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

I am stealing the "shame stick" idea. We had a guy who shot a poor spike 4 times on the land next to us. The deer ran off, then one of my buddies-relatives had to finish it off with a fifth shot after it ran right up to his stand and stood there with, as he put it, a "just shoot me, and do it right this time" look.

The joke that night was "you missed one of the legs Joe....."

We showed my sister and BIL the bag omlet trick on Saturday too! We had ham, chopped onion, green, yellow and red pepper, pork sausage, bacon bits and shredded colby monteray jack cheese. Man that makes a quick delicious breakfast. Toss the bag in a pot of boiling water and 20 minutes later wa laaa you have yourself an omit!

I'm glad to see the shame stick in action. That means one thing: The deer are coming back!!!

That voo-doo looking shame stick looks to be a kinder, gentler way of dealing out shame.

In Grandpa's deer camp you got your shirt tail cut off.

We do a helluva breakfast at chickenbuck. Sometimes it's blueberry pancakes and bacon, could be eggs, sausage, hash browns, could be bag omelets... Sometimes we just freestyle and make it up as we go along.



Yesterday's breakfast.



Pepper bacon, ham, hash browns, onion, green pepper and eggs all mixed together, sprinkle some cheese on top.

We had company Sunday night, two of our favorite young ladies made the trip up to camp to visit with us. Justin's sisters "Runs in Darkness" and "Falls in Water". This is one of RID's fav breakfasts so it had to be done.

"Falls in water"(age 13) got a nice 8 pointer on a special state park hunt closer to her home on Saturday.

Very happy for her and couldn't be prouder.

She joined me on a walking route Sunday evening to a ground blind in the cedars that Tzone set up a couple of years ago. The deer did not cooperate.

We did see deer throughout the weekend though. Probably saw more deer in the fast few days than we have seen in the past 3 years combined. Not bad considering we had a very small group this year for opener.

It was very different not having Dusty at camp this year, I think everybody is doing their best to adjust to that void. Eileen and Missy brought a small urn to camp that they had arranged for delivering a portion of Dusty's ashes up to deer camp. It's resting on top of the gun cabinet for now. That was very nice of the girls to go through the trouble, the act in itself is very meaningful and symbolic of Dusty's enduring drive and enthusiasm for the camp and being with this group of family and friends that he loved being part of.

When the time is right, when we have more members of camp together, we plan to spread his ashes on the ground below his deer stand.

Overall, it was a good weekend. Our sails weren't entirely full.. we're down one very important camp member and it shows. Justin also isn't making it to camp this year as he is an expecting daddy that needs to stick close to home.

We're kind of a small group and our "fun meters" aren't pegged out like they have been in previous seasons. I'm looking to change that next weekend though, boost the fun, elevate the excitement and laughter levels a bit. I can tell you that hunting wise things don't look too bad. I do believe we have a good shot at filling a couple of tags.

There is plenty of fresh tracks, good sign and we are actually seeing some deer.

Before we left camp yesterday, I moved a ladder stand to what I think is a better stand location for an area that has been seeing heavy deer traffic. Hopefully better for the wind, concealment, sun glare... Quicker to get into without stirring up the area, it's just all around goodness.

Looks like this from the stand.



That's about 14' up in a big gnarly jackpine.

I'm hoping for Nate to pop one from this new spot.

(Or Missy, or Pam, or me...)

Man I sure muss it up there! dang old bills why do you need payin!

At the rate we're going here, I'll need to go to Chickenbuck to eat venni.

And one more thing...if you're going to hunt beaver ponds, you're going to have to deal with some beavers!

Same thing holds true here as I've learned over the years. Some beavers are nice and some just don't tolerate me!

That stick has a .308 notch in the side of it. Nature got a hand on my pass, tipped my bullet enough to deflect my shot on a doe 4 or 5 years back. It's an old dry, springy jack pine branch that resulted in a miss of my own. It actually does have a bullet notch in it. We had a shame stick at our old camp and I was meaning to put one together for this camp, I figured why not use that stick that helped me miss on a deer?

We are due to add to the decorations on the stick, it needs a coon tail or something. I think the3 one at the old camp had part of a coyote hide on it and some feathers, some other junk too.

Ours has some feathers from a big road kill bird of some kind, cant remember if it was a hawk or an owl, something that got smoked by a car anyways. Also has a few grouse feathers and some kind of blue feather that one of the kids found.

That look on your face looks like the one I had when I was a kid and peeked at my present under the Christmas tree to find a radio control A-Team van! lol

*Edit* Come to think of it, that is actually a bad memory. The dang thing didn't work so we took it back to the store and my Mom got her money back and I never did get a differet present! SUMBITCH!!

Great stuff there goalie.

I agree, very cool chevy deer hauler.

Dave,

Thanks for bringing us all up to date.

Great story & photos, as usual.

Keep up the great work.

Glad you`re seeing deer & sign this year & looking forward to the results.

Photo of Nate & the golden boy reminds me of Doug. H has bin totin the old Remmy 1895 (replica by mirkou (sp) Japan circa 1985), .30-06 and open sights, this year so far. Pretty cool when the youngens want to do it old style.

Paul.

Congrats to "Falls in Water". She'll always remember that first deer.

Great tribute to Uncle Dusty, Dave. We did the same thing with my brothers ashes.

I've had to carry the stick od shame several times. Funny, I remember the misses better than I recall some of my kills.

My first miss was the most memorible. 1971 season. Last morning, temp was around minus 20 and the wind was howling. For some unknown reason I decided that I should go out and give it one more try. I had so many clothes on I waddled out to my stand. Ten minutes on stand and my eyes were nearly frozen shut and the snot running out my nose was forming ice cycles. Looked to my right and here comes a heard of deer trotting my way. Had to be at least a dozen. They were about 100 yards out in front of me and not a horn in the lot that I could see. Than at the very back of the heard was a small fork horn. I pulled up my model 94, 30-30 with open sights and tried to hold on the buck. I was shaking from the cold so bad that I missed big time. All I had to show for the season was my empty case and my name in the camp log with the notation "One bad shot".

That's great Bill, I love hearing old hunting stories like that.

Win model 100 update - first, thanks for the help everyone.

I cleaned the bejesus out of the barrel. Used some of that Flitz shaving cream and let er soak a good hour, then scrubbed with a brush. Patch, then bore snake. Then Butches Bore shine, multiple patches and a couple of passes with the snake again. Tightened everything up, but most were rock solid already. Took her to the range and fired a fouling shot. Then I talked real nice to her and said if she'd do her part, I'd do mine and if everything works out, then she could come to camp. Well, we won't be invited to Sniper School anytime soon, but she did give me 1.25-2.00" groups and that's all I can ask of her. She's cased and ready to leave with me to camp tomorrow at 8:00am. I told her big brother, 300WM, is coming along just in case. Probably the .44 or .357 too. I think she was cool with that.

That will do.

Especially considering the 1/4 mile of creep in these triggers lol!

Good luck at camp!

It was very different not having Dusty at camp this year, I think everybody is doing their best to adjust to that void. Eileen and Missy brought a small urn to camp that they had arranged for delivering a portion of Dusty's ashes up to deer camp. It's resting on top of the gun cabinet for now. That was very nice of the girls to go through the trouble, the act in itself is very meaningful and symbolic of Dusty's enduring drive and enthusiasm for the camp and being with this group of family and friends that he loved being part of.

The first deer camp after my brothers passing, my dad put took my brothers Sorels with his blaze orange Fudd hat on top and placed them on the fireplace mantel. No words were said, but the pollen in that place really affected this grizzled group of deer hunters. Now both are gone from camp and that void is never really filled; it's just a new normal.

Good work Charlie,

That is minute of deer !

Did you try the fusions, or stick with what you were previously shooting.

Either way, great result.

I'm pullin for ya to drop one with the old girl.

Paul.

Camp Isabeela update.

In a word cold and still no deer. Did not even see any fresh tracks in the snow. It only got down to 3 last night so not as cold as they forecast.

I hope it is not like last year for me as I went to day 8 before seeing any deer.

Nice update Dave.. That food sure looks good..

Will report again tomorrow.

Man that would be tough.

That's about what my 44mag Handi Rifle shoots at 100 yards. It's more than enough for deer hunting.

Good luck with it.

Minute of deer accurate-that's for sure. Dead's dead, and the deer that's unfortunate to step in front of that 100 will never know the difference. Good job on the back to basics troubleshooting.

well I punched my archery tag for the year. had this guy come in at 20 yards, he had a little bit bigger buck with him but he was the only one who game me a shot. took out one lung, clipped the liver and put a gash in the heart. arrow went in just behind the last rib and out right behind the off shoulder. went 10 yards and I watched him do the dizzy spin and keel over about 20 seconds after the shot. went home and got the game cart and an excited 5 yer old. he rode the cart out to the deer and carried the light on the walk out. a great hunt for sure. this rack seems alittle odd don't it?