Written by:  Tom at Base Camp Legends

When two worlds meet it can create for interesting times.  Well, the world my wife came from was drastically different than the world I was raised in.  The collision of these two worlds came during the first year of hunting season during the first year of our marriage.  Elk [...]]]>

Written by:  Tom at Base Camp Legends

When two worlds meet it can create for interesting times.  Well, the world my wife came from was drastically different than the world I was raised in.  The collision of these two worlds came during the first year of hunting season during the first year of our marriage.  Elk season rolled around, and I was doing my best to be a responsible and dutiful husband, but the computer kept leaping in front of me and forcing me to watch hunting shows – once in a while.  Nothing extreme.  My wife thought it was a little extreme, but I assure you I never watched more than two consecutive dvds.  Unless it was absolutely necessary.  The season rolled around and I was excited to introduce my new bride to this way of life that I love so much.  We planned the hunt – I had my spot picked out, I had my rifle, my ammo, my clothes, everything I needed.  The night before the hunt, my wife wanted to make sure I’d packed everything. 

Wife: “Where’s our lunch?
Me: “In my pack.”
Wife:  Digs through pack. “All I see are a couple snack crackers.”
Me: “Yeah.  That’s lunch.  And supper if I get one and we’re late coming out.”
Wife:  Sighs and starts making sandwiches.
Me: “What are you doing? There’s plenty of food there.”
Wife: “No there’s not.”
Me: With the intuitiveness to understand that this debate is over,  I returned my gaze to the screen where another bull came screaming to the calls of some TV hunting star.  The hunter comes to full draw - 
Wife: “Did you pack water?”
Me: “Uh huh.”
Wife: “Where?”
Me: “Uh huh.”
Wife: Standing in front of computer monitor while I strain my neck to see around her, “Where is the water?”
Me: “You’re in the way.”
Wife: “No I’m not.”
Me: Intuitiveness pays off again.  “Umm, in the big pack.  Sweetie.”
Wife: “You should go to bed.  We have to wake up early.”
Me: “Uh huh.”
Wife:  Rolls her eyes and sighs. 

So the morning comes around, (as it’s bound to do) and I am thinking like I’m going hunting by myself still – I mean that I have prepared the way I’ve prepared for every other season.  I take the bare minimum and what I forgot, I do without.  Unfortunately, the weather looked rather ominous as we made our way into the woods on an early fall morning.  The higher we climbed, the worse it got.  Pretty soon snow started to fall and my first premonitions of something not going quite right began weighing heavy on my shoulders.  I glanced at my new bride.  She was sleeping in the passenger seat.  “Well, that’s ok,” I thought, “she just doesn’t quite have the same excitement and anticipation of this days events that I do, but that’s ok.  She’s making an effort and that’s all I can ask for.” 

We started our hike up the ridge in the dark.  I’m 6’1” and have long legs.  My wife is 4’11” (she says she’s 5’ – I’m not sure about that) and has – well, I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about women’s legs.  Let’s just say she takes short strides when hiking.  I took off up the mountain and after five minutes I turn to look at my wife – but she’s a hundred yards behind me.  It was trying on my patience – I wanted to get to my hunting spot by daylight.  I repeated to myself, “She’s making an effort and that’s all I can ask for.”  I waited for her to catch up, then asked her if she could hike any faster. 
Alright, ladies, calm down.  I realize – my mistake.  Won’t happen again. 

I took off again at a slower pace, but I kept getting way ahead of her.  My legs and lungs were used to this as I grew up charging up mountains after elk.  I think my wife had never given a thought about elk until she met me – and even then very briefly.  Daylight was just breaking and I was a long ways from where I wanted to be and I was doing my best to not be selfish – but it wasn’t working.  I was wondering how anyone could hike so slow, and when she caught up with me again, she said, “I need to go to the bathroom.” 

“Ok.  Hurry.” 

The temperature was hovering around freezing – and the “hurry” just slipped out.  I didn’t mean it.  But her glance told me that was a bit of an unreasonable request.  As I understand it, it is a little more of a process for a lady to go to the bathroom in the mountains than a guy.  Something that escaped my line of thinking at the moment. 

We made it up to the top of the ridge and it started getting real cold.  Then wet.  It would have been fine if it snowed – but this was that wet sleeting stuff that soaks you to the bone.  Combine all ingredients with temperatures around 33 or 34 and you get the makings of a real miserable day.  I was beginning to wonder what I was doing up here on the mountain.  I’m sure that question had entered my wife’s mind shortly after leaving the Jeep – now her question was likely somewhere along the lines of “Why did I say, ‘I do’?”  Instead, she mildly asked, “Can you get the rain slickers out?” 

I stopped in mid stride.  Rain slickers?  Right!  I dug in my pack and grabbed a plastic garbage sack I keep in my pack to carry meat in.  I cut a hole in the top and handed it to her. 

Wife: “Are you serious?”
Me:  “Are you wet and cold?”
Wife: Puts ‘rain slicker’ on.  

By the time we got to where I wanted to sit, the ground was sloppy muddy.  I got out another garbage bag and laid in on the ground and proceeded to sit on it.  My wife, getting used to the idea of how we were going to do things on this trip, hesitantly sat beside me.  The fog began to roll in and it was the thick stuff.  After 30 minutes, we couldn’t see much further than 20 yards. 

Wife: “What are we doing out here?”
Me: “Umm…I don’t know.”
Wife: :”Let’s go home.”
Me: “But elk might like this weather.”
Wife: “But you couldn’t see them unless they were right in front of you!”
Me :  “But -.”  No comeback.  She had a point.  She’s a fast learner and might make a good hunter, yet! 

I do admire her for trudging along that day – as it was about as miserable a day as it could possibly be, and combined with my terrible organizational skills, and being her first time hunting, it could have destroyed her desire to ever enjoy the outdoors again.  Instead, she has accompanied me on numerous occasions since then, but she packs her own pack, now.  I can’t quite figure out where she got this lack of trust in me taking care of both of us.

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Darlene Davidson, who lives at Eagle Lake, said she “loves camping on the Mississippi River” and this is one of the reasons why. She saw these deer swimming and running a few weekends ago in our great outdoors. (Photos by readers are submitted to The Vicksburg Post and I have been [...]]]> From Marian’s Hunting Stories, etc.

Darlene Davidson, who lives at Eagle Lake, said she “loves camping on the Mississippi River” and this is one of the reasons why. She saw these deer swimming and running a few weekends ago in our great outdoors. (Photos by readers are submitted to The Vicksburg Post and I have been fortunate to have had a few listed) Charming, Just Charming! (Click on picture to enlarge)

Written by: Kristine at Gun Safety Innovations & the Outdoor Bloggers Summit

When Jody asked for guest bloggers she mentioned that if you wrote a guest post while she was away you would be required to write something funny. Now, writing humor is not my forté but I did promise Jody a guest post and I [...]]]>

Written by: Kristine at Gun Safety Innovations & the Outdoor Bloggers Summit

When Jody asked for guest bloggers she mentioned that if you wrote a guest post while she was away you would be required to write something funny. Now, writing humor is not my forté but I did promise Jody a guest post and I like to keep my promises. So, I guess I’ll tell you the story of perhaps the most embarrassing and, at least years later, funny thing that ever happened to me in the woods.

Several years ago I convinced my Dad to take me fishing. If you fish with Dad, you generally hit the water before even the fish are awake. Given that it was a cool morning and I was still slightly sleepy, I had brought along the biggest cup of hot chocolate available, and I was drinking it at a fairly steady clip. At this point it hadn’t yet occurred to me that drinking all this liquid would require a bathroom break at some point. Finally, nature called and I had to ask Dad where the bathrooms were. His response was not terribly pleasing. He would pull up to shore and I could go off into the woods, out of sight of the river, to take care of business. He clearly didn’t see any problem with this plan.

Now, what you have to understand here is that there is no way that a woman can go to the bathroom in the woods without getting at least a little bit undressed. Given that I didn’t want to be flashing other boaters on the river, once Dad pulled over to the bank and I headed off to find some privacy, I went way back into the woods. Things went pretty smoothly, or as smoothly as a bathroom break in the woods can go, until I started back to the boat. The problem was I had no idea where the boat might be

The space between the bank of the river and the woods where I had gone was covered with grasses which were taller than me in some places. I got out of the woods o.k., but the tall grass defeated me. My Dad told me later he could see the grasses swaying as I blundered around like a wounded elephant. His first thought was to come get me himself, but he also thought I might not appreciate how hard he was laughing. So, he did the next best thing and sent Gus the dog to find me.

There I am blundering through the grass, getting more and more concerned as the boat, or even the river’s edge, fails to appear. Suddenly, I hear something else crashing through the grass and it’s coming toward me. Is it a bear? A mountain lion? A psycho killer who will drag me off to his cave?

As it turned out, much to my relief, the thing crashing through the grass was Gus the dog. Once he found me, he gave me a look that conveyed the idea that he pretty much thought most humans were dorks, and then turned and started back toward the boat. I followed along behind and soon was safely reunited with the boat and my Dad. To his credit, Dad only chuckled a few times.

That was the first, and the last, time I ever took a bathroom break in the woods.

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It’s hunting season and there are many wives wondering what to do while their husbands are off hunting. Here are a few suggestions -

I like both Survivorman and Man vs Wild.

Any way you cut it, Bear Grylls is [...]]]> Funny, I was thinking about these two shows and the difference between Survivorman and Man vs Wild when I saw someone mentioned Les Stroud and Bear Grylls in the comment section of the Alaska Experiment post.

I like both Survivorman and Man vs Wild.

Bear Grylls and Man vs Wild

Any way you cut it, Bear Grylls is one tough hombre. Ex British Special Forces and climbed Mount Everest when he was 23. One of the youngest Brits to do so. That’s after he broke his back in a training exercise with the British Special Forces.

The main reason I watch Bear Grylls and Man vs Wild is for entertainment. Just watching his facial expressions when eating something disgusting sends me over the edge laughing my butt off. Or some of the stuff he tries that doesn’t work, like building a bamboo ladder to get across that Ecuadoran river. He pushes it over and when it hits the other side it busted to pieces. That was too funny.

I do pick up some survival tips from his show although they are few and far between.

Bear has been criticized for staging some of the scenes in his show. Personally, I don’t know a “reality” type show out there that doesn’t have staged scenes and that includes “Deadliest Catch”.

So what if he slept in a motel or at camp. It’s obvious if you watch the show the dude doesn’t get into all those situations on a 7 day outing.

I do think he’s a bit dramatic. I mean, I don’t think there was a real reason to strip off all his clothes and swim that Siberian river in the dead of Winter. I also don’t think it’s necessary to show him eating everything he comes across raw. But I do understand that this creates buzz which creates viewers who tune in to see what he’s going to eat next.

Here are some Bear Grylls truisms I just love. All done with that British accent while making a grimace.

• “God that’s horrible”
• “I have no idea what this is going to taste like”
• “It’s like an explosion of puss in my mouth”
• “It taste like a Sausage casing filled with baby poop”

I also laugh at the way he says “Vitamins”. It’s more like “Vetimens”.

Les Stroud Survivorman

To me, Les Stroud is more like the average Joe. There’s no doubt he could not win an endurance or physical test against Bear Grylls. The dude just doesn’t have enough lead in his pants! But I bet both could get out alive if they got lost in Montana hunting Elk. And at the end of the day when you’re lost in the woods, that’s what counts.

Survivorman is a lot more dramatic than Man vs Wild if you ask me. Take for example the episode I watched today with Les on the African Plains. If he said “Black Mamba” once, he must have said it a hundred or more times! Black Mamba this, Black Mamba that…

Geez, okay Les, we get it, there are snakes in the grass!

I also like the fact that Les pretty much cooks most of his food. That’s a plus for me. I’m not sure how many of us would eat a Yak’s eye raw or a giant grub worm raw.

I also like the fact that Les Stroud tapes his episodes himself. Not that I have anything against taking a camera crew along like Bear Grylls does. We get to see a lot more stunts out of Bear because of the Camera crew. Makes you wonder what you’re missing on Survivorman.

Les also takes along things that a normal person would and employs them in his week long survival outing. Some of the stuff he makes is pretty crude and I wonder if it would work, but none the less, he does go about trying to show us how to use what we have. After watching him smash up an old VCR camera, I knew then what I needed to do with my old RCA Video camera!

It’s TV, Don’t Take It Serious Dude!

As I said earlier, both these shows are over the top in one way or another. I think most of us who spend any amount of time in the woods put more in our “Survival kit” than these two guys do. I’ve never seen either one whip out fishing line, hook or sinker. Or even aluminum foil!

The people I know carry enough things in their Survival kits to get them through if they get lost, plus most know how to use the kit. Even if I’m hunting or fishing close by, I always carry a little pouch with waterproof matches and some line and other goodies to help me if I have to spend a night in the woods. You just never know!

As for the two shows above, remember, at the end of the day it’s still TV and they can edit a lot for a show. Don’t take either one very serious, they’re meant for entertainment and selling commercials.

If you want to learn real Survival skills, join one of those Survival Schools. If you want to sit back and be entertained, watch Survivorman and Man vs Wild!

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