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.

I’m no good at keeping secrets, not the fun variety, but I am good at seizing opportunities, and over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been busy trying to do both. Of course, I failed at the first, but I succeeded very well at the second.

I was out working with some linemen last week, when they were shutting off one of my circuits to do some work. One that I didn’t know all that really well (I have at least a nodding acquaintance with all of them, since this place is very much like a small town and their yard is next door to ours) tracked me down specifically to talk about hunting. It seems that Nevada has opened its Mountain Lion season this year to over-the-counter tags, even for out-of-state hunters.

This guy, Shawn, had a tag coming and a good place to go, but he wanted to hunt behind hounds. He knew that I did that, so he proposed a trade of information: if I could talk some of my houndsmen friends into going and letting him hunt behind their dogs, he’d walk us through where to go. That’s one of the biggest hurdles to hunting in a new area; you can look at maps all you like, but until you have a good feel for the area in person, it’s crazy to just go out willy-nilly. You never know what the terrain’s going to hold for you, or if you’re suddenly on private property, or where the good access roads are. It’s always best to start learning an area with someone experienced in it.

I am no slouch when it comes to recognizing a golden opportunity when I see it, so I got as much information right there as I could and told him I’d check with my friends. Already, my wheels were turning. This is one of the things that Junior’s wanted most to hunt in his life, and since it’s not legal in California (which is a whole ‘nother rant,) it would be an outstanding surprise. So by the end of the day, I had thoroughly researched it on the Nevada web site and downloaded regs and applications, talked to Todd, ordered a mess of topo maps from USGS, and discussed making it a surprise for Junior with his folks.

Todd’s all for a close lion hunt. He’s been going to Utah every year, but that’s a long haul. He said that’s how he got started there though; someone knew someone who knew where to hunt, and he just kept it going from there. He had some questions for me to pass on to Shawn, but said that since it’s so close (less than eight hours,) he was willing to go there himself this summer and scout out the area in person. I asked Todd to keep it quiet for now, because I could just see him telling Don telling Bill mentioning it in all innocence to Junior. But if everyone knew it was a surprise, maybe I had a chance of shutting the grapevine down for a little while.

Junior’s folks were surprised to hear from me in the middle of the day, when I knew Junior was at work, but once I explained what I wanted to do, they were all for helping me pull one over on their son. They got me his hunter safety information and other things that I needed for his tag application. We weren’t as sneaky about it as I’d hoped though, and that was entirely my fault. I looked way too guilty when he caught me talking to his dad, and that got his wheels turning. I’d hoped to shush him by laying it on his upcoming birthday, but that didn’t work so well.

All weekend, I kept coming close to blowing it. I’d catch myself starting to tell him that I’d talked to Todd, or something about Nevada. I was getting entirely frustrated, as I was so excited about it that I was about to climb out of my skin, but I had to look perfectly normal. But on Sunday, I almost blew it big time. He’d got on my computer to look something up, and saw the Nevada website on the drop-down menu, which I’d forgotten to clear. I may have overreacted, but he thought I was mad at him for snooping.

My original plan was to say nothing at all for months, and just have a tag show up in his mailbox in June, but that would have involved forging his signature, something that I’m not willing to do. So I amended the plans to presenting him with the maps and a card with a picture of a lion in it for his birthday. That way, I could still see him surprised, but I wouldn’t have to wait so long.

But don’t you just know it, he started digging again last night, on a day when I’d been talking myself out of just telling him already. Once he saw that he was getting to me, he wouldn’t stop, and kept on pushing. If I’d really been trying to hide something, that would have pissed me off to no end, and I would have muled up and not told him shit, but since I really wanted to share it with him, I let him get to me.

Since he knew it was probably a hunting thing, I made him guess. He went through hunts in Nevada that he’d like to have, getting more and more confused every time I told him it was wrong. No, it wasn’t an elk hunt. Nope, not sheep either. Or antelope. Or mule deer - are you kidding? The draw for that for out-of-state is ridiculous.

Finally, he twigged to what it really was, and a grin just about split his face in two. This is something he’s always wanted to do, and to have someone else know that and set it up for him was really a good surprise. So we spent the rest of the evening talking about it, and looking at maps, and laughing about all the times I’d almost blown it. I called his dad to let him know that he could talk about it now, and that Junior wasn’t just fishing for information if he came home and asked for the copy of the regs I’d left there.

And you know what? It was just as good of a surprise in the middle of a regular week as it would have been on a birthday, and now it’s more fun planning with him, instead of scurrying around behind his back. And it’s going to be even more fun as the months go on, with the scouting and the planning and the actual hunting after the first snow falls. It’s sort of a hunt of a lifetime for both of us, and I am ridiculously pleased with myself for getting it set up.

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!

Lower Division Courses 

101. Introduction to Bass Fishing (4 units)

(Formerly: Fishing Principles 101) An introduction to the principles of fishing using the bass as a model organism. The course covers bass boat care and launching, trailer backing, basic knot tying, casting, basic lying, and cold-weather safety. Fish may or may not be caught during the laboratory portion of this course.

Note: Laboratory requires a valid fishing license and semi-public urination. A course for students majoring in Redneck Science.

102. Introduction to Hunting (3 units)

(Formerly: Hunting 101) Prerequisite: Hunting Safety (H107)

A general course introducing hunting principles and wildlife interactions in rural ecosystems, emphasis on locating, killing, and processing large and small game animals. The course covers hunting camp preparation, introduction to tracking, basic butchering and meat processing, and open-fire cooking techniques.

Note: Instruction will consist primarily of laboratory activities of various types. Hunting license required.

103. Applied Deer Hunting (4 units)

(Formerly: Hunting 102) Prerequisite: Hunting Safety (H107)

Emphasis on the application of biological knowledge designed to harvest a mature male Mule deer. Topics include: Preferred deer habitat, seasonal variations, and locating techniques. Various means of harvest will be discussed, including center-fire rifle, pistol, and archery techniques. The course covers hunting camp preparation, tracking, butchering and meat processing, and open-fire cooking techniques.

Note: A course for students majoring in Redneck Science. Instruction will consist primarily of laboratory activities of various types. Hunting license and D-6 zone deer tag required.

104. Introduction to Large Game Hunting (4 units)

(Formerly: Hunting 104) Prerequisite: Successful completion of Redneck Science 103(or equivalent) with a grade of C or better.

This course, with Redneck Science 103, makes up the introductory series for Redneck Science majors. Both courses must be completed with a grade of C or better before students will be allowed to take the second level of required courses in the Redneck Science curriculum. This semester covers dangerous game principles, an introduction to bear hunting, and anatomy and physiology of large game animals. Concepts and facts discussed in lecture will be closely integrated with laboratory observation and experimentation.

Note: This is part of the introductory series for Redneck Science majors. There are weekly laboratories. Hunting license and bear tag are required.

105. Introduction to Hounds (4 units)

(Formerly: Hunting 105) Prerequisite: Successful completion of Redneck Science 104 (or equivalent) with a grade of C or better.

This course consists of beginning hound care and selection. Topics discussed will cover scent hound breed and bloodlines and management in and out of the field, correct use of tracking and training devices, and and introduction to locating concepts. Laboratory observation will be required, with overnight courses occurring at least once per semester on an unscheduled basis.

Note: This is part of the introductory series for Redneck Science majors. There are weekly laboratories. Mode: Lecture and Laboratory.

106. Introduction to Varmint Hunting (4 units)

(Formerly: Hunting 106) Prerequisite: Successful completion of Redneck Science 102 and Redneck Science 105 (or equivalent) with a grade of C or better.

This course completes the introductory series for Redneck Science majors. Redneck Science 106 is designed to be taken in the winter of the students’ freshman year. This semester covers small game applications, including the pursuit of raccoon, fox, and bobcat using scent hounds. Topics include cold-weather tracking, night observations, off-road driving and self-rescue, and cold-camp techniques. Concepts and facts discussed in lecture will be closely integrated with laboratory observation and experimentation.

Note: This is part of the introductory series for Redneck Science majors. There are weekly night laboratories. Mode: Lecture and Laboratory.

JJ seems to have the bear hunting bug, so when he was finished keeping Big Jeff company on his two-week archery hunt, he drove across the highway to our camp. I’d told him that he could stay with me so he didn’t have to sleep in his truck, and I got a little teasing from camp about that, but not too much. They know that those boys are my friends.

So bright and early Saturday morning found me once again following Todd down the old road. I’d see him slip in the mud ahead of me and I’d have an idea about where to put my heavier truck so it didn’t completely bog down, but remember that I’m sort of a beginner at this four-wheeling thing. So I didn’t hit the big mud hole with quite enough momentum to pull myself through and had to rock back and forth to get out of there. That old truck did it though, without having to climb out and break out the winch.

Todd had stopped just in front of me to do a little road clearing with the axe, so I shut it off to go walk up there. Good thing I did too, or I wouldn’t have heard the evil “hsssss” coming from my right front tire. Sure enough, I’d popped the sidewall, probably in that mud. I couldn’t have done it too much earlier, since it was still blowing air out; it stopped that while I was standing there looking at it. Brand new tires too.

 

 

 OK, time to find the jack then. I was in as good a place as I could have been on that road, and I had help. I think JJ might be a little bit of a bad tire-luck charm though–he changed my last flat for me too. Of course, that was more than five years ago, and I wasn’t even in the truck at the time; he was driving it and I was riding up ahead with Dennis.  

 

 

But he’s game, so he got under there with the mud dripping off of the suspension and jacked that sucker up. We got the flat one off and the spare on with hardly any problems. The spare was a little low, so I got to try out my new toy, grinning like a fool for getting to play with it. Whoever thought of putting an air compressor on a winch is a genius, I swear.  

After a whole day of chasing dogs and feeling useless, and the lack of another spare eating away at me, I’d had it. I did not want to be running around on those roads without one, even with my friends all around to rescue me. What a monumental pain in that ass that would be, if something else happened. My patron saint is Murphy, so something was bound to happen. So I dropped JJ off at camp with the food and headed on down the hill. I thought I’d paid for the extra hazard warranty on these tires, so I was hoping to sneak on down to the new store they’d opened and stare at them until they hurried up and put a new one on for me.

Turned out though, that not only did the new store not have that tire in stock, but the whole manufacturer is backordered. It’s a popular tire, and I can see why. I was quite happy with it myself, until I put that hole in it. I was down to Oakdale at that point, so my next best option would have been to buy a used tire to have on there temporarily, or at least to carry as a spare. But are there any tire shops open in Oakdale on a Saturday? Of course not. Ron generously offered up one of his extras, but a little more calling turned up that the lug pattern on a Ford of his year doesn’t happen to fit my Dodge. An older Ford would have, so it wasn’t crazy to think that it might.

I was feeling the time and wanting to get back up to camp by then. I figured I could go on a goose chase in Turlock, the next closest town, or I could go to a place where I knew damn well that they had a used tire in my size, and would be open, as they’re about across the street from my house. I drove all the way home, the long way, and got one of my old tires put back on, and got myself back up into the mountains by dinner time.

Once I was at home, a part of me was kicking myself for making that big circle of a trip. I could have just brought my stuff down with me and stayed at home, but camp was expecting me back, so back I went. Not showing up would have worried the hell out of them. Besides, I wanted to be there.

I was surprised on Sunday morning when all of the shooters and half of the houndsmen bailed on us. It was down to Don’s and Todd’s rigs, and me and JJ. I was really hoping that we’d catch one, as JJ’s put some heart into it lately and I wanted to see him get his. 

I got a little distracted coming back up the Old Road when Todd got a strike near there, and ended up turning into a wrong-way Charlie. My wrong turn was a right turn though, and it put us at exactly the right spot to not only hear the race, we actually saw the dogs flying by, in a strung-out pack, thirty yards from the road below us. Since we’ve been hunting that area so much this year, I had a very good feel for where they were going, so JJ and I took off after them on the main roads to get up around and in front. We ended up out on the end of the Julie road listening to the music down below us. Don and Todd came in at them from other angles and called us down.

I was for damn sure going to get JJ to that tree, so I might have been in a little bit of a hurry, but we got there in plenty of time. They were treed not too far up in the creek where I’d shot my bear last year, and where Junior got his this year, and where we’ve dragged twenty more out. The five of us busted our butts to get there and what a pretty sight we found when we did.

 

 

 He looked big, although it’s sort of hard to tell when they’re treed, and it was open and low enough to get some good photos. Just as cool as can be, JJ pulled out that pistol of his and aimed, and that bear was dead before he hit the ground (we like them to be dead quick like that.) It was a good shot.  

 

 

The best part of this one, even though I really like them all, was getting to see this look on my friend’s face. He and I have been friends for a long time; he and his family got me my first deer. I’d have been thrilled for him even if he hadn’t, but getting to pay him back for that was pretty special.  

 

 

He did a hell of a job, and I have a feeling that now he’s hooked. The bear hunting gets to you like that. I’ve been over the edge for a couple of years now. This is the best part, seeing someone else get such joy out of it.  

I got my first buck seven or eight years ago. JJ took me up to his family’s deer camp, where I was privileged to be one of the first non-family visitors in a generation. We hiked in, deep into the Dardanelles. It took all day to get in; I have no idea of the mileage, but it’s the kind of country where there just isn’t any hunting pressure on the deer. Few hunters get in that far, so they’re not particularly alarmed, although they are more shy of people than the herd that’s around us all the time.

JJ’s grandfather took me to his honey-spot up there, while JJ and his dad went out in their own direction. We were quietly walking around to a bowl when his grandfather spotted three bucks. I sat down and gave myself a good rifle rest, and then just waited. I could see that the largest of the three had walked behind a tree, and was waiting for him to walk out. Eventually he did, not noticing us at all, and I calmly shot him once and he went down. Later, JJ’s grampa said that he wondered if I was ever going to shoot, and pointed out that I clearly didn’t have buck fever.

Well, it’s been a long time since that little forked horn, and I’ve spent a lot of hours deer hunting in between, without seeing a legal buck at a legal shooting time. I’ve kind of moved my emphasis over to bear hunting, but I still deer hunt on the side, mostly after we get back in to camp. Early Saturday morning though, I woke up around five AM listening to the rain plink on my trailer roof, and knew I would be deer hunting that morning. I thought about where I was going, and I laid there awake for almost another hour before I got up and put the coffee on.

I would have liked to go with Jeff and Dennis, who had been up there for a few days. I so rarely get to hunt with them, it seemed a shame to pass it up. But they were driving a little two-seater Gator-type thing, and I had no inclination to ride in the back of that. Besides, when I pulled past their camp just before hunting time, there weren’t any signs of movement yet. I wasn’t going to waste the first storm of the season hanging around waiting for those guys to get up. Fran said, as I left, “Get a big one,” and I said that I’d call for help if I did.

I got past the little section of private land on my way to where I was going just as it became hunting time, a half-hour before dawn. I looked out the corner of my eye, my eyes that never see deer unless they’re standing right in front of me thumbing their noses, and there was an unmistakable sillhouette of a big buck, bedded down right in the open, broadside to me. I stopped the truck and got out with my rifle, and scoped him a little bit. Sure enough a big buck, even though with him facing me, I couldn’t count points well. Spike bucks’ antlers don’t come out past their ears though, not in this country. So I went to one knee for stability, and took a hundred-yard shot. I hit him, he went down, and I started walking over to him.

When I got about half-way there, two bucks stood up. One, a three-pointer, looked so much like the one I’d shot that I was doubting myself for a minute. Did I miss? No, I saw it hit, and there was no way he’d be getting up again. The two compadres looked at their buddy, clearly wondering what the hell was up with him, and walked calmly up the hill. I walked on, and came up on him, with his spine broken but still alive. I wished I’d brought a gun with me to finish him off, but finished he needed to be, and quickly, so I put him down with my knife, carefully, so I didn’t get stabbed with antlers in the process.

Then came the hard part. Down the hill was easy enough, but back up the other side was a bit of a challenge for a fat old asthmatic woman. I kept going back to the radio and calling out, and they kept not hearing me. So I just took it slowly; drag ten feet and breathe. Drag another ten feet, and try the radio again. Another ten feet and a pull on my inhaler. When it came to the steep part, I got him to within my rope’s distance from the truck, threw a loop over his horns and around a tree, and backed up until he popped up on the road. Of course, then he was at road height and the truck tailgate is four feet off the ground, and there was no way I could lift him by myself. So I thought about it, and used what tools were available to me; I dragged him up the embankment on the opposite side (which, come to think of it, is probably where I tweaked both my back and my knee) and backed the truck up that way. Then I could just roll him onto the tailgate, slide him up, and drive on.

I was almost back to camp when my radio and its wrong antenna worked enough to raise my crew. They were just rolling out bear hunting, and when I called asking for a saw and some muscle, they knew. I’d left camp a bare half-hour earlier. Most of us met on the road, and they took my photo. Don was particularly pleased; he knows how long it’s been, and he was proud of me.

 

 

 

 Hell, I was rather proud of me too. Wild Man came back to camp with me; couldn’t have asked for a better helper, as he was once a butcher and still has a heart of gold. He butchered out five kills that I saw that weekend; mine was the least of it, as I did the gutting and skinning myself. After we got it into the tree to hang, we caught back up with the houndsmen and went on to have a very good bear race, but that’s a story for the next entry.  

I’m thrilled. It was a clean kill, no bruising of the meat, and he smells so good that I can’t wait to get it back from the locker. He turned out to be the smaller of the two bucks in our camp this weekend, but he’s still quite a respectable size for California. I was considering having the head done, but you can’t mount every one you get, so I’m just going to save the antlers, and the meat, of course, and I’m having the hide tanned too. No waste!

And the best part is that my hunting’s not over. I left the trailer up there for the season, and I get to purely bear hunt until December. I won’t be able to break my habit of looking for deer, but I sure don’t have to haul another one uphill alone this year. I can’t wait to go back.

I’ve been intending a sanity trip for a little while, so 5:30 this morning saw me on the road to find me some peace.

I did too, gobs of it, and in the process rescued some boys who’d gone out looking for adventure. I figure they’ll have plenty of adventure getting their Jeep out of that tree tomorrow.

I was on the last leg of the trip (which I’ll go into in bits over the week, as it was sort of epic for one day) and I came around a snowy corner to see a couple of camoflaged young twenty-somethings pop up the embankment. They looked sheepish and I didn’t see a vehicle in sight, so my first assumption was that they’d walked past their truck.

Uh, no. They’d slid their Jeep off the road not twenty seconds before I came by, and sure enough, there were the tire tracks leading straight to nowhere and I could barely see the red roof when I got out. It had rolled all the way over, landing somewhat vertically, and a tree had stopped them. There are lots of trees up there.

They were OK; one had crashed his knee up but didn’t think it was broken. I didn’t either, from the way he was walking. I took them up the road to where a buddy of theirs was parked and turned them over. Sadly, I did not take pictures; those boys were rattled enough, and to have someone who undoubtedly looked like their mom pick them up was bad enough; they did not need to be humiliated.

But check this out from earlier in the day:

 

 

I’d been driving on completely frozen puddles all day already. Must have gone over fifty of them with not so much as a crunch.

 

 

This one had a particularly interesting freeze/thaw pattern going on, so I deemed it photo-worthy.

 

 

Sure, it was a little damp on the bottom, but it didn’t look bad.

That is, of course, until I drove right over the middle of it (d’oh!) and heard an ominous “snap” and then immediately dropped six or eight inches. Into what appeared to be sucking quicksand. Seems this had been one of those deep puddles. Oops.

I was already in four-high, so I kicked that mule into four-low, rocked it back a little, and bulldozed my way on out of there. Barely, too. I was contemplating walking in to Yosemite and leaving notes as I did it.

Dear Santa:

I would like a winch for Christmas please. A nice big one. Oh, and if you could see your way to have it delivered to the middle of nowhere in January, that would be great!

Kisses!

Cowgirl Walking

But that truck has earned himself a name: “That Ol’ Mule,” and not in any derrogatory sense either. It’s not that the truck’s stubborn, so much as it is willing to dig down deep and put some muscle in it when it matters. And it’s never left me in a lurch either, even when I do stupid things like this.

So that ol’ Mule spun a little, flung mud up one side and down the other, and gripped and ripped that damn ice apart and got me out of that hole. Four-low and first gear is a force to be reckoned with in that truck. I patted ‘im on the dashboard and said, “atta-boy,” and got out to take pictures, because that’s what I do.

 

 

Once I broke through, it looked like the ice was about four inches thick. Which would have been fine if it weren’t for the quicksand. Or my stupid sense of invincibility (is it any coincidence that my Calvin and Hobbes treasury came today? I think not.)

 

 

But I still want a winch. And possibly some common sense (I did have survival gear in the truck, but what a monumental pain in the ass that would have been, eh?)

A couple of people, including Nance, have been mentioning Project 365, which is just a goal to take and post a photo every day. The more I think on that, the more fun it sounds, and it goes well with my intentions of keeping the good camera with me more often.

I figure I’ll hit some days and I’ll miss some days, but on the whole, it can’t help but give me some more photography practice, and it might give me things to write about when I’m otherwise literarily constipated. I don’t think I’ll be posting seperate entries about it every day, but you never know; I might.

And, of course, I didn’t have the camera with me when I took the dogs for a walk yesterday, so I faked it by taking one today.

I call this one Dog Noses in the Dirty Mirror:

 

 

And today’s picture has a story to it, and is a resolution of one of the things that was hanging over my head.

 

 

I’d made myself a little decision tree regarding the trailer.

If it was totalled by the insurance company (and I was pretty sure that it would be), then I was going to cross my fingers and hope for a fair settlement that I didn’t have to argue. If the buy-back price was less than $1000 and the pay-off amount let me buy it back and still pay off my loan on it, I had decided to do that. If they wanted too much for the buy-back, I was going to let it go and look for an older trailer to replace it. I do not want to be under another loan, not with this uncertainty about my job looming overhead. I also did not want to be completely without a trailer.

I figured, better the devil I know than the one I don’t if I bought it back. I know what all works in this thing, and I have a good idea of what it would take to get it sealed up and functional again. And believe me, my standards for repair when it’s coming out of my pocket are pretty low.

So it all worked out. I got a decent settlement from the insurance company, who were actually quite nice to deal with since I wasn’t in a hurry, and I bought it back today. I brought it home (well, to work) to patch up so I can use it for varmint season this winter, and then in the spring, Marvin’s going to help me fix up that front end. We’re going to move the propane tanks and batteries around a little to get rid of that plastic nose piece, and reframe the inside front bed. We’ll seal up that corner too, but for the meanwhile, I’ll tarp the hell out of it. Which I should have done this afternoon, but forgot. I have to get a salvage title from the DMV, but since the brakes and lights all work, that won’t be a big deal.

It’s going to be ugly, but functional, which is fine with me. In a few years, I can look into replacing it with a newer one. If I can sell it for a little money then, that would be cool, but if I can’t, I can junk it without too much heartache. It would probably part out nicely.

On Saturday morning, we split up into two parties, each with a dog rig and a full-size diesel following. Not intentionally; that’s just how it worked out. While Todd went around one side, Don and I went around the other, circling that same apple orchard and old ranger station that’s proved so profitable over the last month.

Todd’s bear was treed close to the road, and while we were on our way over to meet him, Don’s dogs struck, and hard. He turned Chalk out to see if it was worth chasing, and it was, so the other three went out too. We heard them go over a ridge, but then they came back, and Don sent me down to listen further than he was, near where I had faced rattling brush that turned out not to be a bear a few weeks ago.

When I stopped and listened, it was clear that Don and I had them bracketed, and they were coming my way. What’s worse is that they were headed down into some majorly rough country, the Lumsden Canyon which goes right down into the Tuolumne River. At one point, I could see the hounds running just across the canyon from me. We leap-frogged back and forth, the dogs and I, and every time I stopped, I’d holler and honk at them to try to get them in.

But they know damn well that I’m not their person, and why should they listen to me? My heart sank when they got in front of me past the gate down into the Lumsden. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for a long, hard day of trying to get the dogs back out of that impossible place. Don was too far behind me though, and they had to be stopped, so I kept racing them, watching the road get narrower and narrower and the banks get steeper and steeper. I knew the sheer bluffs were right around the corner.

Finally I could hear them over the diesel, so I knew they were close. I stopped the truck and stepped out to listen one more time, and there they were, not ten feet from me. Only when I looked closer at the rattling brush this time, I clearly saw a brown back, not a tri-colored hound. I squirted back into the cab of the truck, having stepped out completely unarmed (not even the camera) although a really pissed-off bear would have come right in the open passenger window, which was right at eye-level to him on the bank.

Fortunately, he saw me too, and flipped a quick U-turn back up into the brush. It happened so quickly that I had to look around before I got back out of the truck and to check the road to make sure that he hadn’t crossed either in front of or behind me. I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t, but the dogs weren’t continuing to chase, so I sincerely hoped that he’d given them the slip.

The dogs popped out looking like they were worn out, and I snagged two. The third one was bleeding from her ear, probably from running through the brush, and she’d flung it all over her face, making it look much worse than it really was, and it took me a while to catch her. I could see the fourth dog, Shady, right up the bank in the brush looking at me, but she wouldn’t come. I was starting to suspect that she was hurt too. Right about the time I was weighing the odds of going in after her with a bear right close, Don pulled up, and managed to coax her down the last ten feet after ten minutes of talking to her. Sure enough, she’d been grabbed on the back. She’s got a few puncture wounds and is holding herself as if she hurts internally, so Don took her back home to doctor her up tonight. She’ll be all right.

But once again, I was grinning from ear to ear. That was the first time I’ve actually seen a bear on the ground during a chase, and to actually be close enough to smell him was high on the excitement scale.

After we all met back up and admired Jim’s bear, we all convoyed up through the apple orchard to see if we couldn’t get a strike while going back to camp. Sure enough, we did, and turned a couple of dogs out on it. In no time at all, we couldn’t hear any of them, and split up to triangulate them by ear. We eventually ended up almost across from camp, just over the ridge from where I killed my bear, with a very nice brown bear in an oak tree. One of the other hunter’s daughters wanted to shoot it, so we hung out and took pictures while they got there. It was nice, and close to the road, but nowhere near the adrenaline rush that I got by being out on foot with one running towards me.

I may be just a little bit hooked. I’m going back up in two weeks, and the guys have suggested that I postpone the trailer repairs so I can go varmint hunting with them. Oh yeah.

p.s. Happy birthday, Tully Mars. You mean more to me than you think you do.

It’s been a quiet week, I know. I took the kids up to Roseville this weekend to drop off the bear and take my Gramma to lunch, and I had a whole post written about that, but WP ate it. Oh well, it wasn’t very well written anyway, so I didn’t bother to rewrite.

The taxidermist, though, Aaron at Western Wildlife Taxidermy, really impressed me. I’d spoken with him on the phone, but you have to see the work before you know if you want to drop off your trophy with someone. Once I saw his stuff, it was decided. I was having a hard time communicating what exactly I wanted to do with the bear, but he understood me. He flipped through the forms catalog until what I wanted jumped out at me; I hadn’t seen any examples of that on the internet, but apparently it’s done enough to have a stock form available. He seems to be quite an artist, and I’m completely comfortable leaving ol’ Big Bastard in his hands. I expect to get back that once-in-a-lifetime mount that really shows off the white spot.

I’d asked Aaron to send out the skull to be cleaned too. He uses Skulls Unlimited, which the kids thought was pretty neat, as they were profiled in Dirty Jobs this summer. Hell, I thought it was neat too; I’m as big a fan as they are (although with much dirtier undertones…call me, Mike!) But one Aaron got the head skinned out, he called back. I knew that I’d broken the jaw and one of the canines with my first shot, but he said that there are two more holes in it. The thing’s just too shot up to hold together well through the cleaning, and it really wouldn’t be worth the money. He’s going to saw off the three remaining canines so I can keep the yellow old teeth.

Seamus wants one of the claws, which Aaron said he’d pop off the back feet for me, so maybe I’ll make him a necklace with a tooth and a claw on either side of it. John too, although I don’t know that he wants one. You don’t even want to know about the penis bone, which will eventually get hung from my rear-view mirror.

I had no idea that 1) bears have a bone in their penis and 2) that it’s tradition to keep it. My first bear was female, after all. But when we were gutting him, Todd whipped out his knife, sliced the thing off, and handed it to me. I was sure that they were yanking my chain, especially with all of the double-entendre jokes that we flung back and forth for the rest of the day, but I dutifully (and dubiously) stuck it in my shirt pocket and carried it back out with the rest of the bear. Apparently the thing to do is to boil off the flesh (and wasn’t that just disgusting!) and then keep it as an odd, redneck sort of conversation piece. They all said that I might have the biggest one of them all, which struck them as terribly funny, and will be even funnier when I whip it out to compare sizes, which I’ve obviously never been able to do before. Dennis says that it’s a real thing, to keep those, when I cold-called him on it, but he may just be in on the joke. Could be the bear hunter’s version of snipe hunting, but it tickles my funny bone even if I am the target.