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

When I was young there were no deer to be hunted in Georgia. My dad and I small game hunted. Mainly squirrel with a .22 rifle. We got the occasional rabbit.
Deer were re-established in the 1960's and I got my first taste of deer hunting in 1974 when my now deceased friend invited me to join his deer lease hunting club in Green County, Georgia. November 15,1974 at the manly age of 33 I killed my first deer and got just completely immersed into the sport. Then you got two legal bucks limit and January first was the last day of the season and only on that day were doe legal to shoot if you had not gotten two bucks. Two deer per year limit.I also got a doe that year on January 1st. That day was also "family day" when the spouses and children were invited to hunt with you.
The club was comprised of some 600 acres, had 40 members and the culmination of the year was a dinner in late January at which time the largest buck was recognized with a trophy. I won that honor in 1977 with a large eight pointer.
I truly enjoyed the deer camp and made some long lasting friends there in the ten years I belonged to it.
There were some truly memorable times in all aspects. The Kenny Rogers movie "Coward of the county" was filed partially on club land and an adjoining land owner got a bit part in the movie and became good friends with Kenny Rogers who had a farm nearby.
We had visitors at the campfire one night and one of them turned out to be Kenny Rogers himself. He was a very nice person as I remember.
My friend moved out west and I eventually left the club in 1985.
I have belonged to several other leases since then but that was my introduction to deer clubs and deer hunting. I have very very fond memories of my experiences there. I regret not being exposed to this experience as a youngster.

Stan in SC

I kept a personal diary of hunts in Callahan and Stephens county, mainly centered around activities with my growing boys. Diary went from 1988 until 2006 and spoke not only about the hunts, the harvests and the campfire food, but about building meat poles, out houses, turning a poly steel tent into a bunkhouse and an old catering trailer into a kitchen. Unfortunately, camp one year was vandalized and the sorry thiefs took the diary. Good news is they left behind my notebook which was a record book of all the games we played at camp, like dominos. I always wrote the date, temp, dinner menu, daily hunt details and card/board game score. Back then we were in a little pop up trailer and sat at a table after the evening hunt playing games warmed by a little electric heater.

Camp tradition:

In Uncle George's camp if the hunter saved his casing from a Deer they shot, they would drive the casing into a tree that grew in front of the camp.

The camp was sold years ago. Not sure if they continued doing so.

Any of our Pennsylvania brethern familiar with the tradition of the Deer Sinch? A Deer Sinch is a wrought iron rod with a loop on one end and a barbed point on the other end, and hangs on the walls of many a deer camp. The story goes, that one takes the Deer Sinch out in the woods the day before the opener, finds a nice buck, stuffs the point up the unfortunate deer's arse, hooks the loop over the end of a fence and, when he returns the next morning, it's a "sinch" to get a deer.

Naaaa, you are kidding. Right????.

Nopers, I'm serial as a heart attacky!

....and I was joking.

It was a common piece of equipment found hanging on the walls of small sporting/hardware stores back then.

Wasn't a camp, but the home of Roy and Kate. Back in a bit, up in Tidioute. They were friends of my Mom and Dad and the first place I Deer hunted. Named my Daughter after Kate. She usually got a Deer every year and not infrequently when looking up from doing the dishes while the rest of us were climbing the hills. Shot a model 94 .32WS.

Wasn't rare back then to see 100 in a day up in that country. Often times on opening morning a string of 30-50 would walk by. Will never see it's like again.

Once we were up there and she looked out and a Squirrel was hanging on the side of a tree. Out came the .22lr. She went out, picked it up and it became part of dinner.

Turkeys back then were rare and to get one was an event. Those who consistently tagged one were local legends. Days of homemade box calls, wing bone calls, and a few slates. The Birds were also much more skittish than most of the ones we hunt today. They just didn't tolerate people all that much and where exclusively Birds of the Big Wood.

A spring season was yet to arrive and most more or less stumbled onto a Turkey.
The real Turkey hunters walked the fall woods, busted a flock and Kee-keed one back in.

If someone would have shot one with a traditional bow it probably would have been front page of the local paper.

Nobody thought about putting a scope sight on a shotgun. Pop-up blinds had yet to be thought of. Camo was your brown pants and jacket.


And in regards to the previous post, I was BSing. Herds of 80 plus were not uncommon. I just didn't want you to think I was BSing. A kid could get a lot of practice on placing the sights on a lot of Deer and calming themselves down for the shot. Just in case one was the spike or small four point. Although every year some giants made their last mistake up in that country and people would travel to see it.

Good times.

Any of you old time Pa. boys remember Rosie the Bear up around Warren and the half-Wolf cross breeds up around Kane? I never saw either but Mom, Dad and the Aunts and Uncles often would make the trip.

Probably not in that you would be pushing 100.

Never heard of Rosie, but the local hillbilly near our camp talked about a mountain lion he claimed to have seen and a raccoon he swears was 4 ft. tall at the shoulder.

I did see a white squirrel back in the woods behind camp one time. I thought about shooting it, but figured my 30-06 would probably ruin it.

I'm just curious if guys in other areas of the country have heard of the deer sinch or if this is something unique to Penn's Woods?

The Mountain Lion urban legend is big, yet close to 800,000 hunters out the first day, year after year, and nobody kills one. Hmmmm

Saw this fellow twice last year. The second time at last light. Drifting across a strip field like a ghost.

Look hard: Head, horns, chest line, back line, hips, back legs.

Can't see 'em in that pic, Battue. Heck you could tell me it's bigfoot in a mini skirt and I don't think I'd find him through all that brush!

Seen em around feed stores, and small gun shops back in the day. But haven't seen stuff like that in years. Used to see all forms of neat old stuff like horse shoe puzzles etc. freak mounts, cool old photos, back then. Seems like now a days that kind of stuff goes over the heads of the present generation.

Look thru the brush, he's there. The brightest white in the center.

Battue! That's pretty cool! I see him!

battue mentioned mountain lion in a post above. My home town is in west Georgia.The topography there is far from mountain lion country. Three or four years ago during a managed area hunt in muzzle loader season a guy shot and killed a rather large mountain lion. The feds and the state of Georgia staunchly maintain that there are NO mountain lions in the state however he saw and killed one and a big one at that.
There was an attempt by the feds to prosecute him for killing it.I never heard the outcome.
Point is you never know what you might see in the woods.

Stan in SC

Yeah-Minnesota DNR says the same thing. So I guess the one the police shot in BLOOMINGTON, a suburb of Minneapolis, was a figment of everyone's imagination. It was encountered along a trail in 9 Mile Creek Park and had to be shot-but we all know it never existed, as per the DNR......