Seriously, you do need to avoid the hunting seasons. Hunters have their own areas they want to be at so it just conflicts with a scheduled mini-camp if it's the same dates. You really can't avoid archery season as it runs 3 1/2 months (Oct 1 - Jan 15.) Black powder and gun deer can be worked around but that's why we need to be in serious planning for the fall now. Black powder is 10/25-11/2 and gun is 11/22 - 12/7. That really makes the best fall camp dates to be Oct 3,4,5 or 10,11,12 and in Nov 7,8,9.

I would suggest no camps between the start of deer gun (11/22) and the end of the year due to holidays and family activities. That would put the fall mini-camp around the dates above. I would recommend the winter mini-camp be in Jan and the spring mini-camp be in early Mar. June (for the annual camp) is really in a summer month.

Since I'm throwing out recommendations I would also say we should have all the camps at different lakes and we should all nominate and possibly vote for the lake. It is important that the lake be a decent crappie lake at the time of the year the camp is held. I have my recommendations for the locations of the winter and spring mini-camps in the back of my mind now. I wouldn't try to lock in the dates (just the month) for the winter and spring camps so we could be flexible with the long range weather forecast.

I cannot be at the camp on one of the weekends I listed for the fall camp but I'm not going to disclose the dates so as not to influence anyone in their choice. I have plans for a camp of my own with several friends during that period (and also several short camping trips of my own till Thanksgiving and after the first of the year.) We need to be planning now. It's not very long till hunting season.

Floyd