At a community pregnancy support event this week I came across Jery, who coordinates a group to help new dads transition to a lifestyle that they were previously completely unfamiliar with. Jery brought up to me the fact that many new dads also undergo stress or depression associated with the new baby. What will I do now? Can I still be me? Will I ever get to do my thing again? I suspect that these questions are doubly compounded when you become the father of a little girl, as I am. American society may respect little girls getting involved in all manner of organized sports—but what about the outdoors?
As I have aged and moved off from my family’s region I find that I spend an increasing amount of my outdoor recreation time alone. I don’t mind it either. Although hunting can be wonderfully social, it can also be much more productive when you are by yourself. When I go afield with only my mind to keep me company I don’t have to explain tactics, listen to complaining, divvy up the day’s take, or admonish someone to be quiet. Conversely, if I am wet and cold I can just hike back to the truck and go buy a Coke and a bag of peanuts. Solitary hunting is fruitful, but even moreso it is wonderfully selfish. So in spirit of selfishness I pondered Jery’s points: are my days of wanderlust coming to an end?
As someone who has never previously participated in child-rearing the initial inclination would be to say, “Probably so.” But, this is ignorance of my own history. I was not born into the wilderness, gifted with an innate sense of woodsmanship and hunger for vension roasting over a smoking fire. We surely do possess a primal lust for the hunt, but without kindling and guidance it would die of sheer abandonment and failure. Rather my love of the outdoors is a product of stewardship by my parents—both of my parents.
There have been many joys in my life but few I count as dear as the times spent in the wilderness with my mom and dad. I hope that I can give my little girl a fraction of such joy as I teach her what it is to be a citizen of the natural realm, not just a disconnected office-worker occasionally glancing a bird in a park from her 10th story window. These are snapshots into the moments that defined my life as an outdoorsman. I pray that I can share something akin to this with my little girl when she is of age. Thanks to all of my family who ensured that my childhood was rich, steeped in nature, and full of adventure.
- November, early 1990s. I am between four to six years old when dad shows up in an old blue truck with a tall Oklahoma eight point riding in the back. I don’t remember much about this, but I remember being ridiculously excited along with everyone else. The buck was killed in a stand cobbled together with 2x4s and a plastic five gallon bucket; the “Bucket Stand” takes its place in our memories and is thought of as a regional landmark.
- Spring-Summer, mid-1990s. Mom, dad, and my dad’s twin Uncle Dan take me fishing as soon as I am able. Since mom and I get to spend the summers together she is my constant companion. On one particular trip, I cast a “as seen on TV” helicopter lure into a farm pond behind our house and manage to catch a 6 lb largemouth. This is the biggest fish I’ve ever caught and my parents get it mounted. Uncle Dan follows up on a promise he made and gives me a new fishing rod.
- Winter, mid-1990s. All of my cousins own coonhounds and after watching Where the Red Fern Grows I am immersed in this too. Sometimes with dad, sometimes with just my cousins, I follow baying hounds in pursuit of raccoons all over Creek County, Oklahoma. Bo, Jamie, Michael, and Red take me out under the freezing stars through the woolliest spots on the Deep Fork River as well. We get lost, accidentally trespass, and cuss hounds that won’t come back. At one point I wind up chest deep in quicksand on the Deep Fork and honest-to-goodness think I am going to die.
- November 1999. Lightning strikes twice. Dad shoots the buck of a lifetime a few hundred yards from our new house which is just across the section from the trailer house where we celebrated the harvest of the eight point. This deer, though, is different. The dark-horned buck has antlers that span nearly two foot and is bigger than anything any of us have ever seen. I’m not really into deer hunting yet and I believe I was asleep or eating breakfast when the shot happened but mom swears she heard the shot and dad yelling with pure ecstasy. Our neighbor Monte later confirms he heard dad yelling as well. Monte was all the way across the section! We load the buck up and drive to to town to check the deer in. Everyone at the check station is amazed too; they take a photo that hangs on a brag board at the convenience store for years. We drive all about the country with the deer in the back and show it to everyone we know. Later Dad tells me that he sheepishly made a “deal” with God that he would quit smoking if God gave him a big buck. God gave him two, despite the fact that He had no need to strike a bargain with dad. Dad gave up smoking altogether.
- Sometime after 1999. Having been fully bit by the deer-hunting bug, I start going out with dad a lot. I had hunted with him prior to this, but it was in spurts and fits. Now I’m more serious and am hunting with him in every season: archery, muzzleloader, and rifle. My archery escapades are laughable failures but I love them.
- In one hunt I actually managed to call in a doe to my stand only to contract such a case of buck fever that I shake enough that the arrow falls off its rest and plummets to the ground. During the same hunt, a raccoon climbs up the stand that dad is sitting in and tries to become friends. I hear this commotion from my tree and wonder what the heck is going on.
- Dad and I sit on a large hillside and he asks me if I would want to shoot a deer if one came out. I say yes and then promptly fall asleep. I am awakened by the thunderous roar of dad’s .270 Winchester: some 300 yards away a whitetail doe is in her final throes. I’m a bit miffed that I didn’t get to shoot (not that I could have made a 300 yd shot at the time) but am overjoyed that I get to drag the deer out of the woods. This becomes “my job” when dad and I hunt together and I relish it.
- I kill my first deer while sitting with dad next to a post oak tree. The buck fawn seemingly manifests out of nowhere as if it was meant just for me. After the smoke from the muzzleloader is cleared we don’t see the deer but we follow a blood trail that ends unexpectedly without a deer in sight. Dad eventually finds the deer, which has been the recipient of a perfect double-lung shot.
- Uncle Dan, learns that I have killed my first deer and passes down my grandpa’s hunting rifle: a Remington 760 Deluxe Carbine in .30-06 Springfield. The rifle kicks hard even to grown men but I feel as I have somehow just pulled Excalibur from the stone. Dad and Dan mowed lawns all summer when they were 12 years old and gave grandpa $100 to buy this rifle. Grandpa takes them to a pawn shop in Tulsa (Second Hand Rose, I believe) where dressed in his shabbiest clothes he buys the rifle and a Weaver K4 scope for a single century note. The rifle was used on my grandpa’s last deer hunt with dad and comes with the same Winchester Silvertip ammo that he carried with him. The rifle (“Grandpa’s Gun”) is later equipped with a $75 3-12x40mm BSA scope that I saved up for and becomes an extension of myself. I take dozens of deer with it and to this day it is the sporting arm that I have the most confidence with.
- Having taken my first deer and possessing my own rifle I am now obsessed beyond description. Our neighbor Monte offers to take me hunting at his place. We sit in a wooden box blind that Monte has built overlooking a wheat field. When a group of deer come out I have trouble finding the spike buck in the scope (I only have a buck tag) but eventually settle in and make the shot. I can see the deer is down but Monte is having trouble untying the string that keeps the door to the blind latched. I tell him, “Monte, get out of the way, I’ll kick it down!” This phrase lives in infamy. Monte and I both are on cloud nine. Monte shows me how to gut the deer which we do with dad’s old Buck Sharpfinger skinner—a knife that has cleaned 100’s of deer in its day.
- A Christmas, 1999 or After. My parents give me a Mossberg 500 pump shotgun in 12 gauge. We shoot clays with it a bit but I don’t think much of it until one snowy day after chasing critters with my bow my mom says “Why don’t you take the shotgun out?” I had never realized that this was even a possibility. I destroy countless pairs of jeans on greenbriars and barbed-wire fences while pursuing my new favorite game animal: cottontail rabbits. Once single day afield with the shotgun turns into a lifelong obsession with shotgunnery. Shortly thereafter one of my dad’s uncles (Don) gives me a MEC 700 shotshell loader and I am beyond redemption. Monte shares load data with me and I learn about the best 2 3/4” shotshell load ever to be developed, the Activ 1 5/8 oz load. Using this overpowered load (1 5/8 oz shot at 1330 FPS!) I chase every legal furred or feathered game animal in Oklahoma for a number of years. My mom kindly takes me squirrel hunting in the creek-bottom where we previously lived and later drives me to duck ponds to jump-shoot them.
- Winters Thereafter. My cousin Roger takes me along with him when he goes duck hunting and we set the world on fire. I managed to buy a Benelli Nova the first year that they came out via Gunbroker for $265 and $15 shipping from New York. The shotgun hook is set deep and Roger and I shoot clays and duck hunt year round. In some years I killed well over 100 birds per season by jump-shooting. We eat a lot of duck jerky. My best friend Andy gets in on the duck hunting gig and once we are old enough to drive we wear out the county roads in the “Duckmobile”--Andy’s white Toyota Corolla with a massive hole in the rear due to a run-in with a round-bale spear.
- Springs Thereafter. Dad and I begin turkey hunting. My first experience is brutal. Dad called in five jakes to within 10-15 yards and I somehow manage to miss. A few days later we take a hike to look for morels and I bring along a shotgun just in case. We encounter a gobbler and I kill it at 50 yards with promotional 7/8 oz target loads from Wal-Mart. Maybe turkey hunting isn’t so tough? Dad and I hunt turkeys hard after this and at one point make a double on turkeys during a thunderstorm. The birds gobbled every time it thundered and we belly-crawled out of a creek bottom to get close enough to take a shot. We manage to kill a bird apiece and are surprised to find that one of them is an Eastern subspecies and the other is a Rio Grande subspecies.
- Summers Thereafter. Mom, dad, Monte, Roger, Andy and I all sweat it out each September dove hunting. We burn truckloads of shells, eat endless plates of grilled bacon-wrapped dove breasts, and generally have the time of our lives. At one point I make the longest shotgun shot of my life after just winging a bird and wind up killing a dove at 107 yards with the third shot (no guff).
- November 2003. Dad, Monte, and I draw out on a lottery hunt for whitetails at the Cherokee Wildlife Management Area in Oklahoma. During a summer scouting trip to the location we see a nice buck and decide to hunt that spot. Opening morning the buck walks out at 265 yards and I unleash a fusillade from the pump-action Remington. The buck falls and dad and I celebrate. However, during the drag out we are forced to confront a very deep ditch. Dad climbs up the embankment and I heave the deer up to him. We then discover that he could have just walked around the cut-bank but finally make it to the truck, exhausted. We sit on the tailgate, admire the buck, and eat summer sausage, cheese, and crackers. Passersby gawk at the 9 pt and you can see that they are in fact jealous the 15 year-old. When we check the deer in at the station the attendant says, “Dang, did you throw the gun at him when it was empty?” I keep this as a mark of pride but eventually realize you don’t have to shoot every deer multiple times.
