The brand may be new but the name has a history. As far back as I can remember, hunting camp was the best place to be when you needed a little time with friends and family in the outdoors. Our camp was called “Out Back Buck Shack”. I was just a young kid but I loved going to camp and being around my Grandpa, my Uncles, and our friends. There was no way for me to truly appreciate what camp was all about at such a young age but I knew it was special. And something always rang in the back of my mind whenever I would read or say the words “Out Back Buck Shack”. After high school, I spent a lot of time away from my home town but there always seemed to be something calling me back.
My first year in college I was playing football, so when hunting season came around I didn’t have time go in the woods. I remember being at practice and seeing deer off in another field and feeling that urge. My dorm room window looked out into a patch of woods and I would catch myself watching for deer. The hunting gene ran deep and I couldn’t shake it.
A couple years later I enlisted in the Army. The times that I could get home for a quick visit I would try to get out in the woods where my family always hunted. It was like hitting a reset button. Out there, it was calm. In a world full of chaos, hunting and that time with family and friends made it all go away. For a time you shut out the rest of the world and LIVE.
I finally realized what hunting camp was all about. I understood why my Grandpa, and my uncles, and all our friends would gather in a camp they built, sleep in bunk beds, and spend days going in the woods chasing deer. There are so many words to describe what was happening, what a person actually feels during that time, but for me I knew four words that said it all. “Out Back Buck Shack”.
It doesn’t matter where you are. Out Back Buck Shack can be anywhere. A few months ago, I was working in Ohio and living out of my camper. The farmer I was renting from gave me permission to hunt and allowed my Uncle and cousins to come out from New York. That was Out Back Buck Shack. Recently, my wife and I bought a house in the beautiful mountains of upstate New York. When I took my buck on the second day of rifle season and got to hang him in my own garage with friends and family there to enjoy a beer and the story of the hunt; that was Out Back Buck Shack.
Out Back Buck Shack is more than just a brand and more than just a name. It is everything that we experience in the chase for wild game. More than anything it is family and friends. We hope that you will join us on our journey. Come be a part of our Out Back Buck Shack and we hope to be a part of yours as well.
Where is your Out Back Buck Shack?
By James Connolly
Co-Owner of Out Back Buck Shack