About Deer Camp Journal
Deer Camp Journal is a buying guide for bowhunting, hunting and camp gear sold on Amazon US. It reads makers' specifications and Amazon listings, sorts products by written rules, and prints those rules on the page. It does not test gear, rate it or show prices, and when a value can't be confirmed, the table shows a dash.
The Hemlock Run crew are characters
The site is written as the notebook of a deer camp called Hemlock Run: a drafty cabin on a gravel road in north-central Pennsylvania. The three people who sign the pages are the site's recurring characters. The editors write in their voices. They are not real people, they have no hunting résumés, and they never claim to have bought, used or tested any product on this site.
- Walt Brenneman, 63, the camp boss. A retired high-school shop teacher who has run the camp since 1991 and keeps its logbook in pencil. Walt signs the blinds and tree stands, knives and camp gear pages, plus the home page and the brand list.
- Jess Brenneman, 36, Walt's niece and the camp's bowhunter. A physical therapist who hunts from a saddle and a ground blind and keeps a spreadsheet for everything. Jess signs archery, trail cameras and optics, and most of the guides that run on numbers.
- Danny Kowalczyk, 44, a union electrician who joined the camp in 2008. In charge of the fire, the lights and the ice. Danny signs fire and lighting, coolers, beach chairs and shade, and the gifts page.
The characters have opinions about kinds of gear and camp habits, and each opinion comes with a reason you can check, such as a spec, a rule of physics or a safety rule. They don't have opinions about how a particular product performed, because nobody here has used it. (Walt would like it noted that his cot from 1996 is real to him.)
How products are picked
Every product on the site is a real, named product that can be bought on Amazon US, in one of six sections: archery and bowhunting, blinds and tree stands, trail cameras and optics, knives and tools, fire and lighting, and camp gear.
- Makers' specs first. Weights, draw weights, capacities, field of view and similar values come from the manufacturer's own pages and manuals.
- Amazon listings second. Where a maker is silent, a value may come from the Amazon listing, and the table marks it as a listing value. Some fields are never taken from a listing, because listings get them wrong too often.
- Claims stay claims. Words like waterproof or 4-season appear only when the maker says so about that model, and they're marked as the maker's claim.
- Written rules for every list. Each best-of list is built by a rule applied to the data, and the rule is printed above the list. If a rule leaves too few products, the list isn't published on its own.
- No ratings, no scores. The site doesn't give stars or points, and it doesn't rank products by taste.
Availability on Amazon US is checked every week. A product that's gone is taken out of the tables. A brand with nothing left on Amazon US keeps its page, which says so plainly and shows similar products from other makers.
Facts that aren't about a product, such as safety guidance or how a piece of gear works, come from sources listed at the bottom of the page that uses them. Hunting rules differ from state to state, so the site points you to your state wildlife agency instead of giving legal advice.
How the site earns money
Deer Camp Journal is a participant in the Amazon Associates program. When you follow a Check price button and buy a qualifying item, Amazon may pay the site a commission, and your price stays the same. The details are on the disclosure page.
How to report an error
If a spec looks wrong, the maker's own page is the reference: the site checks its data against makers' pages and Amazon listings every week, and the contact page explains how corrections happen.