I love hearing about everyone’s FAVORITE traditions that they have at their deer camps! Everyone has a unique experience when it comes to “deer camp”…from staying in tents 100 yards from the stand…to shacking up in a 5-bedroom palace with more fireplaces than hunters!
It doesn’t matter where you are, because we all know it’s about who you are with and how you are enjoying the moment 
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So let’s here ’em…what’s your favorite part about deer camp?!
Some of my favorite memories of deer camp in the Black Hills were before the cabin was modernized. The older gentleman like to play cards and enjoy a few each night. Well, come the next morning it was always a trip to see who would take the frost off the outhouse seat.
We had one gentleman(camp cook, Aunt Jemima) who would always perform the “running of the bulls”. He would get up multiple times each night to use the “restroom”. I swear he was never awake. He would bounce off stuff and the card players would laugh. He always made it to his destination and back to bed without opening an eye.
I can remember one year when we had about 25 guys in the cabin, there were bunk beds everywhere but the kitchen. We would bounce around the northern hills in the backs of pickups covered in blaze orange. Drop off 5-10 guys and spread out and make drives, all day long. Great memories!!!
My favorite memories of deer camp are always the time I get to spend outdoors with the family. I’m fortunate enough to still share this time with my 84 year old grandfather and my 79 year old grandmother, who both spend more time in the stand during the 9 day WI gun season than I do. 
It’s the one time of the year that I look forward to putting my hunting success on the back burner to help out the other people in camp who introduced me to the sport. 
Even though we don’t have a camp persay, there are many things that we do that makes deer season the most memorable time of the year. Opening morning is usually the best. We get down to my grandpa’s where we all hunt at about 4:30 in the morning, and even though we feel the need to be there early, there is nothing for us to do. SO we go into my uncles basement and watch hunting shows and wait until about 1/2 hour before light to walk down into the valley. Another thing is doing the same drives every season, and then after the drive is done, listeneing to the stories my uncles and dad tell about what deer have come off of that drive in the past. Those are the moments that make shotgun hunting in western WI the best! 
Bow hunting with buddies anticipating the next mornings hunt, then get in for dinner and find out who had encounters with which buck. Oh yea! almost forgot – poking a hole in the beer can just below the opening just to see the beer spill all over the shirt of that person. 
I suppose I’d better share mine since I started the post!
My favorite part is as soon as we arrive…having that first adult beverage with the family Friday night, and then getting the big, laminated map of the farm out to talk strategy, weather, past deer sightings, etc…getting ready for the next morning!
We too start out with an adult beverage.Then for the billionth time we play the movie “Escanaba by da Moonlight”.We then bring out the ariel map of our lease and draw straws to where we’ll be sitting in the morning.Then we tease each other who’s going to be the buckless yupper this year. If ya haven’t seen the movie, its really funny.
Well this weekend my uncle and my dad and my self are heading to some relitives land to pursue some deer and are staying in tents and casing the deer as hard as we can from up to sun down. its a great time just to pick a direction and start walking, and sooner or latter setting up for the nights hunt.
My favorite time isnt even the hunting, its sitting around the table after dinner listening to all the stories of the days hunt and then the tales of past hunts of the elders where all the bucks were the size of a moose and such stories make it all worth my drive up north
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