Monday, July 13, 2015
This was a year ago. It's only now that I can write about it.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
First Blood
WARNING: I’ve hunted most of my life. It involves blood, and sometimes it isn’t pretty. You may not want your young kids to read this.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Time, Why Do You Punish Me?
April 1, 2012 No Foolin'
I haven’t written anything in the blog for several months. We did a big remodel on our house and I just couldn’t find anything funny about that. They say time will cure that and that someday I’ll be able to look back and laugh about the remodel experience. We created a new kitchen area by removing a bearing wall, tearing out an old roof, bedroom and bathroom. The new kitchen has been finished for a couple months and it is really nice, but enough time hasn’t passed for me to see any humor in the process at all.
I was out in the back pasture mowing the 3 foot tall weeds that grew last summer and fall due to me neglecting many things around the house while focusing on the remodel project. I marveled at how time has changed me, How my kids were almost all grown up and how I was feeling the aches and pains of age creeping up on me due to my recent back problems. How did I get this way? Two things immediately came to mind. First, I am obsessed with time. I have 3 songs on my IPod named ‘Time’. (Pink Floyd, Alan Parsons, & Hootie & the Blowfish ) plus ‘Time in a Bottle’, Tulsa Time’, ‘100 Years’ , ‘Don’t Blink’ and ‘The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything’. The second thing that came to mind was Bill Schnupp and his emotional experience of selling an insurance product called ‘Time’ and the revealing day he tried to see what a hemorrhoid looked like.
I’ve decided I need to expound on some of my character flaws, or traits that got me to where I’m at this time in life. This new endeavor of mine is going to take up several chapters. I’m going to use my kids as examples of some of the traits they inherited from me, and I’ll mix in a couple of the Bill Schnupp anecdotes to show his kids what they have to look forward to. So here we go.
Chapter 1 - Katie
For some reason I enjoy long brutal hikes, bike rides, hunts, basketball games and such things that would wear me down to utter exhaustion. I wasn’t always like this but I learned to work hard at what I was doing to the point of sometimes wondering what I was doing and why I was doing it. I remember one hunt where Bill and I walked at approximately 32 miles in 3 days
up and down the Smokey Mountains carrying backpacks loaded with tents, sleeping bags, rifles, food, water, and finally an elk, a deer, and a meatball. I was a little leery of passing this trait on to my kids so I had to choose my opportunities carefully.
One late spring day when Katie was about 18, I asked her if she wanted to go on a mountain bike ride. She was still somewhat gullible and asked me where I wanted to go. I expounded about a trail up in the Boise foothills that wound around a big valley and finally came down near the golf course. We grabbed our bikes, helmets and some water and off we went. We parked near the elementary school at the bottom of Bogus Basin Road and pointed our bikes up the paved road. As we rode the 3 miles up the road I could see Katie starting to tire and also starting to wonder what she’d gotten herself into. Uh-oh, I thought to myself, she’s beginning to tire out and she’s starting to question going on this outing with me. I quickly explained that the dirt trail turn off was just ahead of us. She powered up the last of the pavement and seemed a bit relieved for the moment. We reached the dirt and headed out the trail. It took her another few minutes to realize that the dirt trail continued climbing up the mountain and didn’t show any signs of leveling off. I could see her anger build as we kept pedaling up the hill as the sweat poured off of us. Finally, the trail leveled off and wound around a big valley over to a creek running with cold water from the snow melting high above. I hoped the gentle ride around the valley gave her some rest because the trail was about to turn and follow the creek up the canyon, after that we were going to hit the steep part. The ride up the creek bottom was rocky and wet as we got to cross the creek two or three times. Luckily, it was spring and the creek was running high and we got our shoes wet trying to stay upright in the raging current. After a mile or so of pedaling up the creek bottom, I could see the switchback where the trail left the bottom of the canyon and climbed steeply up the canyon wall to where it crossed a pass into the next drainage. “We’re almost to the top”, I cheerily said as she glared at me with disbelief in her eyes after seeing the trail crawling up the canyon wall. After pushing her bike up the last quarter mile of the grade, Katie tossed her bike to side of the trail at the summit. She was sweating profusely and had drunk all the water in sight. She lay in the dirt at the side of the trail, the sand sticking to her sweaty skin. She looked pretty beat with the hot sun glaring on her. I knew I’d better say something quick or she would never want to go on an adventure with me again. She looked at me like I must be crazy but I was breathing so hard I couldn’t speak. After a few minutes curled up on the ground in a fetal position I was able to talk.
“It’s all downhill from here” I lied, hoping that she might
not hate me forever.
Then for a little motivation I added. “Laying here in the
hot sun isn’t gonna get you home”.
Katie stood up, brushed off the sticky sand and got on her bike. I climbed on my bike and we headed down the hill into the next canyon. We rode down some great terrain and through gullies and whoop tee dos. We rounded a ridge and suddenly rode straight into a herd of grazing sheep. There must have been a thousand of them. They were everywhere and we had to slow down and go through them slowly. We saw the sheepherder sitting in the shade of a big sage brush holding a rifle. Katie gave me a look that said, “This better not be private property you’re dragging me through,” after seeing the rifle. We made it through the sheep and past the man with a rifle and headed down the next draw. There was a dribble of water running in it to make things slick. The last stretch was a bit of a rock garden and we zipped down the trail dodging rocks and brush. We made the last stretch wreck free, which is a bit unusual for me, and we popped out on a paved road above the golf course. We zipped down the steep road with the wind drying our sweat and cooling our bodies. We came to the truck and loaded the bikes in and headed for home. I was sweaty, dirty, sunburned, tired, thirsty, and had scratches running up and down my legs. Four hours round trip, almost a record. It had been a good day. I was a bit worried about Katie though. I wondered if she’d ever want to do anything with me again. I’m can’t remember when the last time I’d seen her that mad at me; maybe when I made her go to basketball practice with a broken finger. I taped it up.
As we neared the house she hadn’t said anything to me for a long time. I was relieved when she finally spoke. She said, “I can’t wait to take Lori on that ride”.
That’s my girl.
Chapter 2 - Lindsey
This character trait is not necessarily a good one, but it can be in certain situations. (This isn’t one of them).
Lindsey was about 5 years old when I decided I needed to take the kids fishing for the day. I heard the catfish were biting near the dam on Lake Lowell. We had a couple extra neighborhood kids with us that wanted to go also. It was a hot summer day and we were all wearing shorts and flip flops.
Digression:
When I was a kid flip flops were referred to as thongs, but time has a way of changing even this. Now, when I tell me kids I’m going to wear my thongs, they refuse to go anywhere with me. I always thought I lookedin thongs.
End of Digression
We parked near the dam and it was a short walk to the reservoir. I had to carry a cooler and fishing poles so the kids had to walk. Brayden was not yet 2 so I also had to stick by him as we walked towards the water. We had to cross a dry weedy area and as I entered it, I could see lots of goat head weeds. They were so thick we couldn’t avoid them and soon our flips flops bottoms were covered with them. They stuck in the soles and wouldn’t come off. We tried dragging out feet to get them off. We made it to the beach and found a good fishing spot and sandy area. We cleaned off the shoes and did some fishing. The kids played in the sand and water. The fishing proved to be decent.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Sue and I bought our first real pick-up truck for our move to Alaska. It was a 1984 Ford F150 4X4 with a single cab and a full sized bed. This was the basic truck back in the mid 1980’s and it even had a manual transmission. There weren’t many extended cabs, double cabs, crew cabs, and maxi-cabs like there are today. Nowadays, it’s a rare thing to see a regular cab pick-up with a full sized bed. We kept this truck for several years and through our first 2 kids. We just piled in and went places.
After a few years in Alaska and Nevada, we returned to Idaho, and one of my favorite things was to load up two 4-wheelers and go Blue grouse hunting on the forest roads of Boise County. Blue Grouse are the kings of the forest grouse because of their large size. However, they are not too bright, and not too fast. The term ‘bird brain’ may spring from the Blue Grouse’s intellect. They sometimes look blue in direct light but mostly they seem to be gray. I felt like I had a lot in common with the Blue Grouse and I always liked trying to match wits with these brainless birds.
My father owned two 4-Wheelers upon our return from Alaska. He was always willing to let me borrow them, as long as I promised not to make him go with me. The smaller of the two 4-Wheelers was a Suzuki 185. Two people could easily lift it into the back of the truck by lifting the front wheels up onto the tailgate and then lifting the rear and pushing it in. One person could do it in a pinch. I would then turn this little 4-wheeler sideways, in the very front of the truck bed. After that, I could lift the second 4-Wheeler into the truck and push it up against the side of the little one. They fit pretty tight and the tailgate would shut behind them so they couldn’t move around at all. No straps, no ramps, no trailers needed. It was a great set up and made the trips into the mountains quick and easy. The infamous brother-in-law Bill often accompanied me on these trips, as his mind matched up well with the Blue Grouse also. He was always willing to show me how strong he was when I would challenge him with phrases such as, “I bet you can’t lift that little 4-Wheeler into the truck by yourself”. He would prove me wrong every time I would say that, which turned out to be pretty often after long days of chasing grouse, chuckar, deer, and elk through the mountains all day. He would lift the front end of the little Suzuki on to the tailgate and then grab the back rack and hoist it up and in the truck. He would then turn and smile at me and brag that his grandfather always told him that he was strong as an ox, and just as smart. He was always real proud of that compliment.
I spent several years with this truck and the two 4-wheelers and I would also take the kids up the trails as often as we could get away. As kids got older and busier, it became harder to do. Eventually my dad sold his 4-Wheelers and I sold the truck and moved on to a mini-van. The mini-van only lasted about a year and a half until I was finally able to convince my wife that a 1992 Ford F350 7.4 Liter Crew Cab Turbo Diesel 4X4 would be much more sensible and practical for our family of 6 than a mini-van could possibly be.Many years have passed by and last fall Bill called me and said that we needed to go Blue Grouse hunting again. I was all in. Bill said he had an ATV that we could take and ride up the old 4-wheeler trail. He said that an ATV is an All Terrain Vehicle and it looked a lot like a 4-wheeler, only better. He explained to me that there is no such thing as a 4-wheeler anymore, they’ve all been replaced with ATVs. These new ATVs are bigger and stronger than the old 4-wheelers. I pondered over the end of 4-wheeler for a while and then reminisced about riding them up and down the mountains and only rolling that little Suzuki twice. I then decided that progress must go on and that these new ATVs must be an improvement or the 4-wheelers wouldn’t have gone extinct. I now had a Toyota Tundra crew cab with a 6.5 foot bed. I figured that would be plenty of room for one of these new ATVs. The day before we were to go grouse hunting, I decided to check the Fish and Game regulations to make sure the Blue Grouse season was still the same, and to check the open units and limits. My digression for the day is belowThe Fish and Game regulations used to be a small booklet of 10 or 12 pages and were pretty easy to find the season dates, limits and open areas. The new regs are 80 or 90 pages per booklet, and there are several booklets. There are pages and pages of advertisements, explanations of what weapons can be used, specifications of weapons, bullets, types of scopes, arrows and broadheads. There are tables of shooting hours, sunrises and sunsets, as well as maps, animal descriptions, pictures, and natural habitat research. These regs are also color coded for recent changes, units, zones and special permit hunts. They explain how some hunts are restricted to specific units while others are in certain zones. Zones are made up of parts of 1 or more units. Deer hunts are in units but elk hunts are in zones. There are then long legal descriptions of each unit’s boundaries. Hunters pretty much have to carry the regs with them nowadays and when an animals is sighted, sit down and read the regs to determine where you are, which unit you’re in, which zone you’re in, what’s the date, what time it is, what kind of animal you see, is it male or female, how many antler points does it have, what weapon you are carrying, in order to determine whether you can shoot said animal where it used to be standing.
End of Digression.
I looked through the bird regulations a couple of times but there was no longer a Blue Grouse season listed. I couldn’t believe it, what was going on here? As I looked closer I discovered there was a new grouse season in the same area and at the same time as the old Blue Grouse season. This new grouse season was for a bird called the Dusky Grouse. I had never heard of such a bird. I read about their characteristics and even looked at a picture. Dusky Grouse looked eerily similar to the Blue Grouse. These Dusky Grouse must have slowly moved in and taken over the Blue Grouse range and the Blue Grouse must now be extinct or endangered. When I figured that out, it motivated me to go out and shoot all those pesky Dusky Grouse for ruining our Blue Grouse hunting.
Bill has never been one for reading the regulations, so I called him up and told him that there is no more Blue Grouse hunting in Idaho, and that Blue Grouse appear to be extinct. Bill was overcome with disbelief and anger. I calmed him down by telling him that there is a Dusky Grouse hunt in the same area that is open. He had never heard of a Dusky Grouse either but was immediately interested. He then wondered if we were capable of matching wits with these new fangled birds. Bill asked what Dusky meant, and I told him I wasn’t sure but to me it sounded like the time of day just before it gets Darky. We set our sights on finding some of these Dusky Grouse and thinning them out so maybe the Blue Grouse could make a comeback.I got to Bill’s house early the next day. He was wearing his camo baseball cap that he always likes to wear, he says it keeps people from seeing what he is thinking. I used to be skeptical of this theory until one day I realized that I can never see what he’s thinking, and I know him pretty well. He pulled the ATV around to my truck and I was shocked at how big it was. ATVs were much bigger than 4-wheelers. I didn’t think I’d be able to help lift it into the truck so I started to say to him that I bet he couldn’t lift that into my truck by himself when he stopped me and said that you don’t lift ATVs, you drive them up a ramp. He pulled a big folding ramp out of the garage and set it on the tailgate. He then rode the ATV up the ramp and into the back of the Tundra. Only it didn’t fit. I couldn’t shut the tailgate. This ATV was too long for a 6.5 foot bed! We then had to find some straps to tie it down so it couldn’t fall out. We then had to strap the ramp down too. I kept thinking about how great progress is. We now have huge ATVs, small truck beds, no Blue Grouse and 90 pages of color coded regulations with advertisements. I was beginning to understand why old men are cranky and talk about the good old days. We made it to our hunting spot, drove the ATV down the ramp and headed up the mountain. We had a loop we used to ride that went gradually up one side of a mountain and then came down pretty steep and quick on the other. It was about 12 or 13 miles up and 5 down. We rode the long route up to the top and didn’t see any Blue Grouse, which wasn’t surprising as they were extinct, but we didn’t see any Dusky Grouse either. I remembered that the steeper downhill was usually better hunting. We got off the ATV and walked down the hill a while. After less than a mile, Bill said he was going back to get the ATV and that he would ride it down the way we came up. I asked him why he didn’t just ride it down this steep trail that is shorter. He said that this was an old 4-wheeler trail and an ATV wouldn’t make it down. The 4-wheeler trail has got some narrow places and some bad spots in it, so he had to go down the other way. You sure wouldn’t want to get an ATV stuck, or roll it on an old 4-wheeler trail. I told him I would just walk down the old trail and meet him back at the truck.As I walked the old trail I thought again about how great progress is. How we now have smaller trucks, much larger ATVs, and much more complicated regulations, and how this is so much better now. I waxed a bit nostalgic about the 4-wheeler and the Blue Grouse now being extinct. I ended up shooting 3 or 4 of those Dusky Grouse on my way down the trail and I enjoyed the walk and views. The Dusky Grouse looked just like Blue Grouse. They were slow and not very bright, so we matched up well. In fact, I couldn’t tell the difference between them and the old Blue Grouse. I suppose I could get used to hunting the Dusky Grouse as much as I might miss the Blues. And I suppose progress is a good and necessary thing. I tried to vow to myself that I wouldn’t become a cranky old man and talk about the good old days, but my heart wasn’t in it.Oh by the way, when my Dad sold his 4-wheelers, I bought the little one. I still have it and it still runs fine. But don’t tell anyone. We kept the Ford F350 for 17 years.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
In the late 1980’s my wife and I moved back to Boise from Alaska. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I started spending more time with her brother Bill. It turned out that Bill and I had much more in common than anyone would have thought. We both liked hunting and fishing, and we played a lot of basketball together. We also found that in our teenage years, we both apprenticed under the same, little known but often followed, Greek philosopher, Dipp LeSchiticus. Bill talks like he was an honor student, but I never worked that hard at it, much like my high school courses.
When each fall rolled around, Bill and I spent a lot of time hunting and fishing together. Much of our hunting involved Garden Mountain. We hiked up and down the mountain a few times as well as riding 4 wheelers up the trail from Zimmer Creek. There was also a drivable road up the backside all the way to the top. We drove this road quite often. Back then, last few miles were a narrow, brushy stretch that scratched up my truck and tore the vent off the top of my camper shell the first time in. We always drove my truck after that because it was already scratched and torn up a bit. We would camp at one of several places on the top of the mountain, among them, the now infamous Dead Cow Camp.
My mind wandered to one particular spring. Bill and I were bored and antsy to get outside. We decided we should get out on the spring bear hunt and look for bears. We also figured that we should build our own tree stand, put out some bait for the bears, and just wait for them to come to visit. We knew there was still snow on Garden Mountain but thought we might be able to get to the top. We loaded up my truck with two 4-wheelers, two wooden pallets, various lengths and sizes of lumber, nails, hammers, saws and various other tools. We also tossed in our first round of bear bait. Old jars of fruit, a couple bags of old grain, and some fish and game meat left in the freezer for too many years. My truck had the Beverly Hillbillies look going on as we left town early one Saturday morning. The road up the mountain was on the North side. There was still some big snow banks in places so the truck didn’t get far off the valley floor before we hit deep snow. We pulled off to the side and unloaded all our equipment and supplies. We bounced the 4-Wheelers off the back of the truck and fired them up. It then took us at least an hour to load the pallets, tools, and food onto the 4-wheelers and strap it all down. I ended up sitting on the pallet’s edge as it was much larger than the 4-wheeler rack. We started up the mountain and made pretty good time in some places. The shady, protected corners were still snow covered and a few times we had to stop and muscle each 4-wheeler through the drifts. The higher we got the deeper the snow became and we were wearing ourselves out fighting uphill through the snow. We finally realized that we were not going to make it to the top, although we had gotten pretty high. We remembered a spot near the top that we had frequently seen game and had even shot a deer there a couple years back. We fought our way to that ridge. We arrived well after noon and unloaded our treasures. We only had to carry them about a hundred yards through the thick snow. We selected a spot about 25 feet high in a big pine tree and went to work. We spent hours climbing up and down the tree, cutting pallets and boards to fit, pounding nails and tying up ropes. Late in the afternoon we were exhausted, but, we had a pretty nice bear stand. It wasn’t quite level, it sloped down a bit towards the ground in the front. There was potential for slivers in the rear end, as I had learned from sitting on the pallet on the ride up, and it teetered back and forth a little bit. But overall it looked pretty good. We had even pounded some boards into the tree for steps. There was no padded chair, safety harness or rain cover, but we didn’t plan to hunt in the rain or fall out of the tree. We laid out the fruit, grain and frozen fish in an area open to the stand. We were pretty darn proud of ourselves as we packed up the empty jars and tools and readied ourselves for the trip down. Driving home we talked about how often we would bring up more bait and how one of us could sit in the stand and the other could hunt higher up the mountain. It was going to be a good spring hunt.
The next time I saw the bear stand was about a year and half later. I was driving up and over the top of the mountain to meet Bill for an elk hunt. I thought of that tree stand while driving that section of road. I stopped and got out. I walked the hundred yards off the road and looked at our stand. I found it easily enough. It was still in pretty good shape and seemed to be holding up fine. I noticed a game trail going by that looked like it had regular use. Some of the grain we left had sprouted and grown and it appeared to be nibbled on by the wildlife. I told myself that someday soon I would come back and sit in this tree stand and wait for the animals to come by.
I realized that it has now been about 15 years since we built that stand and somehow I’ve never actually sat in it and hunted. I’ve only been back there that one time.