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Bob took a quick trip back up to Alabama.  Our lease is a combined set of lands totaling around two thousand acres. Most of the land consists of oak groves, planted pines and cutover.  Typical Alabama land.  Bob set out to straighten out the bad luck he kept having.  Turkeys were gobbling, but they were still henned up.  Bob worked back and forth running into the same problems as before.  This time he decided to work the greenfield by setting up his ground blind. It was a little warmer this time around so it could get a little hot in the blind.  He picked a spot we call “Hughes” which was a large two hundred and forty acres tract that was clear cut last year.  The land was hilly and had small creek bottoms running through the property.  The woodline on one end of the property kind of dog legged up a hill and then cuts back down to a creek then cuts again ninety degrees to create basically a odd looking “Z”.  In the top corner of this Z is a greenfield set out into the cutover.  Already one hunter from the club missed a good gobbler in that area.  Several toms would roost just off the clear cut then fly down and work the creek bottoms.   Bob just couldn’t get them onto our property.  He knew they did, but where and when was a mystery.  So he decided to set up the blind on the only greenfield in the area and got quiet.

Hughes 1A greenfield setup

Now Bob likes guns. He brings a couple and always tries to challenge himself by using a setup that adds to the difficulty.  This time he brought up his twenty gauge shotgun loaded with #5’s.   Bob said he sat down and waited.  A couple of hours past and then he glanced up and saw a hen’s head coming up over the hill near the edge of the greenfield.  He picked up his camera to snap a photo and in the view finder he sees another hen’s head pop up.  So, he puts his camera down and picks up his twenty.  Soon he sees a third head, this one is red and big.  He grabs up his rangefinder and camera again to snap a set of photos.  The three birds aren’t paying attention to his blind at all, so he feels safe.

The gobbler eases up and Bob reads thirty-three yards.  Easy money for the tight pattern shooting twenty.  Bob takes grabs a couple of photos and then picks up the gun. He carefully aims the twenty and pulls the trigger. The bird flops over and starts flapping his wings.  Bob shoots him in the head again noting the pattern dusts up all around the tom’s head.  He stops flapping and lays still.

"Iron Man" gobbler easing up into the greenfield

Now he takes his eyes off the bird, which is situated just on the edge of the greefield, looks down to put away his camera, book and gear. He steps outside the back of the blind, scaring off the hens and walks over to the bird….which is gone!

Bob looks back at the blind, down at the ground, around at the cutover and there is nothing, no bird no blood, nothing expect a single feather.  Needless to say, Bob tells me he’s a bit mystified if not down right stunned.  What the heck?  Bob does what he knows he has to and starts a grid search all the way to the woodline and oak bottom. No bird. No blood. No tracks.  Three hours.  He called me when he got done and told me the story.  I said that thirty-three yards with a twenty shooting three inch fives should have pole-axed that bird.  His dad confirmed that fact in another call.  The only thing that made sense was the gun shot a little low and maybe he chest shot the bird.  But still..

The only evidence left of the shot gobbler! What the heck!

The only other answer is this  is no ordinary bird.  He was some kind of superhero bird.  A real “Iron Man.”    Bob had to leave and could not get right with another bird before he had to travel.  His season is over.  Mine never got started as my wife’s business went south with the recession and on top of that, she was diagnosed with cancer and must have surgery.  I had told “Raining hens” that my daughter and I would live vicariously through him this season.   And so we did.  Last year’s effort mimicked poor Bob’s effort this year.   As he said earlier. “I understand why you hate turkeys so much.”

Wait till next year.

Some of the bottom where the gobbler ran off to, maybe.

It’s been years since I’ve hunting Florida.  I live here, but my hunting heart belongs to the great state of Alabama.  People are good, the weather is good, the land is exceptional and the hunting is solid-good deer, good turkeys, good small game, just good.  Back in the late nineties to around 2005 I hunted a public piece of land up the road from me called the Yucca pen.  The land was open, filled with ATV’ers and mudders.  People shot, hunted, goofed around and basically just “ran the woods” on the weekends.  There was a small population of pigs and a smaller population of deer on the land.  I ran a feeder or two and usually hunted in the mid-week.  It was fun, but not very productive.  I killed a few pigs, no deer but spent a good deal of time in the woods, which is where I would prefer to be.

Dad and the cart with a couple of deer in the way

A couple of unconcerned deer, in a different era, they'd be camp meat!

Several years ago the State of Florida bought the area up and sealed it off.  I pulled my stands and gear and left.  Years passed, finally I broke down and decided to try to hunt it with all the rules and regulations the State demands (I have a basic dislike for bureaucrats telling me where, when and how I hunt.  Who are they?  Most aren’t even outdoorsmen.)  But I bit the bullet and signed up.   I went on Google and printed down an aerial map of the area.  I quickly noted a series of flag ponds situated in the back corner of the property about a mile from the main road.  A friend of mine said most of the hunters stayed close to the main roads, so I figured this would be a good place to hunt.  Kaley-Ann and I made a quick scouting trip and I had to eat a little crow.  Whoever set up the area did a good job.  The staff and the rules were laid back.  I was surprised and pleased.  Kaley-Ann was even more pleased.  We jumped a number of small game and a couple of hogs, which was the goal.  We also saw deer- silly, stupid, non-afraid deer.  On the way back to the truck around dusk, a young spike refused to get out of our way.  In another time, my dad would have put him in the cooler without a blink of an eye.  But times change and we think about QDM a lot harder today.

Hog rub on a main game trail

Kaley-Ann really wanted to take a hog with a bow.  She had built her own bow from Rudderbows from a bamboo backed hickory blank.   It is a fine shooting bow, but a little heavy and she is working on trying to master it.  As a backup we decided to bring along her Remington .260.   On our first trip we walked to the back of the hunting area.  It was about a mile in.  Most of the other hunters tried to stay closer to the road.  We pulled along a game cart on the off chance we got something we could pull it out.  We went to the area we scouted and worked slowly into the wind.  We circled the slough where we had jumped pigs before.  About a hundred and fifty yards out, we heard the squealing and popping of teeth coming from the tall grass and palmettos surrounding the slough.  Kaley-Ann’s eyes opened wide in awe as the sounds of pigs fighting with each other echoed across the slough.  It was hard to tell if the pigs were in the palmettos on the far side of the slough, or in the slough itself which was covered with chest high thickets of grass under which the pigs a burrowed dozens of trails.  We both crept closer, Kaley-Ann readying her rifle.  It took about twenty minutes to circle downwind and come up from the south.   The pigs quit fighting so we were still a little confused as to their location.   We eased up to the edge of the slough with me a little to the inside.  I figured the pigs were so loud because they were in the palmettos on the far side of the slough so I kept an eye in that direction.  As we snuck up I caught Kaley-Ann looking past me to my right so I turned my head and to my surprise saw about a hundred pound boar walking along with us only fifteen yards away!  He didn’t see us because of the tall grass and thickets but we could see him from about the shoulders up.   Here I was between Kaley-Ann and a pig.  I backed up and drifted towards her and away from the pig, but I still could see both at the same time.  Kaley-Ann raised her rifle and fired.   The pig squealed and took off.   I figured he’d be DRT (dead right there) but he jumped into the slough and was gone.  No blood, no hair, no signs at all.  We circled the slough and even went through it on a grid search, nothing but other pigs complaining about us disrupting their day.  Kaley-Ann scratched her head, fifteen yards and a clean miss?  She finally admitted the adrenaline dumped when she saw the pig so close may have gotten the best of her as she tried to shoot through the tall grass.  (I think she overcompensated trying to shoot “through” the brush trying to hit the shoulder.)

Typical low land pine scrub

A view from a low climber! Each white spot is hog rooting. There were hundreds.

About three days later we tried it again.  This time we brought a climber on the cart and wheeled it back into the same area.  Kaley-Ann climbed up a tree about eight feet which was all the tree would handle.  I left her and went to another area to sit and watch a game crossing.  (It was more her hunt than mine.)  The day was breezy and just a little warm.  The kind of day you’ll find yourself dozing instead of paying attention.  Around dusk, I got up and went for a little walkabout.  As I approached a large pond a heard a rustling and two large pigs jumped out about ten yards away.  They didn’t stay long enough for me to get a bead on them, but I wasn’t that interested because Kaley-Ann had just radioed me and said she was covered up with pigs.  She was just trying to pick one that wasn’t surrounded by piglets.   A few minutes after my encounter, I heard her rifle bark.  She radioed me she had one down.  I walked over and sure enough a nice fat sow was lying dead on the ground.

Small slough with tall grass. You could hide fifty hogs in it.

It was easy money.   We went and grabbed up the cart, pulled it back and loaded the pig.  We started out.  That was when I learned a valuable lesson about weight, thin wheels and soft Florida mud.  To say it was easy to get out was an understatement.  Six hundred yards of pulling that fat pig through the slough and I thought I was having “the big one Elizabeth!”   I’m not twenty-five anymore.  I decided to lighten the load and gut the pig right there.  I did and it was a little easier, until we loaded up the rest of the gear including the climber onto the cart.   There are moments when we look back and say “this was a special time.”  The struggle to walk out with her prize, pulling side by side, talking and laughing about how weak we looked as the sun set and the moon began to rise was a special moment for me.   Towards the end, Kaley-Ann tried to persuade me to go and get the truck.  “Dad, they won’t care if we drive a couple of hundred yards!” she panted as we pulled the cart across another rut.  I said to her, “Rules are rules, and it would be my luck the game warden would drive by just as we were coming out.  Let’s just stay the course and we’ll be okay.”  We did and finally made it out.  The funny thing was by the time we got out of the woods and back to the check out station everybody had gone home!   I could have driven all over the place and nobody would have known or cared.  But it was still a good lesson.   However, one my back and arms reminded me of for several days afterward.  Now I see why all the other hunters hunted closer to the roads.

Dad,Kaley-Ann, Chloe and the pig.

Life is good when you spend time hunting with your kids.   This hunt was no exception, except for the fact that about half way out I had this great idea for an invention- a motorized game cart for old farts like me that tend to forget I may think I’m twenty, but my body is on the back side of fifty and has all the dents and dings that come with it.  Motorized carts, a sure money maker.  I’m just saying…

It was deer season again which meant a trip to Alabama and a stay in our wonderful single wide trailer on our fifteen hundred acre lease. Not many members were hunting as it was the last week of archery and muzzleloading season. Before I left I dug out my old .54 caliber Renegade and tried to sight it in. I hadn’t shot it in almost fifteen years, instead opting for bows and rifles. We had some trouble sighting it as it jumped from left to right and back to left. At one point, my buddy, Bob, wondered if the sights were loose. I pulled on the rear sight and it was fine. I pulled at the front sight and much to my dismay it moved back and forth easily. That explained the wandering groups! Several quick taps from a hammer and a punch rolled the dovetail down and the front sight was working again. We didn’t have a chance to sight it back in before the trip so we grabbed up all the gear and hit the road.

Now I love bowhunting in any form including crossbows. I don’t like wheels so I took along my Excalibur. It is a tack-driving weapon and I have the shaved and Robin Hooded bolts to prove it. However, it is an awkward weapon. Sorry guys at Excalibur, but it is what it is, and this creature can get in the way. Especially when sitting in a tree stand or trying to move around inside a shooting house. (Shooting houses on my lease are built on the basic 4×4 design. Good for rifles, bad for anything oddly shaped.) I knew my daughter would have trouble with it, so when we got up to the lease I had her shoot my old black powder and I’d use the crossbow. I should say that I may gripe about the crossbow’s design, but it is a deadly weapon. I killed a nice sow with it one year, hitting the pig at better than thirty-five yards in the near dark and nearly knocking her over. It sent a bolt with a Fred Bear Razorhead through her ribs and out the other side in a blink of an eye.

With a quick sighting in session and a few lessons on how to handle the rifle like how to     prime it with caps and the safe removal of the same, I sent my daughter out to a shooting house on our “400” property while I climbed a pine tree with my Summit at another food plot. As I struggled up the tree, it had been a year and my biceps were not used to pushing me and my gear up, I realized that being on the wrong side of fifty was starting to take a toll on me. Next year, God willing, I’m getting one of those sit down/pull up stands. Anyway, I get settled in and start to relax. It’s a good clear day and a good wind. I ranged a couple of trees and got ready for that six point I was after last year. It was only a matter of time. About thirty minutes later I hear BOOOM!!! from the area where Kaley-Ann had set up. I waited a minute and she radios me (we use radios to communicate when set up separately) “Dad, I got one.”

I was grinning under my face mask “What was it?” Hoping and not hoping it was that six point we both were after.

“It’s a doe.”

“Is she dead?”

“Oh, she’s dead!”

I figured as much. Getting hit with a 230 grain lead ball a half inch in diameter had to put the dinky-dink on that deer. So I realized my hunt was over and I got down so I could go back to the truck and drive down to Kaley-Ann’s location. When I showed up she had already tracked and recovered the deer. It was a small doe and I could see the lead ball hit her right through the chest. Kaley-Ann smiled and said it was right where she was aiming. However, she didn’t like the gun that much. “Dad. I’m not sure about this black powder deal.”

“Why? It seemed to work.”

“Because when the deer showed up I followed your instructions and pulled the hammer back. When I pulled the trigger the hammer fell but nothing happened. The doe looked up at me but luckily didn’t move. I so quietly pulled the hammer back again and pulled the trigger a second time. That time the gun went off! I couldn’t see the deer! The smoke was everywhere! Then I see her run off. When she did I saw my right hand trying to work the bolt like I do on my .260. But there’s no bolt, I’m out of bullets!!

Kaley-Ann firing the Renegade

I was laughing out loud imagining my daughter frantically waving her hand back and forth working a bolt that doesn’t exist. I pointed out the rifle did exactly what it was supposed to do, hence the dead deer on the ground next to the truck. She had to admit I had a point and we loaded her trophy into the bed of the truck and drove back to camp. We later figured out she didn’t have the primer set square on the nipple and the first strike set it up correctly. It went off on the second, as it was designed. Had it been a nervous six point, I think I would have lost a future black powder fan. As it turned out my Dad, who is failing steadily and giving away his things, told her he would give her his old .50 caliber Hawkins when he got back to Florida. That is a tack driving old style rifle, fully decorated in brass and wood. The old way for sure. It’s a hard way to gain a prized possession, but if he lasts till she shoots a deer with it, the moment will last forever in the stories told by our family. Isn’t that really what hunting and family and loving is all about?

I think it is.

P.S.- With this deer, Kaley-Ann has taken game with every type of weapon except a bow.   Although she did hit a running bunny with a blunt, just the wrong arrow head. Pretty good for a fourteen year old girl who has to travel 600 miles to hunt.

I’ll be posting photos later when I change the bandages.  However, last night I learn again about safety even with the simplest tasks, like sharpening a broadhead. Usually, I wear heavy leather gloves.  That way when I slip, and I do, I don’t cut anything seriously.  This time I got lazy, what could go wrong  when using a carbide cutting tool to put a new edge on a broadhead?  Well, just about a stroke before I figured on quitting I slipped and cut my shooting hand index finger across the knuckle and to the bone.

Stitches and the end of my bow season

The doctor said I didn’t cut the tendon (luck), but a number of stitches later, I was pretty sure bending back my longbow this weekend is done, and maybe for next month in Alabama.  It will heal, but it is going to hurt and heal slowly.  I’m severely right-hand dominant, but not for now.

Safety first!

the offending tool. Now in the garbage. Gloves, gloves, gloves!!!

My daughter and I have a hunt scheduled for the end of the month in a WMA just up the road.  Years ago I hunted it when it was open land, but stopped after the state bought the land up.  Now I see the area, which was swamp with buggy trails, is criss crossed with roads.  My buddy Bob says the pigs are thick but are probably a little shy after muzzleloading season.

Who cares, it was a good time back then and I hope a better time coming up.  My daughter is ready, I’m ready, our gear is getting organized as we speak.  Here are some old photos of my time in the area.  We’ll blog our experiences.

Let me tell you a story.  When I decided to dedicate myself to bowhunting with recurves, I spent a lot of time practicing and refining my skills and equipment.  I also spent a lot of time hunting.  Almost three times a week I would go out and service feeders, or set up and hunt.  I had an old Toyota pickup that took a beating driving through the wet buggy roads that criss-crossed the land.  There were times I waded to the high ground where I hunted. It wasn’t easy but it was close.  And it was fun.

Over the years the pig population went from having a few around, to have a bunch around.  That was even with it being open land and hunted by everyone with dogs.  I found out why when a buddy of mine ran into a man who was hired by a farmer in another county to trap out the pigs destroying his crops. The trapper was transporting the pigs to our area and letting them go.  Nice move on his part.  So, in one year we went to a few pigs of different sizes to full grown boars with an attitude.

In that year I had a small feeder set up in a cypress head.  After work, around two or three in the morning, I would gather the feed and run up to the feeder and service it.   More than once, as I held a flashlight in my teeth while pouring corn into the feeder, I would sense something watching me.  I could hear the pigs moving around me in the underbrush.  It was spooky to say the least.

On the days I could hunt, I would scramble out and either climb a tree (usually a slick cypress) or set up a ground blind.  I took so few shots, that the pigs got used to me being there and would sometimes work down wind to see if I was in the blind or not.  One day, I had one actually stick its nose in my blind. I could have touched him.  I shot a couple but nothing of significance as I was still struggling to harness the recurve’s abilities while not going totally nuts with “buck fever” when a pig showed up.

One day, I was in the ground blind, the one you see in the photo, when a nice sized black boar showed up.  He was nervous and kept looking around at the thickets, something was out there.  Suddenly, I see a huge black blur bust out of the thicket and charge across the opening smacking the smaller pig in the side.  I think my jaw dropped when I got a look at the size of the other boar.  The best way to describe him is a black bear with tusks!  He was so huge his shoulders drawrfed his hindquarters.  He looked like that cartoon bulldog from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.  The tusks actually stuck out like knife blades as he snapped at the other pig.  Now the smaller pig was about a hundred and fifty pounds.  The big guy was easily twice as big if not more and he was twelve yards away and pissed.  He chased the smaller pig around

the opening for five minutes, charging and grunting.  Once they almost ran me over throwing dirt from their feet over the netting an onto me.   I was wishing I had brought my pistol as I looked at my fifty-five pound recurve and aluminum arrows.   Finally, the big pig backed down a little, froth coming from his mouth as he eyed me and the other pig.    I thought about trying to shoot him, but realized two important things; One, I was on the ground and unarmed other than the bow and he was all of three hundred pounds plus and already pissed off.  Two, getting him out of there by myself would be a nightmare and besides pigs that size arent that good to eat.

The first pig looked at me, then at his adversary, then back at me.  He wasn’t sure what to do next.  He turned sideways and I can honestly say without thinking my bow came up and the arrow was off.  It actually surprised me a little and both pigs a lot.   I could see the arrow sticking about halfway through the boar behind his shoulder.  He took off like a bolt of lightning.  The huge boar did the same thing in the opposite direction, much to my relief.

I waited for a few minutes to get my act together and went to where I had last seen the pig bolting through the cypress trees.  Blood spray was on several of the trunks, I found the back half of my aluminum arrow broken on the ground covered in blood.  I thought this is just like in all those stories I read in the Traditional Bowhunter Magazine.  All I had to do was follow the blood find the pig and some good looking girl would jump out with a cold one and bag full of cash.  EAAASY!

But my luck never really changes.  Nothing comes easy.  No girl, no beer and no cash.  I found out, as I worked my way through the swamp thickets, that the blood had suddenly tried up.   I was down to tracking drops of blood on my hands and knees, and soon that stopped.  It was getting dark and I knew that pig was dead in there somewhere.  It was too hot to leave him for the next day, so I started a grid search in the failing light.  Just as the sun set and dusk was growing heavy I stepped out onto a main trail to double back and took about ten steps and almost fell over the boar!  He was dead in the path!

The arrow had taken out one lung and stuck into the liver on the far side. He had traveled about a hundred yards but in a circular path, most of the blood was sealed inside his cavity as pigs tend to seal up, because of the thick skin and fat,  after being hit with an arrow.  I thanked God for the recovery and the experience.  I was hopping and yelling in excitement, until it hit me he was a lot bigger than I thought.  I was a quarter mile from the truck, in a swamp, in the dark, alone.  I tried to drag him and that wasn’t happening. I tried to load him on a skid and THAT didn’t work, so in the end I had to field dress him and quarter him out to get him home.  I made it out around 0230am.   This is the biggest pig I ever shot or shot at.  In the end I’m glad I didn’t try his big buddy.  It would have probably killed me one way or the other.

My wife as "Jeannie"

I have decided on occasion to pass along stories of my wife. A good hunter has either a good wife backing him, or a wife that encourages escape from the rigors of matrimony into the woods where peace and common sense apply. My wife doesn’t mind me going because when I’m gone the silly things she does go unnoticed. I was there for this one.

———-

For all of you that know my wife, she is a lovely woman, now forty-five years of age, who acts and models on occasion. She is in the process of building her portfolio with photographers and agents. She is constantly either modeling (as she did last week on the East coast and when driving back ended up in Orlando. Which is odd because we don’t live there… but I digress) or going to photo shoots. I’m not really sure about all of that; it’s an “artist” thing.

Another thing you have to know about my wife, if you don’t already, is she is a blonde. Tragically, it has gotten worse over the years, to the point now where I just do a “Jerry Sheffield” and shrug my shoulders. What else can you do? (Jerry is my father in law and the most patient man I know. He has had years of experience doing the shrug with a wife and three daughters. My wife antics resemble her mother’s more than she wants to admit and has led to more than one argument over the years between us. Truth is that apple not only didn’t fall far from the tree, it rolled back up against the trunk!!)

Now, yesterday she tells me she is going to Sarasota to do a photo shoot at a beach with some photographer she met on-line. Yes, the whole serial killer thing pops up, but she’s insured and hell you can’t tell her anything anyhow. So off she goes. Of course you might all want to point out that the current weather on the West Coast is unsettled at best and downright ornery at worse right now, and the chances of getting a nice sunset on a beach (I know, again the serial killer thing) is remote. But you can’t tell her that. So I do what I do, and shrug.

Marty and our double circa 1999

Marty makes it back around dark. It is raining, as it has every day for the last week and a half. She comes running in. Now try to picture this. She is dress in a light blue (turquoise maybe?) string bikini and three inch clog shoes. (I have to add tastefully; she had some “improvements” made this last year and in a bikini they are quite evident.) She has her hair up (actually it is a “fall” so accurately it is someone else’s hair, but that’s not important) and makeup on. She is running from her car to the house trying to drag everything in. She asks for an umbrella and says she is freezing to death. So now she’s running back and forth, in the dark, in the rain, in a turquoise string bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, freezing to death. She claimed later the reason for the umbrella was she that the rain running in her face “blinded her.” So more accurately she is running back and forth, blinded by the rain, in the dark (using some kind of sonar system like a bat?), in a bikini, carrying a leopard print umbrella, on clogs, and of course freezing to death. I asked her later why she was wearing the bikini driving back instead of, I don’t know, clothes, and her response was “The only other outfit I had was my Jeannie (from “I dream of Jeannie” TV show) outfit and the dress I wore up. The dress was wet from the rain.” I asked her wasn’t her bikini wet? “Yes, but that’s different.” (I know scratch your head moment) How I’m not sure, but I had visions of her in a car wreck or on a traffic stop with some trooper going, “Ma’am those are sure nice, but I’m going to have to write you a ticket anyhow.” Or “Jeannie? You gonna try and blink yourself out of the ticket?” An extra change of clothes would have been nice. That’s all I’m saying.

Now, some of you know me. I’m the guy who says “Y’know, I don’t think this is working out so well”, and tries to regroup and rethink the situation. My dad had a deer hunting dog like that once. If she got confused, she’d sit down and just mull things over for a minute or two and try to figure out what was going wrong. A hound dog. A dog… On the other hand, my wife tends to get an idea in her head and go with it, regardless of how bumpy the road gets, or if in fact there is even a road left after a while. She just keeps plowing along. Me, I would have probably come inside, changed into dry clothes, put on a raincoat, picked another umbrella other than leopard print- but that’s just a personal taste issue- and went back out to get ONLY the things I needed, not try to unload the whole car. Or, I would have done all of the above and then waited until the rain stopped before going back out. Really, I mean, does it have to happen right now?? Not my wife. Nope. She had to run back and forth like some kind of crazed Playboy bunny in a scene from Hefner’s highlights, complaining the whole way just how miserable she is.

Of course, as I watch this all go by I do what any good husband will do, I told my daughter to go and get the camera so I could get a picture of it all, which was about when my wife started cussing me.

Go figure. All that and no sense of humor….

I shifted uncomfortably in my climbing stand as I studied the surrounding Florida cypress head.  I tried to shake off the nagging mosquito that hummed in my left ear.  The whine would cover any subtle noise of approaching hogs.  I glanced around, looking over the short cypress and palmetto thickets.  All was clear, so I gave the mosquito a quick swat and it was quiet again.  My seven year old daughter’s voice echoed in my head, “Mommy says Daddy sure loves his hunting.”

My wife was right, I sure did.  She reminded occasionally, and not always sweetly, that I liked hunting a little too much.  But I had no choice; it was the way I was raised.  My dad introduced me to hunting when I was just big enough to be carried on his back through the swamps of the Florida Everglades.  I shot my first rifle, sitting in my dad’s lap because I wasn’t old enough to hold it by myself.

My Dad and me- many, many years ago

I leaned back against the scrawny pine tree I managed to squirrel up using my API climber and thought about my dad and what he had helped me become.  I have been thinking about that lately because my dad is getting older, his body is slowly winding down.  He can’t get around much anymore between the diabetes and his bad hips.  The diabetes has taken its toll and his health prevents him from doing too much too often.  A far cry from the man I remembered humping a young boy through waist deep swamp water while proudly wearing his “gookie” boots.  “Gookie boots” was the nickname his best friend AJ “Squeak” Allen gave the new moose hide snake boots my Dad bought.  Dad would walk around challenging rattlesnakes and water moccasins by stomping on them, daring them to defeat the thick hide with their fangs.  One day, Dad and Squeak ran across a rattlesnake that was well over seven feet in length.  Dad killed it with a pistol.  Squeak took one look at the snake which was longer than a man was tall and said “Ray, I wouldn’t stomp that snake if I had gookie boots up to my armpits!”

God, it seemed like it was just yesterday I would stay up all night anticipating the trip to the Everglades and the times my Dad would hunt the backwoods with me in tow.   Hunting was a blessing because it held us together through all my rebellious teens and early twenties.  Funny thing about getting older, I swear our parents get smarter the older we get, go figure!  Too bad we don’t listen when we are young men.  I could have avoided some painful lessons.

A couple of years ago, when my daughter was just a baby, I began to notice something happening to me.  I would glance in the mirror in the morning and just for a second I would see a face of a man who looked a lot like my Dad.  I also began catching myself studying my hands.  They seemed like they belonged to someone else.  My hands were weathered and wrinkled, with a good number of scars scattered across the knuckles from assorted briars, errant knife cuts, and stubborn nuts and bolts from rusty stands or truck parts.  You know what I mean.  My hands had been around for some time now and it took me awhile to realize I’d seen them before, they were my Dad’s hands.

They were the same hands that held the rifle for my first shot; the hands that picked me up and put me on his back when we had to wade some swamp deep in the Everglades.  They were the hands that built hunting cabins we stayed in or fixed that old workhorse ‘65 International Scout we drove.  They were also the same hands that held me in a viselike grip when I was being scolded for the times my mouth overloaded my-you know what.  They also pulled me to him for his demanded bear hug every time I came around, regardless of whether or not I as a young boy, or a grown man.  It didn’t matter if I was alone or with my buddies and the embarrassment was overwhelming.

They were the same hands that held a Winchester model 88 for more years than I have been around.  He bought the rifle in 1955, two years before I was born.  The tack driving .308 accounted for dozens of deer, hogs and turkeys while being held in those steady hands until he finally laid it down several years ago.  Last year he surprised me by giving the rifle to me after years of my good-natured hinting I would sure like to own such a fine weapon.  I took a deer with it last winter and it was a special moment for me.

My wife just doesn’t get it.  She sees me take my kids out into the woods, to experience what I had experienced when I was a kid. She thinks it’s just an excuse for me to get out, but it’s not, it’s a rite of passage, a link from my grandfather, to my dad, to me and now to them.  I’m showing them something they can pass onto their kids when they grow up.  It has been the one constant that has always kept my father and me together.  When I’m out in the woods, I think about the times we had and the things we did.  I thought about him as I looked down at my hands cradling the Mahaska recurve.  Several years ago, I rediscovered the beauty of traditional bowhunting that my dad had shown me when I was in my teens.  For some reason, picking up a bow had brought me full circle to a time when a middle aged man traveled the woods with his youngster in tow.

But times are different.  Just recently, when he was with me on a turkey hunt in Alabama, he spoke of growing old and how thinking about his life had changed.  At seventy, he was a more cautious and worried man.  I had noticed his wariness and occasional confusion with a deepening sadness.  As to make the point, one day when he was driving his truck with me next to him,  he started to turn the wrong way at an intersection and I had to remind him the property we were headed to, the same he visited the day before, was in the opposite direction.  I bit my lip and smiled as he apologized.  I stared out the window at the blue spring day and pretended to study the passing pastures.  How long would it be until the cycle would be complete?  First the father and his son, then man to man, and someday the son becomes the father.

The times have changed, the love hasn't

I thought about that moment again as I studied my right hand covered by my leather shooting glove and I realized my eyes had become bleary.  I tried not to think about a season soon to come where he will not be there, waiting to greet me with a bear hug and an “I love you son.”

Truth is I don’t mind those hugs as much as I did when I was younger.  I even start a few up myself these days.  My kids sure get tired of them though.  My five year old son begs off a lot, but I think he’ll get over the embarrassment in forty years or so.  Heck, he might even get to where he likes giving them himself.  I think about what my wife said.  Yes, I do love hunting, but more than that, I love my Dad.

There is an old saying about fathers and daughters; “A son is a son until he takes a wife. A daughter is a daughter all her life.” To many men, until they are fathers of daughters, this old saying doesn’t mean much. But when you see your daughter for the first time, held in the arms of your wife, it all makes sense. With my daughter it is especially meaningful. You see, when she was only a year or so, she became sick with a simple flu. But as young parents, my wife and I didn’t know the dangers of the flu in a small child.  After a few days of futile home remedies we brought her to the doctors.  One look at my daughter and he admitted her immediately to the hospital.  The doctor told us had we waited another day or so, my daughter would have died from dehydration.  This I know to be true, because another acquaintance of mine didn’t act fast enough and his daughter died in her mother’s arms.

As I sat next to my daughter’s bed, in a darkened hospital room, tears quietly rolling down my cheek, I vowed never to make that mistake again and I have spent my life keeping my promise. As time passed, my daughter, Kaley Ann, grew into a happy, intelligent young girl.  She was always serious about school, about pleasing her parents, about doing the right thing in life. Kaley Ann has always been a huge lover of the outdoors.  Part of it was probably from the days she spent as a five year old perched along side me in a homemade stand hunting pigs or other critters during bow season.  She was the best partner a hunter could want, content to play with twigs and leaves while helping her dad listening for incoming game. Maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when Kaley Ann decided she wanted to be a hunter too.  Kaley Ann is your basic tomboy, more comfortable in jeans than a dress. She is her daddy’s buddy and tried and true hunting/outdoors partner.

Kaley at eight with her brother Jake

I taught her about all types of hunting; rifles, pistols, bows and shotguns.  At first she learned the basics with a .22 rifle.  But soon she graduated to a 260 Remington and took her first buck with a hundred yard downhill shot which broke both shoulders.  She killed her first turkey with 20 gauge hand-me-down.  I couldn’t have been prouder both times, not only for her skill but the respect she showed nature.

Kaley and Curtis, with Curtis's deer

As much as I liked to use other equipment to take critters, my first love has always been traditional bow hunting.  I bought the kids some wooden youth bows to play around with so I could see if they were interested or not.  When Kaley Ann was around eleven or twelve she said she wanted to try bow hunting.  I bought her a compound, figuring that type of bow would be a good first step into bowhunting and it would give her the energy to take animals safely.  Kaley Ann never complained; the good daughter that she was.  She shot the compound and seemed happy with it.  I, on the other hand, shot my Mahaska recurve (a fine bow) and an old Bear whitetail I picked up years ago on Ebay for seventy five dollars.  Last year, I decided to do something different and bought a bow kit from Rudderbows.com.  The bamboo backed Epe longbow was sent to me in the basic raw form, ready for me to shave and shape it.  It turned out to be a fine tack driving longbow.  Soon, Kaley Ann and I would have competitions to see who could shoot better, her with a compound and me with the longbow.  She often won.  She loved beating at my own game, and I loved loosing. But there were times I did as good or better with my traditional equipment.

I figured she was happy until about a month ago when she came to me and asked if she could build a bow like mine.  I was a little hesitant, thinking that the bamboo backed bow that Rudderbows makes were probably too slow at her draw to be successful hunting bows.  However, she really wanted a bow like mine.  I called Rudderbows and they walked me through my concerns.  We settled on a bamboo backed hickory bow at 66″ for her first attempt.  They added a handle and took the extra time to tiller the bow around 60lbs before shipping it to my daughter.

kaley with her brand new bow kit

Kaley Ann was on pins and needles until the bow arrived.  Immediately, she began shaving the limbs down as I watched and guided her in the process.  I explained how the bow worked and the need to take it slow and easy.  “You can always take more wood off, but you can’t put it back on.” I’d say as she shaved, sanded and then tested the pull.   I explained that taking the time to finish your own bow to your personal likes, makes that bow special.  She carefully sanded and filed the handle, checked the tiller and slowly, methodicallybegan to bring the bow to life. Working on her bow inside my cramped, messy shed. Her mom didn’t like the idea of shavings in her clean house. Rudderbows will help a lot with the basic layout on your bow.  Here they started the handle and gave a solid center cut.

Kaley tillering the bow

I would stand over Kaley Ann and worry that she would do it wrong and become disappointed. But, Kaley Ann is a very smart and independent girl.  After a while, she would glance up at me with that “leave me alone I know what I’m doing” look and I would force myself to walk away.  I shouldn’t have worried though.  She knew what she wanted, as she always did, and slowly the bow became hers.  She left it a little heavy, in order to challenge herself to build up to the bow’s weight.

Kaley Ann  picked out a stain that would color the wood to her liking.  We went online to Three Rivers Archery and picked out what kind of accessories she wanted on her bow.  Kaley Ann tricked it out the way she wanted; a leopard skin arrow plate, leather grips and musk ox puffers. All I can say it is a darned fine looking bow. So much so, I warned her she had better keep an eye on it, or I might find a reason to hunt with it myself.

Beautiful

I can say this, the people at Rudderbows make a seriously accurate bow.  Kaley Ann’s was the third one I made or seen made and all were tack driving bows.  I watched as Kaley Ann took her bow out for the first time, and while using my arrows (which aren’t tuned to her bow), drive arrow after arrow into a small plastic bottle at more than ten yards.

Kaley Ann laughed at me as she pinned the bottle to the target yet again, as I missing repeatedly by mere inches.  Her velocity needs to come up, but that will come with time, practice and tuned up muscles. Watching her bear down on the target and drive arrow after arrow into the bull’s-eye, all I can say is this, if I were a deer within twenty yards of my daughter this fall, I’d be getting ready to be served for dinner along with some rice and gravy.

I watched Kaley Ann put the finishing touches on her bow, I turned to my wife and said what I am sure all fathers say, “Someday she’ll discover boys and spending time with her dad with be all yucky and such.” My wife patted me on the arm and smiled. I thought to myself, I know someday Kaley Ann will go her own way, chasing boys, chasing careers, chasing her dreams. And “old dad” will be the guy she visits during the holidays.  I’d be less than honest if I said the thought didn’t bring me sadness.  But until then, critters beware!

Update: I wrote the above story about a year ago.  This year Kaley-Ann didn’t get a deer, but she did manage to hit a running bunny at almost twenty yards as he darted through some pretty thick brush.  She flipped him, but the type of blunt she had didn’t close the deal. (we have since corrected that!)  Still a running bunny at twenty, not bad!