A few weeks ago, The Hunter’s Wife  blogged about being on a radio game show hosted by Scott Linden, on Outdoor Life Radio.

“Ah-HA!” I thought. “This is something that I might actually be able to do, and have fun with!” I do hunt, after all, and have been reading about wildlife for my entire life. Fishing I’d have to just wing - my main interaction with fishing is gratefully accepting bags of filleted bass from my father-in-law.

So I went to his web page and contacted him, and they set me up with a date to be on national radio. Yipes. I get to stick my foot in my mouth in front of the whole country? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, so this morning I swallowed my nerves when Scott and his producer called.

They had three questions for me, one each on hunting, wildlife, and fishing. I knew fishing would be hard, but I didn’t know he’d throw a trick question in there about hunting, in which I insisted that some sort of dog was actually an Italian ice cream. I don’t think spumoni is even an ice cream, is it? Some sort of pastry perhaps? Either way, it only sounded like spumoni, so with a little gentle guidance, I finally got the question right.

Wildlife would have been easier if I’d ever heard Coues deer pronounced out loud - I’ve only seen it written and had no idea that it sounded like an Angus or a Holstein. Certainly deer hunting would be more popular if there were great big, juicy deer with bells on them in the mountains.

Fishing doomed me, as I knew it would. He threw fly names at me, and surprisingly, they all sounded like nonsense! I guess that’s what fishing lure people do, so they can have a good giggle about a big burly man stepping up to the counter and orderering something like a “Pink Sparkly Whirlibob Humpty-Popper.”  I know our friend who makes his own worms is often absurdly proud of them, especially the smells they emanate. He’ll stick a ziploc bag full of what looks like rotten nightcrawlers up under your nose and say, “Look, they smell like rotten cheese and skunk musk!” I draw the line at tasting them. More than once, anyway.

Fortunately, the producer told me that the shows aren’t live, they’ll be aired later in the year. Maybe by March, I’ll have forgotten the sheer dread of hearing my recorded voice, and I’ll remind you all to go listen to the link. You’re forewarned!

This has been a long hunting season. I’ve spent more time up there than any other year. Junior’s used to going every weekend during deer season, but it’s been my habit to only go every other weekend. I couldn’t juggle two kids by myself, one who definitely isn’t into hunting, and actually get any hunting done. We’ve taken three of them up a few times now, four the weekend we got married. While it’s easier to manage three kids with two parents than two kids with only one parent, it’s still exhausting. Now that deer season is over and the big camp full of lovely distracting things like grandmothers and piles of sand to play on are gone, I don’t see making many more trips up with the whole family. It’s just too wearing on me, and I’m working way too hard during the weeks to be able to cope.

It’s not just emotions that are getting ragged. We’ve each had a case of poison oak and I’ve somehow tweaked my knee. Junior’s been clean exhausted after some of the really difficult hikes to get dogs or bears or whatever.

The equipment is suffering too. We moved my trailer down to bear camp when deer camp shut down, flapping tarp on the roof and all. It’s a good thing we had it, because the next two weekends it poured and the trailer stayed nice and dry. Dry enough for a family of mice to find it irresistible; they’re all over the place in there. Friday night, I kept waking up to the scritching and scratching, thinking I could catch one out in the open.

Something’s up with the electrical system too. I have brake lights but not trailer brakes, turn signals but no running lights. That’s not something we wanted to mess with up there too much, so we pulled it home on Saturday afternoon during the daylight. We’ll work in the roof and the electrical and the mice this weekend, clean it up, and take it right back up there the next. We’re not done with this season yet.

The trucks aren’t coming out of it unscathed either. Junior’s been very careful with his Ford, but he took it down a narrow spot that scratched it up. It’s nowhere near as bad as the Dodge, which needs a major buffing out. I hadn’t even buffed the racing stripes off one side from the year before yet. The brakes on the Dodge went out, and Junior replaced them in camp in the rain. One of my mirrors popped off and that had to be replaced too. Both trucks are filthy and we’re not keeping up with the trash on the interiors very well. I shudder to think what we’ll find in late December when we call it a season. Or possibly late February - we would like to go varmint hunting after all, and that sounds like an excellent excuse to procrastinate on the truck cleaning.

 

 

   

It’s been a fun year though. I’ve really liked being able to spend so much time up there, and it’s been incredible to do it with Junior. I like it so much that I was going on my own, but having a partner is squaring the fun. We only hunted for a day this weekend, but had a great time doing it.

 

 

  

I was the last one to the tree as usual on Saturday morning. It was a great setup for photography; no branches in the way and a clear shot of the bear. It was low enough in the tree to get detail without the giant lens, which I hadn’t packed down the hill. But just as I got there and aimed the camera, the bear looked straight at me and decided it had had enough. Despite there still being a ring of dogs baying around the base of the tree, that bear was coming out of there. Maverick was right there, trying to pull dogs off, and didn’t hear us shout that the bear was coming down. He must have noticed the rain of bark or something, because he ducked out of the way a second or two before it landed claws-out on his head and used him as a springboard.

 

 

   

The bear took off down the hill and the dogs followed. We kind of all stood there and listened for a minute, and then made our way back up to the trucks and went on to where they’d treed it again. This time, it didn’t come out until they told it to, so it was a successful hunt after all, and I got some great pictures out of it.

 

 

  

I was pretty ready to go home and try to get an evening of relaxing in, before I had to go do some jobs on Sunday. I’ve got a load of stuff to do next weekend too, but I’m already planning for the weekend after Thanksgiving. Even if the houndsmen don’t get up there until Saturday, we’re going up after work Friday night. We have to get our fix in of the mountains while we can, after all.

It’s not my story, but since I was stuck at home working my butt off and getting progressively lonelier by the day, I’m going to tell it anyway.

Junior and his dad go deer hunting in Colorado every year. They stay at a friend’s place and usually each bring home a nice buck. Last year, Junior went on an elk hunt with the friend and his son-in-law. He got hooked, even though it wasn’t his elk. The friend promised that it was his turn next year, so when they went out, he bought an elk tag along with his deer tag.

The season opened on a Saturday, so on Friday they walked deep into public land, bringing a pack horse but otherwise roughing it. They ate backpacking food, slept on rocky beds, and sat and watched for elk all day long. The herd of 300 or so that usually hangs out there wasn’t on time this year; they saw about seven or eight, not a one a legal bull. The next day they hiked in a little farther to try to find some animals, but still were alone out there. Since the herd obviously hadn’t moved in yet, there wasn’t much point in continuing to beat themselves up, so they came out on Sunday. He was clearly disappointed when he called me, but ready to get on with a little deer hunting, although the big deer were scarce too.

But the friend is stubborn and wasn’t going to let Junior go home without at least trying one more time. They moved out to a different area and spent a lot of time glassing the hills across from them. Finally, Junior saw a flash of what looked like rump, and when they pinned down what it was, it was obviously a nice legal bull, trotting along the hillside across from them. He laid the rifle down and took a shot. The bull didn’t even react, and the moisture in the soil meant that they couldn’t see where the shot had actually gone. Junior knew he’d missed, but didn’t know how he’d missed; high, low, or what. A couple more of those and they dragged out the range finder. What he’d thought was a 300 yard shot turned out to be a 465 yard shot, so that explained the miss. He laid the rifle over a rest, took good aim just above the beast’s back, and let him have it.

This time, it was clearly hit, but he pumped another bullet into him just to be sure. The bull folded his legs and dropped right there, and was dead by the time they got to him, with two perfect lung shots.

By then it was getting dark and starting to snow. It took them a couple of hours to field dress and remove the cape and horns from a horse-sized animal, on a slope in the dark. There was no way two men were going to pack out four hundred pounds of meat, so they made sure the offal was far away from it and left it to get the next day. Junior hoisted the head and horns, a good hundred pounds, up onto his back and they made the trek back out.

 

 

  

I got a very excited call late that night from a cold, wet, exhausted man. I hadn’t known he was going out for elk again, but somehow it didn’t surprise me. I had a feeling that he’d get a good one, and he sure did that. This was a mature six-point bull, a once-in-a-lifetime trophy for us.

 

 

 They went back the next morning with a pack horse to get the meat. It was perfectly fine out in the snow all night; Junior split it with the friend and brought the rest home to me. They rolled home with two four-point bucks and that elk rack in the back of the truck and a freezer full of meat. 

 

 

   

We’re going to be on a heavy rotation of wild game for the next year, with two hunters in our family alone. In fact, as they were packaging some of the deer for freezing on Saturday, I slipped in and took a couple of pounds, added a pound or two of elk, and made a fantastic stew. This venison doesn’t have a whiff of that gamey flavor that’s sort of put me off it in previous years. I don’t know if it’s the Colorado deers’ diet or the way they process it after the kill, but either way, I like it very much.

I swear, the bears up there must have got together this summer and held a class on how to get away from hunters. Last year, we had quite a few that treed in really easy spots, but not a one this year. This year, they’re all heading for the deepest canyon they can get to, and running miles to do it. What, are they crossed with greyhounds or something?

 

 

   

On Saturday, we got onto one fairly close to camp. There may actually have been two from the way the dogs were behaving, but the one that stuck took the hounds for a run. He went down the mountain and out beyond hearing range really quickly, so we split up to get to various high points in the hope that someone could pinpoint them by ear.

 

 

   

We finally found them up in Cherry Creek, in a place with no real roads. There’s a walking trail that parallels the creek for a couple of miles up to a set of diversion gates, so we started on that. It’s a beautiful location, especially after the sun started creeping down the mountain across from us. By then, Junior and Maverick were halfway up the other side. The dogs were much higher than our trail, almost to the top of the mountain on the other side, so they had to go down into the creek, across it, and then straight up. They lost the shooter and a couple of other people to the steep face, but our two best mules were there as always.

 

 

   

As we who were left on the trail kept listening, suddenly the dogs shut up. Oh no. We hoped they hadn’t popped over the top of the mountain, because that side of the country is even more rugged and less accessible. Since we hadn’t heard a shot, we didn’t think the men had got there yet either. Bobcat and I and a few others walked up the trail to try to get an ear on the dogs. We went at least another mile, up to the diversion gates and on around another point up the creek to try to find them, but didn’t hear anything.

 

 

   

We came back down to where they’d left off, back up to the top one more time, and then finally heard a shot and Maverick whooping and hollering, so we knew the bear was down. Once we got them on the radio, it turned out that the bear had come out of the tree and retreed twice, each time right before they’d get there. They had to finally sneak up on him and shoot him, or else they were going to spend all day playing leapfrog like that. They were only a couple of hundred yards upcreek from where they’d gone up; we hadn’t needed to go so far listening for them. The dogs were in a pocket, so we just couldn’t hear them from where we were.

 

 

   

Then the work started. Some of the other guys had got to them by then, so they all helped bring the bear back down the steep, brushy mountain while trying not to kill themselves on the way. We found a rope to hang from our side to help get it (and them) back up the equally steep bank to the trail. The dogs were so tired that it took some serious convincing to get them back across the creek; Queen wouldn’t go back to the truck and curled up to wait for her person at our feet.

 

 

   

Finally all of the men and the bear were in sight. It took the combined effort of all fifteen of them to hand-winch it up the hill. It wasn’t a shabby size, somewhere in the three hundred pound range, so it wasn’t an easy job getting it up through the loose rocks and the poison oak and the vertical sections. Finally they did, and still had three-quarters of a mile to go to get it to the trucks. They lined up on that rope like a chain gang, taking turns and switching off when they had to. Those men hauled that bear out of there so fast that I almost couldn’t keep up with them carrying equipment in the back.

 

 

   

There’s a lot of work involved in getting a bear out even when we can use mule tape and a winch to take the weight off of the guys, but this one didn’t have any mechanical help. It’s a good thing there were a lot of men there; as it was, it was a long day and everyone was worn out. But we got to see some beautiful scenery, we got a nice bear, and we had a real good time, and that’s what it’s all about.

Last weekend as we were coming home from our wedding with two trucks full of kids, we overheard on the radio that one of our more remote buddies was about five hours late coming in. We cruised on by his camp only to find that nobody left there had a base station radio. He’d been up hunting near our camp, an area he doesn’t know all that well, and had his two boys and someone else’s with him. The someone else was getting rather worried but didn’t want to leave camp in case he came back in.

So after a little consulting, we pulled the base station out of Junior’s truck and piled all the kids into that one. He had to get the girls home by a specific time while I happened to have the next day off. We gave the radio to our friend at camp and left a third friend there with a portable to wait for him. Then Junior left out slightly worried while I stayed in the mountains and started driving a search pattern hollering on the radio while our friend went up the other way doing the same thing.

We were worried that he’d got himself hurt or run off the road or lost. I would not be amused if someone knew that my family was lost up there and went home without doing anything about it. It wasn’t even a question that we would stay to help; the only factor was which one of us would do it, and logistics made me the choice this time.

The other guy and I almost met around the other side of the mountain when he called me on the radio. He’d found the guy by radio, who said he was only fifteen minutes from camp. We both hustled back only to find no guy. After sitting and waiting for another hour, here he comes tooling in, completely unconcerned. Apparently he really didn’t know the area, but they’d been out having a good time and didn’t really get that the rest of us thought he was lost.

No harm, no foul, but those guys are going to get better radios next time. I got ours back and booked it on home so Junior wouldn’t worry.

Then last week I got a call from Maverick. He’d turned dogs out on Wednesday morning and they’d gone in back of beyond and were stuck there. It was a wilderness area, so there aren’t any roads and it’s rugged as hell. The signal from the tracking collars bounces off the rocks and gives all sorts of false directions. Maverick was just hoping to find someone coming up before the weekend so he could have some clean clothes; he’d only planned to hunt the day. He keeps enough food and water in the truck to get him through a week, but his shorts were past the point of no return.

I did some calling around trying to find Fran’s number to get his sizes. He’d called from on top of the mountain, so there wasn’t any point in calling him back. I realized while I was doing the calling that the game of telephone was only working so well, and that we should have an emergency contact list of all of us that hunt together that we can keep in the trucks or leave with the family members at home. If we can only get ahold of one of them due to bad phone service, that one should know how to contact the rest of them.

Long story short, Junior was going up Thursday night anyway, so he picked Maverick up some clothes. On Friday morning the two of them left out on a hike into no-man’s land to get the dogs out. It’s country near Yosemite, and every bit as rugged as Yosemite’s back country, only with fewer people. It’s as wild a land as California gets. I’ve been in it farther north on horseback, and it’s brutal and gorgeous. I would have loved to go too, but I am in no shape for that kind of hiking.

After doing some rock climbing and getting around massive granite bluffs, the boys finally found the last two dogs. The tracking collar had indicated that one of them wasn’t moving, but it must have been a collar malfunction, as they got him out just fine too. They came out of those mountains just before I got up there, filthy and sweaty and exhausted. I’m pretty damn proud of Junior; it’s not every man who will drop what he’s doing to beat himself up to rescue someone else’s dogs.

After Junior got back, the nice ladies at camp had cooked dinner for us. We had some really great soup, beans, cornbread, and little homemade apple pies. Everything was great, but after we ate, I got inexplicably worn out. It was weird; I hadn’t been the one busting my butt in the back country. So I went to bed and so did Junior. It wasn’t long after that I started having major breathing problems. I couldn’t catch my breath and it felt like an elephant was standing on my chest. I’d start to fall asleep, stop breathing at all, and wake myself up gasping for air. I kind of mentally wrote it off as an asthma attack, but I wasn’t getting enough oxygen to my brain to really do anything about it. Junior had taken some benadryl and was out too hard to notice, and I wasn’t coherent enough to really wake him up.

I was beat in the morning, but went out hunting anyway. We didn’t catch anything, so when we came home and Junior went to cut wood in the afternoon, I tried to take a nap, but the breathing still wasn’t good. Finally I went out by the campfire and was sitting talking with the other women when one of them mentioned those pies. She was talking about her recipe and mentioned that she adds ground up pecans to the filling.

Oh, crap. I’m terribly allergic to walnuts, and while I’ve never tried pecans, it’s because they are so closely related to the walnut that I avoid them. Since she’d ground them, I didn’t see any suspicious pieces, and the pie became a perfect delivery device of doom. No wonder I was having trouble breathing; my airway was completely shutting down. I never did get the mouth swelling that walnuts give me, so I didn’t know what was going on. I easily could have died.

The next night, I thought I’d be OK. I was acceptable while I was awake and could make myself breathe on command, and I took some benadryl I had in the trailer to get me through the night. It wasn’t long until it started again though. Junior was listening to me breathe and getting worried, and I was afraid to fall asleep in case I woke up dead. We were a good two hours from a hospital and I wasn’t quite coherent enough to tell him what was going on. Finally, he realized that the benadryl we had in the trailer was probably old, and went next door to get some his mom had just brought up. After a half-hour or so, that one kicked in and I was able to breathe. He listened to me long after I fell asleep.

I’ve still got a touch of that allergic reaction going on; things are tight in my chest and I’m drugging up pretty heavily at night. I was pretty close to death that first night though, and I didn’t know it until later. That would have sucked, to lose a spouse on the first-week anniversary. I don’t even have my name changed yet, or my insurance beneficiary. So Junior was a rescueing fool this weekend, and I’m very lucky to have him. I learned a lesson about keeping unexpired antihistamines on my person at all times, I need to talk to my Doc about an epipen, and I really need to watch what goes into my mouth a little more closely. I always ask with things that commonly contain nuts, like cookies and brownies, but who would have guessed it with pie, especially if you can’t taste it? I ruined my whole weekend, and almost both of our lives, over one piece of dessert.

Pie of doom, I tell you. What a strange weekend.

On our first married day we got up at oh-dark-hundred to a knock on the trailer door. We groggily got dressed and then went next door to get the kids up from the other trailer. What, you didn’t think they slept with us on our five-hour honeymoon, did you?

Once we got everyone rolling and it was still pitch dark, we headed out to the usual spot to wait for Grey Fox and Maverick. Our timing was perfect, and we hit the intersection right when they did. The kids were much quieter in the truck than they’d been the morning before; partying will do that to a kid. We’ll have to try that next time.

We had a whole convoy going, at least seven trucks and not a one with just a single hunter in it. We cruised around to the same location as the morning before, and sure enough, got a nice strike just at daylight. As usual, the houndsmen sent off the first-string dogs to see if they’d pick up a trail. They sure did, so the convoy split up in order to triangulate them better. Grey Fox and Dean went on back down the road with the shooters and we went further uphill behind Maverick and Bobcat.

Maverick went on ahead with the locator while the four trucks with us cruised on around. No sooner had he got to the top though, and was getting a good signal on Queen, than Jeff and Bobcat got on the radio. There was another bear sitting right there in the clearing watching them. Now, it was possible that it was the track the first set of dogs were on; he could have backtracked in the night. It made sense to put some more dogs on the ground and see if they met in the middle.

The only dogs Maverick had left were his second-string; the good dogs were all already out. So he put out ol’ Suicide and Holly, and kept his new pup Gypsy in reserve. Suicide left out barking in a hurry, but he always does that so it wasn’t too significant. Eventually these two were clearly going in a different direction than the first set of dogs, so Maverick went back up top to keep them located while the rest of us stayed below. At one point Maverick saw the bear cross the road in front of him, so he put out the only dog he had left in the truck, a year-old pup that he’d never put in on a race before.

And man, did Gypsy shine. She acted like she knew exactly what to do, and when that race turned around and headed back down the way we’d come, she was right on his ass. We spread out in the trucks to try to keep things contained, but the bear wasn’t having any of that. Bill was in the front in that direction, and heard a rustle uphill from him. He saw the bear pop out into the road just in time to slow down a little, but still tagged it and sent it spinning. It kept on going downhill with all three dogs behind; we could see Gypsy in the lead.

So on down to the next road we went. Grey Fox had people at his tree corral one of his dogs to put into our race, and they treed shortly with only one experienced dog, two knuckleheads, and a pup. It was a nice easy creek bottom walk, so I tossed my asthmatic plans of staying at the truck and up we went right to it, with three little girls and Seamus in tow.

 

 

  

The kids were great. I’ve had my doubts about managing safety at the trees with so many to watch (there was an extra little girl but her mom was there too) and it would be more of a problem in steeper country. At this tree, we had room to spread out and the kids all stayed put when they were told to. I gave Seamus my rifle at one point so I could take pictures, and he was fantastic with it, always keeping it pointed in a safe direction.

 

 

  

The bear was in a huge old sugar pine, and not in a great spot for a shot. We’d picked up a couple of shooters during the race, and they got to take their time scoping out a good target. We hollered and whacked on the base of the tree and eventually the bear got unsettled enough to decide to move to a higher branch. That gave me a great shot where I was standing with the camera, so I called the shooter over and he got to it. After a little sign-consultation with Maverick, the shooter decided for a shoulder shot. I was lucky enough to get a good shot of my own, and followed the fall of the already-dead bear from the tree. I don’t get too many action shots like that.

 

 

  

That bear died before it hit the ground and the dogs got their reward. As soon as it was verified safe, the kids crowded in almost as quickly as the dogs. They’re fascinated with the whole thing; these kids will be in on more kills before they grow up than most hunters ever are. It was an easy pull back to the truck, and we all sat around to shoot the breeze while the shooter gutted it. I put Seamus in to help hold a leg; if he wants to learn to hunt, he has to learn this part of it too. He wasn’t willing to get his hands up in there quite yet, but that’ll come.

 

 

   

After we pulled back out to the road, we found the other group. They’d run a smaller bear, and it was coal-black, an unusual color phase for this area. The best part of that one was that the shooter was my friend Jeff’s son, with his first kill of any large game. He’s at that inscrutable age, but you could tell that he was pleased and his dad was beaming from ear to ear.

 

 

   

It’s not every day that you get two races going at once. Five years I’ve been pretty heavily involved in this, and it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I found it a good omen to our first day of marriage, and a hell of a way to spend a honeymoon!

The weekend started off badly. What should have been a relaxing hunting trip really wasn’t. A nice rain that should have brought the deer out didn’t. The trailer roof that should have been watertight wasn’t. And brakes that should have stopped the truck failed to do so.

I haven’t been driving the big Dodge much, so the brakes had slipped my mind. I did just have the transmission serviced and the oil changed, so I wasn’t completely behind, but the slight grinding noise that I thought was steering turned into a horrifying grinding noise when trying to drive down a muddy road in the rain. We turned around and called Junior’s Mom, who hadn’t left the Valley yet, to bring up some shoes and rotors. Then we hopped into the Ford and continued fruitlessly hunting.

 

 It was slicker than snot on those roads, and the deer were wisely holed up. We gave up around mid-morning and came back to camp. Junior tried to wait for a break in the rain to do the brakes, but the break didn’t last very long. 

 

 I felt horrible with him working under my truck in the mud and rain, so tried to keep an umbrella over him to keep the rain off the small of his back. I know that’s a miserable feeling. He’s a hell of a man though, and this wasn’t his first mountain brake job, and he got it done. 

The bear hunters weren’t really out either; it was too wet and rainy for them. Things picked up a little bit that afternoon when they rolled into camp and we played a little dice in the big tent.

 

 Sunday rolled into some beautiful weather. We had one quick race in the morning that went too fast for really good pictures, and a little more hunting in the late morning. I took the Dodge up another Jeep trail and broke a mirror - it just wasn’t that truck’s weekend, and you’d think I’d learn by now. I’m really ready to have the Jeep rolling on the ground, but that won’t be until next year. I hope the Dodge lives long enough to be retired, or at least paid off! 

The whole weekend was sort of a let-down, all the more so when my schedule presents itself for the next month, and this is my last weekend deerhunting with Junior alone. Next weekend is the wedding, and then I’m working at least the next two. He’s hunting out of state the weekend after that, and that’s it for deer season. Fortunately, the end of deer season is just when the bear hunting gets going really good, so all is not lost. I’d planned to make the most of this year’s hunting though, and it’s just not happening due to things beyond my control and that gets me down.

Opening Day was this weekend, an event that’s capitalized in our house and not to be missed for such trifles as moving day or being sick. This is what we live for; we work our butts off for nine months a year in order to play even harder for these next three. It’s not only opening day for deer around here, but also for bear, so there was much fun to be had. We lucked out and had it to ourselves kid-wise, so I took off work a little early and Junior took off from fixing up the house a little early.

Saturday morning started out with a disappointment when we saw that there was logging going on in Junior’s favorite place to deer hunt. There wasn’t last week when we were up there squirrel hunting, but this weekend it was all ripped up. Besides, it was absolutely full of people. So we eavesdropped on the bear hunting channel, and figured out that they were just down the road from us. That was all the excuse we needed to switch tracks, and off with the hounds we went.

The dogs are fresh and excited so they strike at any sign of a bear. Sometimes we can find a track, and sometimes not. Sometimes you turn them out to start one, and it trickles off to nothing and they sheepishly come back to the truck all, “Oops, sorry, false alarm.” They’ll get the hang of it again in a week or two, but on this particular weekend, it took a few starts like that to get an actual race.

Once the race looked like a real one, Junior and I went around to the other side of the ridge to listen over there. On the way, we passed three other sets of hound rigs, with nine dogs out potentially where ours were. It was like Grand Central Station for houndsmen over there; there were more rigs than deer hunters. It seems that someone got the word out that we’d had a real good year last year, and people were coming in from all over the country to take our spot, nevermind that they didn’t know the terrain or the roads, or even basic courtesy.

Those extra hounds burned us too. When we got to the tree, there were three dogs from some other pack, and they were all barking up the wrong tree. As near as we can figure out, the two packs heard each other and moved towards each other, each thinking the other set had something. Or else these other dogs were complete idiots, which is also possible. Whichever, there was no bear anywhere near there. We did get a small bear later in the afternoon.

The next morning, we put the dogs on a track right around daylight. They gave us an outstanding race; we saw them cross the road a couple of times; they ran for miles and miles. We had a hard time locating them when the race moved into an area without accessible roads, so when we stopped hearing them and a few came out, we thought it was all over.

Four dogs were still missing though, so before we left to get home and move, Junior and I headed up to where we turned out to see if any had come back up that way. We’re not a ton of use without a tracking receiver, but they often go back to where they started so it was worth a shot. We spent a little while hollering and honking the horn when we got word on the radio that the signal had been picked up elsewhere and for us to come on back down.

We’d just turned the truck around and started down the road when skipping across the road went a deer, the first one we’d seen all day. We both recognized that it was a legal buck at the same time. I was the only one with a deer rifle on me, so while Junior got out to watch where it went, I jacked a round into the chamber. The deer was not terribly alarmed but was still going the other way, so Junior whistled at him. Deer are curious, which is probably why he hadn’t bugged out when we were honking the horn, so when he heard the whistle, he slowed down, stopped, and then turned his head to see what we were.

That was the end of that deer, as my favorite deer rifle doesn’t miss. It was a good clean kill too; he was dead before we got down to him. We took our pictures (which are still in the camera, see: moving) and Junior dragged him up to the truck while I filled out my tag. We’d no sooned got him up there when word came over the radio that they’d found the last four dogs, but they weren’t just running; they were treed, and all the way on the other side of the country. All of our rigs were spread across 20 or 30 miles, so we tossed the buck in the back of the truck and hauled ass to get down there and help them. Especially with a bear that keeps coming out of the tree, we had to get those dogs off him one way or another. They were exhausted, but that doesn’t stop a good bear dog.

 

The tree was a cluster, as the bear came out again, but at least it was after the first kids there got the dogs tied up. Junior didn’t make it to the tree in time to see the bear, and I didn’t even get to the tree. I’d taken off just a hair after him so I could get the truck locked up, and by the time I caught up to him, he was stopped at a really steep spot that wasn’t worth trying to get me up, so I went back down to the truck. 

By the time I got back down there, Senior (he was right behind us on the road) had gutted out my deer so he didn’t spoil. We tried to listen to the story over the radio while other friends trickled in, but eventually the men and dogs came back and that was good enough. This chase had brought us back down to my camp, so we could pick up the stuff we needed to take from that. Then back to Junior’s camp where Senior volunteered to butcher the deer out after it hung for a day, and on home to start moving after thirteen hours of frantic activity. We were never so glad to see the bed as we were last night.

It was a good start to the season though. I got the first buck in both camps, although there was another one taken later that evening. We got to a tree and saw a good race, and incidentally took four quail and a squirrel on side hunts, which are on the agenda for dinner tonight if I can find the frying pan. It will take us a couple of trips to get back into the swing of this always-on thing on the weekend, especially on those with the kids, but this is our thing, after all. We can’t call ourselves hunters if we don’t actually go hunting, and hunt we did this weekend, and hard.

 

On Friday night, Junior and his Dad took me to do something that I’ve always wanted to do, and that is in fact required to graduate with a Redneck major.

Yes, they took me frog gigging.

And of course, during a prime goofy-picture activity, I was having flash issues, and none of my photos came out.

We left the house about sundown, which is almost my bedtime, and drove out to the canals on the Westside. Once we pulled off the road and onto a canal bank, we all piled out to listen to the bullfrogs sing to see if there were any around. Didn’t hear much, but went on anyway.

One person drives, right up against the edge so another person freaks about falling into the canal. The person in the passenger seat shines a spotlight along the edge of the water, looking for beady little eyes to shine back and keeping her mouth carefully shut to keep the swarms of bugs out. The third person rides on the tailgate with the spear in hand, waiting for the truck to stop, or else sits screwed around sideways to see what’s going on.

When someone spots a frog, he stops the truck, and the spotter tells you where to go - from the front or the back, depending on which way the frog is facing. Then you sneak up on it, hovering the gig tines about six inches above the frog’s back, and then whammo. Shove that gig all the way down to the mud, and hold it there for the other person to get one if there’s another right there.

Then comes the tricky part. The little bastards are tough, and once you pull them out of the water, they’ll take their back legs and push themselves right off the tines, if you’re not careful. So you have to hurry up and yank him off, and toss him in the cooler. You better open that lid carefully though, or all of them will come bailing out, and then you’ve got a rodeo on your hands, chasing bullfrogs in the dark. Sometimes they do get off the gig, and then there’s a lot of hopping around, on both parts. Two full-grown men might be scrambling to re-catch one wounded frog, while someone’s girlfriend giggles helplessly from the sidelines and desperately wishes for the camera.

Junior outdid himself at one point, nailing two at once. They were getting it on and stacked vertically, like frogs do, and he ruined their whole night. They got him back though, and squirted nasty black eggs all over his pants, stinking up the truck to the point where my stomach was revolting. It was either sit on a sweatshirt or take the pants clean off; he sat on a shirt so he could keep gigging without tearing his knees up.

But after a couple of hours and a really good night, that cooler was full and I was having a hard time staying upright. We dropped Dad off, who’d volunteered to clean them, and rolled in home around 2 AM. Somehow, 2 AM is a lot easier to see when you’ve been drinking, and we hadn’t, although I thought that was also a traditional part of frog gigging. That must be in the advanced course.

Those frogs were meaty. A big bullfrog’s got at least as much meat on his legs as a hot wing. Dad cooked up a mess for lunch on Sunday and we ate ourselves silly, and he’s still got two or three good meals’ worth left in the freezer. It’s great meat too; sort of reminds me of clam, but stringier. Maybe a clam-chicken cross? It doesn’t taste at all like canal water smells, as you might expect, seeing where they come from.

I really had a good time too. It’s like hunting, but much faster paced, and you don’t have to be terribly quiet. It’s one of the few things that’s legal to spotlight in this state, and I realy enjoyed being the spotter the most. Gigging was fun too, but getting them off the prongs was a little bit on the gross side. Oh, I did it anyway, because gross don’t stop me, but it wasn’t my favorite part.

One more thing on my resume; frog gigging. Awesome.

You all know that I like to get up in the mountains in the winter and see the animals that know better than to come out during hunting season. I think it’s just outstanding that I have someone to share that with now, not to mention someone to help get the truck out of the snowbank (where he stuck it.)

So we packed our lunch and headed for the hills before daylight to see what we could see. Early winter is a great time to go up, as the deer are in the rut and they couldn’t care less who’s around; they just want to get them some. The weather has brought the big bucks down from the high country, but the snow wasn’t so deep that we couldn’t get in to most of where we wanted.

And we sure enough found deer; for once, we saw more bucks than does. The does were being somewhat more sensible, but the males were all addled. We hunted strictly with the camera, and discovered that there are trophy animals in California after all. You doubt that, after a while, but they’re here.

It’s a ton of fun to watch their behavior when they don’t care who’s watching. We didn’t actually get to see any getting it on, but we sure saw them trying for it, the big morons.

This one was by far the best. He caught Junior’s eye just at the corner of his attention, and I have no idea how. We’d already gone past him and he wasn’t moving at all, but something tweaked at his subconscious, because he backed up for a second look and there stood this monster. He had his body parallel to us but was facing away. He heard us, we could tell when he twitched an ear, but he didn’t care. It took whistling at him to make him acknowledge our presence and turn around.

And what a rack! The edges of their ears average about 24 inches wide, and even though his ears weren’t out straight, he was well beyond that size. Junior thinks he might have been a 28-inch buck, better than anything he’s shot in Colorado.

He was a confident old bastard, and a tough one. If you zoom in, you can see that he’s got some damage done to his right eye, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He just stood there for a good five or ten minutes, watching us watching him, before he calmly walked behind a little more cover. He acted like a buck unconcerned by vehicle noises, which probably paints him as a Yosemite buck, used to tourists snapping his portrait. Hell, he turned to give us both side views!

He’d have been a good trophy, but I think I’m just as glad that he was smart enough to avoid that, and to come down after season ended to spread his genes around. Those are some good genes; get to it, buddy!