SEASON INCOGNITIO

SEASON INCOGNITO

I am, notionally, scribing this article on a piece of bark while deeply embedded in a clandestine area of the forest. I am carefully concealed by camouflage, scent control spray, cigar smoke, and a rolled over keg…not in that order. This communication shall be encrypted and burst out during a one second window to the internet by secure means. Please burn it after reading.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I’m hiding, it is more that I don’t want to be found. If anyone asks which hunter I am, tell them, “He’s the one wearing orange.” I have vacation time to use which I tried to use earlier in the year and twice was dragged back out, so this time, I really doubt anyone will need me or care that I’m missing but I’m not taking any chances. At the minimum, someone is always looking for a stupid answer to a smart question; or a scapegoat. At least I appreciate that I have a niche, that’s why I’m mostly only hiding from my superiors…which is everybody.

My autumn “going on the lamb” technique includes but is not limited to a disguise. I will shave every day and keep my hair trimmed, a pony tail and beard is the official, “I’m not who you think I am” attention getter look; so I’m going trimmed. (I knew a guy who worked under-cover wearing a platinum blonde wig with a two foot pony tail. Thank goodness it wasn’t on anything important. He always wondered how people knew who he was. I always wondered how he found his way to work and back home each day).

Another reason to disappear in plain sight during hunting season is not just to avoid your bosses and the pesky people they hire to find and sober you up. If you want to relax and have any fun at all you really don’t want anyone at any camp during any season to know you do anything in the fish and wildlife profession. (Imagine doctors taking a vacation on a cruise for hypochondriacs…then pitch that thought and go with a slot machine trying to relax with a gambler…).

A huge component to going deep under cover and not getting caught is to remain mobile. Stay in any one place too long and you become a target of opportunity. So, I’ve laid out some plans to fish some, just to throw off the guy in the platinum pony tail. I hear there’s fish in Erie, it’s a big lake. Then I’m going to bounce around to a few camps to stay within my budget, which also requires washing dishes and a starvation diet. While travelling and to afford fuel, I’ll probably spend a night or two in a hotel’s abandoned lounge chair near a closed pool deck (check out and wakeup call is complimentary as soon as the security crew comes on shift) or in a dumpster, not quite as clean and comfortable as a pool lounge chair but the hours are longer. (Also, great for bear hunting but can lead to ethical dilemmas). Upon arriving at my hunting location, the woods are a fine place to sleep. To be honest, it’s been years since I’ve used a pool lounge chair. I’m good at sleeping in pickup trucks (it’s on my resume’). But I am getting older now and prefer a bed at camp(s).

To a guy who used the comfort standard of feeling the jungle floor just to ensure I wasn’t blocking an army ant trail; camp beds are a luxury, so don’t take this as complaining. Last year at an archery camp, (where, by the number of indiscrete vans parked outside and blond wigs laying around I suspected they were are all wardens…but I’m not speaking up first) I slept on spring bed in an unheated second floor of camp. The bed was comfortable and the mice using it as a nest kept me warm.

In Michigan, I spent one night of sound sleep face down in a ditch until the alarm went off (It sounds like, “Don’t you know this is posted property?). It really wasn’t that I didn’t have a place to stay, it was just that I got confused during our annual opening day eve party that I was supposed to be at. (Where, allegedly; I did too many shots of doe in heat lure). I maintain that someone slipped it into one of my, less healthy, drinks. Fortunately, I was able to maintain a low profile since the incident was obscured by the fact that another hunter walked home. The scandal wasn’t the walk. The next day, he told us that on the way home his dog wouldn’t listen; he had to catch it and scold it. When he got it home, it jumped in bed and kept him awake all night long. Our eyes (including Rover’s) widened as he explained how horrible it was sleeping with his dog all night and how badly it misbehaved. He was even late getting to his opening day spot because he woke up alone and lost time looking for his dog. He couldn’t explain why old Rover was suddenly so uncharacteristically incorrigible. The real controversy arose when we informed him that, actually, he forgot to take Rover home and the old dog never left the party…

After passing the blood tests that assured I had indeed survived Michigan hunting season, I came back to PA for our deer camp rifle opener. There, I found a warm bed that was very narrow. But it was better than the radiator I’ve been known to sleep on in the past. Well rested, I hitched my way to Iowa, where the camp I use is an old, less than contemporary, generously named yet properly priced, “bed and breakfast”. By mid-December, if I’m going to be under cover, I’d like some covers.

I was able to make friends with the “bed and breakfast” owner, who I’ll call “#48”, after I helped him remove a tooth. (For some reason, he thinks I’m a cheap dentist: Why quibble?). At one point he mused, while rubbing his jaw, “I’m not sure you’re what you say you are.” His investigation stopped when I commented, “And you’re a “bed and breakfast” without either”. I guess feeling guilty; he went out and got a queen sized bed that I didn’t even have to share. If the size of the hammock sized bow in the middle of it was any indication, the previous sleeper weighed in at about four hundred pounds. When I, carefully, inquired about the size of the racks former inhabitant, #48 said, as he pulled on his ear tag, “Dr. Presley, it’s not so much about his size but how long he stayed in the bed”. Nothing says, “affordable bed” and “sleepless rest” like learning the previous bed user was bedridden from an extended mysterious illness. I certainly mourned the loss but did not feel any less fortunate or comfortable despite the few stabbing springs in my body while conforming to a foxhole shaped mattress that the previous owner upgraded to a coffin... (FYI-I can relax now that it’s been a year and any spots and rashes that have appeared have turned out to be normal and non-contagious).

This season, I am trying to lay low again but there’s a twist. Through fall fishing, archery, and Michigan shotgun, it’ll be business as unusual. However, for PA rifle, I’m taking my son out on one of these blasted mentored hunts: that someone let the cat out of the bag about. Oh, I’m excited to go with him but he definitely knows who I am, so…that’ll be weird… There’s so much to teach him about hunting in the family tradition, how to shoot, camouflage, cover scent, get a separate social security number, wear a fake mustache and sleep on a radiator just for starters. There’s just not enough time in a season…

Disclaimer, this article contains slight exaggeration. #48’s number has been changed to protect “Doctor”/Client confidentiality.

See you along the stream…but you won’t see me…er’…us.