My first camp was a tent. It was a cold winter and you would almost freeze trying to sleep in a cheap sleeping bag. Then I managed to get a good sleeping bag and some warm coveralls to hunt in. Finaly got some warm boots. Now I have a 36'trailer a all fiberglass blind with a mr Heater. Life is good. But the first camps was a blast too.

First camp for me was an old abandoned school bus.
We had an outhouse that was literally falling to pieces and our water was a 5 gallon container we had to refill each trip.

Me and 2 of my best friends from school had our first lease ever... We had a co-worker give us an old ATM building he was using to incubate chicken eggs... it was 6.5'X8'...we built bunk beds in it 3 high like the 3 stooges... had a little 18" table in the corner and that was it. Battery closet light, no water, one of those chairs with toilet seats and a shovel... looking back it was kinda cool butt not really.. few years ago we had a lease north of brady that had a 3/2 house fully furnished and satelite (we also had access to a big tractor and skid loader)! I didn't like the house that much because nobody hung out around a fire or outside...they were watching TV and football! When it rained it was great! that year was a wet yr thank God..place sold 2 days after they listed it!

1974 16' trailer electricity, no water. Rancher had a phone about 5 miles down the road. My dad, myself and BIL have slpt in a van, 2 different pups, a house when my dad bought land and the last 15 or so years have been in a tent. Tent through the years was probably the best.

15x30 army tent with 12 beds in it. We ran everything from a generator, no water.
After a few years we put in a really nice plywood floor and a propane stove in the corner.

Dang that place was cold

Each guy had a pup tent, sleeping bag and pillow. Brought a water tank. Fold out table to hold stuff, cut meat and veggies for dinner. Of course rope, axe, knives, matches, lantern, and Boy Scout cooking stuff. No electric, water, bathroom. Simple dinners over a campfire and went to sleep when then lantern ran out of fuel.
I actually miss it!

Archer Co. when i was in high school. We built a shack out of scrap lumber, slept in some awful army bunk beds and heated it with small space heaters. Last year on the place we insulated it and put some cheap carpet down. It worked and we had some great times, learned a thing or two during those years as well.

After reading so many of these, it's kind of sad to think what today's kids will say of their first deer camp. Needless to say, "primitive" probably won't be a word they'll use to describe it.

I can remember when my father-in-law cut a pole so that we could hang a young spike from it by the legs and carry it out of the words for what must have been a half-mile. Today, I wouldn't think of dragging a deer more than 30 yards to reach my ATV.

Who knows, in another 100 years, hunters might have hover boards to slip through the woods without hardly making a sound.

First deer hunt camp was a 1976 Ford P/U with a slide in camper in the back. Used it to hunt deer in Southeast Kansas and quail/pheasant in Central Kansas. Lot of cold nights spent in that thing. We were blessed to have such great accomodations.

Have always had it lucky for place to stay when hunting. Except for one year have a bedroom at friends place for lodging. That one year there was a crude bunkhouse with electric but no water

I'm doing the primitve camping still today, tent, lanterns, cookstove, and dig a hole!

I cut my teeth hunting E Tx paper company land and DCNF. We would build a pine log lean to with a fire pit in front for cooking and heat. Slept with our clothes in the bag with us. Also Slept in a wet sleeping bag many nights. Young dumb and fun.....

Tent camped (but there was a general store about 10 minutes away)

Always been less than forty five min from the house. Now just stay at our ranch. When we first started going to terlingua to go after muleys, we took a trailer that carried all of our stuff needed for the week and a half. Built some sucker road frames to go over the trailer. Throw a tarp over them and roll the carpet out. We could fit 3 people down each side. I was 8 on my first trip and I think it got down to single digits. Tarp didn't keep the cold out.

Few years ago, we fixed up a big shipping container and hauled it down there. Have bunk beds and a wood burning stove. Built a two sided awning off the container to get out of the sun. Times have changed.

Never been to primitive, always had a cabin or camper with heat. We always used the women that came as an excuse to keep it nice, even though that was only once a year! We do however take on south texas mule deer trip a year for a week in which EVERYTHING is primitive. Sleeping on our trailer in a tent in huge bags... Cooking off the fire and having to bring lots of water. It's rough, but my favorite trip of the year!

First trip to Colorado, was in a 1946 Ford sedan, we camped out of it. Tent, with wood fire for cooking and heat.

First deer camp looked like the cabin in the beverly hillbillies with no electricity, water, plumbing!!! Had an outhouse, pot belly stove and when the wind blew, you felt it!!! loved that place!!!

Tin pole barn, with one wall on the north side, and a dirt floor. Cooked over a cinder block fabricated bbq pit, and froze my ever lovin arse off. Nice self-contained travel trailer now, that enables be a hot shower every evening, and a warm queen size bed.

Circa late 70's Dad, Bro and I crammed into the back of a 1976 Ford Bronco down in Coleman county. A norther blew in and it was 15 degrees and I ended up on the side hugging a cold fenderwell shivering while toasty Bro snored all night. Before the age of cell phones so I had no idea what time it was but I remember drifting off then waking up over and over again. Breakfast was a sweet roll and lunch and dinner was Pork n Beans and Tuna fish.

Roughing it old school!

I think back to those early days and deer camp, and sleeping on an old army cot and the wood stove. Then climbing into a tree with just a few boards nailed to it and if you were lucky you got a stand that had a tarp for a roof that always leaked when it rained.
It seems that the tougher and simpler the times, the better the memories, and it makes me thankful now that I at least got to exeprience it.

Early '60s a buddy and I slept on the ground out in the open. Don't remember what he used, but I had a rolled up army coat for a pillow and another army coat for a blanket. Worked ok in warmish weather. On another hunt, the same buddy and I set up a weird sort of tent which had a center post. One of us knocked the post over during the night and the whole thing came tumbling down. We were NOT adults -- at least legally -- but a considerable amount of adult beverages were consumed and enjoyed back then. And we generally brought in some venison.

BTW -- we never used stands or feeders. We just looked for deer trails and found a good place to hide, usually behind a log or a stump. We hunted in Central Texas, in Mills and San Saba counties.

For a few years back when I was a kid, our family had a lease where I slept in an old ranch shed with a dirt floor, wood slat walls with big gaps between the boards, and a leaky metal roof. No electricity or water. Many nights the coyotes seemed to be right outside the walls. Sometimes it would get so cold I would have to get my dog in the sleeping bag with me. Funny, of all the places I've hunted and worked at, this is the place I remember the best.

We had a 1957 Ford school bus that my dad and his buddies converted into a sleeping quarters and kitchen. Grew up staying in that thing every deer season from the time I was old enough to remember untill the day the land owner died when I was about 15. We have moved up in the world since then.

I'm sure many can remember a "green horn" story or two. One of my earliest was the time I put a bunch of lighter knot pine on the fire in that old farm house back in Mississippi. Needless to say, the heat and flame about ran us all out of our bunks that night.

1st deer camp is a small tin grainery in far northern Oklahoma. Beautiful property owned by a family friend. That tin can got really, Really Cold! Now, 29 years later, he still owns that property, I still have permission to hunt there, and I still stay in that cold @@$ grainery! I've been thinking about putting up some insulation.