Birthday Rooster

What a day for a birthday. Sunny and clear after an evening of outdoor dining and a little jamming, however weak. The banjo and guitar supplied by Rob and cousin Wes and some singing by me.

Our rendition of “He’s in the Jailhouse Now” left plenty to be desired, but on Saturday morning all I could think of was bagging a bright wild rooster on my 60th birthday.

At 8:00 AM sharp, Rob – accompanied by Tule and Peetie, Wes and I -accompanied by Lola, hit the fields.

It was long before Lola had a hen up and then another. The next field produced a rooster quickly and I knocked it down with my first shot – a birthday bird?

It was not to be and the winged rooster made it to a nearby berry patch and escaped. Too bad, but we had plenty of hunting to do.

Field three produced nothing. Nothing but about 100 bitterns and a river otter that posed – and me with no camera.

We planned an attack on the next field, one of our most productive. I circled and came in from the far ditch. As I moved into position, with Lola a few yards in front of me, a rooster climbed into the air only ten yards away. The bird headed for the thick cover on the opposite side of a 20- yard wide ditch.

It cackled a long continuous cackle and nearly hovered, offering an ‘unmissable’ shot. Unfortunately, I couldn’t shoot. I was not convinced that Lola would make the retrieve and having already lost one bird, I was gun shy. I let the rooster go - with some regret. Maybe I’ll find him again and Lola will get him up over dry ground on our side of the ditch where the odds of retrieving him will be better. There’s plenty of days of pheasant hunting remaining. In fact I’ll be back again this week and I’ll be looking for him.

In the mean time I’ll have to consider him a worth birthday rooster. Game on.

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Is Hunting a Sport?

After playing baseball for 25 years I can remember my days in the sun ‑ both of them.

Some high points come to mind… stealing a base and knocking in the game winning run a couple times, but unfortunately there were many more times when I missed fat pitches that came “right down the pipe.”

As a kid, baseball was very important to me. It was one of the ways I defined myself. In sports, athlete’s go for it. They swing for the fence, sometimes connecting and often failing. But in hunting, “going for it” often has unintended consequences.

My first year of deer hunting took place in 1971. I unleashed a rain of arrows on the deer of Lassen County. I finally killed the twelfth buck I shot at. It was not an efficient event, nor was my conduct a standard to follow. I wasn’t thinking about those things. I just wanted to kill a buck. I thought hunting was a sport. Amazingly, I didn’t wound any animals before I finally killed my buck.

A few years later, while hunting in Oregon’s Hart Mountain National Wildlife Refuge, I shot at a forked horn mule deer. The arrow was on line but fell low, hitting the buck in his left front leg. The sight of him stotting off on three legs with his front leg dangling by a tendon comes to mind.

As vividly as a recall the thrill of my first buck, I also recall my anguish of wounding that forked horn. We have limited ability to control the course of events in the physical world. Going five for five or hitting a home is a great thrill for a baseball player, and killing a nice buck is just as thrilling for the hunter, but once one has wounded an animal the difference between these activities is made much clearer.

Unlike baseball, my archery hunting carries on. I’ll never go five for five again, but I may take a great mule buck with wide antlers. Maybe it will happen this year. I’ll never go back and analyze my swing to figure out why I couldn’t hit more balls over the fence, but I can improve my shooting technique and self control. I can care for my equipment and tune my bow. I can practice to become the best archer I can be.

My archery career is still in full bloom. I can become a better archer and a better hunter, but I must spend time evaluating what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. 

A friend of mine recently discovered his grandfather’s bow, a hand crafted Osage orange wooden long bow. He was excited by the find and committed himself to hunting with it. He has sought out advice from professionals and is preparing to hunt with the primitive weapon. I hope it will be a satisfying hunt for him.

There was a time when I made a similar choice. About 20 years ago, I purchased a long bow and vowed that I would hunt mule deer with it. I remember my first stalk. I came around a large boulder on a Nevada mountain within 15 yards of a modest three‑point buck with pitch‑black, velvet antlers. I drew and released. The arrow sailed several feet over his back as he walked off. I have never felt as defeated as I did at that moment. I had no chance. At fifteen yards, the buck might as well have been 100.

I wasn’t prepared to wait for the ten yard shot, so I hung the primitive bow up, realizing I would never acquire the skill necessary for effective big game hunting with a long bow. If hunting were just a sport, there would have been no reason to give up on the primitive bow.  But,  hunting is not a sport.

You can treat hunting like a sport, but if you do so long enough, you’ll probably agree with me that hunting is a unique activity which has great merit, very personal results and is best practiced with a high level of individual integrity.

That’s why it’s so worthwhile.

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The Giant Buck of Snowdrift Ridge

The mule deer is one of the most difficult species to take with bow and arrow. Large bucks are often incredibly wary and know how to travel using the terrain and other deer to their safety advantage.

One of the advantages of archery hunting is that during the early season these big bucks will often be found in open country and often on high ridges or in high-elevation bowls. One ridge we used to hunt in Southeast Idaho held a few big bucks during the first week of the Idaho archery season.

It was during one such early-season hunt that my brother, Rob, and I watched a very large buck disappear into a rock pile near the very top of a high ridge. The buck was so far away that we could only guess at how big he was, but we knew he was at least big enough.

It takes a special type of confidence to climb a huge mountain with the goal of hunting for one buck and at that, a buck that is probably one of the most experienced and wise old bucks in the country. The climb to the top of Snow Drift Ridge, as the mountain is called, takes about three hours from the point where we sat. Per our usual understanding, Rob got to go after the big buck as he had spotted it first. I set out after a smaller buck that we had also seen from below.

The climb was every bit as tough as it looked. When we reached the top, the wind was whistling at a good clip and the air was much cooler than it was below. Cloud cover added an ominous cast to the scene as we split up, each taking up position above the bucks we were after.

To add a little excitement to the hike, Rob had walked to within 15 yards of a bedded five point bull elk on the way up. We had elk tags, but the bull was gone before Rob had any chance.

I looked over at the point where Rob would start his descent and my knees felt a little wobbly. The descent would be off a very steep avalanche shoot with loose rocks that were perfect for falling. The cold wind and cloud cover made the approach even unfriendlier looking.

From this point on, I can only repeat Rob’s story as I recall it. He hadn’t climbed very far down the mountain before he spotted antlers below him. He knew right away that it wasn’t the large buck we had seen from below, but it was a four-point buck. He estimated that the bucks spread would be about 24 inches, and the times were all long and evenly matched. Since it was a good scoring set of antlers, Rob figured that it would probably make the Pope and Young minimum score of 145 points. This had been his goal from the start. The buck was in range and hadn’t seen him yet.

He used his range finder and found the range to be about fifty yards and down hill. He re-estimated the range, reducing his range estimate by a few yards to allow for the steep slope of the hill and knocked an arrow. At the shot, the buck ran a few yards and stopped. Rob thought the shot had been on target, but couldn’t see any wound on the buck. The buck walked off and stepped out of sight. Rob quickly climbed down to the spot where the buck had stood and spotted a few drops of blood on the rocks. He figured that the shot had been a non-vital hit, but hoped that he could track the buck and get another shot at him.

Rob sneaked slowly along the buck’s trail occasionally finding a drop of blood, while watching for any sign of the buck. He had traveled only a short distance when he spotted movement ahead. Huge antlers appeared before him as the original buck (the one we had spotted from the bottom of the mountain) fed slowly in his direction. The buck was enormous. He had a mainframe spread well outside his ears and massive antlers with cheater points sticking out several inches past his main frame on both sides.  This buck had five points on each side of his antlers, counting the cheaters, and the bases had the largest circumference Rob had ever seen on a live buck.

At fifteen yards the buck acted suspicious and turned to walk away. At 30 yards the large buck stood broadside to gaze ahead. If Rob had been free to shoot, it would have been the chance of a lifetime. As it was, he felt an obligation to continue after the buck he had hit and only watched as the largest buck he had ever seen within archery range stood broadside at 30 yards.

Unfortunately, the first buck was never found. Rob felt certain his arrow had only clipped the buck’s leg. The actions of the buck after he hit it and the lack of blood sign indicated that this had been a non-fatal hit. At dark, he gave up on the buck and climbed down the mountain and later related his story to me.

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Fair vs Fare Chase

Joined the B&C Club today. For some time, I’ve been thinking about Fair Chase, what it means to me. The Boone and Crocket club defines fair chase as: “…the ethical, sportsmanlike, and lawful pursuit and taking of any free-ranging wild native North American game animal in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.”

(Caption: No fences here where my friend Keith holds the horses while my guide scans for stone sheep.)

Apparently the Boone and Crocket Club thinks that fair chase only applies to North America, but most of us who believe in fair chase would disagree. The words North American are irrelevant. B&C apparently didn’t want to get into the politics of other countries where fair chase has been largely overlooked.

In Africa, for example, I found little thought being given to the chase. Most of the energy was centered on procurement of the physical trophy. In fact, I could have had anything delivered to me for a fee. Africans are closer to their subsistance hunting roots than we are. (The old phrase, all’s fair in love and war could be changed to love, war and subsistance hunting. Native Americans chased buffalo herds over cliffs.)

(Caption: Kudu bull taken with bow and arrow at a waterhole blind.)

However, it’s North America where fair chase has its roots and we should be proud of that. It’s the North American system of wildlife management that has created an environment where fair chase is been embraced and practiced by hunters.

The part of the B&C club statement that has wide ranging implications is the last 15 words, “in a manner that does not give the hunter an improper advantage over such animals.”

What is improper?

I don’t believe that all hunting must be by the rules of fair chase to be valid and honorable, so long as hunters know the difference.

Call a spade a spade so to speak.

One thing is very clear to me. My most meaningful hunts are the ones where fair chase is the medium. Know the difference!

In Africa, I participated in a week of archery hunts that were not fair chase. Why not? To begin with, all the hunts took place in enclosed hunting areas. I do not know how large the enclosures were and I didn’t ask, but they restricted movement of game.

I cannot determine how much impact the fences had upon the ability of the game to escape. Probably none, however, the fences did have an impact upon my psyche. In the dense thorn-bush country, I knew that if I were patient while still hunting into the wind, eventually, I would find game because I was guaranteed that certain animals were inside the fences. I could cover much of the area in a morning. Therefore, I hunted with extra conviction – a tremendous psychological advantage if compared to hunting an area that might have been void of game.

 

Animal behavior can be manipulated even in extremely large enclosures. The most common method is to control water supplies so that animals are forced to enter the danger zone to survive. Is it wrong, or just intellegent behavior?

I enjoyed the hunt very much. And, I enjoyed success, a prize to take home definitely improves one’s attitude. I will display my African trophies proudly, but not quite like I would the mule deer buck I didn’t get on the fair chase archery hunt that took place in Alberta Canada this fall. If I ever succeed at taking one of those huge mule deer bucks with my bow, or rifle, it will be the trophy that hangs over my fireplace.

Unfortunately fair chase “corruption” did come into play on my deer hunt as well. Here are a couple items to watch for:  Radios: These should only be used to organize the hunt, not to monitor game while the hunt unfolds. Automobiles: These should be used as transportation, not as mobile blinds. When looking back at Alberta, I can see that we went over the line a couple times, something that I will work hard to avoid in the future.

The key difference between fair chase hunting and other hunting is that fair chase hunters pay for a hunt, not a trophy. When one pays for the trophy, it creates a conflict between the Professional Hunter/Guide and the rules of fair chase. This conflict cannot be resolved. If you want fair chase, pay for the hunt. If you must be guaranteed a trophy then pay a trophy fee. I’ve done it. And, I like my trophies, but a trophy fee hunt will never be the best hunt money can buy.

The rules of fair chase are designed to make hunting more rewarding, not less.

     

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