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

We don't know what our plans are yet. Ellie's 18U fastpitch team is on the call list for openings for the Ring Neck fastpitch tournament in Sioux Falls. We may get the call as late as Friday morning and have games Friday night, with us being here in the Twin Cities, it will be a mad dash to get out there in time. The girls have been told to be packed and ready to go if the call comes. We'll worry about hotel rooms when we get there, or have someone working the phones while we're driving out there to find lodging. If nothing else, someone will put us up out there. The folks we know would never turn their backs on a team in need. Coaches screwed up and forgot to mail our entry fee, so we're "on the bubble." We've made some great friends out there over the last 10 years, and hope we end up going, but if don't, plan B appears to be a couple day trips around our area down here and some work on the house.

My and my lady friend were going to go fishing this morning but we found a dresser she wants to restore so we're headed out to pick it up before we hit the lake.

Then I'm wetting a line for the first time this year. Couldn't care less if I catch a fish today. It's 75*, light breeze, sun is shining....Yep, I'll be on the lake!

Spent yesterday shooting the BB gun with the kids....well rather they shot, I coached. Then a first time solo on the Polaris 90 four wheeler for the boys. I had that governed down until it barely ran! Then hit the lake for some fishing and came home with a mixed bag of walleyes and crappies. Good times with the kids. Today, off to the Vikingland Band Parade. Not exactly my idea of a good time, but the wife wants to go so I will be there.

Ahh, summertime in Minn-e-sotah! good times for sure!

so your daughters been cleared to play?

GREAT day today!! Picked up a dresser for ms. April to restore, hit the lake for some boat trials and wet a line. Boat landing was absolutely nuts but man...what a day on the water! Caught some bass, pike, and even a bluegill on a no. 11 jointed rapala. First time for that!

Just a perfect day

Thanks for the kind words! It's nice to feel welcome.

I've kinda felt a kinship with you guys since I first read thisnthing all the way through the first time. I lost my little brother 3 months before Waylon's tragic accident. It was one of those early April days where we got some light blowing snow after a couple of days of rain. The roads were a bit greasy in the morning. Jeep Cherokee vs. fully loaded cement truck. I got the call and had to tell our parents, my other brother who was in Florida on vaca and my sister who lives on the other side of the Big Lake. Not fun. He hung on six days for us. He left with us around him telling him it's OK and that we'd be together further on down the road.

Corey was a good man. He was a month younger than Dave and Waylon. We hunted together, fished and camped, you name it-anything outdoors is where he wanted to be. He went into the Army to pay for school. Little did he know Sadam wanted to own Kuwait. Only he found himself in Korea for a year instead. He thought he was good, but upon his return he went into 5th Group SF. He never would share anything he did when he was with them. He got out and went to college, got his biology degree and
set forth trying to clean up environmental disasters. He said he'd never be a millionaire, but he was happy what he was doing.

His passing was the slow death of our deer camp as he was an integral part of our 30+ year deer, duck, and trout camp. Every camp has a guy who is sort of the "glue". He was that guy. The first season after he passed one of the guys put his boots and hat on the fireplace mantel. It was too much for my dad. He never hunted again. Another guy couldn't lay off the bottle while hunting and we had to give him his walking papers; he took another guy with him. Sadly, our 30 year camp is falling apart. My other brother and a few others are left.

But I am a "glass is half full" kind of guy. We still have a good core group. I have a couple of boys, one who is 11 and loves duck hunting. When I read the first dozen pages of this thread it gives me hope. When I read it all the way and then the day to day posts, well by god, there's healing going on. And it all seems to center around
Chickenbuck. One picture says it all and that's Uncle Dusty's tattoo.

So I have ten acres up north in the middle of nowhere deer country with nothing on it...

I think the family is staying in a yurt for the Fourth. Not exactly sure what a yurt is other than some sort of Mongol tent...I think. The Boss set this one up. I'm bringing an extra tent just in case. If we're living like Mongols, then we're going to eat like Mongols. I see plenty of meat on the menu. And if we need veggies I'll go the potato chip route.

First time camping this year and the mosquitos are so thick they need landing clearance from the FAA. Wonder if the Mongols used Thermocell?

Charlie,

Thanks for sharing your story here. So many deer camps go through this process. Our camp has been doing the slow fade for quite some time now. When my dad passed, it was just a matter of time. I hope you are able to keep your camp going, as there is nothing like the bonds and traditions that come with deer camp. Welcome to the Fire.

If Mongols had thermocells, they'd use them.

Charliefoxtrot,
"Nuther" damn good post. Thanks for the background.
You gonna fit in just fine here.Stick around.

Stan in SC

It's my best friend's birthday today.

He would have been 43 today.

Ahhh yes, someone who's been to the dance before.



I like where your head's at on this one.

Happy Birthday Waylon. Keep your tip up and your line tight up there.

Steve, I'm sure many camps have faded away like yours did. I'm sure a few started like Dave and Pam's did as well.

I'm not sure if I've ever shared this on here or not. If I have, sorry, if not...sorry anyway.

My uncle Jeff had a camp in Alborn, MN in the late 70's-mid 80's. Camp was Jeff, Uncle Rick, and my Dad. It was a cool place on 40acres. It was an octagon, had water(well)/electrical, but still pretty "rustic." No plumbing, the water was heated on the stove and the dish water ran outside into 5 gal pails, out house, deer racks on the facia...typical MN camp.

Jeff decided to sell the camp to pay for his wedding and my dad and Rick could not afford to buy him out. The new owner was going to build a house on the property but said they could use the place for a few years to hunt.

My uncle Rick was like a father to me. We were very close. He would be at our house at 6am wheter we wanted to go or not... Rick was there. I was not able to legally hunt yet, but I had a bb gun was was in the deer stands, walking the trails, clearing brush, pushing bush for deer, scouting...everything that one does for hunting without carrying a gun. We were fishing, bird hunting, deer hunting, camping, anything outdoors.

In 1986 Rick was diagnosed with Leukeima. We were devestated, me especially. He went through a long treatment process and it went into remission In 88 he was once again able to hunt. The "camp" was gone but we had a camper that we used and hunted the same area in Alborn. We didn't get a deer that year, but I remember almost everything we did together that season. It sounds weird, but I do. I remember it like yesterday. I remember setting out mock scrapes on the firday before the season started in the back of the gravel pit the camper was in, the campfire we had that night, the brats we cooked over the fire, going to bed and waking up to 4" of fresh fluffy snow...like it happened yesterday. I remember the excitement of walking with him along the woods line early the next day (opening day) and seeing the dirt of the scrape "glow" from the snow that was scraped off it sometime in the last few hours.

Rick's cancer came back with a vengance later the next spring and he was dead by May of 1989. A few weeks before my 12th birthday, the year I finally got to hunt for real with him... I didn't know what to do, where to turn, or how to handle any of it...Hell I was 12.

My dad didn't have any desire to hunt anymore. He took me, but didn't want to go. Dad hasn't hunted since 1990. He called a buddy that had some land on the Iron Range and he said I could hunt there and I did, for the next 20 years.

I shot a lot of deer there and some dandy bucks through the years. But as things happen the land owner's adult kids started to hunt there. They were grown up when I started and they didn't have an intrest then but did 15 years later. I was only allowed to sit in one stand and not move around because I'd "spook" all the deer. They started to bait their stands (not legal) so I'd not see deer, silly games like that. Well the last two years I hunted there, I shot a 9pt and 6pt even though they tried everything to not have deer by me. They got mad, and it wasn't fun anymore.

In 2009 I was invited to hunt up at Chickenbuck and I think I've hunted at least one deer season of some sort ever since. I'm pround to be allowed there. Happy to be part of a camp and have been inviting myself back to eat Dave's ribs ever since.

I'm thankful to have met Dave and Pam. Uncle Dusty, Missy, Preacher Joe, Weezy, Nate, Justin, Kenna, Makes no Patties, Big Jelly, Toumor buck, White Bear, Busch Pilot, Lester, Tommy, Colorado1135and all the other boys and girls that come up.

It is something I truly look forward too every year. Even when we work up there, its fun. I wish I lived closer so I could go a lot more...but maybe Dave and Pam did that by design.

Happy Birthday, Waylon.

Dave, I'm sure Waylon is looking down from above and saying "Cuz, I'm proud as hell of you for what you've done".

we drove out to the cabin yesterday with the old yeller plow truck, parked it at the cabin. Then we loaded the blue tractor on the trailer to bring home for some work we need to do before selling our place.

I kept a sharp eye out for berries, scanning the blue berry and choke cherry situation. Both look fantastic. Especially the blue berries.

I'd say another 3 weeks and we'll be in berry picking mode.

I wish there was a way to get a gallon of berries out here. man I miss those!

I suppose I could put them in a cooler and drive them out there.

Next weekend I'm going to start a push to get the old blue 78 ford finished. I'd like to have that on the road by mid September. I think I can do it If I bust ass for a month of weekends I think I'll have it.

I'd like to work the bugs out and haul the wheeler up to Chickenbuck in the back of that old truck.

That'd be great, I'd like to get a weekend planned for wheelin and berry picking before then too though.