Hunting

The Hunting Hobo

It is time to release my hunting Hobo. He gets short a reprieve from his cell come every November for bad behavior. Meaning, I can go off and hunt and act like a boy again on my own for a few precious weeks…okay, months. I spend the most part of the year being a husband, a father, a farmer, a warden, a writer and a coach… and whatever jobs I can find that come with harsh conditions and low pay. Each duty is different except that they all involve some sort of sheparding. I’m honored to hold these titles but this reprieve is when I taste some freedom and where I can just be myself.

Much of my productive time is in some way introducing young men into manhood through some sort of sport and work. However, around this time of year, I cast off all chains and worries and hit the woods for respite. When I say I get time off for bad behavior, what I mean is that I will be “bad” while I’m off. When you think about it, fall camp is just a young boy’s “Never, Never Land” and a mother’s nightmare.

It’s true. At camp we will go for days without brushing our teeth or washing our hands before eating…or even bathing at all. We will eat unwholesome foods that include only a not even 25% of one quarter of a semblance of the four food groups. But don’t worry; 75% of my required food groups involve grease with sugars anyway.

We’ll go to bed way past our bedtime, mostly after smoking and drinking and playing cards with unsavory types our mothers would not approve of (I hunt with my brothers…and her brother…). I won’t shave or dress nicely. In fact, I’ll spend much of my day not properly dressed in bad weather. I’ll catch a cold and not go to bed.

Much of my clothes will be used, dirty and have holes in them. I will come back in, late, after dinner time and not wash behind my ears…I’ll curse about the weather and what I saw or missed and then bite off a chaw of jerky instead of a bar soap. I’ll sit with my feet on the furniture and I’ll wear my boots in the house. I’ll be rude to my friends and tease them mercilessly even “bully” them if I can and hope they return the favor. I’ll be loud and probably jump up and down on something I’m not allowed to…and that’s just getting started.

I’ll brag and burp and scratch. I’ll sit inappropriately and I’ll play with matches AND the subsequent fire. Of course, I’ll play with loaded guns not to mention a knife and probably use an axe sometimes. I might even have a little¸ careful, run with them in my hands. I’ll lift using my back and not immediately tie my shoes. I’ll complain rather than wait and say something positive or nothing at all. I won’t put a nice part in my hair and will wear a hat all day, especially when it is most comfortable; indoors. When I’m tired, I’ll nap during the day and not feel guilty that a chore isn’t getting done. I’ll leave my friends when I’m tired of them not when its lunch time, dinner time or bed time.

If I sit at a table to eat, I probably won’t mind all of my table manners. I’ll fidget, reach across the table and eat off a knife with both elbows up and I won’t have a napkin on my lap. If I get a cut, I’ll let it get infected and think it is neat.

I won’t change completely though, there will be no texting, tweeting or twerking and I will still help old ladies across logging roads (and mention it to my brother as I help him). I will also still pray because one thing my momma taught me was to recognize Heaven when you see it

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See you along the stream

The Learning Curve

Now that the June temperatures have pushed over 70 degrees and it is green here in Cameron County, it brings back memories of living and hunting the November’s of Georgia. One great thing about being a sportsman is that there are other sportsmen everywhere you go. If you end up somewhere new, there is usually someone who hunts or fishes. This can provide for hours of conversation, in any situation. Meeting other sportsmen, especially in new places, is an opportunity to raise your learning curve about the best local techniques. Gaining intimate knowledge about the local area is a key to success. It is likely that if you meet a hunter or angler in the room, you will have a new friend and will soon be out hunting or fishing with them. Yes, us lover’s of the field sports can make friends just about anywhere and in the most awkward of circumstances. For example, take this one time I was being tortured …

There I was, a new guy, or “cherry”, in my newly assigned military unit, stationed in Georgia. I was enduring a process provided for every cherry that involved a lot of anguish called “being smoked”. I was wondering how long I’d last before I passed out when a new face popped into the room. This guy was of similar rank to me and was considered a cherry too but he had already been there a few months and passed his tests. He was assigned to me as some sort of “buddy”. He was to show me the ropes between my “sessions”. After he was introduced he just said with a grin, “Oh, don’t worry about not getting up, I can see you’re busy.” I dripped some sweat in his general direction. He went over to my things and started rifling through them. I was used to this but became alarmed when he started looking closely at some of my relics. You know, the typical relics carried by any hunter; my lucky buffalo nickel, zippo lighter, skinning knife, and Skynyrd tapes. He turned to me and asked, “You hunt and fish?” I dripped some more sweat his way and so ended my shortest hunting and fishing conversation, ever. He flipped the knife across his knuckles and asked, “Mind if I borrow this? I’ll get it back to you when you quit the unit tonight.” I dripped some more sweat in his direction but this time he didn’t understand me. I could tell because he just said, “Thanks” and walked out of the room. I never would have guessed then, I’d still be hunting with that guy over two decades later.

After my time was served as a cherry, my “Buddy” Brian and I got time to talk hunting and fishing and in turn we met some locals. Since reading magazines wasn’t helping, we were able to get ourselves invited to a local, Georgia-style deer hunt. Of course, I had to put up with the typical pre-hunt barbing, like, “I hear all they do in Pennsylvania is sit on a spackle bucket and wait for deer to come by.” I explained that wasn’t true but I had to admit, I’d seen it happen. They asked, “They don’t use white buckets do they?” I described tree stands but they shook their heads, “Can’t do that down here, too many snakes in the trees.” I immediately looked over my head, relieved to see no snakes. I continued that many Pennsylvanians practiced “still” hunting too. “Can’t do that here either, the deer get down in the palmettos and you can’t see them, then they swim through the swamps where you can’t chase em’. Now, seeing that I may have to make some technique adjustments, I asked, “Well, how do you hunt here?” One of the guys explained that you get a case of beer, some dogs and a pickup truck. Then you set the deer dogs loose while you wait in the pickup, parked in a field. The dogs chase the deer in a circle and when they break into the open, you start “hunting.” “No way!” I exclaimed, “I am not sitting in a truck drinking beer and hunting that way.” Brian agreed and we vowed that we would get our deer with our tried and true methods. We’d show them Rebels the “proper” way to deer hunt; I promptly went out and looked for a green bucket.

A few weeks later, there I was, sitting in the back of a pickup truck trying to decide how I was supposed to drink a beer without putting my gun down and wishing I’d had sunscreen on rather than doe in heat scent on. I looked up at some point and asked if it was illegal to drink and hunt. “Only if you’re too drunk.” I had to ask, “How can you tell if you’re too drunk?” A fella rubbing a knot on his head spoke up, “Well, when I just fell backwards off the truck, my gun didn’t go off so I know I’m still okay.” He went on to tell a story about a guy who “nicked” another guy named “Stumpy”. To them, that was obvious proof that the individual in question was one beer over. Brian and I slowly put our cans down.

Suddenly, the dogs started baying, signaling that they were running deer. Sure enough, they started getting closer. I did the trajectories of all the guys in the pickup truck, multiplied it by how many beers each had and then, slipped out of the truck to hunt from the ground. I eased myself into a low, wet depression away from the truck and waited. Soon came some movement so I got ready, picturing a huge Georgia buck, then the palmetto’s burst and out came…pigs. I started to cry out to warn the others not to shoot but as I opened my mouth, I heard someone yell “HAWGS!” and Boom, Boom, Boom, they opened up like the Fourth of July. This is how I learned feral pigs are not protected in most of the South. I stood up from between the lily pads to get a look and saw dozens of hogs running around being chased by the dogs. Then I heard the grunt. Instead of “hooked on phonics” the teacher on that day was to be “hog on demonic(s)”.

(PART 2?)

Turning to my right, I saw a huge hog staring me down. Obviously not happy by the recent treatment of his herd, he charged. I knelt, put my sights on the hog’s shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Now, there are different ways to learn stuff fast. Some are by book, some are by word of mouth and even osmosis. But learning about wild hogs rubbing enough sap into their shoulders to make a bullet proof shield can only really be appreciated by watching your bullets bounce off a p.o.’d pig, with you in HIS sights. The pig got close, I jumped out of the way and pulled out my new knife as my “buddy” was still borrowing my skinner. I recalled that my great-grandfather killed hogs with a knife back in the day and braced myself as the pig turned to charge again. I could hear him grunt/growling over the laughter of my new found hunting companions. I steeled myself, lowered my head, and then realized I never met my great grandfather; he lived a short life, probably due to his pig wounds. So, I turned and ran for the trees. As I hit the 6^th or 8^th branch up the nearest tree, I had forgotten the advice about why tree stands were not a good idea. I could have learned why some snakes are called “cotton mouths” by remembering what I was told, or preferably, picked up this helpful tidbit from osmosis but no, I had to be an example that experience is the best teacher. While reaching for a nice fat branch, I learned that cotton mouths do have huge, wide, cottony mouths, especially when they are trying to sink their fangs into your head. Apparently, being used as a chin up bar to get away from angry hogs, annoys them. I deftly demonstrated an advanced Pennsylvania escape technique. As I fell from the tree, I never really guessed that a blood curdling scream of panic from a sunburned, warm beer and tobacco spewing, lily pad covered human, flailing backwards while trying to shake a huge cottonmouth off his head would have alarmed a 350lb angry wild boar, but fortune smiled upon me. Hogs don’t like that; write it down, you might need to know that some day.

Learning experiences like that, have pulled many a sportsmen together and made lasting memories and friendships. In fact, more than twenty years later, I still hunt with my assigned “buddy” who helped me through my early days in that military unit and introduced me to deer hunting with dogs. I guess I will continue to hunt and fish with him, at least until I get my knife back.

(Parts of this story are presented exactly as they occurred and other parts are “slightly exaggerated”. I’ll leave it to you to guess which is which.)

See you along the stream.

Wheezer The Deer Sneezer

Everyone should have one. They are great. I’m not talking about friends, cars, or tree stand umbrellas…I’m talking about deer sneezers, of course. I met mine by accident. Everyone is born with a talent and one of the secrets to life is recognizing and then having the courage to use their talent. Wheezer has done just that, although, I admit he has come around rather slowly; admittedly maybe a bit reluctantly…okay, he’s been forced on occasion. But it has been for his own good. His friends had no choice but to help him use his God given talent once we realized that Wheezer was a deer sneezer. Before he was a deer sneezer, he has just a guy with a nasty runny nose (I believe the politically correct term is, “having allergies”). As it turns out, we accidentally discovered that Wheezer’s “allergies” hit anytime he was within one hundred yards of a deer and he didn’t even have to necessarily be down wind.

Of course, Wheezer’s first reaction to this discovery was to avoid deer and seek relief. As his friends, we felt that this was turning his back on a gift that was given solely to him, which of course is a sin. He tried to avoid deer at all costs until we showed him how useful his talent was. At times he had a hard time hearing our praise and encouragement to embrace his gift. This is because his gift is sneezing and not excellent hearing. Hearing encouragement while strapped to the front of a pickup truck is almost impossible for average ears. It seems that it takes real talent to be able to hear that kind of stuff over the roar of a 350 cubic inch engine and the scraping of brush. So in the beginning, during our “intervention”, we had a tough time with communication. Sitting in the cab prevented us to from hearing him as well, especially with the heater and radios running as loud as they usually do during hunting season. Fortunately, part of Wheezer’s gift included the sneezing; this meant that once we needed to use our windshield wipers, we knew we were getting close to a good hunting spot. After awhile, Wheezer got kind of used to the idea so we let him off the hood and we rode around with the windows open, his head sticking out of the window like a puppy.

His talent even worked when he was sleeping. This turned out to be quite handy. We would draw straws to see which one of us would get Wheezer in our tree stand. All the guys who worked third shift could snooze while hunting. Once our deer sneezer started blowing, we knew to wake up and get ready; the deer were coming. Every talent has a downside. In Wheezer’s case it was the wheezing itself. We had to come up with a way to keep him quiet once his allergenic deer radar system activated. We resorted to various methods to keep our deer sneezer quiet. One hunter, whose talent we have yet to recognize, suggested we knock him out. Obviously, this was not a good option. What if the deer changed course before they got to us? We would have to refresh Wheezer to learn if they were coming back. There was also the question of how do you knock him out? We had learned from another buddy that hammers are addictive and drugs can create acute physical ailments. Since we had him hunting all the time, he decided to pick up the sport, too, as long as we processed the deer for him. Knocking him out was going to cut into Wheezer’s success rate, so, we opted to find a way to keep him conscious. There seemed to be only one thing that cured Wheezer’s sneezing, coughing and teary-eyed suffering as a big buck neared. We should have known right off what would do it… smoking cigarettes. He wasn’t so sure it was a good idea at first but after reviewing his other options; it seemed more healthful than hammers, ether on a rag or suffocation. A quick light-up, once the buck was in range, was all we needed. The deer didn’t seem to mind the smoke, lending credence to the rumor that deer are actually attracted to tobacco smoke. This could be just out of curiosity or because deer season is during rut and everyone enjoys a smoke during the rut, we don’t know.

Wheezer, the deer sneezer has also come in handy for tracking deer, not to mention he is pretty handy to have in the car on the way to work. He helps prevent hitting a deer in the road. Wheezer’s only problem now (besides a three pack a day habit) is being around mounts of trophy deer. We are working on a synthetic hair. The last trophy buck he had mounted we had to shave and the deer on the wall kind of looks more like a relative with horns than a glorious, trophy buck. Such is the life of a sneezer, at least he has good friends.

See you along the stream

The Decoy Incident

They have always made fun of my ghillie suit. I first learned how to make one in the service during the eighties. These suits, which are basically clothes with the appropriate colored strips of cloth for your environment sewn onto them, are an ancient form of camouflage. History tells that they were first used by the early wardens, “ghillies”, of Scotland to protect estates from poachers. They have been used in combat by certain soldiers since the Scots used them against the Germans in WWI. These suits were rarely seen outside the military world, in the United States, until recent years. When I first saw and used the suit it didn’t take long for me to realize that it was an excellent garment for hunting as well as working. After about 48 hours of sewing and cutting, I was still proud because it only cost me ten bucks. But when I donned my suit for the first time in front of the guys I hunted with at home, I was mocked mercilessly. “You’re going to get shot wearing that thing.” warned one. “Someone is going to think you are Big Foot!” exclaimed another while holding his belly and chuckling. I braved the storm and hunted in my suit anyway. Over the years, the laughter was quelled by consistent results and now ghillies are very common and sold in many commercial outlets. But this success did not come at a price for those enterprising hunters willing to try something new. Here is my story.

Always trying to extend the use of a ten dollar item with hours of handiwork in it, I tried to use the suit for archery deer season. Unfortunately, during this endeavor, I failed to solve the problem caused by the fact that a bow string is very much attracted to the loose strips of cloth hanging off the ghillie hat. Just for your general information, a ghillie hat flying at more than 200 feet per second will not puncture a deer’s lungs. However, it will pull you off a tree limb while nearly taking your ear with it.

The ghillie suit did work marvelously for turkey hunting. There were many advantages to the suit. Most of my rival, neighboring hunters who hunted in “my” spot, chose not to shoot at “Big Foot” but would rather run away. Another great thing about the suit was that, even with their excellent eyesight, gobblers tend to mistake a man in a ghillie for a bush. Somewhere in the woods there must be lots of bushes holding shotguns or maybe Big Foot carries a shotgun but doesn’t bother turkeys. Whatever the reason, when I called birds in, they never took notice of me until it was too late.

I have a friend, Brian, who did not have turkeys where he lived. So, being that he had never bagged a gobbler, but wanted to, I offered to help him out and take him on a hunt. I met this buddy in the service and we had been hunting together for years, he knew I was using a ghillie. For some reason he resented this technique and always held a grudge against my suit. He complained the morning we met for the hunt, right off the bat. “Awww, you’re not going to wear that thing are you?” I wasn’t going to argue with him so I just barbed him instead, “You’ve always had a problem with my ghillie haven’t you? Why don’t you wear your old suit?” He just shook his head, “I’m not putting one of those things on ever again! I’m telling you, wearing that hunting is bad “mojo”. Someday something bad is going to happen because of that pile of rags.”

After exchanging those pre-hunt, almost ritual niceties, off we went to find our birds. My partner brought a decoy along and set it up, then we sat about 25 yards from each other and I started calling. The plan was that if a gobbler came in, he would shoot. If more than one came in, he would get the first shot and I’d clean up. It wasn’t long and we were working in some nice, lusty gobblers. Soon a few nice jakes came into the “kill zone” by the decoy but there was no shot from my buddy. Since we were so close to the birds, I began to give little putts and purrs to keep them interested while I waited for Brian to make his mind up and pick a bird or finish whatever he was doing that was keeping him from shooting. Suddenly, I heard the sound of an extremely excited gobbler that I’d never heard before, that close, behind me. The bird was standing directly behind me making a “ziiiip, ziiiiip, puuck?” sound they make when they are about to mate a hen. Ironically, the bird wasn’t near a hen or the hen decoy but he was well within my “social comfort space” and still no shot. For my buddy, I held as still as possible while the turkey inspected me, hoping Brian could get a shot at one of the gobblers out there by the decoy before my friendly bird figured out what he was serenading. Meanwhile, I was picturing what gobblers do to hens at this time of the year; the least worrisome was the pecking on the back of the hen’s head that they do while doing something else. I clenched my teeth, I squinted, sweat poured down my face and still, no shot. I realized my $9.99 “Crazed Turkey Calling” tape I bought didn’t have a chapter on how to break it off. How do you chirp? “Let’s just be friends.” To learn that, I guess I need the 20.99 tape… Just when I thought I could bear no more one of the jakes in front of us decided to run over to me in an apparent attempt to protect my honor (or beat his buddy to the punch) and still no shot came. I could take it no more, up I jumped like a guerilla from a hide site and started firing at the big gobbler who loved me. As they ran, the birds chirp changed to, “puck, puck, oh puck!” All the while I was screaming at the top of my lungs to relieve the minutes of agonizing stress that had built up, “DIE LOVE BIRD, DIE!!!”

After the smoke cleared, or more likely was wafted away by my buddy’s hideous kicking and howling of laughter, I shook my head, blew some feathers off my face and barked over to him, “What’s the matter with you? Why the heck didn’t you shoot?” Brian gasped for breath as he replied, “Some things are better than bagging your first bird and worth every penny! I couldn’t interrupt true love.” I took my ghillie hat off and more feathers wafted around my head as I complained, “You know, I used to be able to count on you to cover my back.” Brian wiped away a tear, “Oh, you were covered all right; hey do you want to do that again? You’re right, the suit does work well.” I scowled at my buddy, “Shut up.” Brian just kept chuckling, “Hey, I’ll tell Mrs. Bigfoot, then you’ll really be in for it.” He’s a funny guy, huh? You hunt with him. Anyhow, be careful if you use a ghillie for turkey hunting, remember some things can be a little too good, and if your friends can’t see you, they probably won’t shoot, even if you need them to.

Note: Only one turkey was injured in the making of this story, too bad it was in 1994.

See you along the stream.