By Bryce Nielson
This is a column from October 2015 you might enjoy.
I was up before daylight this morning. As I watched the daylight start to fill in I was thinking about deer hunting. The light filled in and was soon there was enough to shoot. This is the time of day when the bucks, who have been out all night, start to move into cover. I stood on the deck listening for the first shots of the opening morning. I heard nothing, no people in red on the ridges, no sense of excitement. School wasn’t even let out early on Friday.
My thoughts slipped back to the 1960’s and I thought about the 1964 deer hunt. I had waited for this hunt for my whole life for this day after I turned sixteen. I had always watched my Dad return to Salina where he had grown up to hunt deer. I had never been able to go until now. Deer hunting was serious business. He needed meat to feed his five hungry kids and now I could add to the larder. My rifle was a war surplus Springfield 03-A3 bolt action 30.06. I had been working on it all year trying to sportirize it after he bought it through the mail for $29.95. It came wrapped in Cosmoline. It took forever to get all the grease off and cut down the old military stock. I removed a lot of wood and when I was through it was light, with open sights and kicked like a mule.
I have hunted deer every year since. After I left home the strategy was still the same. Don’t worry about “horns” because you can’t eat them and knock down the first buck you see. After I had a family that philosophy continued. Fast forward 50 years. Now my wife and daughters don’t eat deer meat. My grandsons, however, love and request “delicious deer”. They are the reason I will continue to hunt. Their Dad doesn’t hunt so I wan them to have the opportunity to experience what I did as a boy. If they like it and continue, great, but it is fine if they don’t. I will understand.
As for deer hunting today things are drastically different. The big family tent camps with everyone from grandpa to the baby standing around a smoky fire and sleeping on the cold ground are gone. The death mall came when Wildlife Resources limited the number of permits busted up the State into 26 areas that you have to draw on.
Today’s deer camps are different and new family traditions are being made. Trailers and toy haulers of all sizes, OHV’s and magnum four wheel drive jacked up trucks, big screen TV’s, little yapping dogs running all over and the kids are having a blast, making memories. As far as killing anything, that is incidental and just causes issues with cleaning, skinning, processing and then (uck) eating it. The point is, it has become a family event with the same core values that I had as a kid.
Do I pine for the old days? Not really. It is a new generation and they need to do things that match their perspective. Besides, I find deer hunting much easier on my side by side Ranger.
No comments:
Post a Comment