Deer Camp Stories

I’ve always been a big fan of the variety of deer camps, how they came to be in their current status, and traditions that stand the test of time. My group is currently working on reestablishing a number of these, as the old group faded away along with the number of deer in the area we used to hunt. I also enjoy the varied preparations of harvested animals almost as much as the catching or shooting (ALMOST!) ;-). One of my favorite chefs is Minnesota’s own Amy Thielen, who had one or two seasons on the Food Network, my favorite cookbook The New Midwestern Table, and is a wordsmith for a number of publications. If you don’t mind a romanticized deer camp description, I enjoyed this and look forward to some trying some of the recipes:
http://www.saveur.com/hunter-thanksgiving-midwest-amy-thielen

I guess I over did it a bit when I built our tower. It started as a joke, but I really wanted a place for my father to be comfortable. He’s mid 80’s with a number of ailments. However, it’s gradually became a tradition for me to sit the opening weekend with my girls in there. It’s out time to joke around, be lazy, laugh, and just enjoy their sense of humor. Oh, we’ve shot some deer too. But it really has become the quality time and watching them grow up.

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Thanks for the link Bigwerm, its a great read and some good recopies to try.

Randy that’s a deer stand!! would make an all day sit much easier, if one could stay awake.

We take shifts on and all day sit

A stand like that needs a name. Something like the “Lebanon Tower Suites”.

Our deer hunting camp involves a centenarian farmstead. During my informative years it was a simple meat and potatoes affair. In some respects, some of the next generation is reverting a bit to go full circle. As a child I remember currants, gooseberries, juneberries, blueberry and raspberry picking, chokecherry jelly and the like. Our hope is to get some of those things going again to incorporate back into the cooking.

On a different note: so many things have changed. The nature of our hunting group, changes in adjacent land owners, access, logistics. Back in the day everyone in the neighborhood was a drive/stand hunting party. With all the changes the one tradition that has remained is all the location names near and far. The woods I hunt have names dating back to the early 1900s. Apparently, there were still some cut virgin pine logs on the property that were left by the loggers when my grandfather homesteaded. Blocks of forests are generally associated with drive names. Many areas are named after people who have long since passed away or haven’t had any association with those properties in over half a century. Some are descriptive names. Entire pieces of woods are named after a single stand location. Many of the areas closer to the farmstead have old Finnish names. Some locations are named after a tree that is long since gone or a cabin that hasn’t been there for 70 years. A lot of changes over 115 years but the names remain the same.