Jul 21, 2023 5 min read

“Never stand when you can sit. Never sit when you can lie down.” – Ralph K. Bell

Every sportsman needs a proper camp stool. Camp stools are used for fishing, hunting, spectating, general visiting, etc. Call it an aide de camp to loafing.

A proper camp stool must adhere to certain guidelines. It must not be so heavy as to induce a hernia when carried about but must remain durable after years of wear and tear. It should be attractive in a Spartan manner but must never look new.

Some of the finest examples of quality camp stooling are homemade editions. An old patina of flecking paint and worn edges gives the camp stool a nostalgic look of authenticity; kind of a witness to the ages of loafing. The paint job should lean to the muted side, not necessarily looking like a Hawaiian shirt, but there are exceptions. I can remember my Uncle Dupe owning a faded blue camp stool that was covering up an original hot pink paint job. One could not really say where the blue left off and the pinkish orange hue began. I’m guessing that it took a few years of butt sanding to achieve such a masterpiece.

The best paint for camp stools is leftover house paint that is so hideous that no one in their right mind would ever allow their house to be painted such a color. Primer should be avoided at all costs in order to allow the paint to wear faster. Some great examples of camp stool paint colors are avocado, dead salmon and who can forget Daytona Peach and baby poop brown. A few classics have been adorned with no coloration at all, but they are timeless exceptions.

My first camp stool was a folding aluminum job with a green ballistic nylon cloth seat. This was before I was aware that store-bought is taboo. I covered all the shiny exposed metal areas with brown duct tape to conceal my presence from wild game. I’m not sure the duct tape worked. It was an especially tacky affair but light and durable. I used it 20-plus seasons before it buckled under the weight of my ever-expanding frame. It was a present from my wife when we were first married.

Recently, I have seen a variety of store-bought stools that are interesting, even if they do not fulfill all the requirements of a proper camp stool. Many of these have a rickety looking quality about them and they all seem to be topped off with a cheap, striped, imitation sail cloth, not really canvas, that screams Walmart. I have seen some old wooden crates and boxes that served as more primitive forms of the early camp stool with finger joints and even some dovetail affairs. They are novel in that one can carry their goods on site and then sit on the container. Even a drywall bucket will do in a pinch. A cane with a sort of seat also strikes me as utilitarian, although I guess it’s not really a proper camp stool.

A unique representation surfaced last week when my buddy produced a metal pole that inserted into the ground with a lawn-dart pointed end. I’m sure this was designed by some golfer and is not to be trusted. The seat resembled a pigeon launcher and I was afraid to sit upon the thing for fear of it collapsing and becoming some sort of crude camp stool suppository or worse still, being launched in the air in front of strangers like a training dummy.

My Grandpap Riley used to escape my Grandma Flo by hiding in his workshop and pretending to be useful. He’d depart for the shop shortly after breakfast and remain there, hiding from my grandmother until lunch. Upon finishing his lunch he would return to his shop and continue his “work.” Grandma did not go in the shop much. Grandpap knew this and used it to his advantage. While in the shop, Pap made wooden fishing bobbers. And camp stools. If he ever built anything else, I never saw it. Everyone I knew had one of Pap’s camp stools. I will occasionally find one floating around the neighborhood and I immediately know where it came from when I spot such a treasure.

The engineering and design of a proper camp stool should be something akin to a poor man’s intelligence test. After breaking my original stool, I was afraid to take Pap’s design out in public because, quite honestly, it would take me 15 minutes to figure out how to get the thing opened. Folding it up proved an even more arduous task.

My brother, Glenn, pulled one of Pap’s original camp stools out of mothballs a while back. Being the only Bates to achieve a level of woodworking ability beyond that of a seventh grader, he set about the research and development necessary for building everyone in the family their own proper camp stools. These creations are classic. They are the Model 70 of camp stools, featuring smooth, sanded edges, tight-fitting tolerances, handsomely stained and sealed hardwoods. I am afraid to sit on mine dare I scratch or ding it. It could take years before I get mine broken in.

I guess I had better get started. I can rest easy, knowing that one day, my great, great grandson might loaf on such an heirloom.