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What are some of your deer hunting traditions whether it be your own or passed down thru the generations?

Not much of a tradition, but I like to celebrate a successful hunt with a backstrap dinner that evening if I'm back in time or the next day.

I always thank the good lord when I kill a good one and always where my lucky threadbare hunting pants

About the only thing I can think of is that I always leave my fired brass where it falls.

Who still gets the shakes when you here a buck grunting on a frosty morning and see horns coming through the woods

I watch Jeremiah Johnson repeatedly until I can recite every Will Geer line without hesitation.

I do the same thing for the trout opener except its Jaws and Robert Shaw.

Watch your top knot.

Can ya skin griz?

Another thing I do is rub my hat on the horns of the bucks I've killed before I leave maybe we should start a superstition thread

Watch yur'oan

When my cousin had his towing business and I stayed at his place the night before the opener, it was get up in the middle of the night and help him pull someone out of a ditch or untangle a couple vehicles. Glad that one is no longer going.

Hit of Wild Turkey in the evening after shooting a Deer. About the only time I care to drink anymore.

Running around the house at 2am looking for hunting equipment license etc I forgot to get ready.

Not just deer hunting, but hunting in general, my family won't hunt on Easter or Christmas Day.
My paternal grandma might come out of the grave to thrash us!

Our only tradition is " The Grand Prayer" at deer camp. It is usually Saturday night, sometimes Friday night though. We thank God for our deer camp of 27 years, and pray we have a safe and successful hunt. It is rarely successful but has alway been safe however. For quite a few yrs we had " Deer camp Stew" on one of the nights of gun season. It has been a few year and forgot about it till just now.

the "Week before" detailed preparation.

I really don't give it a lot of thought until then. I shoot so much during the year that the sighting-in is just another shooting session.

Then, there's the decommissioning. But that's just so I can find things next year...

Pennsylvania's deer hunting heritage is richly steeped in tradition. More than one nimrod on his first hunt has walked in from the end of a logging road somewhere when he was taken on a Pa. snipe hunt.

Then there's the Pennsylvania Deer Sinch which is found in many Pa. deer camps. The Deer Sinch is a wrought iron rod with a barbed point on one end and a loop or ring welded to the other end. Legend goes that you stick the point up a deer's arse, and put the ring over a fence post. Come back to that spot on opening morning and it's a sinch to get a deer.

Sunday before opener eveyone gathers at the one camp on the hill that has a working tv and watches the Steelers. On a good night, you get away from the card table with a handfull of change left. Acey-Ducey, 5 card draw, 7 card stud and Screw Your Neighbor. A nickel to open, dime to raise, and a quarter to call.

Miss a deer in some camps, and your shirt tail goes up on the Wall of Shame. And everyone throws a dollar in the big buck pot. Biggest buck rakes in the cash.

The food is always great, and in huge proportions. Friday night before the opener is fish fry night. Nothing like 40 lbs.of Lake Erie perch and walleye to feed the crew, the neighbor's crew, the locals, the game warden, and anyone else who wanders in. Sunday is always the big spaghetti feed, and you'd better come hungry.

We clean out my barn and have what we call the "hunters party" the night before the firearm opener. rules are: I have a campfire, grill and smoker to cook food. bring dish to pass, meat to cook, a bag of chips or nothing. we are not women and if you show up empty handed you are still welcome. rule 2: BYOB. rule 3: everybody OUT at 10:00pm, I got to hunt the next day and need my sleep.

On the night of the Opener, I have been reading a toast from a novel I wrote about a decade ago with help from kind folks here at the Campfire.

It used to be done in conjunction with KYHillChick's serving of a wonderful venison roast, the recipe was supposedly Henry VIII's favorite dish. Sadly, KYHillChick has been unable to make it to The Opener for few years due to her work. It also got to be a bit problematic. The dish is very rich, and it did not play out well, when we'd come in from dealing with the insides of deer.

Here's the recipe:
Henry VIII's favorite dish

Here's the toast:




The gist of the plot at this point in the novel is a college student follows his English professor out deer hunting. The line is delivered as the professor is coming up on the student, who's just shot a nice 6 pointer. The chapter ends with:



I went to wake Angus the other morning down at Deer Camp. He'd taken a deer the day before, and decided not to go out. Upon asking him his intentions, he replied, " I am going to lie in bed and hold my manhood cheap."