OPEN FORUM: Hunting

By DELMAR LEATHAM

Its October and the morning air seems cooler. The days aren’t quite so hot. Men begin to grow beards in anticipation of the hunting season.

In the East, woolly caterpillars appear and the thickness of their black stripe predicts how cold the winter will be. I suppose the same can be said about the thickness of the neighbor’s beard.

As a senior in high school, I was finally allowed to go deer hunting with a group of my friends. Camping for 3 days without the supervision of an adult marked a turning point in our young lives.

We left on the Thursday morning before Halloween. Sleeping bags, a canvas tent and hunting gear were loaded in to my old International Scout. The Scout was designed to be a four-wheel drive farm vehicle, unsafe at any speed when driven by a teenager.

At camp that night we prepared our evening meal. A Hobo stew warmed over a camp fire in a large Dutch Oven. That stew would be our evening meal for the next few days. Each evening we would add another can or two of what ever we could find. A can of corn, canned potatoes, beans or chili. Nutrition and good taste were unknown to my friends and me. Any left-over stew was left by the fire in the Dutch Oven, ready to be served the following night. The fact that we survived was due to luck rather than prudent cooking practices.

We spent the first day hiking the local canyons in search of our prey. By lunch time we had eaten our sandwiches and were busy carving our names into the aspen trees. Various shaped hearts containing an arrow and a potential girlfriends initials completed the designs. Two of the group continued up the mountain while three of us returned to camp.

As night began to fall, we became concerned for our missing companions. It was going to be a cold dark moonless night. In an effort to guide our friends back to camp, we built a large bon fire that could be seen for miles. About midnight they came stumbling into camp carrying a deer liver in one of their tee shirts and their shoe laces were gone. They had used their laces to hoist their deer into a tree.

We were grateful for the liver which provided a welcome change to our diet. Liver and onions for breakfast the next day was greeted with enthusiasum.

I have eaten liver many times since that hunt but fortunately liver has fallen into disfavor at my dinner table. There are just too many good things available to eat before returning to a less than desirable cut of meat.

Over the years my hunting menu has greatly improved. I now enjoy pop tarts and a Pepsi or Coke for breakfast. Dinner is usually a warmed-up casserole such as beef stroganoff or lasagna that was prepared before we left home. We now have plenty of snacks such as smoked oysters, crackers or Fritos and bean dip.

Some of my hunting companions swear that no deer can be found until the bean dip has been opened.
I like to carry an apple in my pocket or a hard-boiled egg to be enjoyed sometime during a morning hike.

On one memorable hunting trip my boys and I learned how to carve spoons from a cedar tree branch. We had remembered the canned chili but not the spoons. I still keep those spoons in a wooden box that contains many of the basics that are needed on any hunt.

I have learned to cooked canned chili or beef stew on a camp stove. Place the opened can on a burner and let it heat up. Remember to wear a thick glove when removing the can from the stove: a lesson I learned the hard way. If you are not attentive the chili will rise up in the can and become what we call a chili volcano. Eat it with a wooden spoon and throw the can in the back of the truck.

On another occasion I made a deal with my son that whoever lost the gin rummy card game would have to cook dinner and wash the dishes. For dinner that night we shared a can of pears that was passed between us. We each had our own spoon. A Hostess Ding Dong completed the meal.

My son placed the can in our trash bag and licked both spoons before placing them back with the other cooking utensils. I guess its better to be wise than to be lucky.

Cleaning up the trash around your camp site is an essential part of any hunting trip. There is nothing more disappointing than to hike to a location where you believe that no man has gone before and find a discarded beer can. I guess the fundamental lesson that guns and alcohol don’t mix were never learned by some hunters.

I am grateful for the lessons I have learned while camping and hunting in the great outdoors. I am most thankful for my sons who have endured our hunting trips with patience as my hard-won lessons in life were taught to them.