Before moving to Alberta, I lived for many years on the west coast. I don't think I ever got used to the rainforest, or all the rain. When i moved to Alberta, I chose a place without mountains, trees, or rain. Of course there were adjustments to be made, but as hunting season came along, I was very excited about the prospects of hunting close to home, tons of game and no hunting pressure.
I was going through some old computer files today, spring cleaning I guess and I came across an article I had written my fist hunting season here. I thought some of you may enjoy it.
"Well, hunting season is drawing to a close and it certainly has been an interesting one for this nimrod.
Coming from the wet coast has meant some major adjustments to my methods and expectations. In British Columbia,
hunting season meant months of careful research and planning. My wife, "Yes Dear" really
gets excited about hunting season, much the same way a fish gets excited with the prospect of riding a bike.
She claims that listening to my ramblings about hunting plans does not expand her horizons, but it does increase her pain threshold. "Like being pecked to death by a chicken," is how she puts it
.
Now I know that we have not had a normal amount of moisture fall in our area,[I've quit looking for rainfall,] so I packed away my wet weather gear and went goose hunting. No flooded cornfields here, so on to plan B.
My motto is "Semper Gumby" ..always flexible. And people say 4 years of Latin was a waste of time.
We set our decoys carefully in the stubble field for our first hunt. I believe "If you build it ,they will come,"
and they did. They landed 50 yards out of gun range and proceeded to do the Macarena until they had kicked up so much dust my dog was hacking like he had a 2 pack habit.
Undaunted we set up in a new hotspot the very next day .Our decoy layout was the perfection of deception.
Locals leave their vehicles running while they shop or dine or visit with total disregard for the possibility of having it stolen, but apparently one must hide his truck from the geese. One of the things that is most frustrating to hunters is the complete disregard wildlife has for scheduling. We stashed the trucks and headed back to our set just in time to see the first wave of geese lift off the lake and fly into our set like a bunch of thugs, knocking over our decoys as they landed. They were early, we were late.
Undaunted we set up in a new hotspot the very next day. Our set was perfect. Our timing was perfect.
The geese were committed to landing. They were on the final approach. My retriever was shaking with
anticipation. They were closing fast. Whispers of "Wait, wait, don't move" rolled like mist across the stubble. One of the things that is most frustrating to hunters is the complete disregard that livestock has for hunters.
I never realized how curious Angus yearlings were. The geese had no intentions of rodeo stardom or I would have seen my very first stampede, up close and personal. The only place the geese had to land was on the backs of those cattle.
Undaunted I waited until opening day of deer season, only to find I was ill equipped. I watched several hunters on opening day and realized I had no wire cutters, not nearly enough ammo, and my truck was far too slow for deer hunting. When I got home I told "Yes Dear " of my dilemma. Instead of sympathy and understanding, I got suggestions. Why don't you do what you do every year she said. Ask permission, sight your rifle in, and walk. She is so smart!!! I tried it. It works. I use to live in a place where the "NO HUNTING" signs were more plentiful than the game and walking was actually a perfectly respectable way to hunt.
We have some friends living west of Richdale. He spots game for me and during the off season his hobby is cattle ranching. His loving wife spends her time selling Avon products and tending to Harvey. My wife asked Della for some aftershave samples for the light of her life. One sample I thought was especially made for me is called "Wild Country". It has a rugged, outdoor fragrance, slightly mysterious, much like myself. Go ahead and laugh if you must, but any time there is a rugged, mysterious, outdoor fragrance in the air "Yes Dear" always asks "Is that you".
Well, I tried it, and so begins the tale of Dopey the Berry Creek deer.
I spotted Dopey shortly before sunset. He was several hundred yards up the creek from the road, with six normal deer, one was a large buck. I grabbed my rifle and my binoculars, set my brain on stealth mode and set out to do what I had come to do. Hunt. After skillfully picking my way through the wild rose bushes for 20 minutes, I did my G. I. Joe crawl the last 100 yards or so to the deer. I switched to invisible mode and peered over a small knoll. Apparently my invisible mode wasn't working. Two deer peered back. One was a doe and the other was Dopey. He only had one miserable looking little antler on one side, and on the other side, no antler, and and ear sticking out at an odd angle. This boy was a "hurtin' unit".
. The other deer had vanished. When the doe walked off, Dopey followed. The deer were in the rut. I wonder which feminist scholar decided to call breeding season, the rut??? Anyway I decided to salvage what was left of the daylight and proceeded post haste to the truck. About halfway there, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. There was Dopey coming across the coulee towards me. I may not be the prettiest guy in the bar, but I could see that buck was trying to salvage what was left of the rut. The fool thought I was a doe. Since my invisible mode was malfunctioning I decided to hide. When Dopey had closed the gap to 10 yards I jumped up loudly proclaiming his error in judgement. He looked around to see if anyone had seen him make a fool of himself and then he hightailed it out of there. When he left I looked around to see if anyone had seen me make a fool of myself and I hightailed it out of there.
Like so many other hunters I'm sure, I was surprised to learn that Avon made a fragrance called "Doe in heat."
Dopey and his amorous advances, reminded me of the story about the young bull and the old bull. One day the young bull approached the old bull gloating with the news that the boss had bought a new bull to sire the herd. He enjoyed telling the
old bull of the new bull's prowess, lineage, and most of all his size. He delighted in telling the old bull that he was no longer to be the tough guy. The next day the liner arrived with the new bull. When the ramp was dropped, he was everything the young bull had said he was. He was as tall and as wide as the liner. He was pawing and snorting, bellowing and tossing his massive horns. The young bull watched in disbelief as the old bull pawed, and snorted and bellowed. "Are you crazy? You can't fight him." He yelled. The old bull
said "I'm not going to fight him you fool I just don't want him thinking I'm one of the cows."
I was going through some old computer files today, spring cleaning I guess and I came across an article I had written my fist hunting season here. I thought some of you may enjoy it.
"Well, hunting season is drawing to a close and it certainly has been an interesting one for this nimrod.
Coming from the wet coast has meant some major adjustments to my methods and expectations. In British Columbia,
hunting season meant months of careful research and planning. My wife, "Yes Dear" really
gets excited about hunting season, much the same way a fish gets excited with the prospect of riding a bike.
She claims that listening to my ramblings about hunting plans does not expand her horizons, but it does increase her pain threshold. "Like being pecked to death by a chicken," is how she puts it
.
Now I know that we have not had a normal amount of moisture fall in our area,[I've quit looking for rainfall,] so I packed away my wet weather gear and went goose hunting. No flooded cornfields here, so on to plan B.
My motto is "Semper Gumby" ..always flexible. And people say 4 years of Latin was a waste of time.
We set our decoys carefully in the stubble field for our first hunt. I believe "If you build it ,they will come,"
and they did. They landed 50 yards out of gun range and proceeded to do the Macarena until they had kicked up so much dust my dog was hacking like he had a 2 pack habit.
Undaunted we set up in a new hotspot the very next day .Our decoy layout was the perfection of deception.
Locals leave their vehicles running while they shop or dine or visit with total disregard for the possibility of having it stolen, but apparently one must hide his truck from the geese. One of the things that is most frustrating to hunters is the complete disregard wildlife has for scheduling. We stashed the trucks and headed back to our set just in time to see the first wave of geese lift off the lake and fly into our set like a bunch of thugs, knocking over our decoys as they landed. They were early, we were late.
Undaunted we set up in a new hotspot the very next day. Our set was perfect. Our timing was perfect.
The geese were committed to landing. They were on the final approach. My retriever was shaking with
anticipation. They were closing fast. Whispers of "Wait, wait, don't move" rolled like mist across the stubble. One of the things that is most frustrating to hunters is the complete disregard that livestock has for hunters.
I never realized how curious Angus yearlings were. The geese had no intentions of rodeo stardom or I would have seen my very first stampede, up close and personal. The only place the geese had to land was on the backs of those cattle.
Undaunted I waited until opening day of deer season, only to find I was ill equipped. I watched several hunters on opening day and realized I had no wire cutters, not nearly enough ammo, and my truck was far too slow for deer hunting. When I got home I told "Yes Dear " of my dilemma. Instead of sympathy and understanding, I got suggestions. Why don't you do what you do every year she said. Ask permission, sight your rifle in, and walk. She is so smart!!! I tried it. It works. I use to live in a place where the "NO HUNTING" signs were more plentiful than the game and walking was actually a perfectly respectable way to hunt.
We have some friends living west of Richdale. He spots game for me and during the off season his hobby is cattle ranching. His loving wife spends her time selling Avon products and tending to Harvey. My wife asked Della for some aftershave samples for the light of her life. One sample I thought was especially made for me is called "Wild Country". It has a rugged, outdoor fragrance, slightly mysterious, much like myself. Go ahead and laugh if you must, but any time there is a rugged, mysterious, outdoor fragrance in the air "Yes Dear" always asks "Is that you".
Well, I tried it, and so begins the tale of Dopey the Berry Creek deer.
I spotted Dopey shortly before sunset. He was several hundred yards up the creek from the road, with six normal deer, one was a large buck. I grabbed my rifle and my binoculars, set my brain on stealth mode and set out to do what I had come to do. Hunt. After skillfully picking my way through the wild rose bushes for 20 minutes, I did my G. I. Joe crawl the last 100 yards or so to the deer. I switched to invisible mode and peered over a small knoll. Apparently my invisible mode wasn't working. Two deer peered back. One was a doe and the other was Dopey. He only had one miserable looking little antler on one side, and on the other side, no antler, and and ear sticking out at an odd angle. This boy was a "hurtin' unit".
. The other deer had vanished. When the doe walked off, Dopey followed. The deer were in the rut. I wonder which feminist scholar decided to call breeding season, the rut??? Anyway I decided to salvage what was left of the daylight and proceeded post haste to the truck. About halfway there, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. There was Dopey coming across the coulee towards me. I may not be the prettiest guy in the bar, but I could see that buck was trying to salvage what was left of the rut. The fool thought I was a doe. Since my invisible mode was malfunctioning I decided to hide. When Dopey had closed the gap to 10 yards I jumped up loudly proclaiming his error in judgement. He looked around to see if anyone had seen him make a fool of himself and then he hightailed it out of there. When he left I looked around to see if anyone had seen me make a fool of myself and I hightailed it out of there.
Like so many other hunters I'm sure, I was surprised to learn that Avon made a fragrance called "Doe in heat."
Dopey and his amorous advances, reminded me of the story about the young bull and the old bull. One day the young bull approached the old bull gloating with the news that the boss had bought a new bull to sire the herd. He enjoyed telling the
old bull of the new bull's prowess, lineage, and most of all his size. He delighted in telling the old bull that he was no longer to be the tough guy. The next day the liner arrived with the new bull. When the ramp was dropped, he was everything the young bull had said he was. He was as tall and as wide as the liner. He was pawing and snorting, bellowing and tossing his massive horns. The young bull watched in disbelief as the old bull pawed, and snorted and bellowed. "Are you crazy? You can't fight him." He yelled. The old bull
said "I'm not going to fight him you fool I just don't want him thinking I'm one of the cows."
