Dad got me started shooting large caliber rifles when I was nine years old. I had shot 22 caliber before that, but at nine, we were out in the woods with friends and had stopped along a backwoods road and were shooting across the canyon to see who was the better shot at some long distances. He asked if I wanted to try and I said I did. He laid his old Husqvarna 30-06 across a large dead fall, told me to place the cross hairs on a large rock across the canyon and when I was ready, to take a half breath and slowly squeeze the trigger. I shot just once, it hurt like hell, but I hit the rock. Someone took a photo of it that day and I still have it. Over the next couple years Dad used to take me to the local range when he sighted his rifle in before each hunting season. He always allowed me to take 4-5 shots and he taught me well enough that I always hit where I was aiming.
I remember as if it were just a moment ago, the first time I started hunting with my dad. To my knowledge, he never took any of us kids (of whom I was the youngest of five) on any hunting trips with the exception of one or two days of duck hunting before we were 12 and old enough to hunt.
My parents, paternal grandparents and a few friends of theirs used to make an annual week long hunt to the little town of Imnaha in the far north east corner of Oregon. It was as steep and rugged a type of country that you can find in all of the USA with the exception perhaps of the Grand Canyon. The Imnaha River (photo below-double click to enlarge) flowed into the Snake River and the canyons were deep, steep and barren. The only place I've ever been that was even a little bit like it was on the east side of Afghanistan.
As a young boy, I had to watch my family to include my sister Kay (oldest) and my brother Gary head out on the yearly pilgrimage to Imnaha, while my brothers Dave, Jim and I were left at home with friends or family to await our turn. As Kay got older and chose not to go, Dave took her place. It went on this way until Kay, Gary, Dave and Jim had their turns in that 12 to 16 years of age bracket.
Those of you who knew Dad (Don) know that he was an imperfect man. He drank too much, cussed to much, smoked to much, flirted too much, etc, etc. That being said, he was a logger and one of the hardest working men I ever worked with and hunted the way he worked. When you look at the picture above of Imnaha you can see that it is steep, rugged country. For the most part, there are no roads, so you start at the roads and trails at the bottom and hunt uphill in the early dawn so that anything you shoot can be drug or packed downhill.
Often, you climbed from the bottom to the top and then hiked the ridges at the top for most of the day, sometimes finishing your hunt and getting off the steep, rim rocked cliffs before dark . I know that while we trudged up those steep mountains that Dad slowed down for me because there was no way I could have kept up with him. On the first day out, we had hiked for several hours on cattle and deer trails, which switch-backed up the steep slopes. I did my best to follow him, placing one foot into his track as he lifted his boot, but sometimes I fell behind and the only way I could catch up to him was to cut straight up the hill rather than follow the switch-backed animal trails.
I was doing this once as Dad hiked up above for me. When he saw what I was doing, he stopped, sat down and got his thermos of coffee out (I don't ever remember us having a water bottle of any type). He had a couple of swallows of coffee and as he offered the cup to me, he asked, "Are you smarter than a cow?" Even at 12, I knew that whether I answered yes or no, I was going to be wrong or the question would not have been asked. I replied "yes," (because I believed I was). He didn't embarrass me by telling me I was not smarter than a cow, he just said, "Cows are smart enough to use the switch-backs because they know that if they go straight up the hill they use to much energy, you should too." I did, and he waited for me when ever I got too far behind.
The first day of our hunt, we headed up the "Pumpkin Creek" drainage and as we headed up the temperature did the same. During rifle season in northeastern Oregon the temperature can range from freezing to the 80s and by the time we were half way up the mountain it was getting close to the 80s. I was sweating, thirsty and tired, but as we came around and on top of a rim rock we saw eight to ten mulies with one small spike buck in the group. They were way above us, about 200 yards from the top and headed up. They hadn't spotted us and we sat there watching as they moved up. I wanted to move up quickly and get into range before they went up, over and out of sight. Dad said, "We don't need to, they are getting out of the heat, will head to the shady side of the mountain and bed down."
We didn't move until they all went over the top and then we started hiking, agonizingly slow, towards the top and a few hundred yards to the left of where they crossed over. I asked why we were moving so far to the left and he explained that as the sun heated up, the thermals were rising up and to the left and that we would need to be over the top, in the shadows and downwind of them as we tried to find where they had bedded down.
We got to the top, moved over to the backside in the shade and rested for about 15 minutes while dad used his binoculars to look in the shaded timber. He was driving me nuts, I wanted to head over, find those deer and shoot my first mulie buck. After a bit, he put the binoculars down, reached into his backpack and grabbed our sandwiches and then his thermos of coffee. Argggggg! More agony, as I thought this meant they were gone and we were going to have lunch and then continue hunting.
We ate our sandwiches, drank some coffee and Dad leaned back, closed his eyes and napped for about 15 minutes. I sat there, despondent and wondered if I'd ever get my first buck. When the snoring stopped, he opened his eyes, looked at me and asked, "Are you ready to get your buck?" I thought he meant if I was ready to continue hunting, but he pointed and said, "he's just over there, bedded down on the next ridge." I crawled over to him, he pointed out the location and I found him through the binoculars.
He explained that we could sneak about 50 yards closer, but that because the group was bedded down so close to the top that we could not get closer from the other side or we'd spook them before I could get a shot. We snuck that 50 yards, Dad got me a good rest on his backpack and he asked if I could shoot him in the neck, since his head and neck were all that were visible. I said I could and he told me to take as long as I needed, because they weren't going to move from their beds. I settled in, let my "buck fever" subside as much as possible and finally took my shot. Neither of us knew if I had hit him and neither of us probably thought I had, since the shot was difficult and I was nervous. But, when we hiked to the other ridge, we found him in his bed with the shot being right where I had aimed. Dad patted me on the back and told me I had made a great shot.
I stood there looking at this dead deer, then squatted down on my knees and as I touched this buck my eyes started to tear up. Dad looked at me for a while and then said, "It's OK to cry, we should all feel a little sad when we shoot an animal" and "it's worst when it's your first time." He told me he cried some when he shot his first deer, I don't know if it was true or he was just trying to make me feel better, but it did. We sat and talked a bit about why we hunt, for population management, to eat the venison, what happens to deer when their population gets to high and they die off in the hard winters, etc. After a bit, I was fine and we started field dressing my buck.
When we finished, Dad cut the joints on the front legs being careful not to cut the large tendon that runs down the front of this joint towards the shinbone and stopped cutting the tendon halfway down. He cut the skin on the rear leg hocks, slid the front legs through the hocks and used the tendon and bone of the front legs to make a T-shape. He then pulled the buck into a somewhat sitting position, sat down in front of the stomach and between its legs, slipped his arms though the opening created by the front legs through the rear hocks like a back pack, rolled forward and stood up. Imnaha was so steep that it was difficult to drag a deer down hill with out it always sliding down the hill, which then required you to hold the weight as you moved down the slope. By making a back pack out of its legs and grabbing a hold of its head over your shoulder, you could pack a whole deer down some incredibly steep country. My Dad didn't weigh much over 155 pounds at his heaviest, but I'd watched him pack large mulies down hill for miles that weighed as much or more than he did.
Every once in a while when I'm over here in the Middle East or back home in Montana, something will happen that makes me think for just a second, "I'll need to call and tell Dad about this" and then I'll immediately remember that he passed away many years ago.
I started logging for my Dad's little logging company when I was around 13-14 years old, every summer till I graduated from high school. He worked me hard, sometimes 12 hours a day in the heat of summer. He was a very hard man to work for, a lot of yelling, cussing, etc and it seemed I could never do anything right. But, like is often the case, I didn't really appreciate him until I was in my early 30s with a family of my own and the ability to see and understand things that I couldn't see in my teens.
When he passed away, he didn't leave much, but in my eyes he didn't really need to. He taught me that hard work wouldn't kill me and that hunting isn't about the killing. Pitting your skills of understanding big game is the bigger portion of it and I'm never disappointed going home empty handed as long as I get to enjoy a day in the woods or the mountains. If it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't have the great appreciation that I have today for spending time in nature and it doesn't make a bit of difference whether I'm packing a gun, a camera or just my eyes.
My mother (Maxine) passed away almost 10 years before my dad. She had been cremated and her ashes were saved until my father passed away. I don't even know if the decision about spreading their ashes was made together, but, evidently it was dad's wish that their ashes be spread into the wind, on the canyon road high above the Imnaha River. I drove from Montana, my brothers and sisters came from various parts of Oregon and met up one beautiful summer day in Imnaha. We walked out on a steep razor back ridge about a 1000 feet above the river. My brother Gary, went first, took my mom's ashes, threw them up and the wind carried them up into the thermals and dissipated into the canyon that they both loved so much. My brother in-law, Les, who had many good natured arguments with dad over the past 30 years went next. He took my father's ashes, checked the wind and tossed them high,....and right at that moment..the wind shifted straight back into him and my dad's ashes covered him from head to foot. It did not seem morbid in any way, but funny, made all the more so as Les turned to us all and said, "The son of a bitch got me again." I wish dad had been there to watch, maybe, he was.
If you look at the side of my blog, above the counter, you'll see a site added about a wounded veteran site that helps get our wounded vets into Montana's nature. If you're interested, please help by contributing in any way you can. They do a great service to those who've done a great service for our country and paid the price.
Hunt hard
Ron
