When Beavers Attack!

 

Hi. My names Dave, and I…I’m…afraid of beavers.

Yes, that’s right. It’s hard for me to admit, but I, Dave Gray, locally world-famous outdoor adventurer, have been forced to retreat from nature’s plucky workman, the furry and loveable beaver.

I can hear you laughing. How could you be afraid of a beaver? They are small and cuddly, and they live on bark and woodchips.

Yeah. Well let me ask you, have you seen a beaver up close enough to smell its piney breath, pal? Or are the beavers you’re familiar with the ones that sing and tap-dance in animated films? Because I have looked this critter in the eye and gauged the depths of its soul. And I ran away.

I am familiar with beavers. The lake I like to fish best has a large beaver lodge near where I camp. I often see them swimming in the lake as I do camp chores, or I hear them loudly slapping their tails when they dive.

I like to fish from a contraption called a belly boat, which is sort of a glorified inner tube. You put on rubber pants, and flippers on your feet, and sit in the tube and paddle out to where the fish are. (Yes, we are aware of how this looks. If we were not aware of it, we would soon become aware of it courtesy of all the people who tell us how ridiculous we look.)

So, I am paddling away out there, minding my own business, when I see a beaver surface and start swimming my way. “Aha,” I think to myself, “a chance for some quiet observation of nature’s creatures.”

 Ker-PLUNKT! He dives and slaps his tail. I laugh, delighted. This is why I love the belly boat. I am at eye level with the water and its wonders.

 He swims toward me, and slaps the water again when he dives. He appears much larger than he did when observed from the shore of the lake -- like fifty pounds maybe. The size of a Labrador retriever.

 He surfaces, and begins to swim in a circle around me. Ker-PLUNKT! Ker-PLUNKT! Ker-PLUNKT!

 I realize it’s not a circle he is swimming, it’s a diminishing spiral. He’s getting closer each time. I can see his teeth. They appear…sharp.

 KER-PLUNKT!

 That one splashed water on my glasses. I figure he is mad because I am too close to his lodge. He probably has a wife and kids in there. I also realize that I REALLY don’t want him to dive and then surface in my lap. I begin to paddle, briskly, away from the lodge.

 Ker-PLUNKT!

 He’s following me. My legs feel naked and exposed. Every phobia I’ve ever had about suddenly being grabbed from underneath in the water surfaces in my head. I hear the theme from “Jaws.” I may never be able to use a flush toilet again.

 I paddle faster and faster. He follows. I try splashing at him with my flippers. I want to yell “go away” but I don’t want other campers to hear, and look over to see me frantically fleeing a harmless, furry, Disney character, so I make a strangled sound like “Harungganah git!” I am ashamed, because I know sound travels over water.

 He circles me a few more times, and then finally swims away. My flippers produce a wake like a motorboat as I paddle back to shore and collapse on the bank.

 As I am lying there, getting my breath back, I realize that I just ran away from a beaver. Well, paddled away.

 I hear splashing and yelling out on the lake. I look up and a man in a canoe is splashing at the beaver with his paddle. The beaver dives, and slaps his tail. I laugh out loud, the sound of a man who enjoys watching nature and its wonders.

 “What the hell is that?” the man yells, in a tone that indicates he is fighting back panic.

 “A beaver,” I yell back, a mountain man, educating the greenhorn. “He’s mad because you’re to close too close to his house.”

 “Well, I’ll move away, then.” He paddles off, looking over his shoulder at the beaver as he goes.

 “Damn tourists.” I think to myself. “At least I knew what it was.” 

 

Frank's Last Bird

 

    My dad took me sage grouse hunting on opening day, 1971, when I was nine. We found a lot of birds, and we each got our limit of three.
After the hunt, dad laid the birds out carefully and took a picture because it was my first hunt for anything. The photo went in the family album, one of the milestones that define life together as a family. Firsts and lasts are important.

With dogs it all happens so fast. The opening day of the season becomes the closing day. The puppy on his first retrieve becomes the old guy who needs help getting into the truck. It’s ironic that Frank’s last bird was a sage grouse, because he was not a fan of hunting sage grouse. The season is in September, when it’s still hot, and Frank hated hot days. His thick, chocolate Lab coat was designed for swimming in icy waters, not running though dusty summer sage brush. But the first day of the sage grouse season is the opening day of the hunting season as a whole for us, so we always went.

There aren’t as many sage grouse now as there were back on my first opening day.. Human encroachment has threatened them. The Game and Fish cut the season down to two weeks, and the daily limit down to two birds, and the season limit down to four. I never take that many. I could take more, but I don’t want to. 

On the day of Frank’s last bird, I didn’t start early. The birds would either be there or not, so there was time for coffee and breakfast. About ten in the morning we drove up to a draw that usually holds a flock of twenty-five or thirty grouse. I thought I could take two there without hurting the population.

It’s the kind of country that dumb people call “nothing,” as in “there is nothing there.” Miles and miles of wide open spaces, sagebrush, sage grouse, antelope, coyotes, rattlesnakes, prairie dogs, eagles, deer, elk, and big blue skies. And they call it nothing. 

I pulled off the highway, on to the dirt county road, and then on to the two-track that parallels the draw I wanted to hunt. I checked the wind, because you want to hunt into the wind if possible, so the dogs can smell the birds.

I didn’t usually hunt both my dogs at the same time. It’s a lot of work to keep track of two dogs, and also they had very different styles. Hunting with my black Lab  Pete annoyed Frank because Pete got in his way. I knew I was going to hunt Frank first, like I always did once he was diagnosed with cancer. He’d been on chemotherapy the previous season.

I stopped the truck, let the dogs out to pee and sniff, and I stretched my legs and smelled the sagebrush. It smells like sage, and sun, and dust, and, to me, home. It smells even better during a rain. Sometimes, when I lived in Long Beach California, I would be driving on the freeway in the rain, and I would catch a whiff of sagebrush and almost cry with homesickness. 

I reached into the center console, for the bag of tobacco I use to pray and give thanks before a hunt. It’s something I learned from Arapaho and Shoshone culture. The Wind River Indian Reservation is a big part of our lives, and I have learned to respect being a guest on the land. I made a quick prayer, and then put Frank’s e-collar on him.

I always feel bad for the dog I leave behind on the first hunt of the day. I discovered if I leave Frank in the cab whenI  hunt Pete, he gets so frantic he completely trashes the cab while I’m gone, so I have a nice, two-dog kennel in the back of the truck. I only use it when I leave a dog behind while I hunt the other one, or if they are exceptionally muddy. It’s well insulated and ventilated, and much safer than leaving one in the cab of the truck. .

I told Pete to kennel, and he looked at me, wounded that I would banish him like this. “Kennel” I insisted, and he kennelled.

Frank and I walked downwind toward the head of the draw. I noticed that he had lost a step over the summer. He didn’t cover as much ground as he used to, trotting rather than running. The eighty degree temperature played a role in that, but he had clearly slowed down. I made a mental note to not push him too hard, and get him plenty of water.

We turned and headed upwind into the draw. It’s not easy to walk in sagebrush, but the grouse will be towards the bottom, and there is usually a cow path. I kept an eye on Frank, but also looked at the fascinating litter of bone fragments, antelope dung, rusted bits of metal and other stuff in the bottom of the draw.

We had walked a quarter of a mile or so into the draw when Frank’s last bird got up, big as a house, and only twenty yards out. Frank didn’t put it up, it just flushed between Frank and I. It was an easy shot, which I find easy to miss, but I dropped it with the first shot.

I could tell Frank was having trouble with his vision, because he always was very good at marking birds down, and he just couldn’t see this one. I started walking toward the bird and it flopped a little, and Frank saw it. He picked it up and brought it to me.

I want to celebrate getting a bird, but Frank tends to see it as just another day at the office. I took the bird from him, and reached out to pat his head, but he sidled away, and said “let’s go find some more.”

I stood up, holding the warm bird in my hand. I looked at it as I smoothed the ruffled feathers back into place, like I always do. I looked at Frank, and thought, as I had a number of times during the previous season, “this might be Frank’s last bird.” I thought about myself at nine, holding my first bird,after dreaming about that moment for so long, with a lifetime of hunting ahead of me. It seemed so long ago now. At sixty I live in a completely different world, and so many of the people I loved back then are gone. I looked at the mountains in the distance, and thought about how long they had been standing watch over sage and sky, dust and bone, birth and death. 

I put the bird in the game pocket of my vest.

Since I had a bird for Frank, it was Pete’s turn. Frank and I had only hunted half of one side of the draw, so there was a lot left for Pete. We left the draw and headed for the truck. The game warden drove up to check my license while I was giving the dogs water, and we chatted a little.

When he left, I took Frank’s e-collar off, and put Pete's on. I opened the dog box door and pointed.

“Frank, kennel.”

He looked at me, and then down at the ground

“Frank, kennel.”

He looked at me and said “I want to hunt some more.”

I thought about it.  “You’ll have to hunt with Pete.”

“Okay.”

I put his e-collar back on and the three of us headed to the bottom of the draw.

We hunted the near side of the draw without finding anything. When we turned to hunt the far side, the wind picked up and switched directions, blowing from our right to left. I watched Pete work with pleasure, as always, at his energy and enthusiasm.He quartered in front of me, covering lots of ground but staying in range. Frank seemed tired and hung back a little. I was thinking it might have been a mistake to bring him along, when Pete went birdy, circling for scent and acting more excited,  and then pounced and put the bird up.

It flushed to my left, about twenty-five yards out. It caught the wind and streaked away behind me so that I had to move my feet (which is always bad for my shooting) and I lead it a lot and fired, missed, lead it even more, fired, and the bird dropped somehow, wounded and running, but Pete was immediately there, like a baseball outfielder running to the spot where the ball will drop, and he had it. Frank never even saw it.

Pete brought me the bird with pride and happiness. I thumped his sides and told him what a good dog he is, and he barked and jumped with joy at having pleased me.

Back at the truck, after watering the dogs, I started working on setting up the picture. No question, I wanted a picture of this one, just like dad knew he wanted a picture of my first bird, to go in the family album with my baby pictures and mom and dad’s wedding photos. I took it with care, focusing on today, and not thinking of what tomorrow might bring.

Happy in the Field, Happy at Home (appeared in September 2015 issue of Wyoming Wildlife)

I wouldn’t hunt birds without a dog. Losing hit birds drives me crazy, as it would any ethical hunter, and without a dog it happens too often. I learned a lot training my own dogs, but I also put up with some dogs that chased rabbits and chewed up birds. My desire for better gun dogs led me to a professional trainer, an idea I had resisted because I believed professional training is for dogs that never see the inside of a house because they are a tool, not a friend.  I found out that a good trainer will train dogs to suit the owner, but some old-school trainers still think that letting a dog be a house pet will spoil him for hunting.  I keep my dogs in the house because I enjoy the companionship, but I expect them to behave. Keeping them in the house strengthens the bond between us, and leads to a well-trained dog that is a joy all year, not just during the bird season.

Obedience training is the foundation of hunting training, and a hunting dog should come when you call him, heel, sit, and stay. These commands also come in mighty handy when you are trying to move all your gear and two big Labs into a hotel room. Many owners don’t spend enough time on basic obedience, either because it’s not as much fun as the hunting training, or because they don’t want to fetter the dog’s free spirit. But I don’t want to share my home with a dog that is an ill-mannered nuisance.  

Life in the home presents temptations that a kenneled dog doesn’t face. Professional trainers worry that sending a dog home with the owner will lead to the dog becoming “untrained”. Bo Allen, trainer for Stealth Point Kennels in Meeteetse, tells the story of a Lab he trained and sent home with the owner. Upon being released in the house, the pup promptly retrieved an expensive, tasseled loafer. The owner didn’t want his shoes chewed up, so he whipped the pup.

“That pup never brought anything to that guy again,” Bo says. “He would retrieve for me, but not for the guy who whipped him for doing what he was supposed to do.”

An old-school pro might think “that’s why you don’t keep them in the house.” But the savvy owner who lives with hunting dogs sees daily training opportunities that reinforce skills the dog already knows, and help keep the dog from becoming “untrained.” I would have suggested that this owner gently, and without much emotion, tell the pup “leave it”, take the shoe, and give him a hard plastic chew toy, such as a Kong. That way the dog learns that holding stuff is OK, but not the boss’s shoe. He learns through positive reinforcement. If you repeat this process enough, the dog learns that “leave it” means “put that down.” It helps the dog distinguish between stuff we want and stuff we don’t want. That transfers really well to the field when your dog encounters something dead and disgusting. Learning to spot daily training opportunities helps the dog be a better hunter, and makes life at home better for everyone.

Another daily training opportunity at home is feeding time. Like most Labs, my two are total chow hounds. As soon as I moved to the cupboard where the food is kept, they both would go nuts, stepping on my feet and jumping up on the cabinet. It took a while, but I finally realized that I should master this situation rather than being a helpless victim of my own dogs. I started making the dogs sit, and wait, while I prepared their dinner. It took a few repetitions, but they learned that the quicker they behaved, the quicker they got to eat. Positive reinforcement creates a feeding time is that is no longer a destructive free-for-all. This also transferred to the duck blind, because their desire to get the bird isn’t that different from their desire to get the food. Helping them learn to control their desire helped them learn not to break and chase decoying ducks, which scares the ducks, destroys the blind, and might lead to a dog being shot accidentally.

Taking advantage of daily training opportunities keeps my dogs safer, and puts more birds on the table. But, of course, hunting with a dog is more than just getting birds. It’s a partnership, and a happy, well-trained dog makes for a joyous partnership at home and in the field. A good dog knows the rules and understands the boundaries. And a hunter with a good dog never goes hunting alone. 

How not to shoot birds

I’m putting a lot of effort, time, and expense into dog training currently. I’m really getting a bang out of working with Frank, my chocolate Lab, and seeing the results is exciting. I found a professional trainer that I am learning a lot from, and it is so satisfying when it all comes together in the field and Frank gets the chance to do what it’s all about with wild birds.

And that’s why it sucks so much when I miss the dang bird.

Since I got Frank, I have embarked on a quest to become a better wingshot. Before I had a dog on the ground it wasn’t that big a deal to me. Hit the bird, miss the bird, oh well, it’s all about having fun and my family won’t starve if I don’t bring home the pheasant. Now I see every wild bird as a huge opportunity. A guy only gets so many opportunities per season, and it’s birds that make the bird dog. I can’t throw enough training dummies to make up for lost opportunities on birds. It kills me when Frank does everything right, puts the bird up, and then bang, bang, bang, no bird; no chance to close the circle and go get the prize.

Since I don’t have the dough to fly to South America and burn a few cases of shells on doves, improving my wingshooting skills means shooting clay pigeons. I guess I could just go out to the range with a hand trap, but I’d rather do something a little more interesting, so I am drawn to the various clay pigeon games: trap, skeet, and sporting clays. Now if what I am about to say here offends some of those who are devoted to these games, I can only reply that this is one man’s experience, and I have only sampled a few opportunities to participate in shooting sports. I believe it is true that most people who are good at the shotgun sports are also good shots on birds. But I have found it difficult to improve my abilities by participating in these sports.

I shot the shotgun a lot when I was a kid, and I thought of myself as a reasonably good shot. Like most young shooters I didn’t receive a lot of formal instruction. My dad took me out to the range with the hand trap and my new twenty gauge, and I busted a lot of caps and a few clay pigeons. Nobody said much about shooting a shotgun being different from shooting a rifle, so I shot my twenty the same way I shot my .22 rifle; I closed my left eye and focused on the sights. Of course anybody who knows anything about wingshooting knows that you can never be a good shot that way. It’s fundamental in shooting a shotgun that you keep both eyes open and focus on the bird, not the barrel. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to tell me that, so I persisted in doing it the wrong way.

And the wrong way worked pretty well for me for a while.  I got a limit of sage grouse on the first day I ever hunted anything. I shot ducks okay.

Now here’s where maybe I offend those who shoot trap. I think trap was bad for me. Not because trap is a bad game, but because when you’re young, eleven or twelve, and you have clear eyes and sharp reflexes, you can become an average trap shooter by shooting the wrong way. The really wrong way. Trap offers mostly shots at gentle angles. There are not many birds at sharp right angles, and thus no birds that require a lot of lead. As I began to shoot trap, I started snap shooting. In other words I wasn’t swinging the gun with the bird. I was pointing a stopped gun at a spot ahead of the bird and pulling the trigger. Once again, everybody knows, stopping your gun is one of the greatest sins a shotgunner can commit. But I was young and fast, and I could get away with it on trap, and after fifty rounds or so of trap, it became an ingrained habit. And everybody at the trap club encouraged me, because I was breaking 22 or 23 birds out of 25 almost every time I went up to the line, which is real good for a kid. But it’s not good for a real trap shooter who expects to go 100 straight to qualify for the shoot-off to see who wins the tournament. And nobody could see that I was never going to reach that level with all the bad habits I had acquired.

Then the trap club we belonged to added a skeet range. My family started shooting more skeet and less trap, because at that club skeet was informal and only a few people shot it, as it was mostly a trap club. My dad liked the informality and the fun of skeet. The trap shooters were pretty serious and shot expensive guns made just for trap and we couldn’t afford that. The skeet shooters tended to be looser and they shot whatever guns they hunted with.

And I grew to dislike skeet, because it exposed all my bad habits. I did OK on the birds that offered the same kind of gentle angles that resembled trap, but skeet offers a lot of sharper angles, many at or near ninety degrees to the shooter. I hated those birds. I never broke them. Other, older shooters would tell me “you’re stopping your swing,” and I knew by now, through reading, that most good shotgun shots use the “swing-through” method of starting behind the bird and swinging ahead of it and then pulling the trigger with a swinging gun. I tried to do that, but it never worked. I guess I had too many other bad habits. I never broke more than 15 or 16 out of 25 at skeet. And I practically broke out in a cold sweat every time I stepped up to stations 3, 4, or 5, which offer the crossing angles. I wanted to go back to trap.

I didn’t shoot shotgun a lot after I graduated from high school. I didn’t take up the shotgun again seriously until I was in my mid-forties. The results were pretty dismal. After experiencing the pain of missing over my own dog, I decided to get serious about shotgun shooting. I was determined to break old habits, to pretend that I had never shot before, to start over completely, the right way.

But now I have a powerful learning tool at my command: the Internet. Now I can research the question “How do I become a good wingshot?” I plugged the question into Google, and in a few hours, I found the answer: spend a LOT of money.

If you really want to do it right, you travel to a famous shooting school, preferably one that has a resident gunsmith. You are fitted for a custom shotgun, and then you and your personal coach head out to the range for three or four days. Five thousand dollars ought to cover it. Plus travel, lodging, and meals. And tips.

Did I mention that I’ve already got a lot of time and money in the dog?

So, I read everything I can get my hands on about how to shoot a shotgun. The one issue that keeps coming up for me is fit. In order to shoot well, the experts say, your gun must fit you properly. One reason a lot of shooters struggle, the experts say, is that they stubbornly cling to a gun that doesn’t fit them.

“A-ha,” I say, “a-ha!” I have been clinging to Dad’s old over-under for years and it doesn’t fit me! (I suspect the reason he quit shooting it was it didn’t fit him either.) But how do I find a gun that fits?

Well, I have two other shotguns, both pumps. I need to do some testing. But where, how? I find the nearest shotgun club is 2 ½ hours away. They offer both trap and skeet. I don’t want to shoot trap, because I am afraid of falling into old bad habits, but now I can face my old nemesis skeet (especially stations 3, 4 and 5).

I load up and head for the skeet range. A few rounds later I confirm that I don’t shoot Dad’s over under well, nor my old twenty gauge, probably due to the fact that dad cut the stock down to fit a kid. I do best with my old Remington 870 12 gauge, which has been my waterfowl gun for years. I like it for waterfowl, but not for upland hunting because it’s heavy and I hate where the safety is located and I can’t seem to find it in a hurry when a pheasant flushes.

Plus, nobody shoots a pump for skeet anymore. The other skeet shooters kind of roll their eyes a little when I step up to shoot. I haven’t found the gun club to be a real welcoming experience anyway. Hardly anyone talks to me. Once somebody asks me what I do and I say I’m a teacher, and I hear somebody else say under his breath “he ought to teach skeet etiquette.” I Google “skeet etiquette” when I get home, and I find out it’s considered a breach to pick up empty shells after you shoot each station. You are supposed to just let them fall and pick them up after the entire round. Oops. Nobody told me.

I keep shooting skeet, and eventually the guys warm up to me a little. I resolve to be the oddball who shoots a pump for skeet, but I can’t help feeling a little weird. I want to fit in. Besides, I’d like to start shooting some respectable scores and “everybody says” you can’t do that with a pump. I start researching skeet guns a little, and I realize I am shooting with guys who shoot five thousand dollar guns. One guy I am friendly with, and who is encouraging me to get serious about skeet, is shooting a ten thousand dollar Kolar. My Remington cost $200.

I decide to find an inexpensive over under that fits me and allows me to fit in. I do some research and find out that an inexpensive over under is about twelve hundred bucks. The most the family budget can possibly withstand is one thousand. I start shopping for used guns. I’m looking through the over unders one day at the gun store, and I find a pretty little twenty gauge side-by-side, made in Spain, imported by BSA (now defunct). Eight hundred and fifty bucks brand new.

Nobody shoots a side-by-side for skeet. Plus it comes with only three choke tubes, none of them right for skeet. Plus the maker has gone under, and who knows if I can find skeet tubes for it. Plus the stock seems a little straight for me.

But it’s elegant and slim and light. And pretty. And the stocks on the over unders in my price range look like they were made from old railroad ties. Sold.

I shoot it OK in the field, and it turns out there are some guys who play around with side-by-sides for skeet. Plus I discover that the club occasionally has sporting clays, which I like better than skeet. It’s looser and more informal. The guys are friendlier. The shooting is more like hunting.

I keep shooting skeet too, and I can’t find skeet choke tubes, and the serious skeet shooters tell me I am handicapping myself pretty badly without the right chokes. Plus the stock on the little twenty might be (guess what) a little too straight. I should sell it. But it’s so pretty. And it’s not a bad gun to start a kid on. But if I don’t sell this gun, I won’t have much money for a new one.

This time I am convinced I have the solution: a Beretta 3901. It’s plain black autoloader with a plain plastic stock. Lots of good skeet and sporting clays shooters use autoloaders. Every kind of choke tube in the world is available for it. The safety’s in a good place. The stock has an adjustable shim so the fit can be customized. Four hundred and seventy five bucks.

This is it, I tell myself. Beware the man with one gun. I can use it for everything; skeet, sporting clays, upland, waterfowl. I will stick with this gun and learn to shoot it. Does it fit me? I still don’t know.

All this time, I am trying to learn to shoot the right way. I keep both eyes open, and I focus on the bird, not the barrel. I keep the gun swinging. I am determined to learn this new way of shooting, the right way.

I keep reading about shotgunning. I ask for help from good shooters, but the coaching leaves me a little frustrated. Everybody tells me I’m doing something different. Some say my gun doesn’t fit me. Some say it does. All last spring and summer I kept shooting and shooting. I felt like I was making progress.

Late in the summer Frank and I entered an Upland Classics field trial. This is a trial where the dog handler also does the shooting, just like in the field. On the first day I hit two birds with two shots. The judge complimented me on my shooting. I’m filled with confidence. The next day I missed five out of six. The judge said he thought the stock on my gun was too straight, as I was shooting over the birds.

I carried the Beretta all last season, and I did OK with it, but not much better than the season before. I sure missed carrying that light little side-by-side though. I kept mounting the little gun to my cheek, and every time I thought about the Upland Classic judge saying the Beretta was too straight. The little twenty is even straighter. I also remembered one of the best days of shotgunning I ever had, ducks on the river and I could not miss, it seemed. I was shooting that old Remington pump that day. The stock on the Remington is not as straight as either the little twenty or the Beretta. The thought haunted me: was that old Remington I paid $200 for twenty years ago the one that really fit me? That old pump that I was embarrassed to shoot skeet or clays with?

As the hunting season progressed, based on conversations with the best hunting shot I know, a man who does not shoot any of the shotgun games, I decided that I was going to give up skeet. I became convinced that the only helpful way to practice shooting birds is to practice just like you hunt. The artificiality of mounting the gun and calling for the bird was not right for me, I decided. Skeet shooting tends to become an end in itself. Most of the guys I was shooting skeet with rarely hunted, if at all. They were devoted to skeet, a game. I guess I could have decided to shoot skeet like I hunt, not mounting the gun before calling for the bird, and starting with the safety on, but there is a lot of pressure on the skeet range to shoot like a skeet shooter. People who wanted to practice hunting skills were not encouraged.

This spring I decided I would shoot only sporting clays, and to shoot them often. I found another club that has sporting clays twice a week, so I can get more real practice. I was determined not to worry about my score, and beating the other shooters. I only wanted to practice hunting skills, not win trophies. The first day I shot at the new club, everybody I shot with was shooting a pump. Turns out the club is having a “pump guns only” tournament soon. There is also a side-by-side tournament. “Cool,” I thought.

Most shooters were shooting the clays like skeet or trap, first mounting the gun and then calling for the bird. A few waited to mount the gun until after they called for the bird. Nobody was calling for the bird, taking the safety off, and mounting the gun, as I was. Everyone was very friendly.

My shooting definitely improved as the day wore on. I was pleased with the new club. We came to one of the last stations. It was two birds which appeared and disappeared very quickly. Mounting the gun before calling for the bird would be a tremendous advantage here. I resisted temptation, shot it the way I had vowed to shoot all stations, and missed every daggone bird. After I had missed the first few birds a very nice man, who was an excellent shot and obviously a club regular, stepped up to me.

“Look,” he said, “I know you’re a hunter, but you just can’t shoot sporting clays that way. A lot of the stations are designed to be shot with the gun mounted. You will never get to be a good clays shooter shooting the way you do.” I tried to get him to understand that I wasn’t interested in being a good clays shooter; I just wanted more birds for my dog. I could not get through to him. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t choose to do what it takes to break more birds and win the game.

It’s seems hard for people to remember that all these games were invented because people wanted to bring more birds home. Sporting clays, in particular, was invented by people who were tired of the conventionality of trap and skeet. But as soon as you start a tournament and offer prizes, specialized equipment starts to appear, and techniques that have nothing to do with hunting. Big money starts to show up. I don’t bear any ill will to folks who enjoy that sort of thing. But it seems a shame that when somebody new shows up, in his hunting clothes and with the only shotgun he owns, he is made to feel uncomfortable, and out of place.

This summer I am going to play with all three guns, including that old pump. I am going to shoot it all just like I was hunting. I may or may not become a better wingshot, but I am going to have fun.

Oh, and by the way, I shot that station with the two fast birds, the one the nice man said I couldn’t shoot that way, a second time that day. On the second try I cleaned it, broke every bird, shooting it my way. It felt darned good.

Wild geese: Solstice season

It began in September, as the aspen began to turn golden, and the change of season pushed the elk toward the rut. It continued through October, with the early teal, and the deer. With November comes too many decisions, too much open: late rifle elk, pheasant, late ducks, rutting mule deer. Now we are down to the last season: wild Canada geese over the frozen lake on the shortest days of the year. Now it's time for insulated boots, a thermos of hot coffee, a shivering dog, and listening intently for the gabble of geese carrying far on the cold air.

Sandhill pheasant and sharptail -- November in the Panhandle

Some people don't see the beauty of the Nebraska Sandhills. I understand; it's a dusty kind of beauty. But to me, the hills and thick grass create an austere beauty that provides contrast to the lush beauties of terrain that is easy to love.

We come here with our dogs, supposedly looking for birds. In truth, birds are only an excuse to let the wind and the grass and the sky cleanse us.

  The skies are big here, and the horizon is more than just a theory.

Those damn four wheelers

I bought an ATV a while back, which surprised some people; especially those who have heard me threaten to shoot out the tires of the next one that roared past me.

            I rationalized the purchase by telling people that anyone who frequently hunts elk solo needs all the help he can get, but the truth is I have reached the conclusion that the machines themselves are not inherently evil. Like any other machine, they are as good or bad as the person running them. Plus I got tired of fixing my jeep every time I tore the bottom out of it.

            I felt pretty conspicuous the first time I unloaded the ATV in the quiet dark of a frosty fall morning. I looked around to see if others were annoyed at the noise I was making as I started the machine up and backed it down off the pick-up bed. No one was annoyed because the others were busy unloading their own ATV’s.

            The area I was hunting is a popular spot for elk on the National Forest. One of the reasons it’s popular is because a lot of it is accessible to ATV’s. It’s also a place where I have cussed four-wheelers a lot. Most loudly I cussed a hunter who told me how he spotted an elk while cruising the roads on his four-wheeler. He shut down the machine, grabbing his rifle as he stepped off, and shot a spike.

            I don’t know why God lets things like this happen. In a just universe, people who hump the boonies day after day, slogging through swamps and blow-downs, would get the elk. Hunters who cruise the roads would always get skunked.

             I loaded my gear on to the four-wheeler and headed down the road. My headlights showed a swampy area ahead. I switched to four wheel drive and eased into the standing water. I was gratified to find that the four-wheeler putted on through without spinning its wheels like my jeep would have. When driven gently, ATV’s often tear up the trail less than conventional four wheel rigs, because they are superior four wheel drive vehicles.

It was getting light in the east as I followed the two-track around the edge of the huge meadow that marks the beginning of the area I wanted to hunt. I was trying to stay on the approved four wheel drive road, but it was getting hard to figure out what was approved road and what were illegal tracks. The Forest Service restricts motor vehicle use in the National Forest to designated roads, a restriction I support. But in other areas the forest Service does a better job of marking the approved roads. Should I have followed the newer looking tracks across the meadow? Or is that an unauthorized route? It’s frustrating when you’re trying to do the right and legal thing, but you can’t discern what it is.

Finding the road also gets difficult as new tracks form to avoid washed out areas, and the road gets wider and wider. ATV riders contribute to this problem by going around perceived obstacles. This creates more ruts, unnecessary ruts in my view. I can’t understand why people who buy a machine that will crawl over big rocks feel compelled to go around insignificant bumps in the road. When I am driving any kind of four wheel rig, pick-up, jeep, or ATV, I feel I have an obligation to avoid making new ruts.

            I drove on through the meadow, trying to stay on legal roads as best I could, and then followed a clearly marked trail into the timber. It was almost light enough to shoot now, and I was starting to think that I should get off the machine and walk. I was heading for a particular spot, the head of a draw where I had jumped a cow the previous year. I wanted to get there quickly, but elk could be anywhere in this area. Besides, I didn’t one to be one of those road-hunters who just cruise around on the four-wheeler all day.

            I parked in the trees and started down the road on foot. I stopped for a moment to glass an opening, and that’s when I heard them; two ATV’s coming up from behind me. I waited a moment as the sound of the engines got closer and then they appeared. They nodded and waved as they went by me, and disappeared across the opening.

            I had a sinking feeling I knew where they were going. I walked half a mile further down the road and discovered I was right. I found their ATV’s parked at the head of the draw I wanted to hunt.

            At the time I was mad at myself for getting off the machine too early. I could have beaten them to that draw. But now that I look back on it, I am glad that I am the kind of guy who parks the vehicle sooner rather than later. When I was a kid, hunting with my dad, he always avoided getting into any situations where he was competing with other hunters, and I like that philosophy. Trying to beat the other guy to the “good spot” makes hunting into work, and makes killing an elk into scoring points. That’s not the way I want to hunt.

            ATV’s have given ordinary guys like me, who want find the elk on their own rather than hiring a guide, and who don’t have room for a string of ponies, some enhanced opportunities for reaching the elk. With those opportunities comes the responsibility of using the tool without harming the experience. We all want to reach the elk. But when trails become highways, and we can’t hear the elk bugle over the sound of the engines, we’ve lost what we came to the woods to find. We all need to make the choice to stop the machine sooner rather than later. I found another draw that day, a good one, better than the one I was planning on hunting. I wouldn’t have found it if I had been focused on racing the other guy to the finish line.