Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Your very own campsite/ deer camp

Aside from the whole fish camp thing. Which is still ongoing…


For anyone on some private land, do you have a weekender plot, a bare patch of ground that you can go do some weekend camping.

Primitive as in no septic or electric


A place not necessarily your deer camp but also a place where you can just go shoot pistols or whatnot, set up a camper or tent, maybe you have a permanent fire ring there.

What else and care to share?



I built a place here on the back of our land with cables tied off, a couple of lantern posts, log rounds to sit on. Scraped off clean for two vehicles, and a camp area.

I am considering making another site on another property. With an open air, metal roof covering for shade and kitchen. Maybe 16x 20.

Could also serve as a break area with rough tables. Maybe haul out a clay pigeon slinger.

At night, adult beverages, cigars,

Can anyone share details or pics?

And don’t pics of Yellowstone lodge or Cracker Barrel front porch.

We had a lease from 91-2000 in the next county. No power down that way so we just built a tin top shelter like you mentioned. In 95 I turned 16 and me and my buddies would go down and camp for the weekend. We would wrap a couple tarps around the lean to and fire up propane heat to get it warm enough to sleep. Would sit by the fire pit up until that point. Always woke up freezing 😂😂😂 and propane would make everything sweat. Dad would just drive in that morning and hunt and go back home 😂😂. My grandfather would come down, cook a big lunch, hope the neighbor clubs dogs would run one past then go home.

I remember sitting in a stand and I could tell when he would show up. Dropping tailgates, banging pots a little. He just did it to aggravate me as it never messed my hunts up. Lost him 12 years ago.

We got an old shotgun house that was about to be torn down for free years ago. Used my uncle’s railroad car jacks, lord only knows where he got those, to jack it up and backed a deckover under it. Moved it 9 1/2 miles down the highway early on a Sunday morning sans permits or flaggers or any of that nonsense.

Set it down on pilings in the edge of the hay meadow beside the creek and commenced to gut and remodel it. No water or electricity, we did plumb in gas lights. Furnished it with hand me down dining table and army cot sized spring beds. Put a cheap wood burner from Sutherlands home center in it hooked to the original chimney.

Steel plates and clangers out back for shooting pistols and 22s out to 75 yards, pigeon throwers we can set up our over the hay field, rifle range to probably 750-800 across the creek.

We have a fire pit out back with chairs and a picnic table or two, weenie roasting sticks hanging on a rack by the pit. My late Grandmom’s absolute favorite thing to do in later years was to get all her sons and their families and roast a hotdog and visit around the fire on Sunday evenings.

Have had many Easter dinners for friends and family out there, everyone brings a dish and puts it on the long tables inside and people file through to fill their plates and go out to eat at the picnic tables.

The last 4 years my son and I have made it our tradition to spend the night before the rifle opener in the cabin playing dominoes and eating a pizza from the drive through while we listen to the stove crackle. Being in a hole with no phone service makes it that much better.

It’s one of my favorite places on earth where some of my favorite childhood memories were made.



And we usually manage to rustle up one of these close by come fall.

That last photo is priceless!

My old man has a spot set up with a small travel trailer and a home made septic out in the redwoods about 500 yards away from the main house. Has a tin roof carport kind of deal built over the top....has power so not super primitive but it also has a huge fire pit... a giant tree house that was built out of scrap wood over the years.... big bbq.... we call it the campground.... his place is on the N. Ca coast so the weather is always cool and rainy/foggy. Cool spot for whoever.... family or friends come to visit....they can stay there...do their own thing.....cool set up.

Morning view from the fire ring. Cibola County, NM.



Been getting a lot of rain out there this summer.

My wife and I recently bought some Vacant land near Show Low, AZ. It's 40 acres but has 600 acres of Public Land bordering on one side. Hope to build a small cabin on it eventually. For now, I've only camped their once with some friends. Had a good time slinging clay pigeons off the little hills on the land and shooting our shotguns...Also, rode on lots of 4 wheeler/ ATV trails in the area....My only drawback with building something on it now is I don't have enough vacation time, and I can't leave anything on the land anyone can drive off with. It's a really beautiful area of Arizona near the White Mountains, but lots of tweakers and deadbeats around that like to take off with other people's property if it isn't bolted down or chained up.

No doubt

Got a batch tweakers 1/2 down the road from my intended site.


Thus my intentions on bare bones. They’ve already stolen an old crapped out riding mower. I guess for the scrap metal.

40 acre parcels and Arizona are a bad combo right now. for that very reason.

I'll make a piture of the camo tarp tied to the side of my van,, down by the river when I sober up

"Birth of a Deer Camp" sticky thread in the Deer subforum gotta lot of info over the years.

The ranchers that live down the road from our land are both retired law enforcement luckily, but even they say their has been issues when they had to leave their property for an extended time...It sucks, but we got the land literally dirt cheap, some older couple in Kansas bought it back in the late 70's and never used it or even visited it so just put it up for sale. We got it for 20k, so figure if I never use it for anything other than camping it still may turn into a decent investment in the future..

One bonus with owning the land is their is elk moving into the area where the land is, and we can get a landowner tag without having to draw a tag. They are trying to rid the area of elk for the farmers around there, but not having too much success getting rid of them..I hope the herd keeps growing. There is a lot of Antelope, and a low density muley population in the area too.

I've shared pics of my place. It's a cabin in the woods. No well, no septic, no electricity unless you run a generator. Fire ring, there's an old gravel pit we use for pistol fun or just about anything on the 120 acres.

You could easily set up a camper or tent I suppose - just about anywhere you want but we don't - because, cabin.

Yeppers!
I just step out the back door.
There was a time when no toilet and no electric didn't bother me.
My old crippled up butt and 73 years old. That she-I-tee is for the young guys! I've had my share.
For me anymore, "roughing it" is outside in 90° weather.

This was to be our 'camp' but before I finished building it we had an offer on our house and land from someone that heard we may be selling it in the not too distant future.
It switched immediately from a planned cabin/bunkhouse to a storage bldg with a small deck.
Pic taken from the front porch of the house we built on what was to be our getaway place.

Complete with a tiny pond, Fish Camp?

I bought 350 acres less than an hour from home about 10 years ago

It’s evolved into my own personal escape. 40x40 metal building part of which is a 25x20 bunk room with a full bath, a small kitchenette and a mini-split HVAC. And Wi-Fi. The rest is storage.

This past year I built another 24x60 open equipment shed (which amazingly is already full) and had a 16x16 cedar lumber cabana built around an old fireplace/chimney that was left over from a home years ago. Also converted a small equipment shed to a skinning shed complete with an 800lb electric hoist, running water and a meat cleaning table

Out back I have the ability to shoot to 100 yards with a rifle and also have some steel pistol targets and turkey gun patterning setup to 40 yards

All of the above is less than 100 yards inside my gate. On the far end of the property I have a rifle range with covered shooting benches and targets to 400 yards

Just typing all of that makes me realize how much I’ve done in 10+ years. It never felt like too much at once but I’ve always had a project of some sort going on.

2005, bought 45 acres of woods, creek bottom and 20 years of accumulated trash and farm parts. Old pole barn, shabby garage. The two boys, two nephews and I cleaned it up, put in an old camper and finally turned the garage into a cabin.
Five acres of food plots, two towers, and eight ladder stands. I'm to the point that I can get a few days hunting and the kids take care of the maintenance.
Permanent fire ring, log chairs, sighting range, and a place to sleep.
Worth easily twice what I paid.
Goes to the boys on my demise.
Totally worth it.
Deer, turkey, dove, squirrel, coyote, walnuts, shrooms, and a bobcat.

Mine is an old cab-over camper in the Hill Country.Coleman lanterns ,washing water from a cistern. Looking forward to opening week.

Public land a plenty

pick UR spot

roof may leak here