The gun was a legend before I was born.You can also see this here.
In the late sixties my father bought a Remington 700 .243 and topped it with a completely adequate Weaver 4x scope. Then he set about working up a handload for the gun with a Lee Loader, as he sat in his easy chair, probably drinking a Budweiser.
If you’re not familiar with the Lee Loader, or Budweiser, (or easy chairs) look ithem up. They’re where millions of Americans got started on their respective hobbies.
By the time I was born the rifle and it’s perfect load had taken several deer and printed several targets with dime sized three shot groups.
I grew up with the gun, a light caliber perfect for Texas whitetails and young shooters, knowing it would never miss. That it would always shoot where I pointed it, for better or for worse, so I should make sure I was pointing it where I needed it to shoot.
At 14, during a deer and turkey hunt, I noticed some dots in the distance and my heart rate spiked. Turkeys. Legal quarry. I dropped down into a stable sitting position, elbows on knees, and made ready. I had dreamed of this moment.
Nervous, I purposefully took my time. I knew everything had to be just right. I knew the gun would shoot just where you told it to and I wanted to be sure in the telling. I knew too that a rifle-shot turkey would not make for good eating unless things were done properly, perfectly, which meant a head shot. On a walking bird. At an unknown distance. So with elbows on knees, stock sucked up into my skinny shoulder and cheek planted firmly on the stock I managed to line up just in time for a shot at the last bird of the bunch.
The gun worked like a talisman and after the shot I fairly ran to examine the bird, hoping to find its head shot off like in the movies. I shouldn’t have been disappointed that I had only clipped its neck and severed an artery, but I was. Such were my expectations of the rifle.
When my dad came to pick me up I told him the story. He was understandably proud that I had shot well, if a little amused that I had the cojones to think I could make a shot like that in the first place. Still, I had had a good rest with my back against that tree, so why not?
He was busy congratulating me for making the head shot at a bit over a hundred yards when I corrected him. Stopped him cold when I said, “No, not there, out there,” and pointed farther out. He stopped and stared at me as if waiting for the punchline. We had a habit of kidding with each other. Bullshitting. Winding each other up. Now, he wasn’t sure if he should believe me.
When he realized I was serious he stopped, actually took off his cap and scratched his head, and had me tell the story over again. And then he stepped it off: two hundred and twenty five yards. Impossibly far, yet I had evidence that it was possible. He was nearly speechless, but managed a, “Damn, son…”
In hindsight, I had a couple of things going for me. I believed in that rifle. I believed in myself. Probably most important is the fact that I had practiced with it. Also, I did not believe there was a possibility of wounding the bird — I believed I would either hit it in the head and kill it, or miss it altogether. That last bit removed consequences from the equation, which helped me stay calm. I would either make the shot or I wouldn’t and all I could do was try.
My dad spent quite a bit of time over the years teaching me to have confidence in myself. To have confidence in well-reasoned, well-thought-out convictions. To believe in my ability to think things through for myself and come to a reasonable conclusion. That shot, which I selected, set up and took, went a long way toward cementing those lessons.
Confidence, conviction and calm go a long way toward success, but a little bit of luck doesn’t hurt either.
I was once told that speaking critically of girlfriends and spouses was one thing, but to do the same about someones gun dog is crossing the line. There are a ton of great hunting dog breeds out there but most of us settle on one or two. From that point on we espouse the virtues of our particular breed with little regard for logic. Heck, I had a person recently spend thirty minutes explaining to me why Border Collie’s are the best bird dog period. Maybe they are.
The debate is of little interest to me (well at least for today). A good case can be made for all sorts of breeds and ultimately the time and energy you put into whatever dog you have will usually pay off. I happen to have labs and I hang out around quite a few others. Maybe they will be the only type of dog I’ll ever own. Or maybe I’ll get an English Setter or a Boykin Spaniel some day. But on the heels of national dog day I’m going to raise a glass to the Labrador.
It’s just stuff. Old stuff mostly.
The sleeping bags have long since traded loft for aroma. The cook-set is stained and dented. The backpack could serve as a CSI: Extra Violent Crimes prop. Steven won’t accept that many of my time-tested layers qualify as field-worthy. I’d have a hard time giving away much of my gear stash at a yard sale.
Why then does the simple act of pulling the various pieces from their bins and shelves deliver such a thrill?
It must be the same phenomenon my dog experiences when she hears the shotgun cabinet door unlock. To her the 12 gauge is just a long, loud stick that I carry around sometimes. But darned if it doesn’t always show up right before the good time roll.
Some items will, for me, forever be associated with Elk season. It’s not a connection that sends me running around the house slobbering and wagging my tail… but it sure is close.
Grab the gear. We’re heading for the hills.
We fired up the engines in the inky dark. A heavy chop blanketed the bay. We cinched our jackets tight against the wicked wind and faced the stern so we could breath. Then it was headlamps and knee deep muck, marching, lugging decoys and cut branches, to build a blind.
As night gave way to the blue grey of morning ducks began buzzing the blind. Our set-up was perfect. With each pass the wind welcomed the birds into our spread. Coaxed by the expert calling of our local guides, Rosy Bills, Silver Teal, and Whistling ducks cupped their wings and dropped from the sky.
The vastness of the wetland system we hunted was impressive and matched step for step by the hunting. Half a world from home, it had all the familiar elements that sparked my love of waterfowling many years ago stateside. Add to the mix a vast array of new bird species, and an incredible quantity of ducks, and it was truly unforgettable.
But what stands out to me, as the weeks pass from my time in Argentina, was the people. The guides I shared a blind with and the locals who make the Santa Fe province their home made the trip. The guides are experts at their craft and work tirelessly every day. Everyone I met was quick with a smile or a joke and willing to put up with my awful Spanish. The hunting brought us, but it was the warmth of the people and their culture that will, hopefully, oneday, bring me back.
.
There’s a difference between the smell of an animal and the smell of an animal on you. Pronghorn antelope have a goaty, musky, virile stink. When a whiff wafts from an arroyo or the matted secrecy of a day bed, it’ll twist your neck and curl your nose. In such chance encounters the smell is fleeting. But immerse yourself in it as you approach a now still, and now still bleeding body, a clean bullet hole, like a lance wound staring at you. Have that stink crawl over you when you place your palms on warm hide before continuing with the dismemberment. Ride adrenaline to help you ignore the acrid musk as you slip a shamefully dull folding blade below a puckered asshole. Push deep. Circle it well. Don’t think about the intimacy when you slice behind penis and testicles, toss them into the tall grass, probe between the legs, find the sweet spot between skin and gut sac. Gut it now. Gentle. Slide a guiding hand under the skin and across the slick membrane that wants to bulge out in advance of the knife. Use muscle. Nothing delicate about forcing your way through ribs and collar bone. Carve muscle away until you find the trachea, rigid, iridescent, white. Its dead already. You’ve killed it already. Not doing any harm in cutting its throat. Dead already. You killed it. Don’t be dainty. Grab hold. Not an inch-wide windpipe but a handle now. Pull. Gotta carve that diaphragm away or you’ll make a mess for sure. Keep pulling. Keep cutting. See, you were too skittish with that butt hole. Gotta dig for it now or you’ll spoil the meat. Well done. It’s done. Clean. Empty. Gaping. Forget the smell? No. It’ll stick with you. It’s, part of you now.
__________
* Excerpted and adapted from The Stink of Life, which originally appeared in the annual Expeditions and Guides issue of Gray’s Sporting Journal 2011.
The shotgun went off well before the butt of the stock reached my shoulder. I’d missed the safety. Frantically searching I finally hit it and simultaneously hit the trigger. The decoying ducks flew away unharmed. My new friends tried to hold back laughter. It was an embarrassing start to the trip.
Forty-eight hours of travel landed us in a remote corner of Argentina, bleary eyed but eager to hunt. We stashed our passports and hopped into boats with our Argentine hosts and guides. With the 90 horse Yamaha at full throttle we careened across a massive expanse of wetlands unlike I have ever seen. A mix of bays, channels, and islands whizzed by as we covered ground. Forty-five minutes later we cut the engines.
In the quiet we began to take in our surroundings. Birds appeared to number in the millions. Cranes, Cormorants, Flamingos, Ibis, and a host of avian species I could not identify swirled around us. We settled into our makeshift blind of reeds and waited. Amongst the cacophony of birds we began to see the ducks.
Shouldering a shotgun I had never fired, with an unfamiliar safety, was not a recipe for success. My excitement likely contributed to my clumsiness. Fortunately, the opportunities were abundant and I soon settled in. The birds were flying high and fast, in a sunlit sky. We managed to scratch down a few, but were all humbled by the challenging shooting conditions.
As the sun set we picked up our birds. Our hosts patted us on the back and assured us it would get better. Our shooting would improve, the ducks would decoy better. Three of us killed twenty-six birds that night, forty-nine shy of a limit. I had never experienced anything like it. Shaking our heads with disbelief we called it a night.
Darkness enveloped us and the throttle was once again wide open. I couldn’t see a thing. Spray hit my cheeks as the boat was expertly guided through an intricate maze. Deftly avoiding every obstacle and making precision turns to avoid sandbars, root wads, and buoys we bolted toward home.
Breaking open bottles of Malbec we felt the air temperature drop. A cold front was moving in. Clouds covered the moon and a gentle mist began to fall. It was starting to feel like duck hunting weather.
I’d placed a big bet on the day, but Lady Luck turned cold before dawn. An alpine-start for sage grouse, then the waterfowl opener in the adjacent flyway, and maybe even filling a buddy’s goat tag along the way? Nope. That high-desert trifecta folded before two a.m.
It could have been worse, of course. I could have had whatever God-awful gut-sick the wife had, poor thing. Regardless, “Responsibly Domesticated Adult” was clearly the only hand to play.
But by two p.m., with the patient resting comfortably, the days-old rain flirting with an intermission, and my football team getting clubbed like a baby seal on national television, the right play was feeling a little claustrophobic for all concerned.
“I’m bored,” whined the kiddo.
The dog — who’d noted me loading the truck, shotgun and all, the night before — backed his raise with a hard stare.
Maybe, I thought, with a lucky draw or two, there might yet be a shadow of a chance. Time to make a move.
“Put on your outside clothes, pour your Mom a fresh Gatorade and tell her we’ll be back by dark,” I told the squirt.
I like to think I sounded decisive. I wasn’t. The odds — a house-sour six-year-old, considerable windshield time, gumbo-slicked two-tracks and ornery Fall weather on the continental divide — were not in our favor. But you can’t win if you don’t wager, so ….
The first twenty minutes in the elements were touch-and-go. We found our rhythm in the next mile or so. Then, just about the time that little legs started to flag, and the then distant shelter of the truck gained fresh appeal, we heard the first drumroll of wing beats.
“You sure made a good decision Dada,” he said an hour later as we crested the last ridge. “Know how I know?”
“No. How?”
“Three ways. Cause it got us unbored. And cause, two… um, cause, we got to get a BIG grouse. And, the most special way is cause Sibley got really, really, like… way into it. You know?”
“Yeah. I know.”
I know that we’d hit the trifecta after all.
Considered a complete nuisance by most, and something akin to rotting garbage by others, (which pretty much becomes true with time), pinks are at the bottom of the salmon totem pole. In some places they are considered worthy of targeting, but anywhere where there are more majestic fish, such as steelhead, they are a scourge.
As someone who spends most of the year chasing trout, where I am lucky when a fish tops the scale at more than a couple of pounds, I have a different perspective. What trout lack in size they often make up for in numbers. Sure I get skunked my fair share, but most often catching a few is fairly reliable and when the conditions are right, then you can really pad the score. With steelhead it’s different.
Days go by without as much as a peck. Doubt begins to creep in. Are there any fish in the river? Should I change flies? Is my swing too fast…too slow? Why does my rain coat leak? The list goes on and on. That’s when the pinks can save you. When a 4-8 pound fish as bright as a dime decides to grab your fly and confirms that there is indeed life in the river it’s a welcome moment for me. There aren’t many fish like that in Wyoming.
“Any thoughts on this weekend?” I asked Steven.
“Sit tight. I’ll send you a Google doc,” he said with a snicker.
It was an inside joke that first time, a little ribbing at the expense of our wives who had recently coordinated a multi-family llama-packing trip via Google’s online sharing platform. It was a fine system for them, we figured, but what would experienced outdoor manly men like us need with a silly online list?
Fast forward a few years, though, and it’s become obvious that, unsurprisingly, the joke was on us. The ladies’ were were right about the Google doc’s utility all along. It makes divvying up group gear responsibilities a snap, simplifies meal planning, ensures that everyone is on the same page with dates and timelines, and, with everyone working from the same documents, provides a built-in triple-check of the plan.
Better yet, it keeps you from reinventing the wheel for each outing. Each trip expands your online library of gear lists and ops plans. With a ready made resource like that, all you have to do is cut and paste the program from a similar expedition, tweak it to fit the next adventure, and you’re off, confident that you’ve packed underwear and that Matt hasn’t forget the spatula (again).
This Backcountry Elk Hunting Gear Checklist, for example, is built for my 2016 elk trip — four people, camping five miles from the truck, for six nights, at altitude, in grizzly bear country, in October.
Which may or may not sound anything like what you have in mind. But that’s fine, because once you cut and paste it into your own document, all you need to do is customize it to fit your plans, preferences and personal gear inventory, and share it with your hunting buddies. Then you can create a newly adapted version in a few weeks for the family campout. Repeat a few weeks after that for the pheasant hunting expedition, then the goose trip, and so on, and so on…
May the framework serve you well. Be safe out there. And don’t forget the spatula.
My son pulls his camo ball cap tight over his eyes. My daughter grabs her leotard and jumps out of the car. She has gymnastics for the next two and a half hours. The boys are headed to the hills.
For nearly two weeks we’ve been running in high gear. My wife has been gone and we are making the most of our time. Cooler temps have been a much needed respite for our waters and the fish are getting hungry. Elk are starting to talk and showing themselves more frequently. Bird season is open and the dogs are ready to roll. Juggling bow hunting for elk, chasing mountain grouse, and fishing, with a full time job, two kids in elementary school, and a full plate of extra-cirriculars is no simple task. We have been forced to get creative.
I had a full work week to scheme. I wasn’t sure how to responsibly leave my kids at 5am to hunt. We also had two birthday parties and a soccer game to navigate. A sleepover with grandma and grandpa…all of us…was in order. I hadn’t slept at home in years. But it provided the conditions required to get out.
On Friday evening my father, son and I went for a walk with the bow. My folks have a small chunk of land outside of town that borders a large ranch and is close to the National Forest. Elk are everywhere, but we can’t hunt on my parents place, due to a fairly reasonable set of HOA rules. The ranch is definitely off limits. But on the nearby Forest we found plenty of sign, heard elk bugling on the ranch below us and had a great evening, highlighted by finding a dead deer and a huge owl. My son had wanted to hunt bad and he was stoked.
With the kids and grandparents asleep I snuck out of the house. In the early morning dark, an old friend met me in the driveway. He’d encountered a large bull in his headlights a few hundred yards from the house. More bugles came from the neighboring ranch. Our hopes were high as we hiked toward huntable land. Our predawn encounters turned out to be the most exciting of the morning. But I was home by 9am to enjoy a cup of coffee and breakfast with the kids.
As soon as my daughter slammed the door we headed back to the mountains. My son was eager to get out. We had a bow, two labs, and a shotgun in the truck. We picked up a buddy clad in camo with a bow and bugle in hand. We set off from the trailhead. My son has developed a whistle he thinks sounds like a cow elk. I think it sounds more like a dying rabbit. He was calling constantly. I ran the dogs and carried the shotgun. My buddy sauntered along with his bow. We were just glad to be out. Let’s be honest, the prospect of finding game was slim.
Making lunches, school drop-off, pick-up, guitar lessons. The days ticked by. Another weekend fast approached. Texts from friends of dead birds and downed elk have been pouring in. Hunting seemed out of reach but the river called. We loaded the drift boat and headed for the river, joined by another intrepid father and his two kids. With six of us in the boat we tossed all mater of bugs on a picturesque fall day. A few fish even cooperated.
For the first time my kids fished competently and unassisted from the boat, while I manned the oars. Their independence was forced by necessity. I was impressed to see their progress over the summer and couldn’t help but think of where we are headed in the coming years. Now I just need to teach them to row.
The Mrs. came home last night. Everyone is one piece. We managed to hunt elk, flush grouse, and bring a couple fat trout to the boat. We’ll call it a victory. Now I’ll see if I can log some dedicated time to look for an elk.