At long last, September is finally here. With the long wait behind us and the regular schedule of hunting seasons kicking off, bear camp acts as the lead-off hitter. Bear, deer and moose camps all have similarities and differences but all share one thing in common – the time-honored tradition of camp-naming. This hunting camp rite is one of the rituals that define the very essence of what a traditional camp is all about – camaraderie. And it is also something I look forward to every year. I honestly can’t wait to see and hear how these sports will come together, some from several hundreds of miles away from each other, as they mesh into one unified camp with a shared purpose.
Some camp nick names can be earned by a great feat or achievement. During the 2019 moose hunt, my client Frank earned the name ‘One-Shot’ after putting his bull on the ground with a single shot through 100 yards of grown-in skidder trail. Some are bestowed upon unlucky sports by their fellow camp mates after an embarrassing action, either in the woods or at camp. I’ll bet you know how ‘Cub Cadet’ earned his knick name during the 2020 bear hunt; his camp mates were not impressed with his decision making and boy did that name stick like glue the rest of the week!
During one deer camp, a young fella that couldn’t keep his eyes off of his phone, no matter where he was in the cabin, tripped and tumbled down the steps from the second floor of the cabin. The stair case is closed in so he just bounced off the walls on his way down, coming to rest in a pile on the landing. The rest of us were sitting at the table, shooting the bull and were ready to jump to the rescue when the young man called out “I’m good! Just missed a step. I was looking at my phone.” After the laughter died down, the young hunter from Pennsylvania sheepishly accepted his camp name ‘Stumbles’ from his step-dad ‘Pennsyltucky’.
Sometimes, I assign the camp name. ‘Speed Trap’ is a chief of police in Iowa, ‘Yeah-Yeah’ is from upstate New York and always begins, and ends, his sentences with that very phrase. A bow hunter from Wisconsin bore an uncanny resemblance to an iconic Hanna-Barbera cartoon character from the late 70’s – ‘Captain Caveman’. The irony was lost on him however, not yet born when the cartoon was on television. ‘Monk’ earned his camp name for his seeming inability to utter more than one or two word phrases at a time.
Fellow hunters get involved too. ‘Mr. Jingles’ for having loose shells in his pocket while scouting for deer sign with another hunter. ‘Headband’ for wearing an outrageous piece of head gear to keep his longish, unruly hair out of his face around camp, and ‘Dakota’ simply because nothing else stuck and he was from North Dakota. A deer hunter from Brooklyn, NY could have passed as the twin of one of the cast on the hit television show Jersey Shore. His camp mates mercilessly dubbed him ‘Paulie’ – the accent didn’t help his cause.
In case you are wondering, even the guide gets a camp name from time to time. During one deer camp ‘Big Show’ and ‘Toby’, for their likeness to a WWE professional wrestler and country star Toby Keith respectively, dubbed me ‘Redneck Ninja’. Apparently my ability to ‘move quickly and silently’ in the woods and to ‘disappear even when wearing orange’ made an impression on them. If there is one rule to camp names, it is this – you can’t pick your own name. You will earn it, for better or for worse, when the time comes.