Anyone who’s ever subscribed to a major outdoors magazine has seen the pictures of deer camps from years gone by. Found mostly in the big woods of the north, these deer-camps-of-old were annual gathering places for die-hard deer hunters in a time when opening day of deer season carried the same status as election day. Deer camps could be large tents or rustic cabins buried somewhere deep within the northern woods in the midst of the best deer hunting of the time. They were hallowed places where tradition ran deep and where comradery was nearly as important as putting a deer on the “meat pole” out front.
My grandfather was one of those die-hard hunters who harvested deer, elk and even a trophy moose that made the Boone and Crocket record book, and he passed his love of the outdoors and his love of big-game hunting down to his grandsons. In the year 2000 my brother Joe began taking his family for a week of deer hunting to Zeleski State Forest in southeastern Ohio. His son was twelve then and went with them on the first trip. For the next four years they went there but yearned to have land of their own in those beautiful rolling southeastern Ohio hills. In 2005 Joe purchased two hundred acres near the town of McArthur and the Gilliland Deer Camp was born. The land is reminiscent of the big north woods that harbored the deer camps of old, with only hills and trees as far as they eye can see, and majestic views marred only by the power line that snakes its way across the countryside.
The first couple years there his camping trailer served as the cabin, and they spent only the first week of deer gun season down there. Joe says that in those early years they spent more time chasing off trespassers who were used to the land being vacant than they spent hunting. A cabin was built a couple years later and after several additions it is now a grand gathering place that has become his retirement home. Off-seasons in the early years were spent carving out new trails or reopening old ones, and adding deer feeders, tree stands and blinds. To date the property holds three or four deer feeders and over a dozen tree stands and blinds.
What began in the early years as a gathering of my brother’s family and in-laws for one week of deer hunting has today evolved to include, sisters, sons-in-law, daughters-in-law, grandsons and nieces & nephews from all around our family who now hunt numerous days of every deer season available there in Ohio. When our dad was still living, he yearned to spend that week there at my brother’s cabin with the “crew,” even though he never hunted deer a day in his life. To him it was all about the family time.
During that week, hunters are up and gone before day break, and return mid-morning or when any harvested deer are retrieved and hung on the “meat pole” out front. A wonderful porch spans the entire front of the cabin high above the driveway and creek below. Weather permitting, mid-days are spent there either relaxing in one of the many rocking chairs or by participating in the frequent shooting competitions held there on the porch. Targets include pumpkins, cans of shaving cream and an occasional chipmunk scurrying about by the stream.
Off seasons are still spent adding and improving tree stands and blinds, sprucing up existing trails or adding new ones, keeping deer feeders full and collecting and viewing camera chips from the fleet of trail cameras on the property. There are also wild hogs there and since there are no hunting restrictions on them, they are frequent targets for the freezer year round. Most recently Joe has started identifying wild ginseng patches in the woods and is attempting to get other patches started from seed he buys.
I think grandpa would be proud of the way our family has continued to pass his love of the outdoors and of deer hunting on down through the generations of our family. And I know he would be especially proud of the tradition my brother has started by opening up his hallowed spot to all our family. Grandpa’s other grandson (our cousin) who lived in Cheyenne, WY also followed in grandpa’s footsteps, putting at least one Wyoming elk in his freezer each year, and he has also imparted that love of big-game hunting to his son. To date, the harvest from my brother’s deer camp has filled the freezers of several family members with venison and wild hog meat for many years. Just last week he sent me a picture of his youngest grandson with his first buck...Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors…with your family.
Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].