Fondest Memories

[paleoman]

#3915

I get nostalgic for the mid ’70s. Bow hunting with a character of an Uncle in the Vermont hills. We’ d sleep in the old full size Blazer or on the ground. We cooked simple food on the Coleman stove and boiled our coffee water from local streams. We had a long standing joke, among many, about ” wheel rut” water. The memories of brilliant October foliage, crisp air and upland pastures are some of the best in my life. More to come for sure, but those memories are some of what my heaven would be. Care to share yours?

[garydavis]

#25061

The year my brother got his drivers license we built a small canvas canoe…I guess I should say he built while I pestered. That summer we floated the Au Sable River in it. I think we camped in a campground only once. The rest of the time we just pulled in to shore and pitched the tent. If we didn’t catch any fish, dinner was usually Dinty Moore Beef Stew or Campbell’s Pork and Beans. When we did[catch fish] it mostly ended up burnt on one side and kind of raw on the other. Those little Brookies tasted wonderful though.

I think I have a picture somewhere of that canoe tied on top of the 51 Chevy we drove up to Grayling to start our voyage, the first of many over the next eight years.

[William Warren]

#26155

Following my English setter through bean field and reed mash in Eastern NC after quail or tagging along with my 2 uncles and their 2 competing Brittany spaniels. What a show those two put on. The dogs and the birds are gone now but the uncles and the memories are still here. I love getting them to re-tell those stories. Or it might be floating the Contentnea in a home built cypress punt with only paddles to get you around the next bend, camping along the way, fishing or hunting for squirrels and ducks and in later years for deer when the populations rebounded. Or it could be making friends with fellow bowhunters when I first started bowhunting and finding out that I was not alone in my chosen sport which was just beginning to really take root here in the south. Those early practice sessions at our newly formed club and the hunting and camping we did on weekends have provided me with many fond memories as well as a few laughs that continue to make me smile as time goes by. Would’nt trade any of it for anything. I wish I could say more, there are so many.

[David Petersen]

#27923

Paleo — I too get nostalgic for the mid-’70s, in many ways the best decade of my life. But alas, it has nothing to do with archery or bowhunting.

[James Harvey]

#28211

I’m too young for nostalgia I suppose, but I have very fond memories from around the turn of the century when my best friend and I, with newly purchased bows in hand went hiking off from his parents homestead, through creeks and valleys, and over wooded hills. We never even stayed out over night and only hunted rabbits, but for a city kid it was grand adventure.

[BuckyT]

#34801

ausjim wrote: I’m too young for nostalgia I suppose, but I have very fond memories from around the turn of the century when my best friend and I, with newly purchased bows in hand went hiking off from his parents homestead, through creeks and valleys, and over wooded hills. We never even stayed out over night and only hunted rabbits, but for a city kid it was grand adventure.

Sitting at hunting camp for the first time in 89. It was December and cold. Only kid at camp, 11yrs old. My grandfather cooking dinner on the coleman stove, red beans and rice, a coke on one side of the stove, and a bottle of Jack Black on the other. His old transistor radio spitting out some George Jones from a local country music station playing some “Country Gold”.

The fire was hot, and I listened with facination to my uncles and dad’s old hunting stories, about “old flames”, about the “Big 8” that had eluded all of them that hunting season, making fun of one anothers markmanship abilities, and other tasty items that maybe a 11yr old boy shouldn’t hear, but as I was told by all of them, “What happens at hunting camp, stays at hunting camp boy!”

Dinner was served at the old fold out table by the fire, and I was summoned to bring everybody a fresh beer, and to get myself a coke.

Best meal I think I’ve ever had in my life.:wink: Felt like a man for the first time sitting there with all of them.

Wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

[Ben M.]

#35322

Dang, Buck. That’s some serious campfire poetry right there. You’ve inspired me to call my uncle. Thanks, man.

[Etter1]

#36285

Mine are similar to Tommy’s. I grew up in GA, but went up to visit my dad in PA in both winter and summer. My first deer camp experiences were in our family camp that’s been there over 100 years. Wood stove, propane lights, big mountains, tons of orange. It was just awesome. Killed my first deer up there on a deer drive with a flintlock.

Probably my fondest memories were also those in Canada. My dad took me to Quebec ever year since I turned 13. We caught thousands of walleye and pike in a gigantic reservoir (gouin). The camp was rustic as it gets. Over 100 miles back dirt roads. We did all the baiting and hanging stands ourselves and I saw and killed bears, and experienced fifteen weeks in my favorite habitat in the world…..the boreal forest of the far north.

It makes me physically ill ever year, right now actually, to know that I cannot go spring bear hunting in canada for a long, long time. (I own a swimming pool service and repair business)

[Author]

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