Favorite Memories from Deer Camp

I went my first 5 years hunting with my buddies. Then they all started dying off, and in short order I was hunting alone. It took two wives and 15 years to get me back to the point where I had two sons to hunt with, and a deer camp I could call my own. I literally had to go out and breed my deer camp from the ground up. Our first deer camp was convened in the fall of 2001 with me as the patriarch. Mooseboy was 9. Little Angus was only 3, and had not yet taken up the bagpipes.

My favorite memories to date:

Taking my first buck on the place with #2 son, Mooseboy, with me in the stand: Spike, The Wonder Buck

Taking The Big One in 2003: The Savage Spoke. . .
Taking the next Big One in 2007: The Savage Spoke Again. . .

Mooseboy’s first deer hunt in 2002

Angus’ first buck in 2010: Angus Bags a Buck
. . . and introducing my dear friend and old boss, SuperCore, to deer hunting

Most of these were reported on either here on on the old Shooters.com or way back on AllOutdoors.com

Then there are so many little things that never get shared with y’all:

Sitting out a Sunday morning after tagging out on Saturday, sipping coffee and listening to the rest of the world hunting

Driving to Lennoxburg to drop a deer off at Myers Store. Sadly, Myers is closed now. I’ll miss my talks with Jake.

Sitting out back at the Thoughtful Spot in the dark and listening for that last finishing shot coming from off on the next ridge

Slumping into a chair in the moonlight, with a big one up on the pole and everything about me still smelling of a deer’s inside, and someone handing me a few fingers of scotch in a beaker, a glass of lemonade and some ibuprofen.

Waking the crew up on the Opener with either bagpipes, Men of Harlech or some good German drinking song like Panzerlied or that one they sing in The Enemy Below.
The Opening Night Toast:

“He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d, And point a finger at his mounted antlers saying ‘These wounds! These wounds, I gave on Opening Day!’ For he today that sheds blood with me shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile. This day shall gentle his condition. And Gentlemen all now in bed shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks that hunted with us on Opening Day.”

Sitting in my stand in 2010, listening to Moose and SuperCore orchestrate the removal of a deer from the bottom of Dead Skunk Hollow without my intervention. I realized then and there that the torch had been passed.

Things have changed a lot in 11 seasons. Here’s how the place looks today: