"Top Ten Must Haves for Every Hunting Camp"
According to the latest surveys and estimates, more than 28 million Americans consider themselves “hunters.” By way of comparison, that number is higher than the total population of Texas and is almost four times the population of New York City! That’s a whole lot of folks walking into and (hopefully) out of the woods every year. All those people need places to hunt, and the places they hunt are as numerous and different as they are. While hunting camps can be as varied as the people who frequent them, certain hard and fast rules apply to all hunt clubs everywhere. No matter where you go, there are certain ubiquitous elements common among hunting camps, woven through the fabric of varying destinations like our common language. Here is a list of the top ten things every hunting camp needs if you want it to be considered the Real McCoy. Without these, it’s just a shack out in the woods.
10. Gut Bucket
Nothing says, “Hey, we kill things here” like a good old stinky gut bucket. The closer it’s kept to the camphouse the better. It must be visible at all times. There are all kinds of gut buckets and truthfully just about anything can serve as one, but if you want your camp to be let in the upper echelon without getting carded or having to pay the cover charge, nothing beats a round plastic bucket with rope handles. If you waited to sight in your rifle until a deer was standing in front of the business end of it and therefore haven’t harvested anything yet, pour some chocolate syrup in the bucket and drag it behind your truck to give it that authentic look.
9. Rocking Chairs
Telling lies and coming up with excuses is hard work. You’ll wear yourself out if you stand up all evening. Rocking chairs are comfortable, they’re country, and they’re on the front porch of just about every camp in the major outdoor magazines. Do you need any more reasons to get some?
8. 50 Gallon Drum
The utility of a 50 gallon drum cannot be overstated. All civilized households, not just hunting camps, need at least one 50 gallon drum at all times. Indispensable at the camp for building fires, collecting garbage, burning cardboard boxes, and holding corn, a .22LR round will pass right through both sides of a 50 gallon drum like a knife through butter, making it ideal for target practice, too.
7. Stuffed Bass
Like its antlered counterpart, the stuffed bass is as central a requirement for a hunting camp as whiskey and cigars. The fact that there is not a body of water within 30 miles of your property is irrelevant. Your camp needs a ten pound lunker peeling the cedar off the walls. Otherwise, please give up your lease and sell the camphouse to someone who will do it justice.
6. Maps of the Property
Aerial photos, topographical maps, and hand drawn renditions exude hunting camp-ness and serve as reminders to guests of the always present danger inherent to hunting. It is not necessary for the members to be able to read and interpret these maps. Nor is it of particular relevance that the maps themselves are completely unnecessary since most members would pour honey over themselves and sit in an ant mound before venturing into the woods beyond sight of the road. Hunters feel empowered and brilliant when they can poke a landmark on a map with the tip of a pocketknife and talk about “walkin’ down this here draw” and “hangin’ a stand over that funnel right there.”
5. Collection of Shirt Tails
Hunters miss. Usually more often than they are willing to admit. The only thing more fun to a hunter than watching someone else anguish over missing the buck of a lifetime is getting to ridicule him in front of the entire camp and cutting off his shirt tail as a reminder of his failure. Time honored tradition requires that the camp’s court be called to order, that the perpetrator’s charges be read aloud to the jury, and that promptly he be found guilty without benefit of counsel or a defense. The sentence must be swiftly meted out by depriving the condemned of his shirt tail and making him wear the shirt untucked the rest of the night so his guilt, like that of a woman branded with the Scarlet Letter, can be plain for all to see. The guilty party's name shall be written on the tattered shirt tail which shall then be pinned to the wall. This serves both as a punishment to the guilty and a deterrent to others contemplating similar behavior. If your camp does not have a collection of shirt tails it is either comprised of utter frauds or crippled by anarchy.
4. Hornets’ Nest
I have never seen a hornets’ nest in the wild, despite having spent my fair share of time in the woods. Yet, with as many of these sinister looking papery bulbs hanging in hunting camps throughout my home state of Alabama, one might think they were sold in home decorating stores. A friend once told me he acquired his camp’s hornets’ nest by shimmying up a tree and breaking it off the limb from which it hung – after throwing sticks and pine cones at it to insure it was dormant. Not sure I believe that one. I have heard stories of people shooting out hornets’ nests with .22s, or quietly sneaking up on one and wrapping it in a black garbage bag before its inhabitants could swarm and attack, but chances are most of these ornaments of prestige found their way into camp after being doused with wasp spray under the eaves of suburban homes.
3. Grill
Gar or charcoal does not matter. Real hunters cook their meat on grills, not in a pan in the kitchen. If all meals were meant to be cooked in an oven or on a stove, hunters would stay home with their spouses and there would be no such things as hunting camps. Rather, the woods would be filled with things like Drifting Petals Bird Watching Club or Windbreak Nature Trails.
2. Fires
Not every camp has a grandiose fireplace with a rail tie mantle from which proudly hangs Paw Paw’s old rabbit gun from the tusks of a Russian boar. Some camps have no fireplace at all. These junior varsity versions require some place to build and enjoy a good fire. No self-respecting hunting camp can accept the absence of a fireplace as a reason not to have one altogether. There must simply be a place for one elsewhere. Whether the camp employs a fire pit, a chiminea, or some other crafty means of generating warmth, light, and fellowship, provisions must be made out of doors for those camps who do not boast a rustic firebox and hearth. Fewer things are more spectacular than sitting on stumps around a blazing fire while lies thicker than the smoke fill the crisp night air.
1. Whitetail Trophy Mount
A whitetail trophy mount is the most important ingredient to a successful hunting camp. Even if your camp is brand new and did not exist during the most recent deer season, a mounted whitetail buck must adorn a wall or a fireplace in order for the place to have any legitimacy whatsoever. If none of your members is willing to donate a trophy mount of his own or if none of you has ever shot one, you must go find one – buy someone else’s from an unscrupulous taxidermist or outright steal the thing, but for goodness sake, hang a dead deer someplace if you expect your camp to be taken seriously.
If your place has these ten items, congratulations – it is a true hunting camp. If not, get cracking and do whatever it takes to make the cut next season.
(c) Roger Guilian 2006
10. Gut Bucket
Nothing says, “Hey, we kill things here” like a good old stinky gut bucket. The closer it’s kept to the camphouse the better. It must be visible at all times. There are all kinds of gut buckets and truthfully just about anything can serve as one, but if you want your camp to be let in the upper echelon without getting carded or having to pay the cover charge, nothing beats a round plastic bucket with rope handles. If you waited to sight in your rifle until a deer was standing in front of the business end of it and therefore haven’t harvested anything yet, pour some chocolate syrup in the bucket and drag it behind your truck to give it that authentic look.
9. Rocking Chairs
Telling lies and coming up with excuses is hard work. You’ll wear yourself out if you stand up all evening. Rocking chairs are comfortable, they’re country, and they’re on the front porch of just about every camp in the major outdoor magazines. Do you need any more reasons to get some?
8. 50 Gallon Drum
The utility of a 50 gallon drum cannot be overstated. All civilized households, not just hunting camps, need at least one 50 gallon drum at all times. Indispensable at the camp for building fires, collecting garbage, burning cardboard boxes, and holding corn, a .22LR round will pass right through both sides of a 50 gallon drum like a knife through butter, making it ideal for target practice, too.
7. Stuffed Bass
Like its antlered counterpart, the stuffed bass is as central a requirement for a hunting camp as whiskey and cigars. The fact that there is not a body of water within 30 miles of your property is irrelevant. Your camp needs a ten pound lunker peeling the cedar off the walls. Otherwise, please give up your lease and sell the camphouse to someone who will do it justice.
6. Maps of the Property
Aerial photos, topographical maps, and hand drawn renditions exude hunting camp-ness and serve as reminders to guests of the always present danger inherent to hunting. It is not necessary for the members to be able to read and interpret these maps. Nor is it of particular relevance that the maps themselves are completely unnecessary since most members would pour honey over themselves and sit in an ant mound before venturing into the woods beyond sight of the road. Hunters feel empowered and brilliant when they can poke a landmark on a map with the tip of a pocketknife and talk about “walkin’ down this here draw” and “hangin’ a stand over that funnel right there.”
5. Collection of Shirt Tails
Hunters miss. Usually more often than they are willing to admit. The only thing more fun to a hunter than watching someone else anguish over missing the buck of a lifetime is getting to ridicule him in front of the entire camp and cutting off his shirt tail as a reminder of his failure. Time honored tradition requires that the camp’s court be called to order, that the perpetrator’s charges be read aloud to the jury, and that promptly he be found guilty without benefit of counsel or a defense. The sentence must be swiftly meted out by depriving the condemned of his shirt tail and making him wear the shirt untucked the rest of the night so his guilt, like that of a woman branded with the Scarlet Letter, can be plain for all to see. The guilty party's name shall be written on the tattered shirt tail which shall then be pinned to the wall. This serves both as a punishment to the guilty and a deterrent to others contemplating similar behavior. If your camp does not have a collection of shirt tails it is either comprised of utter frauds or crippled by anarchy.
4. Hornets’ Nest
I have never seen a hornets’ nest in the wild, despite having spent my fair share of time in the woods. Yet, with as many of these sinister looking papery bulbs hanging in hunting camps throughout my home state of Alabama, one might think they were sold in home decorating stores. A friend once told me he acquired his camp’s hornets’ nest by shimmying up a tree and breaking it off the limb from which it hung – after throwing sticks and pine cones at it to insure it was dormant. Not sure I believe that one. I have heard stories of people shooting out hornets’ nests with .22s, or quietly sneaking up on one and wrapping it in a black garbage bag before its inhabitants could swarm and attack, but chances are most of these ornaments of prestige found their way into camp after being doused with wasp spray under the eaves of suburban homes.
3. Grill
Gar or charcoal does not matter. Real hunters cook their meat on grills, not in a pan in the kitchen. If all meals were meant to be cooked in an oven or on a stove, hunters would stay home with their spouses and there would be no such things as hunting camps. Rather, the woods would be filled with things like Drifting Petals Bird Watching Club or Windbreak Nature Trails.
2. Fires
Not every camp has a grandiose fireplace with a rail tie mantle from which proudly hangs Paw Paw’s old rabbit gun from the tusks of a Russian boar. Some camps have no fireplace at all. These junior varsity versions require some place to build and enjoy a good fire. No self-respecting hunting camp can accept the absence of a fireplace as a reason not to have one altogether. There must simply be a place for one elsewhere. Whether the camp employs a fire pit, a chiminea, or some other crafty means of generating warmth, light, and fellowship, provisions must be made out of doors for those camps who do not boast a rustic firebox and hearth. Fewer things are more spectacular than sitting on stumps around a blazing fire while lies thicker than the smoke fill the crisp night air.
1. Whitetail Trophy Mount
A whitetail trophy mount is the most important ingredient to a successful hunting camp. Even if your camp is brand new and did not exist during the most recent deer season, a mounted whitetail buck must adorn a wall or a fireplace in order for the place to have any legitimacy whatsoever. If none of your members is willing to donate a trophy mount of his own or if none of you has ever shot one, you must go find one – buy someone else’s from an unscrupulous taxidermist or outright steal the thing, but for goodness sake, hang a dead deer someplace if you expect your camp to be taken seriously.
If your place has these ten items, congratulations – it is a true hunting camp. If not, get cracking and do whatever it takes to make the cut next season.
(c) Roger Guilian 2006
posted by Days Afield Host | 8:33 PM
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