Deer Camp

For my 100th post I will tell you the "deer camp" story. While I neither own a gun nor hunt, I have been to my friends deer camp a couple times.

The deer camp is pretty typical of what you will find in south Arkansas. Timber land leased from a timber company that gives the deer camp the "right" to hunt and camp on the land in exchange for a signed contract that includes paying the timber company rent, furnishing insurance, and abiding by the rules the company set forth.

My friends deer camp has a clearing that contains a gas pipeline running thru it. The leased land is not fenced but all log roads and the pipeline clearing have gates across them. After you exit a gravel road onto the pipeline you travel about 300 yards and the deer camp is an acre or so clearing on the side of the pipeline clearing. Hidden from the country gravel road and no one knows you are even up there. Everyone has his own spot to park his camper.

I have been invited to their "work day" outing that take place before deer season. They are good stewards of the land and wildlife. On these work days food plots are planted (part of the contract ) for the deer and fallen trees are cleared to prevent forrest fires. Since it is not hunting season, beer is allowed and a cookout follows the day of work. Free food and free beer, that is a combination I seldom turn down.

The members of the deer camp can use it for camping year-round and my friend will go down 3 or 4 times a year just to get away and ride his ATV. He has an old recliner that he leaves down there under a tarp and likes to get a nap in it under the awning of his camper.

A couple years ago he and his wife (a few years older than me) had bought a new camper and went down one weekend to try it out. They rode the ATV and then come back to the camper for lunch. After lunch Bob left Sue (the names have been changed to protect the guilty) at the camper and went to look at one of his food plots. Sue gets a shower while he is gone and being that the day was so pretty, just slips out of the shower and lays in the recliner.

Upon returning and finding her outside in the nude, he questioned her about it even though there way no way anyone could have seen her. The answer she gave would have made a great tv commercial.

Deer Camp Dues = $200

Camper = $10,000

Giving the right answer, "If they hadn't seen one before then they would not know to look and if they had seen one then they would not want to look at this one." = Priceless