Gather Around the Campfire
Hunting Camp And Flame A Magical Combo
For the diehard, there are few places more magical than hunting camp. And, if you peel away the outer skin, the very beating heart of the place is actually the fire ring.
I’m writing these words from one such hunting camp in the west Texas Hill Country. Your Faithful Editor held up the collective honor of the GUNS family by taking a dandy Axis buck with a single shot from my new-but-classic Marlin 336 in .30-30. The big male went 15 yards and fell over dead, a 150-grain bullet having cashed his chips nicely. It was good and fine and honorable.
As the sun went down, the twilight found us all sitting around the fire pit resolving the problems of the world as hunters are wont to do after a great day afield. During our conversations I posed a question to Steve Jones about the most memorable campfire chat during his 40 years as a globe-trotting professional hunting guide. Without missing a beat, he said “Well, tonight may be it.” He meant it in a nice way — mostly.
Don’t Let Him Talk
Steve and company were experiencing my somewhat unique “brand” of worldly insight. I wasn’t trying to be, or do, anything out of the ordinary but it’s been claimed my general outlook is markedly different — as in “Boy, you ain’t right in the head!” — from most hunters or anyone else not residing in a locked psychological facility. Thus, it’s not uncommon for my opinions to draw strange looks and this inspired Steve’s comment.
I suppose it’s good to be number one at something.
Sitting there in the dark, not sure if I should be insulted or thrilled, I further pondered the meaning and memories of the whole situation. While I’ve enjoyed comradeship and conversation around countless fire rings in fishing camp, on backpacking and canoeing trips into true wilderness and sometimes just in backyards for the sake of making s’mores, it is the hunting camp where the most profound memories are made, the richest experiences relived and best recollections honed.
Back around this fire, I had the group alternatively laughing hard to draw tears then rolling their collective eyes so severely I was afraid a couple of them might get serious ocular cramps. This last was in response to my obstinate claims Zeno of Citium was far more readable than Marcus Aurelius. Had I gone forward and shared the story of the time I had a major episode of intestinal distress during a commercial flight, and then blamed it on the innocent young child sitting next to me, someone might have suffered a major infarction. I demurred and figuratively passed the torch.
Others took their turn at the conversational helm. Between cans of Shiner Bock and Lonestar, punctuated with floating exclamation marks courtesy of a Dominican cigar, new topics flew through the humid night like a flock of insomniac gambrel quail. Each new flight would start with someone throwing out a statement or idea, then it would ping-pong around the circle as each person took a swipe at keeping the idea in play. Eventually the notion would land somewhere and things would grow quiet. Everyone considered the matter while sipping at their lukewarm lager and listening for coyotes, waiting for next metaphoric covey to pop above the scrub.
Hunting (Camp) Regulations
For the young and inexperienced, if you’ve read this far, I’ll assume you are interested in putting down the Eyeball Gouger 5000 video game to go outdoors to make your own real memories around a campfire. However, there are some rules you should be aware of before attending your first hunting camp.
First off, surprisingly, you don’t need a fire. It’s your choice. I tend to run a “cold camp” because I’m too lazy and curmudgeonly to fart around with building a fire, but if you feel it necessary, I won’t stop you. In fact, I’ll even try to grudgingly enjoy it.
Secondly, if there is an inveterate blowhard in the group, try to convince them to forget the fire and use the time to go clean their gun, talk to the cook about their special dietary needs or — much preferably — accidentally direct them into the nearby grizzly den.
Nothing kills a good campfire fat-chewing session than sharing it with “that” guy who has never met a name he couldn’t drop or a lie he couldn’t top. Even if you’ve recently been elected pope, the blowhard will work tirelessly to top your story, usually with a statement like, “Pope, huh? That’s nice; it reminds me of the time I was hunting in the Zambezi with the king of Sweden. As usual, I started the day with a half-slice of toast….”
Periodically remaining quiet is good manners but when the rule is enforced by being unable to get a word in edgewise, it ruins the mood for everyone. If the blowhard doesn’t figure out why nobody else is speaking — and they often don’t — the best response is to simply slip away for a fresh beverage or a quick irrigation of the local flora and then never return. I once drove home from Africa for this reason. Away from the fire, I’ll also often make productive use of the time by slipping a scorpion into the bunk of the blowhard.
What you must not do is succumb to the urge to sneak up from behind and crush the blowhard’s skull with a large river rock. Nothing ruins a good hunt more than a police interrogation. However, I will not discuss the matter further because my public defender tells me after an acquittal, you’re not required to talk about it anymore.
Thirdly, be aware politics can be a fraught topic. While a good political argument can be enjoyable and even enlightening, in today’s climate it usually ends up with two hunters fighting it out with flaming boughs. This can be exceptionally dangerous as it often leads to one or more beers getting kicked over. If things look like they are heading a contentious direction, it’s best to change the topic to something less hateful such as race relations.
Fourth and finally, keep the firebug under control. We’ve all been in a camp where one member of the group has a fascination — verging on an unhealthy obsession — with building a fire. He’s easy to spot as he’ll instantly volunteer to build the fire even though you just arrived in camp and it’s mid-afternoon in August in South Florida.
Once he does have the fire going, he’ll pester and poke at it relentlessly like a hyper-caffeinated toddler until the wood supply is finally consumed around 8 p.m. It’s doesn’t matter if you start with four cords of seasoned oak, he’ll burn it all within a few hours. The only upside is the fact it is possible to get a little iron ore smelting done as you wait for dinner.
As pointed out earlier, a fire isn’t a requirement for a good hunting camp discussion but the synergy it creates is profound. As the fire goes from a cheery leaping blaze to a somber glowing pile and eventually a cold gray ash pit, so does the natural course of the conversation. With a firebug in camp, sitting around the smoldering corpse of a fire just past dusk results with everyone drifting off to bed so early you might not even be hungover in the morning — another grave breach of hunting camp etiquette.
Final thoughts
Ahh, the evening campfire. It’s a source of cheer, a social lubricant equal to Kentucky Holy Water and the focal point of most camps. It serves to keep us warm, cook our dinner, dry our socks, light up the night and keep the bogeyman at bay. It stirs primal memories and inspires pondering. It can be an amigo, colleague and maker of the most transcendent memories. Honor it, revel in it and remember it.
And, if necessary, use it to burn the fingerprints off large river rocks.
