How to make camping interesting

Many of us love to camp. We usually started out camping in a tent and later, a truck camper or even a travel trailer/ 5th wheel.

Travel trailers sure do make camping nicer, especially for us old folks. But, back in the days of tent camping, I was invited by some friends to go camping with them on some land they owned. A nice little piece of property with a nice trout stream running through it. 

After setting up camp, out came the fishing poles, and one of the young family members caught the first one. I watched as he gutted and sliced up the little brookie, wondering what he was doing. He pulled out a cast iron skillet and placed the fileted brookie in it and onto the fire. The fish quickly dried up, burned, and I watched as he tried to scrap the fish out of the skillet. It was painful to watch him try to eat that fish, and the pan was covered in stuck fish.

Soon after, I caught a couple and went over and showed him how to clean but not filet. I then put the fish in some foil, added spices and butter, wrapped it tight and tossed it into the fire. A few minutes later as steam started to pour out of the foil, I removed it from the fire and showed him. The fish was moist, and the skin stuck to the foil which I balled up and placed in our trash bag - dishes are done. He ate it up in no time. I took the frying pan and stuck it in some sand in the creek bed to let it soak and hopefully let the stream clean it.

The next day, more people showed up including my friend and roommate Ignaton -- yes, his real name. As they had set up a safe shooting range, we were all plinking away when Ignaton looks down and goes, “What’s that?” and starts blasting away. A few shots later, he stopped and reached down and, yep, pulled out a cast iron skillet out of the sand, except now it had multiple holes in it.

Storage Space comes running over screaming (more about her at a later date), “You shot my frying pan!”

How many of you hunters/fishermen can brag that you once bagged a frying pan?