Just what goes on up in the woods during hunting season?
To help answer that question, all hunters should be required to carry a journal book that keeps an accurate record of the hunt. If not for history itself or the game wardens, the result at least might be some good humor.
The typical diary would read something like this:
0530: First day of deer season. Awake in stupor to alarm; grab frantically for alarm and toss out of tent.
0531: Zip back into warm bag and fall asleep.
0710: Wake up with sun in eyes. Crawl out of tent and make coffee.
0732: Start getting hunting gear together.
0814: Get last of gear loaded in pack.
0825: Head out into woods.
0831: Head back to camp – forgot lunch and toilet paper.
0845: Head back out into woods. Soon run across a steaming pile of bear scat, which finally answered “yes” to that age-old question…
0912: Hear what sounds like a trophy buck approaching through noisy dry leaves.
0917: Cuss out the squirrel.
0918: Squirrel chatters and warns every critter within two miles of my presence. Bring rifle to bear on squirrel but decide at last second not to shoot as it would scare off every deer within three miles. Move on.
0930: Sit down and start on lunch.
1130: Finish lunch.
1145: Fall asleep against tree with warm sun on face.
1345: Wake up with sunburned face. Move on.
1414: See big buck walking about 350 yards off in thick patch of timber. Crouch-run as fast as possible to catch up.
1715: Finally close in to within 100 yards. Can’t stand up straight, but raise rifle to shoulder and just before crosshairs are sighted in on buck, hear sound of truck tires skidding on gravel road, followed instantly by volley of shots and buck collapses to sound of whooping, drunk hunters.
1716: Return to camp, rather perturbed.
Ah, hunting camp. Just the sound of those words brings to mind the smell of wood smoke, canvas and something burning on the camp stove. While some hunting camps would make Martha Stewart proud, others represent the epitome of moral and dental decay.
A quick scan of a camp can determine the average length of stay for its inhabitants. For example, if there are three or four guys in camp and nearby are four cords of wood, 20 cases of beer and one of whiskey, it’s safe to say they plan on staying anywhere from two to seven nights. It may also be safe to say it could be the first indication that Chronic Wasting is about to show up in the state.
Each camp always seems to have its own “camp potato.” You’ve seen him; he’s the guy who sits around camp all day eating and telling tall tales to anyone who stops by. He may go out hunting for about an hour a day but only wanders off about 100 yards and falls asleep.
There is often so much outdoor humor occurring in camp that David Letterman should have considered doing one of his last shows on location. His Top Ten would have gone something like this:
The top 10 things you’ll never hear in hunting camp-
No. 11 – The NRA is a bunch of liberal tree-huggers.
No. 10 – Let’s read over the regulations again and follow them closely.
No. 9 – I really don’t care if I kill a big buck.
No. 8 – Proper English.
No. 7 – Let’s not drink any alcohol today.
No. 6 – Maybe we should clean up camp a bit.
No. 5 – Maybe we should get off the four-wheelers today and walk.
No. 4 – Maybe we should get out of the truck today and walk.
No. 3 – Dang, I’m missing Dr. Phil.
No. 2 – Dang, I’m missing Ellen.
And the No. 1 thing you’ll never hear in hunting camp – Does this camo make me look fat?
As most hunters know, hunting is not for the impatient but and often requires something called waiting. You wait in line to buy your tags. You lie awake all night waiting for opening day. You wait on the water to boil for your coffee and oatmeal. You wait at the agreed upon rendezvous for your buddy, who never shows up. You wait for the squirrel to quit chattering. You wait for that line of does to go by, hoping that a buck will follow. As a matter of fact, you wait the entire season for a buck that never appears.
Then you wait a few weeks for the elk season to arrive and again wait for most of the above mentioned events. At the end of the elk season you wait for your buddy to quit ribbing you about how he got his deer and elk and you didn’t. Then you wait until next fall for deer season to begin again.
Most hunters consider themselves as knowledgeable as Jeremiah Johnson and try to name the area’s geologic and botanical features.
These are usually described in camp to aid in future rendezvous locations, but nobody ever remembers the unique names such as “The Big Tree,” “The Draw,” “The Big Rock,” or “The Bluff.”
As hunters become more familiar with the country each season, they may move on to more complicated rendezvous names such as “The Big Tree in The Draw by The Big Rock near The Bluff.”
Where I hunt for deer and elk, the trophies must have been getting advice from Dick Cheney — hiding out in undisclosed locations, most likely the lush bottomlands of private ranches.
I’m not sure if these animals are getting smarter each year or the hunters are losing ground in the area of smarts. I can be out hunting miles of mountainsides and canyons and not see a thing.
When I pull into the driveway, my headlights showcase four huge bucks in the yard. They even come right up on the deck and eat birdseed and flowers.
I believe they are even in the evolutionary process of developing an opposable hoof to open doors and refrigerators. In the future it wouldn’t surprise me if I came home from a hunt to discover a nice four-pointer sitting on my couch eating chips and drinking beer.