Best Hunt Camp Pranks

I’m usually not much of a practical joker, but some folks love pranks — and hunt camp is a favorite setting for pranks and practical jokes. Here are some of the best ones I’ve ever heard of or seen.

Edible Deer Poop

This has been a classic forever. You find some deer pellets while walking with a buddy and either add some chocolate-covered peanuts or raisins to the mix or simply palm one and act like you’re grabbing a deer turd.

“Looks fresh,” you’ll say. Then you pop one into your gob and munch thoughtfully. “‘Bout three and a half hours old, I reckon.”

He might never get over that one.

Fake Rut Scrape

This is one I performed myself, many moons ago. A friend was coming to my Florida home camp to visit, and was then heading straight to Georgia to hunt — unless, he said, “I see some great deer sign in my spot.” Hmmm.

Well, I wanted him to hang out with us a couple nights, so I went to work. I drove to the spot where he’d glimpsed a monster buck the weekend before and created a great big impressive rut scrape, making certain to erase my boot prints after kicking out a nice big area of bare sand.

Now for the topper: I had an old walking stick someone had made using a deer hoof, and I used that to put a passel o’ tracks in the naked sand. The hoof was pretty dinky, but it’s all I had.

Back at camp after he checked out the spot, my pal said he had found a fresh scrape so he had hung his climbing stand and would hunt there in the morning. “It’s a nice big impressive scrape, looks brand new and it’s full of tracks. Weird thing though, all the tracks are tiny.”

I nonchalantly pointed to the walking stick, hanging where it always did, and asked, “Were they about that size?”

He didn’t appreciate my work; next morning he pulled his stand and took off.

Deer Cam Photo Hijinks

There are numerous ways you can prank a guy’s trail camera or just excite your fellow hunters:

• Dress up like sasquatch and pay him a visit.
• Photoshop a game cam photo with a huge buck and put it on his SD card.
• Trigger his cam with a big mounted deer head to make it look like a live monster buck.
• Show everyone a game cam photo of a cougar from another part of the country and tell them it’s on club property.

Decoy o Rama

Find out where your buddy is planning to hunt one morning, and plant an impressive-looking deer decoy somewhere it’s partially obscured, but visible enough he’ll want to take a shot as soon as he spots it. If it works, he’ll either respect you or hate your guts.

Flour-Filled Game Call

This can be done with an old grunt tube rigged into a U shape, or if you think like someone at our deer camp, you can make a funky-looking doodad using wood and plastic tubing to achieve the same result. Dump in some flour and wait to see who picks it up and idly blows a puff of flour into his or her own face. Classic!

Fake Hunter in a Stand

When one of the guys isn’t around, hang a tree stand in “his” spot and plant a mannequin (or stuff some old camo clothes to create a scarecrow). When daylight comes and he spots an interloper crowding his spot, you’d better hope he has a sense of humor.

Biohazard Bag

Locate that one guy in camp who refuses to bathe or even change clothes all week. Get a “biohazardous waste” bag like they use in a lab to dispose of diseased flesh and such… and give it to him in front of everyone, telling him it’s his laundry bag.

This one is pretty good, I’ve seen it done and it went over well.

Resetting Alarm Clocks

If you really want to mess with someone, set their alarm clocks ahead so they’ll get up, do their routine, and head to the stand — three hours early.

Yeah I know, these days that’s usually not doable thanks to smart phones, but it’s still a classic.

Alarm Clock in a Stand

I’ve even heard tell of some evil pranksters who taped an alarm clock under a fellow hunter’s tree stand. Even worse, the alarm would turn itself off whenever it detected noise, so every time he went looking for it, it would shut off — only to alarm again in 15 minutes.

Pure evil.

What Are Your Favorites?

Do you have any favorite hunting camp pranks? Please share them in the comments below… and happy hunting!

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.