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

Well I saw the same two bucks this afternoon, BigBoy is definately a 160 inch range. Had him in for a full 10 minutes at 75 yards or so this afternoon. Can't wait to bring out the leverguns next weekend!!! I had to come in I was SOOO cold, I moved a stand for the afternoon hunt and got sweaty then sat till 4;30 when the Bigguy left so did I my teeth were chattering.. BRRRR still cold now..

Way to go Rooster and Mrs. Rooster!!!!

Stan

Alright Rooster and Special K! Way to go. Hopefully you have some pics to post for us soon.

I got a decent 9pt at a little before 2 on saturday, while the other clowns decided to stay in and take a nap. I thought I'd go sit, ya know, being deer season and all.

Congrats to you guys on the buck. Very cool.

Tom

Good going,Tzone!

Stan

Thanks guys! We did not have a camera with but our cousin got some pics. We will get ahold of them and see what we can do about getting them posted. They are not the biggest bucks in the woods but like I told Karen "your first deer is a trophy no matter what the size is." As for me I was planning on holding off since there is still bow season and muzzle loader but to shoot both our deer at practically the same time and share in that moment was worth it.

Wabo - I want to see pics of that 160incher. Soon!

TZone - Good Job man! We want pics of that 9 point too!

Stan - Hang in there buddy! There is always next year and health is more important than any deer!

Dave and Pam - Get them dang deer dang it!

Must be taking a long time to drag ole forky toes outa tha woods.Yeah,youbetcha.

Stan

Congrats TZone, Way to go!!!!!

Rooster, I have gotten WAY PAST the size of the antlers to make a trophy. My BEST day hunting was with kiddo on her day of youth season about a week ago. You and Your wifes deer are Trophy's like no other.. Nomatter what don't think anything other..

I'll keep trying for the BigBoy I saw yesterday but that doesn't mean I'm holding nomatter what. I may just happen to shoot the first legal buck to come by if he feels right, especially if one of the kids is along.

Now where is that Krazy rutty ole Dave and family anyway? We need to hear the stories of the weekend Dave!!!!

Well were do I start? I guess first of Stan I'm very sorry to hear you have to sit this one out but thank you very much for the well wishing & such, next season is just around the corner & you'll be 100% by then.

Tzone! you broke the 8 point curse!! 9!! Good job!!

Rooster & special K good job with the 2 bucks!! Jim you gotta stop using guns as traction devices though, I mean come on man, use some branches or something to stuff under the tires when you get your chevy stuck, not guns!! That's going to get expensive! LOL!!

Wabo, I hope you see that big buck again during rifle season, good luck.

Well we had a tough weekend of hunting, north wind blew hard & steady which seemed to really keep the deer down. We saw very few deer all weekend, most that we saw we pushed up out of beds & sent running in the wrong direction where nobody was posting.

We sure had fun though, good food, good stories, lots of laughes, a few beers if you can believe that

My uncle brought that elk heart up to camp that he had pickled, Boy that turned out really good!

We also did some elk backstrap & potatos on the grill, my aunt sent up a heaping tub of cookies that were fantastic!! Thanks very much!!

You see, I can thank her on the thread here because I have learned that my aunt & uncle have found & do read the thread here. I hadn't told them about it bacause I guess I felt a little silly about it but they did find it & my uncle said he read the whole thing from begining to end & the only problem he had with it was the fact that I never told him about it

He was pretty ticked off at me for never telling him!!

Well I guess I just didn't know what he would think of it, I'm glad he likes it though.

Anyways, we had a full camp with youngsters everywhere, my little guy (Mr. Chickenbuck) really takes to my uncle & he had plenty of time to tell him all about chicken bucks, flying bears & swamp squids. They went for a couple of rides in the pickup together looking for deer in the forest & I guess at one point my uncle spotted a huge pine that had the top busted off & hanging over. He pointed it out to "Short Mag" & I guess the little guy didn't as much as blink or hesitate in stating the fact that "yep, flying bear must have hit that tree."

Always good for a laugh.

My nephew came up, he hunted hard. He passed on a spike opening morning & he got shamed with the deer camp shame stick for shooting at & missing a running buck that he saw at about 250 yds.

I'm editing here now because I lost everything I wrote about the pictures below Grrr!

OK, I'll try again.

We had our two nieces up with there mom too, oldest niece sat with my daughter in Pam's heated stand but the 2 of them giggle uncontrollably when you put them together so the deer were safe from them

My youngest niece went on a still hunt with me one morning. She became quite the little scout often taking a knee to scan below the pine branches for deer legs or movement.

The kids�s mom cooked us a good breakfast Sunday morning & it�s always nice to see that the smoke alarm batteries still work

The camp thinned out Sunday night & it was down to just me & my 2 oldest kids for Sunday night & Monday morning. We did get some visitors Sunday though. Twistedone from the forum here stopped by with his group, we had a few beers & visited, shared stories from the weekend & such.

Monday morning my daughter took the heated stand & me & my boy took an open 2 person stand. We heard a deer that morning, real close too but it never showed itself to us.

For the evening we switched, my daughter had come in from sitting in Pam�s stand so me & my boy decided we might as well have a turn.

So up we went into the heated 2 person stand for the first time, boy was that nice.

It was more of the same, dead woods, nothing moving. Until about 4:50 PM

I spotted legs strolling through the brush ahead of us , I nudged my boy & whispered �deer coming in, straight ahead�. I had the slider window in front of me open already, my boy�s side was closed. It was a doe with a button buck following, they were coming in fairly fast. She was alert, there was no time to get my boy�s slider window open & he also had to cycle a round. It was too much noise to risk as alert as she was. I decided to take her , she was only 30 yds out & facing us straight on, she dropped her head to the ground & I settled in on the top base of her neck & sent one through her spine & down through her heart. She folded, not as much as a wiggle.

I was hoping the button buck would stand for a minute allowing for a second shot, I knew if the doe busted us she would have bolted & the button buck would have followed. I told my boy to chamber a round as & helped get his window open. I covered the little deer as he took aim just in case something went wrong with the shot. He wasted no time placing his shot & tripping the trigger. I watched the deer go down in my scope & it began to do the dreaded wail �bleeeaa� I was still on him & decided to silence that wail quickly as it�s not a good thing to experience especially on your first deer.

Talk about a happy boy, I grabbed him by his face with both hands & gave him a big kiss on the cheek. Big hug & pat on the back, he was absolutely shaking with excitement. He went on & on about how fun it was watching mine drop straight down then his doing the same. He talked about how he didn�t even feel the gun kick & all of that� Very happy kid.

He ran back to get a 4 wheeler to haul them out & my daughter joined him when he returned. She was very proud of her little brother & happy for both of us even though it was from the stand that she had just left.

That made me pretty proud of her.

She took these pictures for us.








I gotta go, more later.

Dave

congrats on the fine hunt dave, your lucky to get the kids involved. mine are a wee bit young yet but my 6yr old gets all teary eyed when i leave for camp. he loves going out. he was with grandpa road hunting yesterday and made up his own deer hunting song and i must say it was pretty good! i'll be taking him out to the big stand one of these days as well. but for other stories now, lestifer and i were off to sit in the stands yesterday at 2:00, going to put some seat time in out in the open air. when we turned the corner where i was to get out when 2 does came running out of the woods on the other side of the road and then a dandy buck was on there trail, i about rolled out of the truck and a few giant leaps across the ditch and i was out in the field where the deer were. i didn't seem to be any bother to that buck, i knelt down to get a steady eye on him and KABOOM!! i let one go and he hunched up. He was standing broadside looking kinda funny so i placed another in him and he went down. I am thinking this is pretty cool, lestifer parks the truck and gets his knife out and i am walking over to him, the deer bolts up and heads for the woods again!! I am like why didn't you jump on him, he says why didn't you shoot him. well, a good blood trail took us in the woods and a few hundred yards in there he was, hiding under a big pine scanning the area. i placed a final shot and he tipped over. it was just about done then. well, it was a nice 8pt that went 180lbs. He wasn't the one i was looking for as i have been getting 8's and want to graduate. it was a fun hunt, he was taken care of and loaded up and we still made evening post where all i had in front of me were 7 fawns, the hunt will continue today, i'll be back at camp for the rest of the week wednsday night. How much fun it is. we just about stopped over but ran out of time. wish i would have. we'll make it out yet. Hows the road!

WOW Dave, Congrats to you and the boy!!!! Great story Love how you are getting the kids out and making this an entire family event. Your inspiring to say the least... Keep up the good work!

I better get back to the real work now too..lol..

Good job & congrats on the buck. The road looks terrible, like you'd never make it in there without a monster truck or something but you can actually just crawl right in there. There is kind of an ice chunk soup thing going on there, like I said it looks aweful but I've actually been crawling through it with the truck in 2 wheel drive so don't let it keep you from coming on in.

I'm thinking about heading back out there thursday night & taking friday off work.

now your talking!! Take friday off. we've got the 8, a 10, and 5 does so far. not to bad. kinda slow yet though. it sounds about like what our road has turned into as well. freeze up has helped the travel and a couple times over with the tractor and blade helped. we will shoot for friday to come out. lots of places to get to yet. we've hardly left camp this year yet. actually hunting pretty hard.

Sounds like you had a good opening weekend dave. The whole family did it looks like.

Great job on the father/son deer kill combo. Very cool. Short Mag sounds like he's ready to hit the woods pretty quick.

My mini man wants to go now. He tried to help as much as he could yesterday with the butchering process.

Here is a pic of the buckaroo.

15" wide, the longer brow tine is 10" long, the shorter one is 7". He weighed in a 177# at Charlstrom's in Island Lake. He had no fat or tallow on his hips left, but some on his ribs and back.

[img][IMG]http://i474.photobucket.com/albums/rr102/tzone777/IMG_2201.jpg[/img][/img]

Very cool Tom.

Weezy almost got a shot at a buck last night. she grunted him in out of the swamp. after listening to him coming crushing ice & sticks all the way he finally started to show himself. Stuck his head out & she says she was waiting for one more step, waiting to see at least some neck but he paused, then must have winded her cause i guess he bolted straight back the way he came from. She says he was a 6, would have been pretty cool for her.

tell wheezy not to worry. She has some time yet this year. I didn't see any does while hunting, but the does I did see on the roads and such, didn't have any bucks with them. They may not be chasing yet, just looking.

I've never grunted one in before, that's pretty cool she did that.

I was going to grunt to stop the one I got, but my saftey did the stopping. He was only 15yds when I hit the go switch, so a grunt may have sent him into the next county.

Tom

Woo hoooo! Good job Nate! I'll have to pull the thread up tonight at home so Colby can see your deer! I'm gonna have to get that boy shootin more so he can keep up with ya next year!

Weezy - Hang in there girl! Good things (like forkey toed bucks) come to those who wait!

T-Zone and Bushy - Good job on those bucks! Nice pic Tom!

YEAH, YEAH, YEAH

Special K thought I was nuts for putting that detail in there. I thought maybe if I write it down I won't ever be that dumb again......but I doubt it.

You know Dave I admire truely do Admire you and your family, getting Weezy,the chickenbuckboy, The Boy, Shortmag,Pam, the Uncle Northern Dave and the Aunt NorthernDave all involved in The deer camp.

Hi Dave's Aunt and Uncle I hope you do read this. My hat is off to you and your family. As these are the things dreams are made of.

Eachnight I fall asleep thinking of how I can find a way to build a camp and find a way to get more of my family involved in a place like that. Each night I wonder what has happened over the years to my old deer hunting friends and family who have dropped out over the years.

My camp now consist of just me and my daughter, oh I meet up with my Bro in law and his cousin but we never stay the night like we used to. Both of thier Dads have dropped out of hanging around due to age and my Dad was never interested too much in my hunting. One of my cousins now refuses to sleep anywhere else other then his house. Those who were once there are now gone either by choice or they think a warm bed in thier own house with a TV is better.

I'm convincing my wife now that its time to get her and my youngest involved. I'm talking to more of my close friends trying to get them to commit to a camp or campout place during deer season. Yet it just feels like parts of a puzzle are missing and I'm having a tough time putting them back into place.

So I wanted you to know that what you all are doing is something I'll always cheerish reading and dreaming about. Be proud Dave don't ever feel silly about sharing this thread because this is what Real Deer camps and Families are all about!!! This is what I hear the Good ole days were all about and I read many stories of.

Dave as this is also Armistice day I want to Thankyou for your service too... I am curious if you or your family remembers or has any stories of the Armistice day blizzard in 1940? Yes I do think of other things then deer camp occasionally even during rutty buck season. lol

Now back to your regularly scheduled program...

Too kind Wabo, too kind

This camp interest you have is obviously as important to you as it is to me. For many years before we were able to get started with this we dreamed of it. My reasons & yours are the same.

Life is like a book, a big long book if we're lucky. Even if a short book it's one with meaningful content, fun, love & happiness if we are lucky.

I�m living my life the way I want. Obviously deer camp has left an impression on me at a young age; enough of an impression that I felt it was worth seeking out as a life goal. Something that would bring added content & happiness to my life, my wife's, my children�s, other relatives & loved ones, grandchildren some day too.

Everybody has something that they kind of end up pouring themselves into. Sometimes it's because they think it's "so good for the kids, such a good experience".

And that's great, it really is. A lot of things can do that, sports for one. I was never really involved in sports so I wouldn't know so much but i believe it's true, good experience.

But deer camp you don't grow out of. You just keep growing into it, maturing, sharing teaching.

I saw it as such a good long term investment, an investment in quality & content of life.

I knew I had to do it. I knew when it was time to commit to the land, and then I knew when it was time to commit to the cabin on the land.





And that's why I agreed to sell my foreskin to Michael Jackson to build his new nose with.


Actually that last statement isn't true at all, I just like to make people spit there beverage up through there noses.

Did that work for anyone?

Sorry, well, not really...

Dave,

After I finished rereading your story of the weekend I just had to... In the last week I found out two more of my cousins wouldn't be making it in this year for deer season so it has really weighed heavy on my mind recently. I'm going to die trying to make this work one way or another and try to bring my family closer together while doing it too. Your family is inspiring..

Now what about my blizzard I know you speak of lizards sometimes so what about it any stories ever been told to you all of the 1940 Armistice day storm? I've read countless tails and heard a few stories from friends in Wisconsin, sounds like one heck of a storm!

One more thing I haven't heard anything about The Boy and bowhunting this year did he go yet?

TZone, That is a Dandy!!! Great Pic!!!!

Rooster, You eating any of that deer yet? My wife made some stew already with Thunderstrucks deer, ate more of it tonight. Deer meat nothing beats the memories of how you got it!!!

I had the wife pickup a new orange stocking cap for luck today they say the wind is supposed to blow in cold air on Sat with some flurries. Great for hunting I hope!!!