As I load my rifle, the sound of elky snickers wafts through the woods ... A gigantic mule deer with a full rack saunters up to my truck and stops, not 50 feet from me. This is the deer that eluded me all deer season, taking the place of the prize elk that dogged my footsteps for that two weeks. I sighed, knowing that I would not see that elk until the next deer season. The story of my life: elk in deer season, and deer in elk season.
I love hunting, even though I know that my chances of taking home the meat are slim to none.
It didn’t used to be this way. There was a day when I’d go out almost sure that soon there would be meat in the freezer. But about the time I started caring less about that my success rate dropped to zero. But my fun index soared! I don’t work very hard at it any more, and that, of course, is why I don’t score very often. I’ve found there are other elements of the yearly hunting trip that are more satisfying, whether I bag my game or not.
I’ve been hunting the same area for 20 years, and meeting the same people out there every year. Most of them I don’t know by name, and wouldn’t recognize in street clothes, but they’re friends of mine. Good friends. We stand around the camp fire at night to keep warm, share a drink, and tell lies.
"So help me," says one. "Someone spooked those three elk and they jumped right over me as I sat in the trail tying my boot laces. If I’d been standing up they’d have knocked me down!"
"That’s nothing," says another. "I took an elk last season that ..."
But those are their stories, and this is my page. My page, my stories. Here are some things that have happened to me in the woods:
Not many years ago, I followed an elk deep into the woods. That darn elk knew I was alone, and suckered me so far into the woods that he knew I couldn’t get out in daylight. Then he took off, snickering, leaving me to find my way back to camp in failing daylight. I started back at a fast walk, but soon realized that I’d have to make camp for the night. Trying to move through the woods at night would just get me a broken leg, or worse. I had a high-tech heat-absorbent poncho that I knew would keep me warm enough. I built a camp fire in the gathering darkness, and settled down for an uncomfortable night.
I sat there for hours, dozing, with the poncho covering me from the neck down. Around 10:00 PM I heard a truck and saw its headlights. I had made camp not 10 feet from a logging road; if I’d walked a few more steps I’d have been on the road, not a mile from camp.
A friend and I knew a place far back in the woods, an hour’s walk from our horse camp, which was 10 miles from the end of the road. No other hunters knew of this place; it was pristine. We were certain to bring home the venison. On opening day we got up before breakfast and hiked in the dark to this secret place - a wooded hollow with steep hills on all sides. We planned to take up positions on the hillside, with a view of the hollow and the hills opposite. It had been a dark night, and we figured there would be deer bedded down in the hollow. We’d fill our tags as they came out to feed.
As dawn came, we saw a spot of red on the opposite hill, then another and another. The place was full of hunters! Silence reigned. No one made any noise, afraid of spooking the deer before it was time.
Then a quiet voice: "Ralph?" No answer. Again, a little louder: "Ralph?" And finally, loud and nervous: "Ralph???" From the opposite hillside came a disgusted voice: "Why don’t you answer him, Ralph? Maybe he’ll shut up!" Silence returned.
But it didn’t matter. The deer had left weeks ago.
I usually carry about 10 pounds of extra "stuff" when I’m in the woods and off the trail hunting. This includes a little extra food (stuff I don’t like, so I’m not tempted to snack on it), a small hatchet, some rope, and so forth. One of the items is a pocket-sized metal flask filled with gasoline. When you really need a fire, probably you’re too cold to start one. Enter the gasoline.
Once I came upon a hunter who had hypothermia so bad he was shaking too hard to get a fire started. A sprinkle of gasoline on his wood, a thrown match, and voilla! I saved his life. (Well, I didn’t really save his life, but I could have if this had been a Jack London story.)
I never go into the woods in winter without my flask of gasoline - and, of course, a waterproof container of wooden matches.
My daughter gave me a sweat shirt one Christmas. I’ll describe it later. It’s enough right now to say that it was given as a joke, and was not one I would normally wear. I put it away.
Hunting season caught me unprepared. The night before I went, I searched my poorly lighted bedroom for the things I would need, among them a bright red sweat shirt that I’d worn in the woods for years. I put my gear in the truck, and the next day headed off for two weeks’ hunt.
I spent a couple of days setting up camp, and on opening day dressed for hunting and set off on the trail before dawn.
Picture a middle-aged hunter, not too clean and with a 3-day beard, rifled musket over his shoulder and a cap-and-ball pistol on his hip, looking dangerous, wearing a bright pink sweat shirt emblazoned with the message, "I believe in the Easter Bunny!"
But I do have my triumphs. It was the last day of elk season, and I was returning to camp after being skunked again. I was carrying my 30.06 and had a smooth-bore .60 caliber home-made flintlock pistol on my belt. I was carrying the pistol for grouse. It wasn’t finished yet; no sights and no trigger guard, and the wood was not even sanded down.
As I walked into camp I unloaded my rifle, then realized that the pistol was still loaded. The easiest way to unload a muzzleloader is to fire it. You can pick the charge, but I’ve always felt uncomfortable doing that. If the gun goes off by accident you have a new nickname: Lefty.
It was just getting dark. Some other hunters were plinking with .22 pistols at a tin can set up on a stump near the river. The light was bad, and they were missing the target. I asked if I might try my hand with the flinter and they said "Go ahead." I pulled the flintlock from my belt, cocked it and let fly, hardly taking the time to aim. The can leaped off the stump and into the river, to a chorus of "Wow, what a shot!" Years later I met these same hunters in another camp, and at the fire they were telling the story of the can, comparing my marksmanship with that of Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and the Lone Ranger, with those great men coming off second-best. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that the pistol had been loaded with bird shot; at that distance to the tin can, the shot pattern was at least 6 feet in diameter. I couldn’t miss.
So every once in a while I hear the story of the guy with the homemade pistol, who was the best shot they’d ever seen!
One season I took my pickup high in the mountains and set up a tent camp. The next morning I was getting ready to hunt. I had a .44 magnum on my hip and a 30.06 leaning against a tree, when I noticed a coil of bailing wire wrapped around the rear axle of the truck. I’d probably driven over it on the way up the mountain.
I crawled under the truck with wire cutters in my hand, and went to work cutting it away while lying on my back. I heard a noise and craned my head to look. Upside down in my vision and not 50 feet away was a nice two-point buck, with me under the truck and my rifle leaning against a tree!
The .44 magnum was legal for deer, so I dragged it out and took a two-handed upside-down bead on the deer, and let fly. Missed it a country mile, but that was only the start of my troubles. The concussion knocked 30 years of caked mud and debris from the bottom of the truck, and most of it landed in my eyes. Worse, I was deaf for a week and probably suffered some permanent hearing loss. I’ve heard that story about me ever since, around camp fires in subsequent hunts. I don’t care if I’m being attacked by a pack of hungry wolves, I will never again fire a .44 magnum from under a truck!
Last April ('97) I flew to Alabama to go turkey hunting with my college roommate of 40 years ago. We had hunted together in those same woods on Christmas and spring vacations, and I had been skunked every time. Why break with tradition? I was skunked again this time - five days in a row! Adding insult to injury, my friend's 30-something son showed up with a friend late one night, went out the next morning and came back in an hour or so with one apiece.
But the nice thing about getting skunked was there's always the anticipation of next year. Meantime, here's a shot of our hunting camp. The sign over the door reads, "It don't get no better'n this!" And it don't. Especially when you're with such good friends.
My dog Mei Ling was a mighty hunter. A Lhasa Apso, she was absolutely fierce in the woods, and feared by all her quarry. Click here to see that quarry.
