Dec 31, 2017 5 min read

Last week I wrote about the things related to hunting that have all but disappeared. Most importantly, the comradery that was found at the hunting camp. I know the card games still exist but one has to admit that the games aren’t as common or played with as much determination.

That cabin scene is one of cold crisp air and later on, as morning moves by, an upset stomach brought on by that greasy breakfast of ham and eggs. The bed might be lumpy and that cover ragged but you never slept so soundly. The seat in the outhouse is cold, though another hunter wakes up to a warm house in Washington County and uses the heated bathroom. Yet I think it is the comfortable hunter that is missing something.

What do you see when visiting a north-country cabin? You have Hainer and Harvey playing cards and Mike cooking breakfast. Half-asleep men are tugging at boots or fumbling with the laces. Someone put his sweater on backwards and is letting everyone between St. Mary’s and Kane know about it. There were a few cuss words coming from the bedroom as ammo was dropped and rolled under the dresser. The scene was one of mass mayhem but Mike and Spanky were cleaning the previous night’s snow from the truck. When there are a variety of hunters in the same camp there will be a variety of preparedness. That is my picture of camp, and that is what I think has been slowly evaporating. There are a lot of people who don’t know what they are missing.

My son, Patrick, doesn’t remember what happened in the woods during his first hunting trip to Warren County but he sure hasn’t forgotten what happened at camp. It’s the terrible food and exaggerated stories that make up this hunting experience. It is what is missing today – that total experience we once enjoyed.

Once upon a time, a fairy tale was created and grown men and women went north to aid the deer by cutting trees so the north deer could reach the edible parts. People would head to mountain cottages in groups just to cut browse. Then came the balloon-breaking news that convinced the multitude that such action wasn’t helping the deer and in reality might have been causing harm to the herd. So the people, being good and obedient helpers, quit their winter excursions north. Without a common cause, the group separated and felt useless. Is it true that feeding the deer by cutting browse trees and plants was a waste of time? Only if one looks at it from the food point of view. Usually, anything that brings sportsmen and their families together for a common cause is not a waste of time. There is little doubt that, as we progress along, some things are left along the roadside. Too bad, as I would love to don the wool clothes and carry the 30-30 through the north woods again.

While nostalgia has never put venison in the freezer it can be an important part of the hunt. There is something comforting about wearing those old black-and-red Woolrich hunting outfits and making sure I have my red handkerchief in the back pocket. After all, a white one might be mistaken for a deer’s behind. It seemed to be more about hunting when the subject is tracking in a light snow instead of calculating the drop of .30 caliber bullets over a 500-yard distance.

While the young hunter needs parental oversight, he or she also needs to enjoy what they are doing. It is far more fun to shoot milk jugs filled with water than to shoot at paper targets. The paper might be necessary to make sure the rifle is hitting where it is supposed to, but the jug is more fun. Many rules are necessary in today’s hurry-up world that we have created but they should be minimized. Remember the phrase that came out of Washington D.C. long ago: Government that governs best governs least. This is true from top to bottom and too many extra rules can ruin the hunt.

Back five decades or so, we hunted the whitetail for a solid week or longer. Grown men and a few women drove north through some really foul weather and camped out. They took trains and bummed rides but they went and they stayed for a few days. Even me, who worked 40 hours a week, managed to go deer hunting. We traded days, our health suddenly declined and we went hunting.

I continue to think of those days as these cold, dark, winter days pass. Sometimes, youngsters stop to trade tales and ask me about those old days, so I share with them, and my readers, tales about the times of the mountain deer camps.

George Block writes a weekly outdoors column of the Observer-Reporter.