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One
year, my brother had come off a horse and fractured his elbow. Very
little ever kept us from our weekend in the deer woods. He busted his
arm about two weeks before deer season and he put in the time trying to
figure out how to shoot his rifle with a broken elbow. He called me to
tell me that he had figured it out and the trip was a "go."
We
loaded the Trooper and headed for Dale County. That afternoon, we set
our stands. I helped him get his up in the tree and we were set.
Dawn
found us nearly ready and I escorted him to his stand and watched him
climb painfully to his seat. Then I made about three or four trips up
and down the ladder stand hauling him his gear. Exhausted, I told him
that he was not to get down because I wasn’t going to be there to help
him back up. Surprisingly, he did what I told him to do.
I
then headed off to my stand and waited for the deer to move.
Some
time later, I don’t remember how long it was, I heard a shot ring out
from his direction.
Now
let me pause for a second and brag on my brother’s shooting abilities.
When we were kids and in the Boy Scouts, he had every shooting award you
can imagine. He even was a summer camp counselor as a young teenager
working on the shooting range, where he was able to shoot constantly. In
short, this man can shoot.
Small
bore, large bore, handgun, it doesn’t matter. Whatever he points his
weapon at and pulls the trigger, he hits. I have seen him kill a deer at
over two hundred yards shooting with the opposite hand because the deer
just wouldn’t step a little more to the right, I have seen him head
shoot two running deer and drop them within five feet of each other. I
swear to you this is all true with none of my usual "lily
gilding."
So,
when I hear him shoot, I know that he had more than likely got a deer on
the ground. My first thought is to sit tight and hunt out the morning so
I could get a deer. Then I thought of my poor brother sitting all alone
in his stand knowing that he has a deer down and cannot climb from his
stand to check it out. So, I decide to go and help him out.
I
get there and sure enough he’s got one. Now I make three or four trips
up and down the tree to move his stuff and then I get him down. We go
find the deer and this has the makings of a great weekend.
Usually
if we harvested a deer, we would hang it in camp and then load it on top
of his Trooper to get it home. This was before the days of the little
devices you put on the trailer hitch to hold stuff. Tossing a one
hundred pound deer to the top of a small S.U.V. is no problem for two
young, stout men but when one of them has a broken elbow, it becomes a
problem.
Fortunately,
we did not allow it to become a crisis because we both knew that it
would be something to laugh about someday.
We
had great times in those days. The tales we can tell are many. There was
the time we trailed a deer for about a mile and a half through the
woods; there also was the time we went to sleep and the temperature was
in the sixties and when we woke up it was in the twenties.
With
both of us having been Boy Scouts, we are no strangers to pitching tents
in the dark, sleeping on rocks and roots, cooking on an open fire and
just generally being miserable but still having a good time. We’ve
gotten trucks stuck and un-stuck several times, we’ve frozen and
sweated, been sick and well on our trips and we’ve always had fun. We
even made a trip to Texas to hunt deer after Dad died and had a great
time doing it.
We
have introduced his two sons, my nephews, to hunting and given them a
reason to be outdoors for more than earning a merit badge. We still try
to go hunting together on opening day, but we just don’t seem to have
the time we used to have. But we still manage it every now and then.
Although
many times you might think that your appreciation for the outdoors comes
from one or both of your parents, don’t forget your siblings.
Hunting
adventures with my big brother are right up there with some of the best
times I have had and yet we still haven’t gotten some pheasant, and
our bull elk is still out there walking the Rockies where we dreamed
about hunting when we were kids, waiting for us to come home.
Dad
may not have been too impressed by deer hunting, he may have preferred
fishing, but there is one thing I can guarantee – he would be darn
proud of how we have taken the heritage he passed on to us and passed it
down to our children. He would also love to have seen how excited we get
when hunting season is near and we start thinking of hitting the woods.
Dad would be proud of the fact that we enjoy hunting together not
because we are friends, but because we are brothers and in some
respects, we are one. Right Jeff?
Ralph
Ricks is the manager of Quality Cooperative, Inc. in Greenville. |
