Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting Birth of a deer camp

I'm trying to think about all the established, unestablished and semi-established deer camps I've been involved with.
My first hunting experience resembled nothing like a real deer camp, it was a casino on the California/Nevada state line, and we would drive around the desert looking for deer. Of course we didn't see any.
My real camp was pretty well established. That was in Alabama when I was 15, I had buck/doe fever so bad I couldn't concentrate enough to place the crosshairs on anything. That camp was basically a trailer, we had a cook who didn't hunt, just wanted to come out and be apart of the whole thing. I was with a friend of my mom's from high school whose children didn't hunt, but there were two other families involved also. I didn't get my first year, but went back at age 17 and finally got one on the last day.
At 16, was the worst kind of deer camp. I'm sure there was some sort of traditions that I didn't know about, but a 4-
H friend's boyfriend invited me out to the California desert to go quail hunting. Mostly it was just drinking, plus the occasional fight. I'm not sure if it was true, but they said they weren't allowed to drive to where we were camped. I now suspect we were in a BLM Wilderness Study Area in the Mojave. No one shot their guns at anything resembling a game animal, and they all held animosity towards my friend because girls weren't allowed. Terrible.
In college in Montana, we mostly did day hunts during our first two years. Got a little more serious during my later years.
One of the "camps", was just a tent we set up at a KOA. A bunch of other hunters were there and giving us a hard time, thinking we were underprepared for the snowstorm that hit the night before the opener. We could see the KOA from the land we hunted and were out actually set up on the mountain before those guys in their RVs even left camp. Pulled in to camp that afternoon with a truck full of elk, and their jaws dropped. Guess I they were too comfortable in their camp to get going soon enough.
One of the funny camps we had in college was when 8 of us decided to hunt the Boulder River drainage, south of Big Timber. One friend managed to "bag" a deer on the way in with his truck. But the funny part came when I pulled my new tent out of the box that I got the Christmas before from my grandmother. Apparently she didn't realize I was 21, and got me child's tent. I never opened it, and didn't look closely enough at it until we got to camp. When sorting through gear, I told the guys I had a two man tent, so we had two larger 3 man tents plus mine for the eight of us. I'm not sure I'll ever live that one down. It was so short I couldn't sleep with my legs outstretched. And all it had was a 6 inch fly that sort of covered the vents. It snowed on the second night hard enough to drive snow right the the vents. Had to sleep with my hunting coat over my face. Miserable.
Caught up with those guys two years ago to tag along while they hunted outside Bozeman. One of them had a 19 foot RV for us to pile into. It was great, and they were still teasing me about that stupid tent 6 years later. We also brought out back the stories from our ridiculous backpack hunt into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, where the outfitters and guided hunters we met on the trail were laughing at us at first, then saw us often enough to offer us their horses if we ever harvested anything.

Now my grad years in Texas was like a year round deer camp. With 6 grad students and numerous undergrads and interns, we harvested hundreds of deer, drop netted hundreds more, shot and trapped countless hogs, coyotes and bobcats year round for research. A lot of unsupervized 20 somethings in a crappy hot trailer(with about 50 guns between us) on the Texas/ Coahuila border made for some memories. Plus we kept the little town pretty well fed with all of our meat donations(required by our scientific harvest permit).

When I took a job doing bighorn research in Nebraska, I had a great little camp that I lived in for 11 months on a 4,000 acre state wildlife area. That place was beautiful, my little cabin was on a perennial creek tucked into the Pine Ridge with no cell service and no TV, and no one to bother me. Only had my dog for company there, but during deer season the place livend up quite a bit with auction hunters and other employees stopping by to use the place. Allowed me to talk hunting with everyone, it was great. I did go back two years ago, as the visiting hunter and the place still felt like home for me and the dog.
When I first moved to Colorado, I hunted by myself mostly. I got involved with the Huntmasters here and helped out with one large youth elk hunt. Turns out we were going to run an all girls hunt, so myself and 9 staff had 7 girls and their fathers and one mother. That was a big camp. 3 20 foot wall tents and a ridiculous amount of food to cook. But it was great. All the girls would race up to every truck coming into camp to see if another girl got anything, all the story telling and life lessons learned there was great for the kids.
This past year I was invited to my good friend and landlord's elk camp. It was another big operation with a converted enclosed trailer with bunk beds that my neighbor brought, my friend's uncle's 8 person tent, my friend's 70's era blue and yellow canvas tent with fringed canopy, a cook tent plus the horse trailer and temporary corral. Two 14 year olds got their first elk on that trip. But that whole area in the Elkhead mountains looked like a camo-clad refugee camp. Too many people for me, I like a little more solitude with my camps. Just a hanful of friends in the middle of nowhere is about right for me right now.
But this past November in Maine, in an established camp with my best friend from middle and high school, his wife and daughter(my goddaughter), plus a half dozen his in-laws on his first hunt was a fantastic experience. I'm hoping to go back to that one and am putting in for moose in Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire to go tromp the woods with those boys.
This coming year is geared a little more towards a 2-4 man, middle of nowhere type of experience in Colorado (early high country deer on horse with my friend, 1st season wilderness elk, 3rd season wilderness deer for me). But we've also got a big 6-8 man antelope and deer hunt in Wyoming planned. And then I'm going to give the backpack hunt another whirl, this time in Idaho. For that hunt, I don't really want to go alone, but so far, no one else is coming.

I guess I've had lots of varying degrees of "hunting camps" over my 14 hunting seasons. I'm sure there will be just as many variations on the same thing over the next 14 years also. I'm on a quest to harvest to harvest a deer in every state and an elk in all western states, so while the scenery may change a little bit, they all seem to have a few common elements. Sometimes just my dog Colter, sometimes old friends, some new friends, but always working together on the quest.

Thanks for letting me share,
Mark