Old School U.P. Hunting Camps

I'm sure many of you guys up north have watched some of these documentaries on old deer hunting camps in the U.P. of Michigan. For anyone that hasn't, they are just cool to watch. Here's one I'm watching now. There's plenty more on the Discovery YouTube channel.

I just watched this...thank you for sharing it. I got off of our deer lease this year and I am severely missing the deer camp feel...if there is a way I will be back on it next year!
 
I just watched this...thank you for sharing it. I got off of our deer lease this year and I am severely missing the deer camp feel...if there is a way I will be back on it next year!
Okie - I too miss the deer camps of my early hunting years. Love hunting my own place now. However, the camaraderie of good friends at deer camp over the years was a special thing that I enjoyed a lot.
 
I used to see those scenes as a kid and young guy in Outdoor Life, Field and Stream, and Sports Afield. Those huge bodied Michigan bucks with the small antlers ! My how things have changed ! The big bodies are still there but now they are accompanied by big antlers.
 
I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to join a camp like that in northern WI. The camp began in the 30's and has been going ever since. It is always interesting to hear the stories from years past, many times the same stories are told every year. Last year there were 13 people in camp opening weekend, this year there will be four. Its all public land around the camp so there is plenty of room to roam during season. No one is worried about pushing their buck to someone else.

I probably have better hunting at my house but going to deer camp is becoming more fun than hunting. Some years are good for shooting deer and some years we struggle. We will see Saturday morning how the week will go. Friday will be a long day of work before we can head out. On the hour drive up to camp I will probably hear the 30 point and 2nd week of deer camp songs multiple times.

The deer camp tradition is very strong in the state. Many of the people in the town I live in have a "shack" that might only be 15 minutes from home where they spend the 9 day gun season. Most of the kids take off school for deer season and spend it at the "shack".
 
I have been fortunate enough to have been invited to join a camp like that in northern WI. The camp began in the 30's and has been going ever since. It is always interesting to hear the stories from years past, many times the same stories are told every year. Last year there were 13 people in camp opening weekend, this year there will be four. Its all public land around the camp so there is plenty of room to roam during season. No one is worried about pushing their buck to someone else.

I probably have better hunting at my house but going to deer camp is becoming more fun than hunting. Some years are good for shooting deer and some years we struggle. We will see Saturday morning how the week will go. Friday will be a long day of work before we can head out. On the hour drive up to camp I will probably hear the 30 point and 2nd week of deer camp songs multiple times.

The deer camp tradition is very strong in the state. Many of the people in the town I live in have a "shack"
that might only be 15 minutes from home where they spend the 9 day gun season. Most of the kids take off school for deer season and spend it at the "shack".

My dad always let us "miss" school the monday following opening morning

bill
 
Question for any of you Michigan guys...Why did they hang the deer by the antlers with the front legs tied up behind their head? Seems to be a common practice watching these old hunting camp videos.
 
They would put the legs up like that to drag them out. Pulled easy on the snow and weren't getting tangled in brush. It used to be common to leave them hang in the woods and pick up the last day. Had to put them up there before they froze. Not sure about hanging them by the antlers other than it was easy to tie a rope to them. Larry Benoit said the only thing that should be hung from the head are criminals.

I love heading up to camp the weekends before season opens and seeing all the little camps come back to life with activity.

Hunting Camp 52 is a book about a northern WI hunting camp not too far from where I hunt. Its a decent book to read and captures some of the WI deer camp experience. Many of the camps in the northern part of the state are aging out and the next generation isn't there to take over. It's very sad to see.
 
Very Cool ! I watched the whole video . My wife is from Michigan and her family still has a cabin on Black lake in Northern Michigan from several generations back .. We go up every Christmas and I hear the same stories every year about the fishing and hunting in the " old days" We went up to the UP, a few years back . A very neat part of the world .
 
We had a Deer Camp that was an old 1-car garage that was given to a cousin and my Dad cut it into two pieces right down the center peak and put on his Log Truck and hauled to our woods. Many Memories were made out of that old shack growing up and I have never been able to duplicate it anywhere else.
 
Used to enjoy deer camp and the old rickety shacks. However, I have “roughed it” enough. Time now for well-managed land and a nice house to stay at. Those camps are for the memories now.
 
If there be one thing I miss about my buddies and myself now owning our own land is the group hunts we always did. Sometimes camping n the nasty snow and cold and sometimes In Some cheap ass motel.
The stories , politically incorrect jokes, and of course the hunting. No atvs, just bust ass dragging out each other’s deer and no worries of what deer one chose to shoot.
Good days but now I kinda prefer a turndown and mint on my pillow!!


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We still get together for a group hunt out of state but wouldn’t call it “roughing it”. Still a lot of fun. Problem is most of them like to bring their jobs and crap with them and spend most of the time talking about what “I’m gonna do when I get home”. Nobody just hunts and relaxes any more. That is what I miss. Plus damn smart phones....
 
This brings back many hunting camp memories from the shack called the "cabin" on top of "Shade Mountain" 2 miles back in on a logging road smack in the middle of the best hunting Pennsylvania could offer.
Thirty years of stories, the trophies, the misses, the cut off shirt tails (We didn't cut off shirttails for missing, we only cut off shirttails for lying about missing) Ice on the water bucket, cutting wood for the old cast iron stove, and winter trips to the outhouse. The good food, the cook that used to much grease, the time we only had baked beans and lots of fumes. Hiding your buck and pretending you didn't have any, helping someone else drag one out, catching up with guys you hadn't seen in a year, the day everyone tagged out the first morning.
Then Gary Ault and the PGC wiped out a lot of the deer, aphids wiped out the hemlocks, moths decimated the oaks, coyotes, bears, and hawks moved in, and the squirrels, grouse and turkeys all but disappeared, people started posting their land, the older members started passing away, and I saw the writing on the wall as it was unfolding, and started managing wildlife on my own private land, and another chapter of life faded away.
But, as the pictures of the U.P. so richly reminded me, I have made friends and memories that never go away, and I keep my interest in the shack just so that I can go back from time to time and relive some really special things from a different era of time when the hills were thriving with game, there was no covid and the old guys in camp always had the time to sit and chew the fat, and had all the answers to life's problems.
 
This brings back many hunting camp memories from the shack called the "cabin" on top of "Shade Mountain" 2 miles back in on a logging road smack in the middle of the best hunting Pennsylvania could offer.
Thirty years of stories, the trophies, the misses, the cut off shirt tails (We didn't cut off shirttails for missing, we only cut off shirttails for lying about missing) Ice on the water bucket, cutting wood for the old cast iron stove, and winter trips to the outhouse. The good food, the cook that used to much grease, the time we only had baked beans and lots of fumes. Hiding your buck and pretending you didn't have any, helping someone else drag one out, catching up with guys you hadn't seen in a year, the day everyone tagged out the first morning.
Then Gary Ault and the PGC wiped out a lot of the deer, aphids wiped out the hemlocks, moths decimated the oaks, coyotes, bears, and hawks moved in, and the squirrels, grouse and turkeys all but disappeared, people started posting their land, the older members started passing away, and I saw the writing on the wall as it was unfolding, and started managing wildlife on my own private land, and another chapter of life faded away.
But, as the pictures of the U.P. so richly reminded me, I have made friends and memories that never go away, and I keep my interest in the shack just so that I can go back from time to time and relive some really special things from a different era of time when the hills were thriving with game, there was no covid and the old guys in camp always had the time to sit and chew the fat, and had all the answers to life's problems.

pinto beans were an integral part of every hunt....... as was the inevitable postprandial result.......

bill
 
You forgot the libtards moving into Philadelphia and wiping out the Republic.
The cities and the rural areas of this nation are two different countries anymore. I propose that we have two separate presidents and two separate policies for the US, if a state votes republican they get that president, and if a state votes democrat they get that president. Imagine the possibilities!
 
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