Deer Camp Traditions

What do you do for camp? Heard of some really good ones over the years…

I sleep in my own bed, get up and drive 15 miles and climb a mountain and spend the day in a stand. That evening I go back home to my bed and repeat if necessary.

Sounds like when my in-laws lived outside of Hibbing.

Wake up early….look outside back deck. If there is a deer in the yard, shoot. If not, turn coffee pot in and go back to bed for a bit. Repeat until there is a deer in the yard.

Always wear dark colored underwear for deer hunting.

This might just be a good tip that turned into tradition.

Goid luck hunting.

We would listen to Da Yoopers the night before opener and play a card game called 31 while enjoying a beer or two. Lunch during deer hunting is always delicious – grilled cheese and ham sandwiches, served nice and hot. I always get cold in the stand. Oh and eating some leftover Halloween candy in the stand too. Can’t forget that!

I drink a red bull on my short drive to the land and then hammer down some hot coffee. I luck out and hunt private land in cambridge so I dont have far to go, we do always meet back at the old camper for breakfast at about 1030, and then hike back out.

When I hunted, watching the movie Escanaba In da Moonlight never really made me a better shot….the movie, pizza and a few beers was always fun.

Bill O. wrote:

When I hunted, watching the movie Escanaba In da Moonlight never really made me a better shot….the movie, pizza and a few beers was always fun.

That’s our tradition. “I shink I poop myself”. And “my shevy took a poop”. I die laughing every year!

Looks like the actual quote got overrode. Close enough I guess

Johnie Birkel wrote:

Looks like the actual quote got overrode. Close enough I guess

Hilarious part of the movie

I think the father in law and I look forward to cruising down the road for lunch and fighting over the tab as much as hunting

We always drive up to camp 2 nights before opener and hit the bottle pretty hard while sitting around a fire and talking. After the first night we get the partying out of our system and we have Friday to nurse hangovers and prepare for the hunt. Thursday before opener is always one of my favorite days of the year. We always drink to the old timers that came before us too. Cant forget them.

Dinner someplace different each day
Woodstove heat in the cabin
Acey-duecy and bourbon every night

We have meals each noon in my neighbors man cave garage. Same basic group for 30+ years. Fish fry 1 day. Chili another. Italian beef. And always Steves famous nacho dip. We invite friends outside our hunting group too. The town plumbers always show along with a small group from a neighboring town. We regroup in the evening and then the bs flows and the joint juice for those of us not hunting again in the morning. Always football on the boob tube. Great friends, the best. Great times, the best. I am blessed.

I hang the American Flag out on the cabin in honor of my late uncle Vernon. Deer camp isn’t the same without him. This is a deer he shot in 1969. Still the biggest bodied buck I have ever seen! The “Shack” as he called it still stands proud as ever.

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No real tradition started for MN yet, unless you want to count stopping at fleet farm in am attempt to buy out however much peanut butter kisses they have left on clearance.

Wi rifle season, homemade chex mix.

Our WI rifle season takes place in Buffalo County atop a rugged area of bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River near Alma WI. It is truly God’s country. The views from a stand overlooking the river never get old.

Our group routine seems pretty typical for our area. Everyone arrives at the cabin Friday night(built by all of us collectively with many additions over the years). The crown and beer flows quite well between stories and the BSing. A few of the older guys hit the bed around 10. The younger crowd drinks well past midnight with many not even bothering to get up in the AM. On Saturday after sitting in the morning, we may organize a short drive for some of the younger hunters to get some action. Saturday night we invite the neighbors over for some soup, venison brats, and chili on the wood stove. After washing that down with some beverages, we have one of our 2 sober relatives drive trucks to a couple nearby establishments to enjoy more comradarie until far too late. Sunday morning even fewer people get up early for the morning sit. In the afternoon we may listen to some of the early football games, haul a few deer down the bluff to the walk-in freezer at a relatives house, and say goodbye until Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving we have a group of 25-30 hunters and put together some large deer drives. Even with only shooting 3.5+ year bucks or mature does, we can usually tag out another 6-8 deer in an afternoon.

Our group is predominantly hardcore bow hunters so the rifle season is about comradarie and waiting for the woods to go back to normal and patterning deer again. So far our opening weekend group of 14 or 15 has put down 4 mature bucks with bows this year off our ~400 acre piece with another father-son combo bagging 2 mule deer and a bear already as well. Years ago we ran up a huge meat pole with 15-20 deer. Times have sure changed, as now the rifles aren’t taken off safety for anything other than something going on the wall or for one of the few youngins to bag a doe.

Even with the changes in hunting style, I still enjoy the comradarie more with every passing year. The cabin and the boat are 2 of the only places I can truly let myself “get away” from the craziness of life.

Bucky that sounds like a perfect deer hunting get away

Paul,
Tremendous looking 6 X 6.
Jack

Last 15 plus years, hunted with a friend on private land
he grew up on. He built a great little 2 level cabin out
of an old metal round grain bin. Wood burning stove,
electricity, micro wave, frig, 3 beds. All you need. 100-
to 500 yard walk out to stands. Deer every where. Got my
year 2007 Very heavy mass, 12 pointer out of the “Dog House Stand.”
Local little family run restaurant early evening, then back
to cabin for some serious Cribbage, head to head……
Jack
Have fish and traveled too much in last 6 weeks, didn’t go this
year, already have missed it.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Bucky that sounds like a perfect deer hunting get away

Thanks. It’s the stories and the shack it started as (and still is) that make the place.

The cabin itself is nothing fancy….started out as a 20×24 building built from surplus supplies and has grown. We’ve added a bar and some old decor from everyone’s collections. We recently added a full body stuffed mink in an oak trimmed glass cabinet and a 1950s round booth from an old closed bar in the area. It has a porch from old repurposed telephone poles. The first year we stayed in it I remember a fully stocked wood stove could maybe keep the place 55 degrees. It looked like a space ship with the smoke and gas lantern lights pouring out of all the crevices and gaps. Now it comfortably sleeps 18-20 with an additional side room and loft made from old barn beams and holds in heat with some new (used) windows from an old store and some much needed insulating. If people aren’t careful stocking the stove and running the small furnace near the loft, the rusty Old Style thermometer hanging from a center beam will easily crack 90 degrees.

Jack Naylor wrote:

Last 15 plus years, hunted with a friend on private land
he grew up on. He built a great little 2 level cabin out
of an old metal round grain bin. Wood burning stove,
electricity, micro wave, frig, 3 beds. All you need. 100-
to 500 yard walk out to stands. Deer every where. Got my
year 2007 Very heavy mass, 12 pointer out of the “Dog House Stand.”
Local little family run restaurant early evening, then back
to cabin for some serious Cribbage, head to head……
Jack
Have fish and traveled too much in last 6 weeks, didn’t go this
year, already have missed it.

Any pictures of the grain bin? That sounds awesome

No real plans, just an idea of what he wanted.
Jack

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Inside front door.

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buckybadger wrote:

Our WI rifle season takes place in Buffalo County atop a rugged area of bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River near Alma WI. It is truly God’s country. The views from a stand overlooking the river never get old.

Bucky, I was fortunate enough to hunt down at Bluff Bucks last fall for work, and after one of the guys in camp killed a bruiser we spent time at both the Tell bar and the Buck Knuckle in Praag. You aren’t kidding when you say how pretty the country is down there.

Jack,No one really knows how much he weighed. I have had estimated from 250 to 350 pounds. All I can say is my uncle is 5’9″ tall and weighs 210# in the photo. My estimate from a chart I used from years ago puts the deer at 275#- 300#. My uncle in the photo and his brother (who is was stronger and younger) could only drag the deer about 50 yards. then they went to get the neighbor with the jeep which he is standing in. Truly a huge Minnesota buck. We still have all the antlers from back then to the present day. Actually shot my personal best: and 8 point that weighed 210# this year. It was ten years since I had gotten any deer, so I was quite happy.