Size Doesn’t Matter

This morning I saw a duck flying at about 30 feet above my front yard as it made its way to the southeast.  As it flew over the top of a neighbor’s house I thought it must be going to the regional park just a few miles away in the direction it was going.  There is a small lake there and duck regularly stop there on their travels, and many make it a permanent home.  Seeing this duck brought to mind one of my earliest duck hunts.

A friend of mine was a duck hunter.  He lived to hunt (and eat) duck.  His home was almost a shrine to the duck.  And his garage was filled front to back and top to bottom with stuff to make his duck hunting “easier.”  Plus he had a dedicated trailer just to haul it around, and when he arrived where he wanted to hunt, he had many choices he could make based on—well, actually, I don’t know what.

Donald (yes, his name really was Donald) had a number of duck blinds in every camo pattern and color he could buy or make.  There were two canoes, a jon boat, and something he called a punt.  He had decoys in abundance in at least half a dozen duck types.  Some decoys were made for floating in water, and some were for setting out in a field.  Some were small, some were large, and some were gigantic.

One evening I joined him on one of his hunts.  I arrived at his home about 9pm, transferred my meager hunting things to his truck, loaded up the two retrievers, and we set out for a lake about 120 miles away.  I was full of questions and he was empty of answers.  “What kind of duck are we hunting?”  “I don’t know."  “How do you know there will be any ducks there?"  "It's duck season."  “Are we hunting from a boat or on land?"  "Maybe." 

We eventually arrived at the lake and found the gate to the property one of his friends owned.  By the time we found the spot where Donald thought was the right place to park, it was almost 3am.  My first thought was, "Finally we can get some sleep.”  His first thought was, "We’re running late.  Let’s get set up.”

Donald (not Don) started opening up doors on his trailer and pulling bags out onto the ground. I stood there peering into the darkness wondering where the lake was hiding.  He had me drag several bags over to a place about eighty yards from the truck and empty them onto the ground.  They were filled with decoys.  Mostly mallards, but many different sizes and shapes.  Then he dragged over two very big bags.  He said they were our blinds.

While I scattered the decoys over the field, Donald set up the blinds.  I had never seen anything like them.  They were basically two large metal cloth covered frames with cutouts for openings.  The coverings were painted to look like two humongous ducks, Each one standing about 7 feet tall.

By now it was getting light enough to see my surroundings.  The lake was about 40 yards away to the southeast, the field appeared to be full of ducks (the decoys), and in the middle of the ducks were two massive ducks that appeared to belong on a carousel ride.  I questioned Donald about whether or not the real ducks would be fooled, but he just looked at me as though I was dumber than the ducks.

Well we climbed inside the two giant ducks along with our shotguns, stools for sitting, dogs for fetching, blankets for staying warm, and thermoses of coffee for staying awake.  As it was getting lighter, the birds were beginning to fly by.  Soon many had landed around us to feed among the decoys.  The two sumo-ducks did not warrant so much as a sideways glance. 

As the sun made its appearance Donald and I were able to pop out of the top of our blinds to bring down the incoming birds.  The noise from the shotguns caused some feeding disturbances, but the ducks on the ground stayed around feeding.  When the dogs exited to fetch the downed birds, the live ones just moved aside and kept on eating.  This repeated until we had our limits.  However, the moment we exited the duck-shaped blinds, the feeding birds left in a mass scramble to get into the air and as far away from us as they could get.

By 10am we had the trailer and truck loaded for the return trip.  As Donald picked the two bags of ducks he noticed my bag was heavier than his.  At first he thought I had harvested an extra bird, but upon emptying the bags and recounting for himself, he realized the difference was simply I had brought down a couple of very large birds. 

On the drive home Donald complained more than once about how much larger my ducks were.  Finally, in order to change the subject a bit, I asked why the two giant duck-shaped blinds worked so well.

The reply was simple.  “When it comes to ducks, size doesn't matter."

Mountain Goat

Oreamnos americanus, Rocky Mountain Goat.  Elusive, smart, hard to hunt.  Really hard to hunt.

I was visiting a friend in Fort Worth who had just received his trophy Mountain Goat head for the wall above his fireplace.  It was beautiful with its white fur (hair?), beard, and those 11-inch horns.  I stared at it all evening as he told me about his hunt in the Rocky Mountains in Canada.

I had never trophy hunted, but it was interesting to look at this beast and think about what it took to harvest it.  My friend described the hunt as a short hike to a lush green meadow where the guide pointed out which goat was to be taken.  A few days camping and enjoying the outdoors in northwest Canada and a plane flight home.  What could be easier?  I liked what I was hearing, and soon I was in contact with my friend’s guide in Terrace, B.C.  We arranged a time, and the hunt was on. 

I had business meetings in Anchorage and Juneau to attend, but as soon as the meetings were over, I flew into Terrace where I met up with “Fuzzy.”  He took one look at me, gave a low whistle, and commented that he had never seen this much fat on a lazy pig.  I had just spent a year getting into the best shape I had ever been in, but apparently it wasn’t good enough for him. We threw my baggage into the back of his truck and drove a number of miles to a ranch house where his horses were stabled.  A few hours later we were entering a camp high in the mountains where it was cold, beautiful, and late in the evening even though the sun was still well up in the sky.

The camp cook, “Stew,” tended to my horse and pack while I changed out of my business clothes and into something more suitable for hunting and camping.  Afterwards we chowed down on a hearty stew and camp biscuits with some good strong coffee.

It seems guides and camp hands are all in possession of a name that doesn’t always make sense to me—or maybe it does.  Stew’s name was Robert, but the only thing he could or would cook was stew.  I had an Apache guide once named Horace.  Horace?  Another guide was Rhonda.  One time I called him Ron, but I quickly learned not to do that again.  Flatfoot Mike did everything while running as fast as he could.  Dipper could never cross a stream without stumbling and taking a dip.  It took me a couple of days to find out why Fuzzy was called Fuzzy.   He was clean-shaven and the name didn’t fit—until I found out his last name was Knutz.

About 3am the next morning I was awakened to start the day, and by 4am we were on the trail.  My horse was named Un.  I quickly found out it was short for Unpredictable.  At times he would break into a gallop, and then stop on a dime.  No warning about the start or the stop.  He also loved to crow hop about every 15 to 20 minutes.  Joy.  Only once have I ever been tossed from a horse, and it wasn’t going to happen again, but I never quite convinced Un that his antics were useless.  Time for another crow hop.

About 6am we tied off the horses to some bushes and continued on foot.  Up.  Up.  Up.  I was beginning to remember the description my friend had given me of the lush green meadows with goats everywhere.  I vowed to get even when I got back to Fort Worth.  The narrow rocky trail soon faded to just rocks with no trail to be seen anywhere.  Up.  Up.  Up.

We hiked along the edge of a small stream.  Well, maybe it was some 80 to 100 feet below us, but we kept it on our left side and we moved forward.  Finally we stopped.  Fuzzy commented that he didn’t expect me to keep up with him, and if I had realized sooner his expectations, I might not have done so.  But too late.  We were at the hunting grounds.

For 4 hours we searched the area until finally Fuzzy saw a white speck in a shadowed crevice on a cliffside in the distance across the stream.  “Take that one.  It looks to be at least a 10-incher, and it’s only 800 yards away.”

As hard as I looked, I couldn’t see it.  “Where?” 

Fuzzy looked at me as though I was nuts.  “Right there!” 

He pointed at it, and I strained to see it but no luck.  And I was using binoculars—he wasn’t.  Finally I dialed up my scope to the full 10x and spotted it.  And it was just a spot.

“Take him Now!  You’ll never get an easy shot like this again.”

I thought about the fact that my old .30’06 had a 39-inch drop at 500 yards, and I had never dialed it in beyond that.  Just how much would the drop be at 800 yards?  Then I remembered a lesson from my 7^th grade band class, “If you haven’t practiced it, don’t try to perform it.”

When I said I’d pass on this shot, Fuzzy came uncorked.  “I thought I was guiding a Hunter!”  He also said quite a few other things as we hiked back to the horses.

Two more days we hiked back to those same grounds only to find nothing.  “I told you that was the easiest shot you’d get.  Your own fault if you don’t take down a goat.”  I still had two more days paid for, and I decided to use up all of it.  If a goat happened, it happened.  If not, oh well.

On the morning of the fourth day, about half an hour after tying off the horses, I noticed a goat slipping over the edge of the cliff just as we came into his sight.  Fuzzy didn’t see it, but he took a look over the edge and there was that goat about 25 feet straight down standing on a ledge about 1-inch wide.

There was no way to take a shot straight down, so we decided to go back downstream and cross over so we could take him from the other side.  The hike was not easy, but about 45 minutes later we drew up to where the goat should have been visible.  Slowly we crawled to the edge and looked across, but there was no goat.  We looked all up and down the area, but all we could see was an empty rock-face.

For some reason, Fuzzy decided to look straight down, and there was the goat below us again.  He had crossed over the stream just as we had done.  Well the only thing to do was to cross back to our original spot.

Again it took about 45 minutes to cross back, and again there was no goat.  Without hesitation Fuzzy looked straight down and there was the goat.  He had crossed back.

Fuzzy decided to cross back over the stream by himself, and as he worked his way across, I watched the goat cross back to the far side.  Now he was mine.  Fuzzy appeared just for a moment to let me know where he was, and then he backed away to safety as I sighted in and squeezed the trigger. 

I watched as the goat fell into a tight hole among some large boulders, and I hoped the horns were still in tact.  I started working my way to where he fell and arrived about the same time as did Fuzzy.

It took a few hours to bring the goat back to the horses, but it was worth all the effort.  The horns measured just under 11-inches, and the coat was beautiful.  Fuzzy estimated the weight to be about 240 to 250 pounds, and he said that was just about as big as they get.  “Good job.”

I was still in shock over Fuzzy’s comment when we arrived back in camp.  Stew had our stew ready, and after dinner, Fuzzy finished preparing the goat for transporting back to civilization. 

Back home I had just about finished eating the last of the goat when the mounted head arrived from the taxidermist in Terrace.  I gave it to my friend to hang beside the one he already had, and the pair made a fantastic display above his fireplace.  It was the only time I had ever taken a trophy, and I don’t expect I’ll ever do it again.  And I still haven’t gotten even with my friend for his description of the hunt, but his time is coming.

The Last Bird

The dove can humble the best of bird hunters, and since I am not the best, one can only imagine my humiliation.  But I’ve already told that story (La Paloma).  Over a period of about 20 years I hunted a number of birds including the dove, but it was the dove that had the last word.

In the ‘80’s my wife and I lived in Arizona where hunting is almost mandatory, and from time to time I took advantage of the opportunities.  It seemed to me dove were  everywhere just begging for me to shoot them, and I tried.  I really tried.  I spent a small fortune on shells for the old 20-gauge, and I believe the dove I brought home ran me between $25 and $30 apiece.  But I kept trying.

About 10 to 12 miles from where I lived were some canals providing water for the city of Phoenix, and the dove came there in large numbers all day long.  In the fall, during dove hunting season, the numbers seemed to increase.  It was a dove hunter’s paradise.  I went out regularly during each season, and I always managed to bring home a limit.  Dove was on the menu several times each week, and I didn’t care what it cost to bring them home.  I knew this would not last too many years into the future the way Phoenix was expanding.

On the last day of the season I arrived ready to fill my limit once again.  The night before I had eaten the last of the previous hunt’s birds, so this last day would provide my final taste of dove for another year.

I dropped a box of shells into my vest pocket and walked over to my favorite spot.  The sun was just up when I arrived there, and within a minute I could see dove in the distance.  Suddenly a lone dove flew in front of me about thirty yards out.  Quickly I brought up the 20-gauge and squeezed the trigger.  Click.  It might help if I loaded the shotgun first.

I noticed the dove had circled back and was crossing in front of me again as I loaded up.  As soon as I was ready, it flew back by.  Boom.  I missed.  Again it circled around.  Boom.  I missed.  And again it turned and flew in front of me.  And again, Boom.  And again I missed.  I reloaded while watching the dove sit on a branch of a Palo Verde tree about forty yards out.  It was watching me.  We played this game a few more times before I began to have flashbacks of a dove that had flown through my pattern on my first dove hunt.  (La Paloma).  This couldn’t be happening to me again.  It just couldn’t.

Several more birds began to fly by, but they were in no danger.  I couldn’t hit one if it were looking down the barrel of the shotgun while I pulled the trigger.  It didn’t take long for me to use up the entire box of shells with nothing to show for it.  I thought of the extra boxes in the car, but enough was enough.  I decided to go home.

Just as I was turning to walk away, the dove sitting in the tree flew over to within a few yards from me and landed on the ground.  It turned sideways to look at me with its right eye, and then it turned around to look at me with its left eye.  I think it was laughing.  But I walked on back to my car, got in, and drove to the skeet and trap range nearby.

I went through four trap rounds without a miss.  I used up the last of my shells on skeet with only two misses out of about twenty pulls.  I don’t get it. 

The next year I was not able to spend any time in pursuit of the dove, but the following year I was prepared.  As I got near the area, the first thing I noticed was paved roads.  Not good.  Then I noticed the construction sites.  Oh well.  I drove around for a while watching the dove still occupying the area, but the hunting was gone.  I drove out a few more miles, but it was useless.  The doves were staying near the canals, and the canals were in the construction zone.

A year later I was living in California.  I packed away the shotgun and never used it again, so I must say that the last statement about bird hunting belonged to the birds.

When Things Were Black and White

When I first entered college, money was very tight.  College was expensive, and my wallet was cheap.  I lived in the dorm on campus, but the first semester I couldn’t afford the cafeteria, so I did the best I could to survive by fishing at a nearby lake for something to eat.  I was usually successful, but not always.

During this first semester I heard that a city close by was having a skunk problem and the city council was having difficulties securing a pest control company to remedy the situation.  I found out when the next meeting of the council was, and I made certain I was there to offer my services.

I was a bow hunter, and I thought a bow would be perfect for hunting in the streets and alleys after midnight two or three times a week.  It was quiet, and I was normally very accurate with my arrow placements.  It made sense to me, but when I proposed it to the council, they snickered and showed me the door.  Oh well.

A few weeks later I was summoned to the chancellor’s office at the university.  For the life of me I couldn’t figure what I had done to deserve this, but when I arrived I was met by one of the councilmen who had refused my service offer.  It seems things weren’t smelling too good for the city, and they had reconsidered what I had proposed.

Paperwork and legalities move at a snail’s pace, and it was the beginning of my second semester before everything was in place for me to venture forth among the high-rises to hunt the critters.  I was thinking at a few dollars per skunk, this should the answer to my financial problems.  And it certainly helped.  But I soon learned the smell of money wasn’t as sweet as I had hoped.

I had the expenses of using my old car and hiring a driver to patrol the streets while I sat on the hood of the car with bow and arrow ready.  It worked like a charm.  Each time we went in search of Pepé we managed to quickly fill the big ice chest I carried in the trunk of my car.  After expenses for the driver and gasoline, I was actually earning a decent amount of money.  But there was another cost.

The one thing I didn’t fully prepare for was the one thing that makes a skunk a skunk.  No matter how tightly that ice chest lid was closed, the skunks it contained smelled like the skunks it contained, and eventually so did my car.  To top it off, I could deliver the skunks to an animal control compound only once each week, meaning the skunks stayed in the ice chest (without ice) far too long.

Slowly my classmates at the college began to sit in small groups as far from me as they could.  I noticed the professors would open windows in the room even if it was raining or cold outside.  And my roommate in the dorm starting spending nights “studying” with a friend in another room.

The end came when one night I walked over to retrieve a skunk, and I didn’t see its friend in the shadows.  It was the only time I got sprayed, but it was one time too many for my compatriots at the college.  At least the semester was almost over, and the skunk project was ending anyway.  The smell of money was not as I had expected, and I didn’t pursue the skunks in future semesters.  But those times of black and white made certain I no longer had to fish to eat.

La Paloma

The dove is never an easy bird to hunt.  I say that after losing a bet with a friend over 40 years ago.  Hank and I were not much for bird hunting, but we did do a little.  He and I had both hunted ducks and quail, and he had hunted dove, but I had not.  I was decent with a shotgun, although I wasn’t great, and I had discovered there are differences in shooting skeet, trap, and live birds, but birds are birds—right? 

Over the years I had run many boxes of shells through the old bolt-action twenty-gauge I had inherited from my grandfather, and I thought there were no birds that could fly through the pattern that gun made.  Hank bet me some small change that the dove could do it.  No Way!  But Hank insisted it could be done, so I took that bet, and we went dove hunting.

My cousin’s family had some property in west Texas where the doves were plentiful in the fall.  One particular stock tank must have had the right flavor of water, because the dove population would always be rather dense for two or three hundred yards around it.  I didn’t remember ever hearing of anyone hunting these birds here before, so I thought it would be a perfect place to test Hank’s theory and take his money from him.  I didn’t think about the fact that the cost of the gasoline just to get there was several times the amount of the bet.  Sometimes cost doesn’t matter when money is involved.

As we were driving from Fort Worth to the ranch, I decided to make a second bet.  I told Hank I could take the limit of birds (I think it was fifteen) with one box of shells and have several left over for the next hunt.  I drove from Mineral Wells to Abilene before he stopped laughing, and we were past Odessa before the snickering subsided.  Come to think of it, his big grin never did go away.

When we arrived at the ranch, my cousin was waiting on us.  I had talked to him for permission to hunt the property, but I didn’t expect to see him at the ranch.  However, there he was, and he was planning on joining in on the hunt.  When he found out about the bet, he sided with Hank.

“I’ll double Hank’s bet.  Shooting dove is like shooting a hole in a cloud.  It can be done, but it ain’t easy.”

Two against one.  Great.  I’ve seen dove fly, so why are they supposed to be so hard to hit?  Both of these guys know my hunting ability, yet they think I’m going to have a difficult time filling my limit.  They should know better.

We were up very early the next morning, and by first gray light we were near the stock tank awaiting the sun’s rays.  Just before the first long shadows appeared we began to see flights of white wing dove, and we were ready.

All three of us let go at about the same instant.  The double boom of Hank’s Ithaca twelve and the rhythmic pounding of Vern’s Browning pump along with the unsteady popping of my little Mossberg 185d made the morning sound like a war zone.  And the dove fell.  We gathered our first round of birds and settled in for three more rounds before the flights became more sporadic.  Hank and Vern had their limits and I had one more to go to fill my bag, but that one proved to be my undoing.

By now the birds were flying alone, and every shot could be judged on its own merit.  No more of the ‘two birds with one shot’ scenario.  I had to make this work.  I had just seven shells left in my pocket, and I had to go back with 1) my limit, and 2) several shells left over.  I wish I had sneaked in a few extras, but I was just too confident.

I wasted two or three shots on cross flights about thirty yards out.  Another shot followed a bird as he flew from behind me, over my head, and in front of me, but he was just too fast for the pellets.  And then it happened.  I loaded my last three shells, two in the magazine and one in the chamber.  In the distance was a dove flying straight toward me.  When the bird was about forty-five yards away, I pulled the trigger and immediately chambered the second round.  Again I pulled the trigger, and the last round went into the chamber.  And I fired again.  I had seen that dove fly right through the oncoming shot three times, and then it flew over my head and away to the nearby hills.

I paid my bets, and I took a lot of ribbing, but later on I discovered the real quality of my friends.  I never heard about my humiliation after that day—not from Hank or Vern or anyone else for that matter.  They never said a word about it to another person.  And I learned a valuable lesson.

Prairie Chicken

Nebraska is a big wide-open state with endless vistas of corn and wheat interspersed with houses, barns, and windmills.  Actually there is much more to it than that, but farming is the dominant perception one has while driving through the state.

I had to visit a company store in Kearney where one of the department managers was an old high school friend.  Actually he went to a different high school from me, but we lived near each other, and soon became friends.  It seems his family was from near Kearney and had a rather large farm they tended, but for about four years mom and the kids moved to Fort Worth to take care of a sick relative.  I lost track of Barney just after graduation when his family moved away.  When I met him again, it was at the store in Kearney, to which his family had returned.

We spent the evening discussing old times, and it wasn’t long before he invited me to his family farm for a visit.  He mentioned hunting prairie chicken if I could make it there in the next few weeks.  Hunt??  Is a four-pound canary fat??  Yes!  I will be there!

I went on to a number of other company stores in the central plains before I could arrange to return to Kearney, but in a couple of weeks I was back and ready for prairie chicken.  I drove to Barn’s family farm where he and I went over our plans.  Well, actually he went over the plans.  I just listened.  I was quite surprised that this hunt was not with shotguns, but with cameras.

I didn’t quite know what to think.  I had never thought of hunting without some kind of a weapon, and I couldn’t understand the purpose, but I had my camera with me, and I was willing to give it a try.

That evening, just as the sun was disappearing, we were sitting outside on his front porch, and I could hear the strangest noise in the distance.  It sounded something like a “boom” or a prolonged “thump.”  “That’s the chicken we’re looking for.”  Barn told me the place we were going before sunrise would be filled with that noise.

Well, okay.  I can’t say I was enthused.  I really wanted to taste some prairie chicken, but my friend was certain I would enjoy using a camera on these birds. 

By 4am the next morning we were in his Jeep driving to the far end of the farm where a large area was still untouched prairie grasslands.  We stopped and hiked about a quarter of a mile to a place where that booming sound could be heard very close by.  Here we sat down and waited, but we didn’t wait long.  As the sky quickly grew light, the prairie chickens begin to gather. 

For about 3 hours I was treated to a ritual the likes of which I had never before witnessed.  It was a mating ritual where the male prairie chickens would dance, jump, vault, spread their plumage, and in general put on a display designed to attract a female prairie chicken.  The booming was almost non-stop among the male birds, and the females were gathered around watching.  Sometimes a female bird would join in with a male and soon the new couple would disappear into the prairie grass to do their prairie chicken stuff in private.

I watched with my mouth hanging open until a fly flew in.  After that I remembered what I was there for.  I picked up my camera and started taking pictures.  I believe I burned through every roll of film I had with me that day.  Most of the photos were bad, but a handful were very good by my amateur standards, and I enjoyed looking at them and bringing back the memories for several years.

I never had another opportunity to hunt prairie chicken either with a camera or a shotgun, and it’s just as well.  Like so many of our wild game in North America, the numbers are dwindling and careful management is necessary for the species’ survival. 

I won’t say whether hunting or fishing is right or wrong, but a camera can provide great satisfaction to a hunter or fisherman.  I haven’t hunted for many years now, but that is mostly due to physical abilities.  And even if I could hunt today, it would most likely be with a camera.  As for fishing, I catch and release, and when I can remember to bring a camera along, I photograph my catch.

My prairie chicken hunt was in 1972.  I like to think there are many more birds today just because I used a camera rather than my shotgun back then.

The Deer Suit

I have written several times that I no longer hunt.  My body just can’t do it any more, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it.  One of the things I often think about is my last deer hunt.

It was a simple affair in the mountains above San Bernardino, California many years ago.  I had two tags, one for bear and one for deer, and I had set up a small camp where I could spend a few days if I found it necessary to stay that long.

I arrived in the late afternoon to set up my camp, and later I grabbed my rifle to do some exploring.  I walked around for a few hours, returned to camp, ate dinner, and crawled into my sleeping bag.  By 6:30am the following morning, I was about a mile from my camp looking for deer.  A bear would be bonus, but even if I saw one, I don’t believe I would have taken it.

When the light became bright enough to distinguish the details of my surroundings, I slowly shifted my position for a better look around me.  There was a small clearing a few yards away, and just beyond that was a small flowing stream.  I waited.  And waited.

By late morning, I gave up and moved a few hundred yards uphill and a few hundred yards to the east.  From this position I could see down a long brushy slope to a grove of trees about 250 yards away.  It was a good spot, but the weather was a little warm, so I guessed the deer wouldn’t be moving around for another few hours.  I dug my lunch out of my pack and enjoyed the scenery for a while before taking a nap.

I awoke about 4pm to the faint sound of cracking twigs.  It wasn’t a big noise, but it was not the sound of a branch falling from a tree.  It was the sound of something being stepped upon, and I started searching for the point of origin.

I used my field glasses to examine the landscape around me, and I saw some movement in the shrubs about 200 to 220 yards downhill near the trees.  I focused in as sharp as I could with those 4x glasses, but I just could not tell with certainty what it was that was moving about.  I could tell from the movement of the vegetation that it was big.

I watched it for about 10 minutes before I could finally see a set of antlers moving about.  At first I thought it was just some twigs, but they were closely matched and moving in tandem.  It had to be antlers.

I exchanged the field glasses for my 30-06 and watched the movement through the scope just waiting for a clear shot.  After a few minutes the antlers began to sway side to side, and then they turned around as though the deer’s head was spinning 360 degrees.  Something wasn’t right.

I zoomed my scope to its full 10 power and looked as closely as I could at the deer.  Now I was really confused.  No deer I had ever seen was the golden color of dyed buckskin leather.  I made sure the safety was in place on the rifle, and exchanged it for the field glasses again.  I watched for maybe 15 minutes before the deer stood up on its hind legs, reached up with its front legs and pulled off its head revealing a man with a beard bushier than my own.

What was he thinking?  If I had possessed less patience and had decided to go ahead and harvest the deer I was seeing, the man could have been severely injured or dead.  I could go on a rant for many pages here, but I won’t.  I’ll just say that dressing up in a deer suit and running about in front of other hunters during deer season isn’t the smartest thing I have ever witnessed.

I immediately returned to my camp, loaded everything into my car and drove home.  I’ve never hunted since.

Chucker

Everyone who has ever hunted chucker could sign their name at the bottom of this story, and no one would doubt they wrote it.  I heard it many times before my first (and only) chucker hunt, and I’ve heard it many times since.  The only way to hunt chucker effectively is in one’s dreams.

Bird hunting was usually an afterthought for me.  Fishing was always first on my list, and hunting was a second choice.  In the category of hunting, deer hunting was first, elk came in second, and at the very bottom of the list was bird hunting somewhere below rabbit hunting, squirrel hunting, and ‘possum hunting.  I was good with a shotgun, but I preferred single projectile hunting.

I was visiting a company store in Arizona one year and the store’s manager invited me on a quail hunt.  Okay, but I didn’t have a shotgun with me.  No problem.  The store manager had one I could borrow, if I didn’t mind using a twenty-gauge.  If I am going to bird hunt, I prefer a twenty-gauge, so the hunt was on.  We finished our work, and made plans for the next morning.

Lanny picked me up at my hotel about 3:30 the next morning and we drove about two hours to a valley where he said his family had farmed and ranched since the 1870’s.  Apparently they were the target of various raids by the people who occupied the land before them, but they had managed to remain and build generations of family.  Now the family just used the old farmhouse as a weekend retreat and hunting lodge.

We arrived with the sky growing light in the east, and I really enjoyed watching the valley come alive as the first rays of light met up with the lush green meadows and hillsides.  The stream running through the middle of it made me wish I had brought along my fishing equipment.  I thought this was a fantasy world—a painting that became a reality.  But this wasn’t where we were going to hunt.  This was where we were stopping for breakfast.

After a breakfast that was the dream of every Texan, we drove over to another nearby valley, and the contrast between the two valleys was indescribable.  The second valley was definitely a desert.  The cacti were everywhere, grass was nonexistent, and every bush had a rattlesnake under it.  This was where we were going to hunt.

The quail were running everywhere, and we kept the dogs busy for several hours as we gained our limit.  But I kept noticing another bird, and finally I asked about it.  Lanny bit his lower lip and looked down at the ground for a while before responding.

“They’re chucker.”

“Can we hunt them?”

“Only once.”

“Just once?  Why just once?”

“I’d rather not say.”

I couldn’t get anything more out of Lanny about the chucker, but as I traveled about the country, I began asking about chucker hunting.  I heard the same story over and over and over about how they are the mathematicians of the bird world.  They examine the type of shotgun one is carrying, the chokes, and the loads, They then watch the speed one is walking and calculate how fast they have to run uphill to stay just out of the range of the pellets.

Yeah, right.  But it took a long time for me to find someone who would join me for a chucker hunt.  At last I found someone.  $300 for the day (1971), plus food and beverages.  And fuel.  A dog would be $100 extra.

The hunt was back in Arizona, not too far from where I had been quail hunting with Lanny the year before.  This time I was much more prepared with snake guards and my own twenty-gauge.  Rhonda (the guide) suggested I use magnum #6 shot and a full choke.  He (yes, the name was Rhonda) also suggested I train by wearing heavy boots with 5 pound ankle weights and run up several flights of stairs four or five times a day for a couple of months before the hunt.

I felt stupid wearing a suit with heavy boots and ankle weights, but I did it anyway, and I’m glad I did.  As anyone who has ever hunted chucker knows, these birds always run uphill.  No matter how fast or slow a hunter is, the birds will always be about 50 to 60 yards ahead—running uphill.  I climbed those hills so much that day, my next stop could easily have been the top of Mt. Everest. 

Each time the birds reached the top of the hill, they would fly up into the air above my head and settle back down at the bottom the hill—always 50 to 60 yards from me.  I was glad for the magnum loads for the few shots I was able to take, but it was only for the birds that were behind in their mathematics homework.  I took about a dozen shots at chucker who strayed within 50 yards, and four of them went home with me.  But I must say it was a very tough day.

About 3 o’clock I had had enough.  I was hot, tired, thirsty, dirty, and frustrated.  I had encountered so many cacti that I had as many thorns as any of them.  I don’t remember ever having wasted so much money for such a small return on my investment.  And I now understood why Lanny didn’t want to talk about hunting chucker.  No one wants to be outsmarted by a bird with a Ph.D. in mathematics. 

Mountain Lion

There are times when luck works for you, and there are times when it doesn’t.  Sometimes two persons will split the good and bad luck with one hogging the all the good stuff and the other taking the leftovers.  But I think there is just as much of one as the other.  And for me the bad always follows the good.

When I was returning from a very successful fishing trip in Pennsylvania I realized I left my ice chest full of fish at the motel near Harrisburg.  The problem was that I was in Oklahoma when I realized it.  And there had been business stops in Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri.  I was some eight days down the road.  I turned around and drove straight through to the motel.

I arrived to find my ice chest waiting for me.  I thanked the managers for saving it for me, paid the storage fee, and drove a few blocks away where I found a trash bin.  I opened the lid to throw out the well-spoiled fish and heard a growl that I didn’t like hearing.  I abandoned the ice chest and ran back to my car to escape the bear emerging from the bin.  I drove away, and I didn’t look back.  Forgetting that ice chest at the motel cost me a lot of time and travel money, and I had nothing to show for it.  But at least I had enjoyed a great fishing trip.

Georgia has some great bass fishing water, and I took a couple of days to rent a boat and do some serious fishing on the Georgia side of Lake Hartwell northeast of Atlanta.  I had a great time, and in addition to returning more than sixty fish to the water, I caught the biggest bass of my fishing career.  My hand scales showed it to be a little over nine pounds.  Just after taking a picture of it, I dropped my camera overboard.  I kept fishing and catching, but I was really trying to hook my camera, although I knew that it was ruined even if by some miracle I did retrieve it.  It was only a small amount of bad luck after the good luck of catching the big bass, but I was catching a lot of fish; therefore, something really bad was going to happen.  It did.

Returning to the boat rental company’s dock, I hit a submerged stump or rock or something, and down went the boat.  It didn’t sink, but that was only because of the floatation tanks in the bow and under the seats, but the motor was submerged.  Another boater rescued me and towed the submerged boat back to the dock.  That cost me a fifty.  Then I had to pay for the boat and motor.  Good luck/bad luck.

My cousin Vern was “unique” in my family.  Not that the entire family wasn’t “unique,” but Vern was possibly the most “unique.”  I didn’t see Vern very often, but this wasn’t a bad thing.  Whenever I did see him, I knew something was about to go very wrong. 

Vern’s portion of the family either owned or leased a ranch in southwest Texas, and they raised some cattle and had a small herd of sheep there.  It was a big place, and he and I had done a bit of hunting there for deer from time to time.  Now he was having some problems with a mountain lion taking about two sheep per week.  And so he came looking for me.  Vern was an experienced hunter, but a mountain lion was a bit daunting for him.  He decided that two daunted hunters would be better than one.

Neither of us knew much about the habits of the big cat, so we headed to the library to do some research.  In our quest for knowledge, we discovered many things, but the most important thing we came across was the bounty being paid for the skin, and we could keep the skin after it was marked and registered.  My first thought was about covering the cost of the trip.  Vern’s first thought was about beer.

We met at his ranch on a Friday evening and studied a map showing where the sheep kills were occurring.  We thought we could determine the approximate location of the next kill, and hopefully be close enough to it to take the lion.  Early Saturday morning we drove out to the location where we thought we could succeed at our task and took a long look around.

We glassed the range for four or five hours before driving back to the ranch house.  We knew we were up against a formidable opponent on his home ground.  But we were hopeful.  We took a long nap, and waited for the sun to move low in the western sky.

About eight in the evening we were back in the cat’s territory waiting for the moon to make it’s appearance.  But we were going to have a long wait.  The stars disappeared one by one as the clouds moved in and soon the rain began.  We got out of there in a hurry.  I can’t blame this on bad luck, because it hadn’t been preceded by good luck.  I can blame ourselves for not getting a weather report before starting the hunt.  We could try again next weekend.

I needed to spend a few days in New Mexico and Arizona on business and couldn’t return until the following Sunday, but I arranged to take up to four days vacation at the ranch and hunt for the mountain lion.  Vern, to his credit, didn’t go off bull riding or noodling, and he was there when I returned to the hunt.

This time the moon was just a couple of days past full, and we had plenty of light under the clear skies.  We walked the trails and roads on the property until about one in the morning, and then stopped to take a break.  We had just sat down when we heard the bells on the sheep start ringing, and we knew the cat was on the move.  We slipped into the shadows as much as we could and walked toward the disturbance.  Suddenly Vern started punching my shoulder and pointing into the distance.

Sometimes luck is in abundance.  The wind was slight, but it was blowing straight at us from the direction of the lion.  And lined up somewhat behind us was the moon.  Very gently I brought the hammer back to full cock on the .30-30 and lifted it up to peer down the iron sights.  I squeezed the trigger, and the cat tumbled end over end and never moved again.

Vern stood there with his mouth open for about as long as I did.  Then we decided we had better get it back to the ranch house.  But was it really dead?  Neither of us wanted to get very close to it to find out, so we threw a few rocks at it, but it just lay there.  After about half an hour Vern went back after the truck, leaving me to get eaten if it suddenly came back to life.  I chambered another round.

Vern drove up to the cat and rolled his window down just enough to push a fishing pole through and poke the cat a few times.  It still didn’t move, so I summoned enough courage to walk up to it—rifle ready, of course.  A few feet away I could see there was no need to worry.  The exit wound had come up through the spine a few inches behind the head.  We tossed the cat into the back of the truck and drove back to the ranch house.

There was not much sleep allowed on this night.  Neither of us went to bed nor did we want to do so.  We sat up in the kitchen with a pot of coffee, but a couple of times I think we dozed off while talking about our adventure.  After the sun was an hour or so old the next morning, we took a look at our prize.  It was an old battle-worn male with broken teeth.  It had probably turned to sheep killing out of convenience when it became too difficult to hunt deer.  The sheep dogs didn’t pose much of a problem, and if one got too close, it could become a meal.

We were puzzled about the path of the bullet from the .30-30.  The exit wound was obvious, but it wasn’t until we skinned it that we found the entry point.  When I squeezed off the shot, its tail was lifted, and I couldn’t have shot more dead center with a target rifle in a tournament.  We bundled up the skin and drove about 30 miles to the nearest town where we could collect our bounty. 

“Boys, you’re out of luck.”  The game warden had checked over our licenses and identification.  “Last Monday we got us a new law.  You cain’t shoot these critters anymore.  They’re endangered.”

I knew the good luck we had in taking this cat would be punished.  The warden cited us for waiting too long to turn in the cat we had taken “last week.”  Maybe that was good luck.  It could have been a lot worse.

The interesting thing is that neither Vern nor I ever questioned this “new law.”  It was about three or four years later I discovered that in Texas the mountain lion (a.k.a. puma, cougar, painter, big kitty, etc.) was never considered endangered, and there was no law preventing us from killing it.  This can’t be classified as either good or bad luck, so I file it under the heading of “Screwed.”

Spain

Hector and I were sent to Spain on a business trip during the time General Franco was still ruling the country.  I don’t really know or care what strings were pulled to get us there, but the company we worked for had stores in a few of the cities, and I was chosen to oversee several changes within the Spanish store chain.  Hector was sent along as my interpreter, and we expected to be there for many weeks, and possibly up to a year.

Hector was a colleague and my equal in position within the organization, so it was a bit odd to both of us that he would be selected to travel with me.  The department he ran for the company was important, and not just anyone could fill in for him while he was gone.  But we were assured that Hector’s position was not in jeopardy, and he was just being rewarded for his years of great service to the company.  Still…  But there was nothing that could be done about it.  Besides, he and I were good friends, and the fact that he was born in Puerto Rico and had a Hispanic surname should also be a benefit.

I, on the other hand, traveled so much that my department would probably not miss me.  My assistant/secretary was plenty capable to fill in while I was on the road.  So there was no problem expected here.

Our route had us changing planes several times with layovers in some great places.  We flew from Dallas to Chicago to New York.  We both had offices in New York City where we made one last check of our departments before boarding for Montreal.  From Montreal we flew to Heathrow outside of London where we took a four-hour break before flying to Paris.  Finally a long break.  We had two full days and a little more to see the city, but we spent the first day just sleeping in the hotel. 

French was not a language I ever mastered, and the French people were very happy when I didn’t try using it.  We took time to visit a few of the biggest landmarks, but all too soon the time was over and we had to take a flight to Dresden.  Again we had enough hours available to do some quick sightseeing.  From Dresden we flew to a city in Italy where we switched planes and flew to Madrid.  Eight days, six airlines, and our luggage arrived when we did.  It was a miracle.

It wasn’t until after we arrived in Madrid that I realized we just might have a difficult time in Spain.  In attempting to get a taxi, Hector pulled out of his pocket a Spanish-English/English-Spanish translation dictionary.  I looked at the book then at Hector then at the book.

“No one ever asked me if I could speak Spanish.  I was just told to travel with you as your interpreter.”

As I thought about it, I realized I might have done the same thing.

Business was business.  For many long weeks we dealt with what we had to do at the store in Madrid and several others in the western and southern regions of Spain.  Oh, we had breaks, and we definitely enjoyed the people, the culture, and the nightlife.  As we neared the end of the Madrid portion of our stay, one of the gentlemen at a store invited us to join him in hunting red-legged partridge. 

Hector wasn’t a hunter, but he was a fisherman, so he took time with another gentleman to fish one of the local rivers while I went bird hunting.  The hunt was okay, I guess.  It was a driven hunt with several men beating the landscape with sticks to chase the birds toward where I was waiting with the twelve-gauge.  I just stood there and waited until a bird flew by.  Boom.  Another bird.  Boom.

That evening the gentleman who provided this opportunity for me told me it was the best time he had ever experienced hunting.  I replied I had never done anything quite like it before.  Hector, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed his fishing trip.  Honestly I was jealous.

We found ourselves with a six-day break at the end of our work in Madrid, so we decided to take a flight over to Florence, Italy, just to say we had been there.  We went, we got lost, we had fun.  I do not believe I’ve ever seen so many pigeons in one place in my life.  I wish I had done some research before going there, but like most of my adventure plans, there was no real plan. 

We returned to Madrid to retrieve our belongings from our apartment just one day before we were supposed to be in Barcelona.  Again, we should have done some real planning, but the adventure would have suffered because of it.

Neither Hector nor I could figure out the train schedule from Madrid to Barcelona.  Suddenly no one understood our English or our attempts at Spanish.  And we watched as the train we needed left without us on board.  We hired a taxi.

The distance between Madrid and Barcelona is nearly 400 miles and it isn’t all flat land.  Somewhere in the dark of the moonless night we found ourselves on a winding mountain road in a taxi traveling at a high rate of speed.  When we left Madrid it was about 5pm, and we told the driver we needed to be in Barcelona by 7am the next morning.  The driver told us he needed to be back by 7am the next morning, so he would get us there as fast as he could.  And he was doing it.

Hector and I were actually thinking about getting out and walking.  In those mountains, the road took many hairpin turns with no guardrail such as we were used to seeing in the United States.  And the driver was doing it at 100 km/h or faster.  Each time he would come to a turn, he would turn off his lights and honk his horn twice.  Then he would turn his lights back on, but never did he slow down.

At a gas stop in one of the towns after leaving the mountains, we asked why he kept turning off the headlights.  He replied he did that so he could see the lights of any oncoming cars.  But he always honked twice in case they had their lights off also.  We made it to Barcelona in just under five hours.  And we got there before the train did.

Again, business was business, and we were all about business, that is until the end of each day.  Then it was all about the nightlife.  About three or four weeks into the Barcelona portion of our trip, we were invited to join a group of people on a quail hunt.  Again, Hector arranged a fishing trip with someone, leaving me to another driven hunt.  But this time was much more enjoyable.

I was never a fan of the twelve-gauge shotgun, but since no one with a sixteen- or twenty-gauge would make it available to me, I was saddled with the big twelve.  To my surprise, it was a muzzleloader.  I had never before fired a muzzleloading shotgun, so this could potentially make the hunt quite interesting.

I had a blast.  Literally.  It was another driven hunt where I stood in one place while some men beat the bushes with sticks to send the birds my direction.  But each time I pulled the trigger, the smoke would block any hope of seeing if I downed the bird.  Even the dog with me had no idea if he was to go search for a bird, or if he was to continue to sit and wait.  Once I decided I had missed a bird, but on the next fly-by I knew I was successful; however, the dog brought back two birds.

By the end of the day, I was tired.  A muzzleloading shotgun is a lot of work, but I was already a big fan of the muzzleloading rifle, so I was glad for this experience.  My shoulder was quite sore, and I found I could easily remember my reasons for preferring a twenty-gauge.

We finished our work in Spain in a few more weeks, and seven days and eight airlines later we (and our luggage) were back in Dallas.  As far as jobs go, it really was the experience of a lifetime.  We made many friends, and enjoyed a people and culture before the political changes occurred with the passing of the dictator Franco.  Hector’s job was waiting for him when he got back, and no word was ever mentioned of the dictionary he carried with him.

Generations

My hunting days are over.  The years have taken their toll on this old body.  I still fish whenever I can, and I can still get to some moderately difficult places where I am often the only person around, but I am no longer able to carry the rifles or shotguns on those necessary long treks to find deer, elk, moose, etc.  And even if I could bring down such an animal, I could never find the strength to bring it home.  So for nearly twenty years, my rifles, shotguns, and pistols have been in storage.

About three years ago the decision was made to give away my firearms.  One of my colleagues at work wanted to teach his two sons about rifles and shotguns, so I gave him my .22 and my 12 gauge single shot.  A friend of mine was an actor extra and needed to put together an authentic pirate outfit.  I handed him my old flintlock tower pistol.  My .357 went to a law officer.  My .28 gauge went to a collector.  My .410 went to a friend who wanted to go rabbit hunting.  My 9mm is now in the hands of a weekend shooter.  It feels good to just say, “Here, take this.”

A few months ago I was visiting my nephew in a nearby city.  He is nearly thirty years old, but we have rarely had the opportunity to even see each other, much less sit and talk to each other.  I learned a lot that day.  I learned that he and his father-in-law often spend weekends at a shooting range, and he has always borrowed the firearms he uses.  I decided that day to give him two of my four remaining long guns.  These two firearms were passed to me from my two grandfathers—two of his great-grandfathers.

The first one I gave him was the twenty-gauge bolt-action shotgun I had inherited from my mother’s father when I was a teenager.  He had never seen anything like it.  When I gave him the history of the old gun, he almost cried.  He had never owned anything in his life that had history, much less family history.  Then I brought out the rifle.  My father’s father had purchased it new for a hunting trip in 1953.  It was a Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 with every deluxe feature that it could possibly have.  To top it off, it came with the original target and paperwork from the day it was factory proof-fired.  That date, Wednesday, August 24, 1949, was the day I was born.  I have held finer rifles, but I never held a better rifle.  And now it is his.

Over the years I have owned and sold many firearms.  I bought a strange-looking shotgun at an estate sale that turned out to be a W.J. Jeffrey Double Rifle .600 Nitro Express.  I fired it twice.  I unloaded the right barrel, and a few days later after the pain subsided, I pulled the trigger on the left barrel.  Enough was enough.  I turned a decent profit on it.  Almost as painful was a double-barreled 4-gauge flintlock rifle.  This beast threw a 4-ounce, 1-inch round ball.  And it was a sad day when I sold it, but the offer was just too good.

I like muzzle-stuffers.  Charcoal burners just seem to me to be a more fair way to hunt, giving the animal a better chance than is allowed with the modern high-tech weaponry.  Even the modern bow hunter has advantages over most of the click-boom shooters.  But I just like the process of loading and shooting the way it was done a few hundred years ago.  There is something about the smell of burning sulfur that brings out the ‘Daniel Boone’ in me.  Or at least it did at one time.  I gave away my tomahawk, Green River knives, and possibles bag to a neighbor who works with kids in outdoor adventures.

All I now have left are my .30-30 and my .50 cal. black powder rifle.  I’m making a new saddle scabbard for the .30-30, and when it’s finished my nephew will receive it.  The history for this rifle is simple: I purchased it new on my 21^st birthday.  That leaves the .50 cal.  This one is hard for me to hand away.  My wife gave it to me on our first wedding anniversary.  I think I will leave it to him in my will.

I’m not planning to visit the ground any time soon; I’m just not able to hunt any more.  In a few years I may have to make the same decisions about my fishing gear, although I hope to be bringing in trout twenty years from now, even if it is just a few steps away from the car instead of a few miles up a stream.

I benefited from many who came before me.  The generations of experience they passed to me was jealously guarded for well over half a century.  But now it is time to entrust it to someone much younger.  And I already know he will pass it to his children.

Gunning

A big dictionary doesn’t have enough words to explain the experience I had hunting duck and geese on Tangier Island on the east side of the Chesapeake Bay.  It was one of those magical times where everything just goes right.  I had rarely hunted birds larger than quail or dove, although I had hunted teal a couple of times.  But I was ready to give it a try.

My job had me visiting stores on the east coast during November one year when one of the store managers invited me to go with him on a guided hunt for goose and duck.  The hunt wouldn’t be until January so I would have some time to prepare, get my license, practice with the shotgun, etc.  It sounded good to me.  Especially since I could use my own shotgun.

I had recently been in Spain on business where I had an opportunity to hunt for red-legged partridge and quail near Madrid and Barcelona.  I had borrowed shotguns for both hunts and, although I had fun (sort of), I found the big twelve-gauges to be more work than enjoyment.  I had always used a twenty-gauge bolt-action shotgun, and I didn’t see the need for anything bigger.  I still think I’m right about this.

My shotgun was older than me.  It had been my grandfather’s rabbit gun, and when it became mine, I felt it was the perfect shotgun.  Under Texas laws I had to wait until I was twenty-one before I could hunt with it, but that was all right with me.  My hunting focus had always been with game I could hunt with a bow, so the shotgun was easy to wait for.  When I turned twenty-one, the old shotgun went quail hunting.

The skeet and trap range a few miles from my home was closed until spring, so I didn’t really have much opportunity to practice before the scheduled trip.  I did manage to hunt some rabbit a couple of times, but it’s just not the same as a bird flying by, so I resigned my self to using a lot of shells for minimal birds.  I was told to bring at least one box each of BB and BBB, so I bought two of each.  And I bought two of each in magnum as well.

I had to return to Raleigh for business just before the January date for the hunt, so I chose to drive rather than fly and ship my shotgun and shells by carrier.  I had traveled enough to know that anything not in the hand was probably lost forever.  And I didn’t wish to lose the shotgun.

I arrived in Raleigh during a winter storm that made me think the hunt would be called off, but after three days the sun came out and I made the drive up to Richmond in time to be picked up by Feargus the store manager.  We drove to the Chesapeake where we caught a boat over to the island on the east side.  We met the guide, checked into the lodge, and talked hunting. 

The guide insisted on examining our shotguns and shells before the hunt, and when I unwrapped my twenty-gauge, I though he was never going to stop laughing.  He had seen a few twenty-gauges used in the past with little to no luck, but he had never seen anyone bring along a bolt-action version.  Pumps, over-and-under, side-by-side, semi-automatic, even a single-shot, but a bolt-action?  Had I ever even been hunting before?  That evening I made certain I screwed the full choke onto the end of the barrel, and I placed two of the boxes of magnum shells in my hunting bag.  I was going to make absolutely sure that twenty-gauge did its job.

My alarm sounded off with the most annoying noise at 4:00am the next morning, and I was very confused about it.  I had slept so well that I couldn’t remember where I was, why I was there, or why I wanted to get up so early.  I managed to fall out of bed and stumble around in the dark all the while trying to locate the source of the noise and/or a light.  Finally I discovered a lamp and turned it on so I could see where the alarm was sitting.  Then it came back to me.  I’m getting up at 4:00am because breakfast is at 4:30am, and I’m going duck and goose hunting at 5:30am.

By 7:00am the guide, two dogs, Feargus, and I were sitting in some rushes/tall grass along side of the water looking over several decoys floating a few yards away and watching the sky grow lighter.  We had less than twenty minutes to wait before several Canadian geese flew by about fifty yards out.  The guide pointed at me to take the first shot.

I gave the first goose a short lead and squeezed the trigger.  The magnum load sounded extra loud in the early morning quietness, and the second goose in the formation fell from the sky.  The guide, two dogs, and Feargus looked over at me with their mouths open.  I just smiled and said that’s how we do it in Texas.  I didn’t tell them that I had actually missed my shot.

The black lab brought back my goose, then stood beside me to shake some of the icy water off him and onto me.  The next fly-by was a few ducks and Feargus brought down two with his double twelve-gauge.  Then my turn came again.  This time it was a flock of teal.  I could see them a distance away, so I removed the choke and waited until they were about thirty yards out.  Then I squeezed off a shot.  Four teal dropped into the water.  One of the dogs growled at me.

I did miss my next shot, but that was purely my own fault.  I had forgotten to screw the choke back on the shotgun, and the goose was just too far away for an open cylinder discharge.  But I took a second goose and a few ducks that day proving that a twenty-gauge bolt-action could do everything its bigger relatives could do.

That evening the guide wanted to reexamine my shotgun to see if I was doing something illegal, but it was exactly as it looked—a twenty-gauge bolt-action shotgun.  He wasn’t convinced, although he conceded that I did manage to keep up with the bigger guns.  He just wouldn’t admit I had done a bit better.

The following morning found us a mile away from the previous location, but with the same set up.  We were on the shore shooting (excuse me, here they call it gunning) over a few duck decoys floating several yards away.  This time I left the full choke in place for the entire day.  Feargus, however, was sporting a new twenty-gauge over-and-under.  Hmmm…  When I inquired about the change, he said his shoulder was sore from yesterday.  Hmmm…  Well, I don’t know about that since he took only a dozen or so shots, but there it was—a twenty-gauge.

The guide started in with his duck calls, and soon a few ducks (I think they were Golden Eye) were flying low over our decoys.  Feargus let loose with one barrel, and one duck hit the water.  The chocolate lab sighed and jumped in the water to retrieve it.  The guide didn’t say a word, but my turn was next, and I noticed the duck calling was not as loud and a bit more sporadic.

We watched as ducks and geese flew by out of range for an hour.  Actually there were more ducks than geese, but they were all about seventy yards or more away.  Finally Feargus had enough.  He strongly suggested we move back to yesterday’s spot, or go home.  Either way, it had to be better than this.  With that the guide pulled out different call and gave it a few loud quacks.  For some reason this worked.  A flock of snow geese changed direction and came directly at us.

Feargus and I both opened up.  He got off both barrels; I emptied my three shots.  And we nailed four geese.  The guide snarled louder than the dogs.  We decided that we had enough.  It was cold, the dogs were stopping beside us to shake off the water, and the guide was upset; however, Feargus and I were quite pleased with ourselves.  And Feargus became a lifelong twenty-gauge fan.

That evening back at the lodge (wait, they called it an ‘inn’) we dined on goose and duck from the previous day’s hunt.  I noticed the guide wasn’t talking much, and a few of the other hunters staying there were watching him closely.  I’m usually not the one to bring up a subject that’s attached to a sore point, but I couldn’t help it this time.  I asked Feargus how he liked using a twenty-gauge.

The guide dropped his fork, pushed back his chair, and left the table.  The other hunters snickered until the guide turned and stared at them for a long moment.  Then he left the room not to be seen again.  The hunters turned to us with questions written all over their faces.

Why bother to explain? 

Feargus and I returned to Richmond with our geese and ducks packaged and frozen.  And I drove back to Texas laughing all the way.

Moose

I was a bow hunter until I was almost twenty-three years old.  Since I couldn’t own a rifle until my twenty-first birthday (Texas laws at that time), and since I didn’t have an adult over twenty-one to hunt with me, I was restricted to using a bow.  But I didn’t mind.  I was considered to be good with a bow, and after I turned twenty-one and purchased my first rifle, I had the privilege of hunting in two separate seasons.  But I gave up bow hunting after an incident with some wild javalina in west Texas.

Before I retired my bow I managed to take several deer, one elk, one black bear, a bighorn sheep, who knows how many rabbits, squirrels, and other critters including fish, but the one I remember most was the moose.  I had been hoping to make this trip happen for a long time, but I had to wait on two events to come about before I could actually do it.  First I had to turn twenty-one, and second I had to be drawn for a tag.  Both occurred in the same year.

I sent in my out of state application along with my license fee and a few other fees the state of Idaho required many months before my birthday, and since I was to turn twenty-one before the start of moose season, there was no automatic rejection.  By the time the drawing was finally held, I had forgotten about it.  When the tags came in the mail I was completely surprised.

There were still a few months of waiting before the hunt could proceed, but there was also much to do.  First of all there was my job.  I had to arrange for the hunt to coincide with a business trip to the area so to minimize my use of vacation time.  Then I had to study the designated hunt area.

When I looked at the topo map of the area north and east of Coeur d’Alene where I was to hunt, I realized that it wasn’t flat land.  I was by no means out of shape at that time in my life, but I did not spend much time in the mountains where the air is a bit thinner than what I was used to.  So I started training.

The first thing was to arrange my business trips so I would have at least two free days each week to spend hiking.  If the cities I visited were in or near the mountains, so much the better.  I had an office in Denver, so this was a convenient place to be for access to the mountains, but I also had offices in New York City, Dallas, and Chicago.  So I started taking the stairs instead of the elevators.  I placed a backpack in each office, and except for Denver, I filled the packs with bricks.  I did get a few strange looks as I walked the city streets in a business suit and hiking boots while wearing a heavy backpack.  I didn’t care.

Many cities in the west were near enough to some mountains to provide a hiking or backpacking workout, and in the east are plenty of great rugged areas also.  And I made certain I was rarely far from one of these areas.  By the end of the summer I was in the best shape of my life.

Normally I would fly from city to city and rent a vehicle when I arrived, but I was also free to drive between cities if I so chose.  My home was in Fort Worth, and when I was there in August, I decided to drive my car to Denver and leave it there for a few days as I continued my travels by plane.  About two weeks later I drove from Denver to Salt Lake City, and my car stayed there a week or so.  By the middle of September, I had my car in Spokane and it was time to go hunting.  I drove to Coeur d’Alene and made it my base of operations, and then the next morning I drove into the mountains to find a campground.

I had never hunted moose before, nor did I know anyone who had done so.  I wasn’t opposed to using a guide, but I wanted to do this myself.  I had studied moose habitat and sort of understood that moose are where you find them.  The most likely places would be near a lake, pond, or river, but could also be just about anywhere else.  In other words, I didn’t know what I was doing.

The first three days of hunting would have been great if I had been hunting deer, bear, or elk, but I wasn’t.  I was hunting moose.  The weather was clear, the days were comfortable, and the nights were cold, and there wasn’t a moose to be found.  I hiked back to my car, and then drove back to Coeur d’Alene for a hot shower and a good cooked meal.

Just to break up the trip, I stopped into the company store in the city and visited with the store manager.  It wasn’t an official visit; I was just spending some time with a friend.  We talked about moose, needless to say, and he had a few tips.  The first was give up.  The second was to set my bow on the ground and walk about thirty yards away from it.  Third was to take a nap.  In every case a moose was certain to show up.  Thanks a lot.

The next morning I was already a few miles into the mountains when the sun came up.  My car was in a campground where I had staked a claim on an empty spot, and I was not going back to Coeur d’Alene until either I had a moose, or Sunday evening showed up.  I had two more days.

By noontime, I was already working my way back to the campground and had only a mile or so to go.  I came upon a small pond where I leaned my bow against a tree, took off my pack, and pulled out a sandwich.  The day was beautiful and warm, and I was just starting to think about quitting this hunt and going back to work.  Well I finished the sandwich, leaned back against a tree and fell asleep.

I began dreaming about the beauty of these mountains, the flowing waters I had crossed, the deer and elk I had seen, and the snorting.  Snorting?  I opened my eyes, and there was a moose.  It was just as my friend had said, give up, set down the bow, and take a nap.  I looked around for my bow and spotted it leaning against a tree about ten feet away.  Could I reach it without the moose seeing me?  Not a chance.

I eased an arrow from the quiver I had on my hip, jumped up and ran to the bow, fitted the arrow, drew back, and released.  All the while the moose was just watching.  The arrow disappeared into the chest of the moose; the moose looked down, then over at me, and then it turned and ran away.

I followed that moose about four miles before finding where it had fallen.  And it wasn’t before that moment that I realized just how big it was and how big a task it would be to get it out of there.  The four miles the moose had run was all downhill directly away from the campground where my car was.  What to do?

I decided to tag the moose, and leave a note for any passing bears that this belonged to me, and I would be back tomorrow to collect it.  I always carried some bright cloth or rope with me, so I used it to mark a trail as I worked my way back to my car.  At the campground, I loaded everything into the car and drove back to Coeur d’Alene.  It was almost dark when I checked into a motel for the night, but by seven the next morning I was at a stable ready to rent a horse.

I’m glad the old wrangler running the stable had seen this before.  One horse wasn’t enough, and one person wasn’t enough.  He was going with me.  We would take his truck and trailer with four mules.  All he would charge me was an arm and a leg.  At least he would use the moose’s arm and leg as payment.

By noon we were standing by the moose, and thankfully it hadn’t been disturbed.  The night was near freezing, and the moose had not begun to spoil.  It took both of us to gut it and quarter it.  The wrangler asked for the head to mount as a trophy, and I didn’t hesitate to give it to him.  It took all four mules to pack that beast out of there.  Back in the city, we drove straight to a butcher shop that prepared the meat for us.  I presented the tag and antlers to the Department of Fish and Game, filled out the required paperwork, and took the head back to the wrangler. 

All of this took a bit of time, and it was Tuesday afternoon before everything was completed.  I had allowed myself plenty of vacation time for the hunt, but I was hoping to have two or three days left over for some fishing.  As it was I needed to be back on the job in Spokane by Thursday, and the fishing would just have to wait for another time.

The butcher shipped the meat to my home in Texas where for months I either ate or gave away moose meat.  I was glad when it was gone, but I still wanted to go fishing in the area.  By the following summer I had my chance.

When I arrived back in Coeur d’Alene I had my fishing rod ready to go.  I took care of company business the first day I was there, and the following morning I was leaving town for the mountains.  On the way out of town, I passed by the stable where the wrangler was standing out front throwing a rope at a post.  I stopped in.  When I got out of the car, he recognized me and dragged me into his “office” to see the moose head he had mounted on the wall.  Somehow it seemed even bigger than when it was still on the moose.  Then he hung a closed sign on his door, grabbed his fishing pole, and we went fishing. 

I don’t think the old wrangler ever told me his name, but we shared a good time fishing and swapping stories that day.  I didn’t get back to Coeur d’Alene for another year, and when I did, the old man had passed on.  When I went into the stable to find him, the new wrangler gave me the news, and I was saddened by it.  I pointed up to the moose head and mentioned that he and I had pulled that moose out of the mountains almost two years ago.  The new wrangler said he had heard the story a hundred times.  That moose head had been the old man’s most prized possession.