County let me sit in a two-man tree stand in his forest and that is where I spent my night.

4:15 p.m.: I just climbed into what is a very comfortable tree stand overlooking about a 5-year-old clear-cut to the front of me, and a mature forest behind me. Directly below me is a mowed trail that I hope I see a lot of wildlife on.

At this point, my only regret is that I will not be able to hear Ben Sheets complete a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals.

5:27 p.m.: A pack of coyotes is howling maybe 800 yards in front of me.

For entertainment purposes, I bought my dying rabbit call to try to call a coyote, bear or wolf into camera range. I gave a couple of wails on the call and at the same time noticed that it is clouding over to the west — perhaps I should have bought my rain gear along.

6:40 p.m.: A doe and two fawns just emerged through the clear-cut. Even though the doe knew something was not quite right, she still appeared on the trail. I drilled her with my 10-megapixel camera and her and her fawns went unscathed down the trail

8:55 p.m.: The air temperature is perfect, the scenery is great, but there is one problem. A large flock of mosquitoes has found me and decided my blood tastes good. I just took out my birthday present which is a ThermaCell mosquito repeller.

The ThermaCell, which I just heard about, works off a butane flame and a chemical called d-cis/trans-allethrin that is not supposed to scare off wildlife. I figured this would be the perfect field test.

Most of my time is spent munching on home grown broccoli and trail mix while watching the world around me and occasionally giving a wail on my predator call. A typical night for the average American.

I just completed my travel schedule for the next 17 weeks and it is awesome with only three openings.

9:30 p.m.: No mosquitoes whatsoever! I just shut off the ThermaCell to see if it is because of the machine or natural causes.

Fighter jets have been flying high overhead. I can only hear them and see their lights but it sure makes me feel good when they are around.

10:40 p.m.: It has become windy, I heard a loud explosion to the west and there is not a bug around. It is so dark, that if something walked by I would not be able to see it. I hope Ben Sheets got his 11th victory.

11:10 p.m.: What I thought earlier were coyotes, are actually dogs. Where the dogs live there are chickens, and the rooster quit crowing at dark.

I was just snorted by a deer.

3:10 a.m.: There is a mouse that keeps climbing up this ladder stand and trying to get into my trail mix. Every time I start to doze off the mouse wakes me up. This went on from 1:30 until 4:10 a.m.

8:15 a.m.: I have to admit the wildlife viewing has been a bit slow. The plus sides of this adventure are numerous. I enjoyed every minute of the time I spent strapped to this tree I stayed in the tree the entire experience.

Free time for me this summer has been none existent and this experience allowed me to write down a schedule from now until the last day of the gun deer season.

Last, but certainly not least, watching nature for 16 hours straight has completely got me into an upcoming Canadian bear hunt.

Take time to relax. Sunset.

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