Fishing Steelhead

                                                          

I start this story off by saying I’m know up to par good fisherman. So you have to take it as someone starting out. I have fished for steelhead three times in my life before. Last year I caught seven or eight steelhead and that could be a fish story.

My friend called me up and said that the steelhead are on the move, and that last year was a good gear and this year was going to be three times better.

Now, steelhead is a rainbow trout that goes to the ocean. Adults are generally 20-40 inches in length. They go to the ocean for 1-2 years and come back to spawn. Most cone from Fish Hatcheries along the Salmon River but they are getting a lot more wild. A wild fish is one that spawns on its own in the rivers or creeks.

I got a new rod and reel for steelhead fishing. I got flies, sinkers, hoods and plugs. And you know how it is when you get into buying gear, you can just fall into it and never hit the ground, because there’s so much to buy. There’s always something new coming out.

So the big day comes. There are three of us going fishing. Now Bernie is the leader of this trip. He’s gone all over to fish in little places like Alaska and Africa.  Now you are getting a picture of a real fisherman. And if there are fish to catch, Bernie will lead.

Now there is Bud. He is a very good hunter and is just getting out of the house for a few days. He likes to talk a lot and he has been there and done it. So he can go on and on about things. And there is Michael. That is “me.” I like to show up and put my tine in. I go on the idea, If you put the time in, you will get something out of it. Maybe you’re not good at it but you will get something out of it. And go home happy.

Now steelhead fishing is an all day thing for some of us. It starts before the sun is up and takes til it goes down.

Now the first day I do ok in my eyes: two or three. Bernie catches five and that is all you can catch in a day. And he lets some go. Now the second day is a good day. I catch four and start letting some go. You can catch one under your limit and then catch and release. We end up catching seven wild fish on our tip. The limit is usually nine fish in your possession. You can catch a lot more but then you have to let them go. A permit costs about $18 for 20 outings. Then you go back and buy more tags. Bernie catches more than 200 a year. He doesn’t keep them all. He fishes two or three months at a stretch. It costs me about $500 total to go to the Snake River and fish for steelhead. It’s more of a sport than a way to catch fish to eat.

Fish and Game puts computer chips in some of the fingerlings at the hatcheries to trace them and follow how long they have been in the ocean and when they come back. So Fish and Game must scan your fish before you take them home. I’ve never caught one that had a computer chip in its head.

Bud is not into it yet, so time is going on for him. One day we are fishing by some other fishermen. Now Bud finds out that they are from his home town. And that the one man was just a year behind him in school. We fish by him for two days. We are doing all right. They are struggling. Now the second day we  are fishing  we are doing OK. And the people we are fishing by are being very serious about the fishing. 

Now Bernie is doing OK. And it is getting to him how uptight the people are by us. So Bernie talks to me and says that I should net the next fish he catches. Now we are talking about how I should net it for him. Then we are talking about how I should net the next fish the wrong way—and that is just between me and him.

So he hooks one, and I ask if I can use their net to net Bernie’s new catch. They say that it is OK  to use their net. He gets the fish close and I get the net to my waist. But Bernie says “no,  get the net over my head.” He says it just to me. He gets the fish closer and I slam the net down like an ax by the fish. It’s off like a shot in the water a little ways from the bank. Now Bernie is yelling at me to net the fish. 

And now the other fishermen are all in shock at me for how I’m trying to net the fish. Bud is there too and is in shock too, and thinking that Bernie is going to blow up about how I’m trying to net this fish. Now the fish is back again and Bernie is yelling at me to net his fish. I get the net over my head again and slam it down again by the fish. Now the fish jumps out of the water and jumps right into the net! 

Now Bernie and I are in shock because the fish that we weren’t trying to net is in the net. There’s always the one that got away, but this is the one that didn’t get away, even though we tried.

So all we can do is laugh and laugh. And the other fishermen that are in shock start to laugh too, to see such a sight. Now we are all laughing and there are no more serious fishermen at this hole. And so goes the fishing trip

By Michael H Vroman

  

  

  

Rifle, where are you going with that boy?

                                                                                                     

this is a 303 British rifie

       

The story starts out when I was just a young boy of 12. I always looked at the mountains, as I like to hunt deer. The deer lived in the mountains. And you had to get to the mountains to go hunting. My brother had a friend named Bud. He loved to hunt deer to. Or was it that he loved hunting deer and we came along a lot of times. Bud came along and picked me up and I would go hunting with him.

Now we had an old rifle in our family. It was a 303 British, a gun that was used in World War l and ll. It was a very big gun. It had a wood stock that ran from the bottom of the rifle to the barrel. It was a good four feet long. And I was lucky that I was 5 feet tall. And weighed about 85 pounds.The gun weighed 20-30 pounds. And it was the only rifle I was allowed to use.

Bud loved to hunt in Franklin County. There was a road that ran up Mapleton. Then the road went to Willow Flats. The road cut off and went up Franklin Basin. At the top of Franklin Basin there was a mountain that they called the Knob. Bud always loved hunting the Knob. Now the Knob had a backside. And the backside had no road. So If you shot a deer, it was a big job to get the deer back over to the front of the Knob. Sometimes it took two or three days to get the dead deer over to the other side of the Knob. Even though the Knob had a front side, we always started there in the dark of the morning, and we always ended up on the back side to hunt deer. It always seemed that  the big ones were on the back side of the Knob. Now the big ones could be a doe, a two point buck or a four point. It did not matter, we always found it and shot it on the back side of the Knob.

I’m sure Bud also took me along because he enjoyed having a companion, and someone who could carry his rifle out while he was dragging the deer out. This was in October, so there wasn’t danger of the meat spoiling before we could get it to the truck. We would drag it so far and then go home for the night. Then the next day we’d go back for the deer. Instead of cutting it up there on the site, we always thought we had to drag the entire animal to the truck and not waste a bit of it. We were hunting more for the meat than for a trophy. We always wanted to bring something home, no matter what the size, and not come home empty-handed.

We went up and down hills, up draws and down gulleys, and past huge dead trees. There was a lot of history in those old dead trees. You could tell that some had been in fires. We walked past rock slides and always tried to walk around them. There was always something to see, as well as deer. From the back side we could spot the deer easier and there was less timber to hide them. We walked past beautiful scenery on the back side. We could see Preston and Franklin from there.

I don’t ever remember hauling the gun being a problem for me, even though it was so long and so heavy. One day we ran into a man we knew who said, “Now, where is that rifle going with that kid?” I was glad I had a gun so I could go hunting, so I never thought of it as being so big. But it must have been a funny sight. A few years ago I reminded him about his remark and he said, “Yes, I remember that very well.” He was an insurance man and knew everybody and liked to talk to everybody, and that way he could sell a lot of insurance, too.
  
Wikipedia says the rifle weighed just over 10 pounds, but to me it felt like 20 or 30.The rifle was 44 inches long and I was about 60 inches tall, so it must have been a sight to see me lugging that 303 British over the hills.

So now, whenever I think of hunting one of the first thoughts in my mind is, “Rifle, where are you going with that boy?” 

MY FIRST TIME DRIVING

           

It was a rainy day in October in 1967. It had been raining for about three days and all the back roads were very slick. Bud showed up and asked me if I would like to go hunting with him. I was about the age of 12. He was about 25. I was very short for my age. But I love to hunt for deer. We hunted a lot together over the years. So when Bud showed up and asked me to go hunting I was very excited. He had an old truck. I think they called it a pile made by Dodge. It was only a 2 Wheel drive truck. It was an army green color and had very large front fenders. The front of it looked like a face with a chrome grill for a mouth.

It was a 2 Wheel drive truck. So it could get stuck very easily. We were going up Sugar Creek canyon in Franklin County, Idaho. The road was always very slick. I wondered “What is he thinking?” but he was going to try to get up that hill.

We did not get up the road very far before we slid off the road. We slid into a very deep gully. It had to be at least 3 feet deep. The back half slid into the golly. The front of the truck was still out on the road. So it was going to be very hard to get the truck unstuck. He had a jack in the back of the truck. It was back in the time when you had bumper jacks that hooked to the bumper of your vehicle. The bumpers were very strong in those days. Those days were back in the late 60s. And the vehicles we drove then go back to the 50s.

Bud got the jack out of the back of the truck. I jacked the truck up and Bud pushed on the side of the truck up towards the road. We would get the truck up about three or 4 inches and the truck would slide off the jack towards the road as Bud pushed on the side of the truck. Bud is a very big man. He is about 6 foot four and weighs about 230. So when he pushes on something, something is going to move. We worked at this for a long time until the truck was back on the road. But it still wanted to slide back into the gully. Bud came up with the idea that I would drive the truck while he pushed it from behind.

Now I’m not a very big boy or person. I think that I was under 5 feet or smaller. So when I got in the truck to drive, my eyes were looking in the middle of the steering wheel. When I looked out the window, I was at such an angle that I could only see the sky and not even the front of the truck. When I stepped on the clutch, I had to grab the bottom of the steering wheel to push down on it, and I was on my tippy toes when I did it.

Bud turned the steering wheel and the wheels in the way that he wanted the truck to go. He got everything set up and it was time for me to use my driving skills. That had to be funny because I had no driving skills. But we were going to give it a try. We had no choice. So Bud got set. And told me when to let the clutch out.

He yelled, “Go!” I let the clutch out and gave it the gas. The truck swing out of the gully and I stopped the truck before we could get into more trouble.

I had to be a sight. The top of my was head even with the bottom of the window. My hands were on the bottom of the steering wheel. My tippy toes were on the gas and the clutch. I can see it all right now. It had to be a funny sight.

There were worse spots further up on the way up the hill and we knew we’d never make it.

Bud got into the truck and he drove away and we went hunting somewhere else that day.

Getting The Newborn To The Barn

It was just another ordinary day. I thought. It was a snowy day in December. We had just finished feeding the cows in the field in Sugar Creek. Dave is driving the truck. It has a flatbed on the back of the truck. We have three large bales of hay on the back; they are 3 feet by 6 feet. Each bale has four strings that hold it together. I cut the strings and push small sections of hay off the bales. Dave drives along and I throw the bale sections off the back of the truck one at a time. The cattle follow the truck and start eating the hay that I throw off. I try to make a long line of the hay so all the cattle can eat. There are about 50 cows in this field.

We get done feeding the hay and Dave says there is one cow missing. How he knows that there is one cow missing I do not know but he knows. Dave drives the truck back to the gate. We go to the other end of the field and the gate is open. The snow is about 2 feet deep and we can see where the cows have  walked through the open gate and have gone up in the upper field.

 

I get out of the truck and walk up to the gate. I start to follow the cow trail I walk and walk and walk. I walk up through the field to the upper fence line. The trail goes parallel to the fence. The cow has walked a good mile up the field. The cow has gone into a grove of maple trees on the side of the hill. I walk up to the cow. She has a newborn calf it is lying in the snow. So I try to go over to the calf. But the cow will not let me by the newborn calf. There are some maple trees on the other side of the calf. There are three small trees in a row. They are like a small fence behind the calf. So I go over to the three maple trees on the another side of the calf. I try to reach though the trees to the calf. The calf is just a little bit too far away for me to get it up. The cow tries to go through the trees to get to me but she cannot go through the trees. But I cannot reach the calf through the trees and it will not stand up for me.  I try to maneuver the cow to go on the other side of the trees. So the trees and the cow are between me and the calf, but to no avail.  The cow will not go on the other side of the trees and she will not let me near the newborn. If I could get the calf to stand up and walk, maybe I could get the cow to follow the calf down the hill.  I work at getting the calf to stand up but to no avail. It will not work. She still won’t let me near the newborn.

Picture your self 2/3 of the way up this mountain. That's where we were. 

 So I walk all the way back down to the truck. I tell Dave that the cow has a newborn and will not let me near it. So we stop and talk about it for a while. We come to the conclusion that we will go get the horse to get the cow down off the hill with the newborn. By the time we get back to the farm it is too late to go back after the cow and her calf.

So the next day we take the truck with the bales of hay and the truck with the trailer. The horse is in the trailer. We drive back up Sugar Creek where the cow and calf are. We start to feed the cows like we did the day before and after we feed the cows Dave gets the horse and we saddle up the horse. Dave gets on the horse and goes back up to where the cow and calf are. I am waiting at the bottom of the Hill for him to return with the cow and the calf. It is some time before he gets back to the truck but when he comes back there is no cow and no calf with him. He says he tried to get to the calf. But the cow  kept on ramming the horse with its head, and before long the horse was scared of the cow and would not go near the newborn or the cow. So he came all the way back to the truck with no cow.

We decided to unsaddle the horse and leave the horse there for another day. For two more days we do  not go after the calf. On the third day, the cow is down off the hill to eat hay with other cows. Dave’s a fast thinking guy. He told me to go shut the gate. So I go up and close the gate. So the cow cannot go back up in the field for her newborn calf. Then we drive the truck in the field and feed the cows like we usually do. After feeding the cows we settle the horse and Dave and I took off after the calf.   Sometimes when the cows have a calf in the field and the calf or cow is not doing too good we take the calf back to the barn. Sometimes when there is a lot of snow the calf cannot walk in the snow too good. I have a sled and I put the calf on top of it. I strap the calf down to the sled and then the cow can see the calf and follow it back to the barn. I always have a sled around just for that occasion and today is a good day to use the sled.

It is not a very pleasant day. The snow is coming  own quite thick the wind is blowing and it’s not going to be a good day to go after the calf. Dave takes off with the horse and I have the horse by the tail. And I’m glad the horse has a very long tail. And behind me is a sled and up the hill we go. I am doing a very good job keeping up with the horse but now and again we have to stop and I have to catch my breath. The snow is coming down hard and the wind is blowing. The trail that we have been taking to go up to the calf is all but buried. So we blaze a new trail to the calf.  When we get up to the calf there are a bunch of holes in the snow where the calf has been lying down over the last few days. I catch the calf and strap it down to the sled very tight so it will not fall off.

We get everything set and back off the hill we go. Dave takes off on the horse. I have my hand in the tail and the sled is behind me hooked to a rope. Boy we had to be a sight to see. I always wish that somebody was there with a camera to take a picture of us all in a line going down the hill in the snow. I think that would be one picture for a calendar. You couldn’t look at it and not smile seeing us all going down the hill: Dave on the back of the horse with his head down from the snow. Me behind his horse my head down fighting the blowing snow. The rope behind me hooked to the sled, and the calf tied down to the sled and looking around wondering what is going on.

We get down off the hill. By the gate the cow is waiting there. I go back to the sled and untie the calf and take it off the sled. I get the calf up and walking and take the calf over to the gate where its mother is waiting. Waiting to go find her newborn calf. But I have the calf down here. I put the calf through the gate. The cow smells her calf and is very happy that this is her calf, and they take off down though the field.

Dave and I stand there amazed that we got the calf back down to the cow and we will never forget this day as long as we live.  It has been five years since Dave and I did that rescue. We still talk about it to this day and a smile always come across our faces.  

The day we brought the calf back to the barn.                                                            

Joseph Smiith

Joseph Smith

Rough Stone Rolling.

By Richard Lyman Bushman

I just got done reading a book call Rough Stone Rolling. I was very impressed with how it was written start to finish.

You would have to ask yourself how would a man like Joseph Smith get involved in religion and do so much in writing religious text. His family had very little religious meaning to them. His mother wanted religion but could not figure out which church to join. His father did not like religion at all. Then there was Joseph a young boy at the young age of 14 becoming involved in religion. I think as a young person we all look at religion sometime. And ask where we stand.

You have to be amazed how Joseph Smith said he saw angels or God and his son Jesus Christ in a vision. How could it not be true? And all these things take years to develop into a religion. It even took Joseph Smith many years to develop into being a preacher or a prophet. You have to ask yourself many times over and over who was teaching this religion thing to him.

I like this book because it seemed not to hold anything back over the years of Joseph’s lifespan. Things that are going on in Joe’s life and in the history of the times in his lifespan.

How did he write the Book of Mormon? What would make him think about keeping a record of things that were going on in his life? You have to be amazed that he would rewrite the Bible and write the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price. Joseph Smith would have to be a genius in religion. Or a prophet of God. Again, was he a religious genius or a prophet of God?

As I read this book I was always asking myself is this true about Joseph Smith or is it false? The more I read the more I wondered. The more I wondered and the more I wondered.

This was a very very good book.

But by the end of the book it came to me that it had to be faith. When it comes to religion, no matter how much you study it always comes down to faith. That’s what it comes down to, faith in what you believe. And what is right. And can you live it.

                                                                                         By

                                                                                  Michael H Vroman

The Last Day of the Hunt

T

It is the last day of the hunting season for mule deer in Idaho. It is Wednesday, October 24, 2012. It’s snowed three times off and on the last four days.  I have tried to go hunting in the weeks before but it’s been too dry and every tree still has its leaves still on the branches. So with the dry conditions and the leaves it made it very hard to hunt. So I waited for the weather to change and finally it has.

With the new snow I think that I can find the buck deer that I’m looking for in the mountain. But I have to help Dave feed his livestock first. We have to go up the canyon to Sugar Creek, Idaho, where we feed sixty head of cow and twenty calves. Then off to Franklin where we feed another twenty-five more cows and twenty calves. And then we go to the former auction site where he has three more corrals with twenty in each pen. Them I can go home and get myself ready for a half day hunt. It’s about 11:30 a.m. by now.

I arrive at my house and put the four wheeler in the bed of the truck. I have a Ford 350 truck. It is silverfish gray in color. It is very high off the ground and it’s hard to load the four wheeler in the bed. I have some eight feet ramps but it is still hard to load because how steep it is. But I drive the ATV up the steep ramps and onto the truck bed. I have the ATV loaded and I’m off to get my day pack. I’m looking around the garage for something that I have forgotten.

And through the garage door walks in my little sister Tammy. She is 6 year younger than me. She lives in Elko Nevada. So it was a pleasant sight and a shock to see her again. We hug and go in the house to talk. She has been at my sister Patty’s house. They been working on some projects that Patty would like to get done before the snow sticks to the ground. Patty is two years older than me. I have five sisters and one brother. One sister and my brother have passed away. Tammy and I talk about this and that. And before long she is on her way back to Elko Nevada. We say our goodbyes and she is off.

I start where I left off looking around for things that I can’t forget for the hunt. Oh yes I’ve got to get my rifle. It is a 25-06. I love how it shoots. It can shoot a long distance and the bullet doesn’t drop much until five hundred yards. I grab my backpack. I put two apple and two candy bars and some other candy (for energy) in the pack. The pack has knives and bags for meat. I put a coat in the pack. I will start off the hike with a long sleeve tee shirt and if I get cold I will put the coat on. I look around. I know that I’m forgetting something. I think and think. I’ve got to be off or I won’t have enough time to get to the top of the mountain to find the mule deer that I’m looking for.

I get in the truck and I’m off. I have to drive a half hour or 45 minutes to get to the place where I unload the four wheeler. As I drive down the road I see some turkeys, and I also see two deer as I’m driving. The deer are too small and they are does and I can’t shot a doe. They aren’t in season for me. Youth from 12-16 years old can shoot does but I’m too old.

Today I’m looking for a very special deer with antlers. But I haven’t given myself enough time to do it right. But this is the last day of the hunting season so I’ve got to try for him. I tried for this buck on opening day. I had my neighbor with me and it was too dry and hot. If you tried to walk it was so noisy that the deer could hear you a mile away. I tried a new but old route and it wasn’t like I thought it was a long time ago. So it was like a whole new world. But we were there so we made the most of it. We walked and looked and walked and looked for half the day. We got very tired after just a half of a day and started back to where we began.

I couldn’t think I could get tired looking for a deer like that, but I did and I was very tired. Boy how things change from twenty to sixty years.

This is the deer I’m after. The photo was taken from my trail camera.

I arrive in Sugar Creek at Dave’s Corrals. These are the corrals where I was feeding cows just a few hours earlier. I drive the truck in the corrals and start unloading the ATV. I have to be very careful I  don’t drive the ATV off  side of the side of  the ramps or come down too fast and break something on the truck or the ATV, which I’m good at sometimes. The four wheeler is off the truck and all is good. It is time to get my day pack and the rifle on the four wheeler. I put my coat on. The ride to the bottom of the mountain will be very cold so I also put my gloves on. My hands seem to get cold on the ride. I have a box on the front of my ATV that hooks to the rack that is mounted to the wheeler. I put the day pack in the box and lock it down. I have my rifle on a sling. I put the sling over my back and that puts the rifle in front of me. The rifle is too long to be on my back. It will hit the rack on the back of the four wheeler, so that is why the rifle has to be in front of me.

I’m not looking forward to this ride at all. It is so rough by the time I get to the mountain that I have to climb, or I should say walk, up. I’m worn right out. And I still have a good hour and half of hilking to the top of the mountain at the end of this trail.

I swing my leg over the seat and sit down. I put the four wheeler in reverse and back onto the main road. Now I’m off on a good half an hour ride and like I said before, there is nothing good about this ride. I have to be in hurry so that means I have to go somewhat fast at first. But the road is so rough you are bouncing back and forth so much there is no time to look around at the scenery or anything else.

I get to an opening. This place is called the sawmill. This is the place that in the old days was the main camp where they would bring the cut down trees to. The time would be in the 1930s. And I wasn’t born until 1954 so you could say that is before my time. But I can remember the time when there was a pond and some log cabins at this site. But the Forest Service has done away with this camp a long time ago and all there is now is a big open place in the mountains. I will unpack the ATV at the far east end of the sawmill and start the long hike up the mountain.

I park the machine and start to unpack. I take off my coat and put it in the backpack. It will be too hot for me. And that is hard to believe. Because right now I’m standing in a foot of new snow. It is white all around. The snow is on everything and that is not good at all because the snow that is on the trees and branches will come down on you when you come in contact with them. So now the dry, noisy leaves are all gone, but in the place of the leaves is snow. So it will be still hard to see the deer but I’ve got to try. It’s not looking good at all but I’m off up the mountain. I’m trying to stay away from the trees as much as I can but it is going to be impossible in some places.

I’m going up the ridge and there are very few trees along the ridge. As I’m hiking along the ridge I can see rocks sticking out of the snow and it look like a set of stairs going up the ridge. I’m working my way up the mountain. I try to look all around for signs of deer. It is hard walking up hill and not looking at my feet. I have to keep my eyes up to catch movements or a deer standing and looking at me, and I have to  catch a glimpse of the deer before it see me. I walk a few steps, look around and catch my breath. I have to do that all the way up the mountain. I’m half the way up before I see my first deer trail in the snow. I see tracks now and again. They’re not overwhelming me but that means there are deer around. If there wasn’t so much snow on the branches maybe I would see a deer.

I get closer to the top and run in into a lot of maple tree and aspens. They are covered in snow and are very thick. I work my way through them but I touch them and snow falls all over me. My body tightens up in shock when the snow falls on me and goes down my neck and back. The mountain is steep and the going is slow. The snow keeps on falling on me.

I get to the place where we have the tree stand over by some small springs that come out of the ground. There isn’t one deer track around the spring. The last two hundred yards it has taken a good twenty minutes to get through the trees to get here. I look around and head in a northeast direction. Things just don’t look the same in a foot of snow and the branches and brushes are weighed down with new snow. I walk a one hundred yards and start back south. Just in a few feet I start to run into deer tracks. But I’m get very tired again. My senses are very dull because I’m so tired. I’m not as alert as I’d like to be. I’m having a hard time picking my feet up and then setting them down. I work my way over to the other ridge. I’m hoping that it is in a place where I can look the hills over and also look in some  draws for deer. And I sit down and rest. I get to the ridge. But I’m not in a good place to look around. I walk around the hill and things aren’t right for spotting game. So I walk up the hill a ways into some pine, hoping that I can find a place to sit down. But there isn’t a place to sit down out of the snow. 

I stop by a tree and put my rifle against the tree trunk. The shirt that I have on is wet from all the snow that has fallen on me and also I’ve worked up a good sweat. It is very cold on this ridge and the wind is blowing. As I stand there the cuffs on the shirt are freezing and going hard. I take the backpack off my back and set it on the snow. I take the coat out. It is dry. I hang it on a branch of the pine tree and take my shirt off and put it in the backpack. I put the coat on my bare skin. It feels so warm and dry. I’m thinking maybe I should have put another shirt in the pack too. Oh well, you can’t think of everything.

As I stand there I take an apple out of the pack and eat it. It is gone in a flash. I also eat the candy bar and have a drink. While I stand there l’m looking around for a deer or movement but I’m not in a good place to see very far but I keep my eyes open hoping that I will be lucky and have a deer stumble out for me to see. But I’m not that lucky today. I stand there for some and think to myself what time of day is it. I take my phone out of my pocket and look at the time. And it dawns on me that a few years ago I would be looking at the watch on my wrist and not the phone. Boy, times have changed.

It is 5 o’clock and it will be dark in one hour. I put the pack back on and start to look around as I move through the trees. I see something that doesn’t look right. I put the rifle up and look through the scope. It is a deer and it has a good set of antlers on its head. It is a good one but it’s not the buck that I’m looking for. On the other hand he is a keeper. But I don’t have the time to get to him before darkness falls upon me. I watch the buck for a time.

Things start going through my mind: if I had more time could I get him? Maybe and maybe not. But I did find him so that is good on one hand. It shows that I can still spot a good deer if they are there. And I think to myself if I had more time I could find the buck that I was looking for. But that is it: time. And time waits for no one.

So I start off the mountain, feeling very good about myself. If you look at me, I shouldn’t be up here but I did it. And a man in his right mind wouldn’t be up here. He would have waited for the weather to change. But I think all this to myself as I stumble off this mountain with a smile on this face of mine. 

My First Deer Hunt

                                                               

I pestered them so long that my brother and his friends finally invited me on my first mule deer hunting trip. The hunt was in the afternoon in the foothills nearby, in Franklin County on the northwest side of the Oneida Narrow. It was about a 45 minute drive from the small town of Preston Idaho. That is the town that I grew up in. The majority of my hunting experiences took place just outside of that town.

Back in the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, hunting for us was all about the meat. However, we all talked about get ting the one huge buck to put on the wall for all to see.

I think I was 10 or11 years old.  I was very excited to be going hunting with my older brother and his friends from Pocatello, Idaho. My older brother Victor was six years older than me. I was a pain in the neck to Vic like all 10-years olds would be to a 16-year-old.

Vic grew up fast, being six-foot one and having the perfect build. He would and could run up and down the hills all day long and he loved every minute of it. My brother,is best friend with Bernie Voyles, Bernie’s older brother Bud and Terry Nichols went on the hunting trip with us. We had to get enough people to help pay for the gas. Otherwise we could not go hunting.

After the long drive, we got to the bottom of a hill. It was the biggest and tallest hill around. We thought that in order to find the largest buck with trophy antlers, we had to hunt on the most secluded mountain around.

At the bottom of the hill, we all piled into the old Powell truck I think it was made by Dodge and powered up the hill. Running next to the countless maple trees were long openings of sagebrush and tall grass. The road going up the hill did have some rough spots, but we arrived successfully at the top of the hill. Looking over the ridge, we noticed that one side was bare and open. It looked over a big ravine full of maples. Because it was October, many leaves had fallen off the trees, that left more openings so hunter like us could see well.

Victor and Bernie started down the ravine. Bernie was on one side and Vic on the other. Vic, from a distance, looked like an animal moving though the trees. He was weaving from top of the ridge to the bottom.  Vic was traveling very fast but working his side of the ridge carefully. If Bernie and Vic jump a deer someone would be able to get a clear shot. They worked the ravine well but there were on deer. I hoped to see one or two deer take off. Now Bernie and Victor were at the bottom of the hill and had to come back up the side of the hill that we couldn’t see. Bud, Terry and I had to make a new game plan.

Coming up the hill, there were a lot of maple trees and some long openings beside the maples. The next few moments are as clear in my mind today as when they happened forty years ago.

Having no gun, I was asked to brush though the trees. At my young age, I had taken on a necessary role in the hunt. At one moment, I was so happy to do it: yet in the moment I was scared to death. For instance, I could have gotten lost or a deer could have taken me If I jumped it.  However, this was my time to prove myself. If I didn’t perform well, there would be no more hunting trips for me. I had to do it.

I start off, all my thoughts and excitement pulsing in my blood and I am into this in and out of tree, hoping not to run into a deer. A deer jumps up it has horns. It’s a good buck shots ring though the air. The buck is hit and goes into a grove of trees. Somehow the three of us meet and start looking for the big boy. 

There is a lot of blood on the sagebrush and grass. I know we got him. But the older hunters know that it isn’t a sure thing in life; lots of deer have gotten away over the years. We are following the blood trail and three he is, a lifeless body. And then we realize we got him, and Bud made the killing shot. It is the biggest deer that Bud has ever shot and got so far in his life. We are all happy.

Bud starts cleaning out the deer. Bernie and Vic show up. Vic looks at the deer and says “You should’ve come my way. I would’ve loved to shot you.” I am very excited and I say a dumb thing like “ I will drag that deer to the truck,” and they all laugh at me. Because there was no way I could drag that deer two inches let alone two hundred yards.

This nice typical four pointer

That hunting trip was over. But there would be a lot more for us in the years to come.

That wasn’t the last big mule deer buck that Bud shot in his lifetime. Bud went on over the years  got a lot of deer, of which four of them made the Boone and Crockett, the four point typical class. The only hunter to do it in Idaho, Bernie went on to be one of ldaho’s best trap shooters.

My brother Victor worked and hunted for the next few years and passed away suddenly while hunting at the young age of 22 of a heart attack, doing what he loved in life.

I eventually got my trophy deer. It hangs on the wall to show my friends that I put my time in hunting, too.