Old hunting photos

[Mildot]

Thought I would share some old hunting photos and story of my father and his buddies.

He and a friend took two old school buses and turned them into campers back in the 60's. They were pretty nice inside.

Every fall in the mid to late 60's and early to mid 70's they would load up 6 or 7 of their buddies in each bus and go out near Craig Colorado and spend two weeks hunting Mule deer. They were friends with a rancher out there and stayed on his spread every year.

They would pull an old jeep and later a Bronco and Ford truck for use once they arrived.

One thing I remember vividly is most of them shot 30-06 or 300 mag rifles. My father was a smaller guy and didn't like the recoil. One year he took a model 70 .243 and they all made fun of him for his pea shooter. He dropped a large mule deer at about three hundred yards and the next year they all had .243, .270 or similar lighter kicking flat shooting rifles. They and the rancher have all been gone for 30 - 40 years, but I still remember it vividly.

When they got back home the families would all get together at one of the guys large garages and they would hang / skin the deer and tell stories about the hunt.

Those were better times.

 

[GuyinIdaho]

That old ford hunting bus looks awesome!

 

[Mildot]

My father was a mechanic with his own shop and could make pretty much anything.

They stripped both buses inside, put down a linoleum floor and set two of the bench seats facing each other with a table between them right behind the drivers seat for a dining area, across the aisle they set a counter top with upper and lower cabinets with a built in ice box, a sink with freshwater holding tank and hand pump and two burner stove that ran off two propane tanks set into the extended back bumper. Those tanks also ran the propane furnace. . He built a small restroom with a toilet and holding tank and in the back were two upper and two lower bunks, below the bunks there was a frame built of angle iron that your could pull out of a recess on each side and set one in between the top two and one between the bottom two on iron angle ledges so you could sleep six. In the back and under the bottom bunks there were extra storage cabinets and gun racks mounted in each bunk to the outside walls. I attached a crude drawing of the layout, not to scale.

We put a lot of miles on it taking fishing and hunting trips.

 

[Mildot]

The first [2] photos were about 1974, the guy standing next to the bus was my father. He was born in 1918 and died in 1980, the one with the bronco was probably late 60's.

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

Love the old photos. Those times are still happening for some of us every year, no reason not to enjoy life like this.

 

[GuyinIdaho]

Love the old photos. Those times are still happening for some of us every year, no reason not to enjoy life like this.

Exactly! Nothing beats a good hunting camp

 

[Mildot]

They were a varied group. A couple self employed mechanics, two policeman, a self employed body shop owner, a power and light lineman, a guy that owned a junk yard, one that owned a small restaurant, and a couple retired autoworkers. Good bunch of working class guys.

 

[SamG]

I remember looking through my dad’s old hunting photos just like this… man I miss that guy.