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<\/a>\nI put him up in a tripod in a stand of cottonwoods along a stream, and then got well out of the way and down out of sight. Tracks in the mud indicated plenty of elk traffic. Elk need a lot of water so there was no reason to expect a very long wait. The tripod certainly stood out to me when I looked at it through binoculars, but elk cows strolled by it to drink, and ignored it. Obviously there would also be a nice bull around these cows. Then a bull appeared, and he was a big one. The cows and the bull continued to ignore the tripod. I expected the bull to drop any instant from an unmissable shot. Nothing happened. Then these elk wandered off, including the big bull. I wondered if I had the stupidest important client in the outfit\u2019s books. Then I saw the second bull coming. He was massive, like a vision from the Ice Ages. He ignored the tripod too.<\/p>\n
The second bull elk broke some records, and that was a good moment for me. It\u2019s good for business when the clients get to pick between more than one bull. After that, there was a lot of interest in hunting from stands. We soon found that if you put up a stand to kill elk, your best chance and really your only chance is the first time you sit in it. I never had anyone kill an elk out of the same tree stand twice, even if it was a great spot with bulls strolling by. After you\u2019ve shot one, you may as well take your stand down and move out. It\u2019s complicated but it\u2019s the way tree stands work.<\/p>\n
Later in my elk hunting career we switched from tree stands to ground blinds, which was just as innovative and effective as tripod stands. After years of being hunted from stands, the elk in the Breaks would stop in the open anywhere from 100 to 300 yards off and literally look in the trees for hunters. Ground blinds are basically camouflaged tents. You could put them up on Monday morning and get in them Monday afternoon and an elk would walk right past and never look twice. We put ground blinds around watering holes in September, when it\u2019s warm and the elk have to water fairly often, especially cows and calves. Elk take in a tremendous amount of water. Where the cows are, the bulls are. At first we put cameras on the blinds to see how the game reacted. The elk never paid any attention to the tents. So we started putting bow hunters in, and it was successful. We often had 100% success in 4 to 6 man bow hunts, where you would normally have a 20 to 30% success rate.<\/p>\n
As a quick explanation of this kind of guiding, not a full explanation, the guide does not take the shot. As a hunting guide I would take a client or an entire party of clients where they had to go, to hunt the animals they were paying to hunt with a rifle or a bow. Elk, bear and turkey are some of the stars of these adventures but there are also mule deer, pronghorn, mountain goat and other game. They might have to pack in for days, perhaps on horseback, to reach the remote places the outfit leased for hunting. They might be experienced hunters, or amateur hunters, or novices. \u00a0Montana is huge. When you\u2019re remote in Montana, you\u2019re really remote. Guides are licensed and there are regulations, but for the clients it\u2019s a particular kind of freedom. Some find it the adventure of a lifetime. Some fall in love and come back again and again to hire a guide and be taken out. It\u2019s not cheap, so most clients are at least rich and some are preposterously rich. Other clients save up for years just for the chance to go one time. It\u2019s not for the guide to figure out why they want to go. There are many possible reasons of all kinds. But whatever the client\u2019s motives are, for the guide it boils down to the client getting a bear or an elk or a mule deer or whatever they paid for, and\u2014number one\u2014getting back safely, because these are not easy trips and losing a client is not one of the options.<\/p>\n
I seldom had any occasion to shoot an animal myself in Montana. I love hunting, but I probably prefer fishing. Soon I was a professional fly fishing guide in fishing season and hunting guide in hunting season. Fishing guides in Montana have some of the best trout rivers in the world, the Madison, Big Hole (formerly the Wisdom River), Three Forks, Beaverhead, many spots that were legendary even before Lewis and Clark renamed them. Fishing trips are generally very pleasant and more relaxed compared to pack horsing into the Breaks for elk in unstable weather. Fly fishing is fun to learn. It can be fun to fail at it, even if you don\u2019t snag a big trout. Hunting and fishing trips are basically about happiness, some sort of vintage happiness that our remotest ancestors were familiar with and loved.<\/p>\n
Luck is a terrifyingly important thing and there\u2019s no explanation for it. The story of Oz started at Nameless Creek Ranch, after I terminated my lease for the fall season due to low bookings. I still had one bear hunt to do in ten days, so I was hanging around for that. Then I got a surprise knock on the door from Lee, a fellow outfitter. Lee was a former professor at Montana State, one of the oldest outfitters in Montana, famous for his horse packing and a pioneer in using weed-free hay in the back country, hay that didn\u2019t contain knotweed and other noxious plants.<\/p>\n That day, Lee was in dire need of a guide. He had a tent full of hunters whose guide had fallen off a horse\u2014which is easier than it sounds even for a professional\u2014and hurt himself pretty bad. The hunt was south of Bozeman in the Gateway area bordering Yellowstone National Park, an hour and a half drive away. I did not hesitate to sign on.<\/p>\n When we got to Lee\u2019s place the clients were waiting for us in the parking lot. Everybody was ready to go, but the horses weren\u2019t packed. I took a packing school course before leasing the Nameless Creek Ranch with 12 horses, but I was almost scared to pack Lee\u2019s horses in front of his face. \u201cYou pack your side and I\u2019ll pack my side, don\u2019t worry about it,\u201d he said. So that\u2019s what we did. It worked out better than I would have hoped. We had a seven mile horseback ride into camp. About two miles into the ride, on a piece of land I had never seen, Lee in the back of the string said, \u201cI think I found myself a packer.\u201d\u00a0 It was a real boost to my spirits, which I badly needed since I was not yet experienced at leading a pack string.<\/p>\n We got where we were going, and set up camp fast enough for a short hunt at the end of the afternoon. Lee sent me out with a couple of guys, which showed a lot of faith since I\u2019d never before laid eyes on the Yellowstone boundary country towards Onion Mountain. But it was important to get the clients out. They were delayed by their first guide\u2019s horse wreck and they were excited. So we rode out, got well off the trail, tied the horses up and took a walk, just getting the clients out. We hiked in a rough circle and came back to the horses from the other side, which amazed them, like some nearly impossible feat.<\/p>\n It was a good start to an adventure for everyone involved. As that seven-day hunt progressed, I saw five grizzlies over the course of the week. The first one I saw was asleep on his back one morning, no harm in him. Next day another one walked across the trail in front of us. Then the grizzly that caused this story turned up on Onion Mountain, where I had two clients, Oz and his brother, with me.<\/p>\n We saw elk the day before on this spot, a real nice saddle, nice park, wallows, waterhole, all the things elk want. We left Oz in a ground stand with instructions to be quiet and watch for his shot while I took Oz\u2019s brother and the horses on a long loop across the backside of the saddle, elk-calling. Calling elk is very effective and I had reasonable hopes of getting an elk going in the direction of the saddle. But it didn\u2019t work that day, and just before dark we got back to Oz\u2019s ground stand to pick him up so we could go back to camp for dinner. I did a half-assed elk call so Oz would know we were on the trail and walk out. I got no response. Called out again, and saw some movement where Oz\u2019s ground stand was. But the movement appeared to be a buffalo.<\/p>\n I remember thinking, why in hell is there a buffalo on top of this mountain? Then I saw a couple of cubs and realized it was an enormous female grizzly with a hump like a buffalo. I immediately dropped the lead of Oz\u2019s horse and told Oz\u2019s brother to quietly walk back down the trail, because there was a grizzly on top of us. \u00a0He fully understood the need to leave, but we were out of time. The sow charged immediately and hit the waterhole directly in front of us, water flying everywhere. One cub was sticking very close to her. I expected the horses to go berserk on the spot, but Lee\u2019s horses were excellent stock. The horses stood their ground and no rodeo broke out though the grizzly charged as close as 30 or 40 feet from us before she stopped, turned, and walked away.<\/p>\n We started yelling for Oz not to come out after all, because there was a grizzly sow with cubs between him and us. There was nothing to do, it was just about dark, we had no canned mace, no gun, my client had a bow and that was it. I was thinking the worst, everything pointed to the absolute worst. The bear went back into the woods exactly where it came out, approximately on top of Oz\u2019s canvas ground stand.<\/p>\n I felt terrible. No one word really describes it. Oz\u2019s brother was concerned too. We sat there concerned as hell, with an empty horse between us. The client expects you, as the professional hunting guide, to have a good practical idea of some sort for all the situations. This was just such a moment. We had nothing to chase this bear off with. If we tried to reach Oz we might soon need help too. It was a bitter decision to turn and go back down to the camp, and tell Oz\u2019s brother-in-law and his best friend, plus the cook and the other guide, that Oz was missing next to half a ton of pissed-off grizzly. But the odds favored that choice, so that\u2019s what we did.<\/p>\n The rest of the party weren\u2019t happy when we got back to camp and told them where matters stood. Since the other guide had a rifle in camp, he and I decided to head back to the scene. It was probably ten o\u2019clock at night by then. Of course Oz\u2019s relatives wanted to come too, but we told them to stay in camp with the cook and pray. At least the cook had a pistol.<\/p>\n The saddle on Onion Mountain was close to three miles away. About halfway there Lee\u2019s guide, who knew the area, pulled up. \u201cMan, I know what Lee would say. If Oz is dead, we\u2019re going in on a grizzly and cubs sitting on a fresh kill site. This isn\u2019t smart.\u201d<\/p>\n I was convinced at once, but neither of us wanted to go back again and tell the clients that we changed our minds in the dark. So Lee\u2019s guide decided to ride all the way to Lee\u2019s main camp and get help, while I stayed there on the trail. I picked a little spot, lit a fire, got the saddle off the horse and laid down on it just like you see in the movies, thinking the absolute worst. I was 100% certain Oz was dead. I couldn\u2019t imagine anything else. I slept a little bit off and on. About 3:30 it began to get light, and I got up and started saddling the horse. Before I got started, my fellow guide came back with Lee and an off-duty policeman. This is a story about luck.<\/p>\n They were all loaded up with shotguns, which is the best defense against a bear in a situation like this. We had a conversation. Lee, as required by law, called the park service in the middle of the night with his emergency, and the rangers told him the Onion Mountain female had a history, cuffed a hiker recently, was a risky bear. Nobody from the park service wanted anything to do with it. If the rangers went up there and encountered a kill site and a charging grizzly, they would have to shoot it, which they hate to do. But since everything pointed to a fatality, an off-duty police officer went instead, with a helicopter available in case.<\/p>\n Now that there were four of us, armed and mounted, we rode straight to the encounter spot. The grizzly tracks in the mud were just enormous, massive huge tracks the size of pie pans. In the fresh light we could see the ground stand, which didn\u2019t seem to be disturbed. We hollered out, \u201cOz, Oz,\u201d as loud as we could, and Oz crawled out of the shelter.<\/p>\n \u201cHey, you guys left me here all night,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Oz told us that he got too comfortable lying out in the snow and rocks waiting for elk, so he crawled into the shelter, curled up and went to sleep. He figured if a trophy elk came by he would wake up in time. But when he woke up, it was the middle of the night with nobody around, so he had no choice but to wait until we came back to get him. He fell asleep again and woke up a second time when he heard us calling him. The story of Oz. No bears in his version of it.<\/p>\n Most people don\u2019t associate bear hunting with calling but it\u2019s extremely effective. Just like turkeys and elk in some areas, you can accidentally educate bears to ignore calls by calling too much, and that has happened a lot in the west on bears. In the east we don\u2019t have the spring season to correlate but people do call them in the fall. I wonder if this developed by accident out west where people would be elk hunting using a cow call or a calf call and lo and behold a bear would come in. People started realizing that bears were coming in to predate that elk calf. Since they will also come in to eat their own young, a bear cub squall was the next logical step. There are exceptions to every rule, but most of the time when a bear comes in to a call he comes in charging. Most of the experienced clients I have taken would hunt bear with a shotgun. I believe the hunter\u2019s faith is a big factor in the outcome. Most bear come in hard and fast and it can be difficult to get a rifle on them over open sights, but using a shotgun is effective. Most bears coming in to calls are males. They\u2019re coming in to kill something and extremely excited. Where you have killed an elk and gutted it, you could come back the next day and you might catch a bear on it. That latter method is not considered baiting but just a natural practice.<\/p>\n When I was a kid, the two things I most desperately wanted to do in life were to become a professional hunting guide, and to become a cowboy. I grew up on cowboy television\u2014we were the Rowdy Yates generation\u2014so even as a child I wanted to be a cowboy.\u00a0 I am proof that you do not have to give up your childhood dreams. You really can do those things, as long as you don\u2019t give up. I tried other possible lives first\u2014I tried going to school, tried being a business owner and a manager. But I never gave up, and I lived my dream. Soon I got to be a cowboy. It was easy to find ranch work outside hunting and fishing seasons. Work is all ranchers have and there\u2019s enough for everyone.<\/p>\n I was about to say finding ranch work in Montana is about as easy as falling off a horse, but falling off a horse isn\u2019t really funny. It\u2019s not surprising how easy finding ranch work is, because you get to sleep in a shed with several other guys, some of whom probably have too much character, and live on pale turkey sandwiches and coffee for weeks at a time, doing the toughest physical labor for twelve or fifteen hours a day, sometimes in crippling weather. All this for the chance to make about $4 an hour. I look at my chronic disabilities and injuries, arthritis, medical conditions, scars etc., and know exactly how it happened. Cowboys get torn up. Some don\u2019t make it for even two seasons.\u00a0 Others go on to the end.<\/p>\n This is a story about Willie and the dreams he lived. Willie grew up on a ranch in Montana. As soon as he could, he left the ranch and became a rodeo rider. He was a solid young professional for years, riding the rodeo. Obviously he was never famous but he lived the life he chose until spine damage and repeated bone fractures made rodeo impossible and there were no more paydays. Willie went back to ranching, got married and divorced, got married and divorced again, had some children he didn\u2019t ever get to know along the way, and lost his ranch.<\/p>\n Willie became a game guide because he saw other people he knew making a lot of money doing it. The fees were real money and the tips alone could set a fellow up nicely. He got quite well known as a game guide, and in the off seasons it was good fun to go to Las Vegas with Willie, get snorted up on face powder and spend all your money. His rodeo injuries meant a life of chronic pain, so he didn\u2019t feel bound to spare himself any fun he could manage to have. He was bringing in nice cash but he was broke again every time you met him.<\/p>\n There\u2019s areas south of Butte where the mountainsides are pitted with old prospector test digs. These conical pits are steep-sided from erosion and often 10 or 12 feet deep. Being comfortably well away from anywhere, it\u2019s great big game country and particularly good for bear. Willie took clients there and on one of these trips he got his client lined up with a rifle shot on a particularly massive bear minding its own business in plain view. All the client had to do was pull the trigger. When Willie\u2019s hunter fired, the bear flopped over and disappeared into one of the old test pits. It was a great shot, Willie said. Dropped the bear like a rock. They walked down to the pit and there was the bear at the bottom, obviously dead and laid out against the slope as nicely as if an undertaker had done it.<\/p>\n Willie liked to carry a rifle in case of unforeseen need, though guide regulations prohibit the guide himself from hunting. Since he couldn\u2019t get down into the pit to recover the carcass carrying a rifle, he slung it over his shoulder before sliding down next to the bear. There was just room for the two of them. The bear was as limp as dead things are, and he could not budge it. The client wanted a photo with the bear, of course, but both of them together couldn\u2019t haul this trophy out of a steep pit with the rope they had. After a brief discussion, the client, still somewhat dazed by his own successful shot, agreed that just the skin would be trophy enough. Willie got out his skinning knife and made the first incision at the top of one of the paws. That\u2019s when the bear woke up.<\/p>\n The bear leaned forward and wrapped his jaws around Willie\u2019s head. His head more or less fit inside the bear\u2019s mouth, the upper teeth were locked in his scalp, and the bear was trying to crush his skull. Willie struggled to unsling his rifle but there wasn\u2019t enough room, pinned down by an ice-age creature at least seven times his own body weight.<\/p>\n \u201cI was sure I was going to die,\u201d Willie told me the next time I met him. I did not recognize him at first. \u201cIt was too dark to see. He got a better purchase every time he clomped down. My head was about to pop like a grape. I hoped my hunter had enough sense to shoot the bear again. He was only twelve feet away. I also figured he might just as likely shoot me instead. I\u2019ll never forget that minute of my life. But he did shoot the bear.\u201d<\/p>\n The client also saved Willie\u2019s life by getting him down off the mountain. The stitches were countless and the fractured skull took longer to heal than the gouges on his face. The scar on his head where the bear ripped his scalp off was truly impressive and the first thing that caught your attention now.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the doctors was stupid enough to ask me if I minded looking like this,\u201d Willie said. \u201cI\u2019m not dead, and it wasn\u2019t my choice, and I don\u2019t have to look at myself anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n It was the end of guiding, though. He had nothing left but cowboy work. His wrecked spine made riding an agony, whether by horse or ATV. He woke up in pain and went to bed in pain every day. The best way to get to know him in that late period of his life was to be the guy driving him to the health clinic, which in Montana is always 80 miles away no matter where you live, to fill his pain prescriptions when he was too wracked up to drive himself.<\/p>\n I\u2019m making Willie sound like a liability. That\u2019s just my own bitterness coming out. There\u2019s nothing about horses and cattle Willie didn\u2019t know. Willie was the first person you would pick to work with in an emergency. He was reliable, unflinching, and one of the best cowboys anywhere. He lived in an old trailer that didn\u2019t need fixing up, and from season to season he came in out of the purple hills and the sagebrush flats to get ranch work. He was a cowboy to the end, and it ended with Willie\u2019s last horse wreck, the worst smashup we\u2019d ever seen. Willie was flung and stomped. He nearly bled out on the 80 mile drive to the clinic. Head crushed again. All the usual bones broken again.<\/p>\n Willie, now living on opiates, wasn\u2019t supposed to be able to drive. He was supposed to just ride his wheelchair from then on. But somehow he managed to get into his jeep, reach his favorite mountaintop before dawn, and watch the winter sun come up, looking down toward Beaverhead, the same view Lewis and Clark wrote about.\u00a0 He left a phone message so they would know where to find him.<\/p>\n The biggest thing when stalking any animal, whether it be whitetail deer or antelope or mule deer\u2014or out west we stalked turkeys, which is hard to do in the east\u2014the big secret is never to cheat. It\u2019s the kiss of death. You might see an animal 500 yards away, but you have to walk a thousand yards or half a mile to swing around out of sight to get within shooting range. It can take an hour or more and you wonder if it\u2019s still there. It\u2019s so tempting to shortcut the stalk and just ease over the ridge and peek to see if it\u2019s still there. And guess what, you just blew your hunt. Especially in my early days I made that mistake many times and learned to never cheat. You make your plan and stick to it and when you get there, if he\u2019s not there, you still know where he was and the game can start over again, as long as he\u2019s unaware of you. Never ever cheat.<\/p>\n Glasses are critical, because game animals have better senses and far superior vision. Remaining unseen is essential, and even then, after a good stalk, you may only have a few seconds of encounter. You can\u2019t get away with any gun movement. Practice is the only way to get that down. Most hunters use 8 or 10 power magnification. 12 X is harder to keep stable but you can use your fist as a tripod instead of holding the binoculars in your hands. Spotting scopes can be a huge advantage since they\u2019re usually 20 to 60 X. When the digital cameras came out, the spotting scope became an awesome tool. I have made spots over a mile away. You can set the spotting scope up, take a picture through the eyepiece with a digital camera, and then zoom the picture up on the camera. That way, if the client is looking for a trophy buck, literally you can show the client to decide if this is the animal they want. It\u2019s also nice to have the live picture if you decide to harvest that animal.<\/p>\n I had hundreds of clients over the years, and I liked almost all of them. Quite a few were wealthy. Some were famous, but most were not. Some became enduring friends. I always had plenty of repeat visitors. A successful hunting or fishing trip puts people in a friendly mood, and you can still have a great time when the fish don\u2019t bite and game makes itself scarce, and there\u2019s always next year. I could go on forever about the interesting people I met and all the good times we had. These were peak experiences for most, lifelong dreams happening, and I always felt privileged to provide that. They rarely asked why I was a guide, but that was why.<\/p>\n Some things don\u2019t really need a reason. Even if you never cast for trout in your life, nobody has to ask why someone would want to float the Madison River or Big Hole. It\u2019s obvious. I never needed any reason to hunt, though you could speculate why someone from Los Angeles or New York would want to hunt bear ten miles from the nearest road. People have their reasons and they came to me to fulfill their dream, not to explain their dream.<\/p>\n Occasionally the dreamer gets slapped with reality. My only season at Jim\u2019s Big Elk Camp, for example. All names made up. I only knew Jim by reputation when he hired me for the October rifle season along with my friend Case, two other guides I didn\u2019t know, and a cook. Jim\u2019s outfit had a reputation for packing hunters in and out all fall. Lots of hunters were headed our way. I still hadn\u2019t met Jim in person when he phoned and asked me to come to camp a week early and get things set up. \u201cThe trailer\u2019s ready for you,\u201d Jim said, \u201ckey\u2019s under the log, generator\u2019s running, completely supplied, food, radio, pretty much anything you want.\u201d The invitation sounded reasonable so I showed up a week early. There was no one around at all. I retrieved the key from under the log, let myself into the trailer, and found nearly nothing in there, not a scrap of food. Maybe a couple of mice. The furniture was the least it could be.<\/p>\n I spent the next couple of days straightening things up and getting the camp ready for hunters. By Day Three I was pretty hungry. I tried to console myself thinking at least I had plenty of water. The weather was cold but not disastrously cold. Then my pal Case showed up. He was a bit dismayed to discover there wasn\u2019t any supper. He went foraging harder than I did and found three cans of bean chili in a back closet.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t eat that,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s been freezing and re-thawing for years, maybe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d Case said. \u201cWe can\u2019t eat that.\u201d<\/p>\n The next day\u2014Day Four for me\u2014we changed our minds and split a can of the chili. I was sorry to have to be eating that but nothing bad happened. We were lucky.<\/p>\n The following day the third guide showed up, we\u2019ll call him Beck. He had the ATVs and other equipment on a trailer, but no camp food. \u201cI guess you guys never worked for Jim before,\u201d Beck said. \u201cThe food\u2019s never there. He\u2019s afraid we\u2019ll gorge ourselves and drink up all the Scotch, so he brings it himself.\u201d<\/p>\n Beck had his own provisions, which he immediately shared. This was honestly generous. He knew we\u2019d eat most of it on the spot. His provisions turned out to be home-made mule deer jerky, in the familiar tainted teriyaki flavor, and some pickled eggs. Case and I thought it was Thanksgiving. \u00a0Jerky never tasted so good.\u00a0 I had no idea I\u2019d ever eat pickled eggs. We were crazy grateful.<\/p>\n The day after that, the cook and the fourth guide, a guy named Clowder, showed up. Cookie expected Jim to already be there with a month\u2019s food and beer on the back of a truck.\u00a0 \u201cLooks like Jim\u2019s late again,\u201d Cookie said. \u201cHow come you guys didn\u2019t drive back to town?\u201d<\/p>\n Case and I had been debating about whether to have any money or not. Money was a scarce commodity. Case\u2019s cows ate up his money like hay, and feeding us would have busted me at that stage of my career.<\/p>\n \u201cI got a camp account,\u201d Cookie said. \u201cMe and Clowder\u2019ll drive back and get something to eat.\u201d It was ninety miles to town, so they started off immediately. They didn\u2019t even unpack first.<\/p>\n The day passed and we saw nothing of Cookie. Same with the night. Next morning, hours went by. We started worrying that Cookie might not show up at all. But, late in the day, Cookie appeared, badly hung over. We asked why Clowder was no longer with him.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Clowder met a gal in the bar last night and went off to get married,\u201d Cookie said. \u201cI got no faith in Clowder. Jim\u2019s gonna be a guide short again this year. You guys look starved. I\u2019ll make supper just as quick as I possibly can.\u201d We helped carry the groceries into the kitchen and then stood back to let Cookie work his magic.<\/p>\n The delicious odor of scrambled eggs filled the trailer along with another smell\u2014the bland and lowly stink from the other two cans of re-thawed beans. Cookie served us scrambled eggs and last year\u2019s chili for dinner. He seemed a little hurt when we complained.<\/p>\n The next morning Jim showed up with all the missing food and drink. Some of us felt we had very little to say to Jim. He also had the first two clients, a father-son trip. After starving in the trailer the longest, I had first pick getting out of Jim\u2019s Big Elk Camp. I couldn\u2019t wait. We all shook hands and named ourselves. I loaded the truck and we set out on a carefully chosen jeep trail winding up into the Breaks. The father sat in the passenger seat and the son sat in the rear seat. The plan was to bump up the jeep trail for about two hours, then set up camp. Hunting would commence on foot from there. It would not be warm and might get briefly icy, but if you\u2019re camping out of a truck you can carry more than enough weight to be cozy. Meanwhile, I realized I already knew this guy\u2019s name, like everybody else who watches enough TV or reads the news much. He wasn\u2019t trying to make a secret of who he was or back down from it. Even now, you too would know exactly who he was after a context-remembering minute. One of them.<\/p>\n Fasting heightens the spiritual senses. After the unplanned fasting in Jim\u2019s trailer, I had serious questions on my mind, the Great Whys: why me, why them, why this, why now, why here, and so forth. The real answers to these questions surely must exist, and the complexity of the answers must be amazing.<\/p>\n The father was easy to get along with, a little reserved, confident by nature. Father and son, all their gear was brand new. The kid, who was going on 15, had never seen wild land like this before in his life. He was more than up for it. He was too absorbed to talk. It was a rare experience for his dad too. In my elevated fasting condition, I plainly saw how the licenses, the hunting equipment, the plane tickets, the rentals, trip accommodations and everything else was expertly arranged by skillful office managers as part of a flawless setup.<\/p>\n Over the next couple of days we mainly talked about the weather and the landscape and animals we saw. My picture of my hunters got more elaborate. Dad had no idea about hunting and did not care one way or another. Golf keeps some people fit for walking on real ground, but\u2014how can I put this\u2014except for golf courses, Dad\u2019s shoes probably never touched any natural surfaces. \u00a0He was overconfident, because things can happen, guide or no guide. But things were developing as a typical trip with no problems, even though both my hunters were novices.\u00a0 I\u2019m sensitive to guns, because an untrained person with a weapon is a walking menace, but Dad\u2019s safety speech on the first hunt set the tone. The guns were never to be loaded. When the guide pointed out game, the kid was supposed to load his gun and get ready to be told what to do next. Dad even checked the kid\u2019s gun from time to time to make sure it was empty.<\/p>\n This skinny kid, as tall as his father, just got out of a month-long rifle camp run by the company that manufactured his rifle. Though one of the youngest people at gun camp, he had much more formal training carrying a weapon than I did. But the gun wasn\u2019t loaded. You can picture the results over the next two days. We had a decent number of chances and the kid could load the rifle in a snap, but still too long.<\/p>\n Elk are funny. You can stalk elk, and you might find a big bull resting in the shade. You can eat lunch and the bull might still be lying there. You can also hunt from a blind. But my hunters were novices, so all we could hope for was an encounter type of shot. Then the kid would load his rifle, it would be too late, and he would unload the rifle again. So far, he\u2019d done everything he was told with no complaints\u2014which is miraculous at that age\u2014and he still trusted us.<\/p>\n On the final day of the hunt, in rough cut terrain, we had one more chance. We walked up on a huge bull surrounded by his harem of cows at the mouth of a ravine. The bull didn\u2019t spot us for a full three seconds. Then the whole gang disappeared up the gully. The kid was a good sport about these outcomes.<\/p>\n I had an idea where the gang would come out of the ravine, if somebody stayed where we were and held an unloaded rifle. Dad was perfect for that role. I led the kid off, and as soon as we were out of sight I told him to load the gun. There was no particular hurry. The ridge offered a low shoulder not too far in front of us. If the elk headed for the horizon like a Kentucky Derby, which is something that can happen with pronghorn, we would have no chance anyway. But that\u2019s not what elk do. We crawled up on top of the shoulder, with the exit from the ravine in plain view. In a few minutes the bull trotted out with all his cows. He saw us immediately, even though we were laid flat. The kid shot him in the neck right at the base of the skull. The bull folded up and the cows fled away.<\/p>\n He was far too large to carry out. I took photos, and we cut the quarters out with the head. It was five loads. After our first two trips, he did the last carry by himself. Dad was completely satisfied. He never doubted things would work out perfectly either, no more than the kid. They both assumed the right outcome was inevitable. And so it was. They could not have been more pleased, and at the end of the trip the father tipped me five grand, in hundreds.<\/p>\n I could end it there, except the Why question still bothered me. He wasn\u2019t trying to act out the big hunter. Was he doing this out of pure love for his kid?<\/p>\n As we returned to Jim\u2019s Big Elk Camp, the kid said from the back seat, \u201cDad, what do you think of screwdrivers?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThink of screwdrivers? As a tool? Sometimes there\u2019s no other tool.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, Dad. The vodka and the orange juice.\u201d<\/p>\n The kid was trying to start an adult conversation. For the first time on this trip, the dad looked a little confused. \u201cI like screwdrivers OK,\u201d he said. \u201cDid you like your first hunt?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI did. It was pretty good. I guess I could have enjoyed it more but, well… maybe I shouldn\u2019t talk about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, go on. I need to know.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s kind of embarrassing to talk about. See, all I ever really think about is pussy. I seem to be unable to stop thinking about it. Is that really normal? I\u2019m kinda worried. Am I gonna be obsessed about stuff like that for the rest of my life?\u201d<\/p>\n The expression on his father\u2019s face was literally human. This is why you hire a guide.<\/p>\n \u201cThe elk in the back of this truck had nine cows lined up,\u201d I said. \u201cWhich is normal for a bull that size.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Mawyer<\/strong> is a retired big-game and fishing guide who lives in Covesville, Virginia.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nOz<\/h2>\n
Speaking of Bear<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/h2>\nWillie<\/h2>\n
No Cheating<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/h2>\nThe Father and the Son<\/h2>\n
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