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By
the time this publication is printed, deer season will be in full swing.
When I think of deer season, many things come to mind. When I wake up
early in the morning of a hunting trip and go to wake my daughter, my
thoughts invariably turn to my father. I remember the early mornings we
would be awakened by dad to go hunting or fishing. Dad was one that told
you one time to get out of bed. If you didn’t do it, the next thing
you would hear would be your head hitting the floor as he drug you out
of bed. I am the one at home that has to wake my daughter up every
morning for school and that can be a chore. Parenthood is very
interesting when, as the years go by, you begin to sound and act like
both your mother and your father and you gain an appreciation for some
of the things they used to say to you when you were a child. It can take
forever to get my eleven year old out of bed Monday through Friday, but
when I say the magic words, "Wake up, its time to go huntin’."
She bails out of bed like something bit her. I was the same way.
If
she is slow I tell her that I’m getting ready to leave and if she
doesn’t get up she can stay home and play with the dogs, she kicks it
into high gear and gets ready. I am almost dreading the day when I have
to wait for her to put on her makeup, her mama says its coming and I
think we are close.
Waking
up those early, cold Wyoming mornings is a memory I will cherish
forever, even though most Wyoming mornings are cold. About the only time
dad ever wore jeans was when we went hunting or fishing. He had a red
and black plaid shirt, his hunting boots and, of course, the knife. On
his hip he always carried his Air Force survival knife. I don’t know
if it was issued to him and it just kind of retired with him, but my
brother has it now and just to see it is to conjure up dreams of rainbow
trout and the bull elk dad never got to kill. The house smelled of eggs
and grits. We probably had the only grits in the state of Wyoming. Dad
had them imported by his mother from Alabama, special delivery. I am not
sure about the only grits in the state, but I feel fairly
confident that we had the only collard patch. Once again, grown from
seeds lovingly sent from Alabama.
Anyway,
mom would usually pack us a lunch the night before, constantly reminding
everyone not to wake her up at 3:00 in the morning. Dad would get us fed
breakfast and we would get loaded up.
On
the way to where we were going, we would start asking for the hunting
stories. And we would get them. Dad comes from a long line of
storytellers. Nothing in our family can be told without a story to tell
it. You cannot just tell some one what just happened, you have to tell
every event that led up to the occurrence in great detail. You have to
put the listener there with you on the scene whether it’s the shooting
of a trophy animal or watching someone run a stoplight.
Dad
had every type of hunting story you could imagine but his fishing tales
were the best. I guess it was because he really enjoyed fishing. He
would tell you what he was thinking and his strategy about which dry fly
he was using and which rock he placed it behind to catch that
eight-pound Brown Trout up in the old beaver pond. Given enough time, he
would educate you as to the experiences that led to him using that
particular dry fly and how many fish he had caught behind that same
rock.
My
brother and I had our favorite stories and mine was one he told that had
come from a buddy of his that worked for the Wyoming Game and Fish
Department.
This
guy told dad that he regularly worked a game check station that I would
imagine not only checks to be sure hunters are harvesting the legal
limit and only legal animals but also to gather harvest information
valuable to wildlife management. He told dad that they saw it all at
those check stations. One of the wardens had a bird dog that used to run
loose at the station. They had a guy come in from pheasant hunting and
he showed them the birds he had killed and he and his companions had the
legal limit of three roosters each. They were about to let him pass when
they noticed the bird dog was locked up on point at one of the tires.
Seeing this as highly unusual, they investigated and found three hens
inside the hubcap. Checking the others, they found each hubcap contained
more hens. This was not good.
As
he would be telling this part, our mouths were watering for the
conclusion of the story. Here it comes so get ready……
After
rambling through various game violations over the years, he came to the
case of the northern hunter that had come west to kill a moose. This
gentleman came through the check station and he had his quarry field
dressed and tagged. I am sure he was glowing with pride; a Yankee city
slicker had come out here and showed these Wyoming cowboys how to kill a
moose! At first glance, they thought he had killed a cow moose because
although he had a carcass, he had no antlers and you just cannot miss
the antlers on a moose. Upon closer examination, they found that he had
successfully stalked, shot field dressed, tagged and transported a
Missouri Elk. A Missouri Elk to you and me here in the South is a mule.
They tried to explain to the man that he had shot a mule but he insisted
that it was a bull moose. To make a long story short, some how they
managed to locate the owner of the mule and compensate him and the guy
from up North got to take his "moose" home. In the story, my
dad’s friend would always chuckle and say how he would love to see
that guy and his mule head mounted on the wall of his trophy room.
Dad
always wondered what it was like to eat an entire mule all the while
thinking it was moose.
Ralph
Ricks is the manager of Quality Cooperative, Inc. in Greenville. |
