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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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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They ask so little. They give us so much, these dogs who let us take them hunting.

For a lot of hunters, it wouldn’t be a hunt without their devoted canine companions.

With the fall hunt upon us, we asked a few hunters to share their favorite dog stories. We [...]]]> From the Duluth News Tribune
published Sept. 21, 2008

They ask so little. They give us so much, these dogs who let us take them hunting.

For a lot of hunters, it wouldn’t be a hunt without their devoted canine companions.

With the fall hunt upon us, we asked a few hunters to share their favorite dog stories. We think you’ll enjoy them.

Mark Fouts, Superior

Director of Regional Operations, Ruffed Grouse Society

“I remember my first pointing dog,” Fouts said. “An English setter. I got her from [Duluth dog trainer] Joe DeLoia. She was about 3. We were hunting pheasants — you know, ditch parrots — down in Nebraska.”

The dog’s name was Bandit, Fouts said.

“She made a cast out in front of me,” Fouts said. “I didn’t hear her yelp or anything. She came back toward me pawing at her face. I noticed she had a stick sticking out of her eye. My first reaction was to grab the stick and pull it out, which I found out later was the wrong thing to do.

“I took her back to the truck, about a half-mile. She hunted all the way. What a trooper. I got her in to the vet. They told me it was serious. I got some medication, and they told me I’d have to keep her down for a few days. We did lose the eye.

“We had a wooden trailer for the dogs. The rest of that day and the next morning, she’d put up a fit every time we’d stop to let out the dogs. She tried to chew a hole through the wooden door. For 24 hours, she was going hunting. It amazes me, the drive of a dog, what they’ll put themselves through to do what they love to do.”

Bandit recovered and hunted for six more years, Fouts said.

“After that, we called her the One-Eyed Bandit,” he said.

Left, or right?

Al and Margo Penke, Ely

Owners of BWCA Labs dog kennel

“This was probably seven years ago,” Al said. “It happened at Wilderness Wings [game farm] near Effie. We were hunting with Birdie, a female black Lab. She was probably a year old. It may have been her first hunt.

“You know how you’re sure where the bird is and you’re sure where the bird isn’t? She got real birdy and started working this cover. We were all sure the bird was off to the left somewhere, but she wanted to go to the right. I thought she was on an old deadfall [a previously killed bird]. She was, in my estimation, being disobedient. I was getting angry.

“Lo and behold, she dives into the brush and comes up with this hen pheasant and delivers it to me.”

It wasn’t the first time a dog has humbled its owner. Birdie is 8 now and is owned by a hunter in Tower, the Penkes said.

Al Markham, Duluth

Long-time upland and waterfowl hunter

“I don’t know what year this was. Probably the late ’70s,” Markham said one morning at the Harry Allenfall clothing store where he works.

He was talking about Tracy, a black Labrador retriever he once owned.

“Best dog I ever had,” Markham said.

She had run some derby events for young dogs in field trials when she was young, he said. But one day after training, when she was about 2, she had run off with another dog, Markham said. The two were found about 2 a.m. along a highway. The other dog was dead. Tracy was “barely alive,” Markham said. She had been hit badly in one eye and had broken a leg. She was treated by a veterinarian, and her leg healed but she lost the eye. She was through with field trials but went on to hunt several more years.

One year when she was about 10, Markham was out for the fall season after knee surgery. His neighbor, Jim, asked if he and a friend could take Tracy on a sharp-tailed grouse hunt near Sandstone. Markham readily agreed.

“They had taken two or three birds,” Markham said, “and they got into another covey at the edge of some standing corn. They put up the covey and hit three birds.

“Tracy picked up two birds and retrieved them. Then Jim sent her for the third bird.”

The bird had fallen in the corn, and Tracy disappeared into the corn to search for it. She had been gone for some time, or at least that’s what the hunter thought, Markham said. Jim didn’t know what happened to the dog. He was getting concerned.

“After 10 minutes, he looked down, and there she was,” Markham said. “She had nudged him on the leg. She had the bird. She had marked all three of those birds and got ’em with her one eye and three legs. She was a hell of a dog.”

More than one hunter has wondered where his dog was, only to discover that the dog was at heel with a downed bird.

“We think we’re the alpha,” Markham said. “But we’re not.”

Eric Larson, Duluth

Avid pheasant hunter

Larson hunts with two large Munsterlanders, a pointing breed. Like many owners of pointing breeds, Larson marks Oct. 10 on his calendar each year. That usually marks the peak of the woodcock migration.

“I remember a couple of October 10ths in a row,” Larson said. “I think Macy was about 8 months old the first year. We were hunting up by Fish Lake. Woodcock were flittering about, and it was as if a light bulb went off. Macy would bump one and point another one.”

When a pointer “bumps” a bird, it means she moves in too close and flushes it before the hunter is ready. But that day, Macy learned to point.

“It was just a fantastic bit of dog work from a young dog,” Larson said. “It set the tone for her seasons to come. She’s been a staunch dog since then.

“Now that my dogs are 9 [Macy] and 12 [Riley], I’m reminiscing about those times. I found myself thinking about them yesterday.”

Woodcock are diminutive game birds with chunky bodies, oversize heads and elongated bills used for probing moist soil for earthworms. When they migrate through northern Minnesota in mid-October, they often settle into stands of young aspen, where a hunter and a dog might have 50 or 60 flushes in a day.

“The whole hillside looks like it’s on fire with yellow,” Larson said. “You have vistas of the lake, and the woodcock are flittering around. There’s nothing much cooler to a pointing-dog guy.”

Debbie Waters, Duluth

Grouse and pheasant hunter

Waters, 35, owns a 6-year-old Gordon setter named Remmi. Last fall, she shot her first pheasant after several years of pheasant hunting. She had assisted other hunters in shooting pheasants, but she never had shot one on her own.

“It sounds kind of benign, but this is my favorite story,” Waters said. “I was out in this native prairie that had been restored. Remmi was quartering like crazy. It was really windy. I was trudging up this field, and when we got up to the top, he locked up on point.

“I was thinking ‘hen,’ because hens hold better than roosters. I walked up there. I flushed this bird, and gol-darnit, it was a rooster. I shot it. It was perfect. I dropped to my knees and marveled at that bird.”

She shot several more pheasants last fall.

Waters began deer hunting at age 15, and she shot her first grouse at age 20. She attributes much of her success with pheasants last fall to her new shotgun.

“I had a 20-gauge, but it didn’t fit me right,” she said. “I sold the 20 and got a new gun, a Benelli 12-gauge. It’s a sweet gun, a beautiful gun. It shoots like it’s part of me.”

A young boy whose family owned a black Labrador retriever once asked Duluth dog trainer Joe DeLoia if he knew why so many catalogs and magazines featured photos of yellow Labradors. DeLoia was stumped.

“Because the black ones are all out hunting,” the boy said.

John Lindgren, Duluth

Brittany spaniel owner and pheasant hunter

“My first dog, Cassie — a Brittany spaniel, of course — had a couple of nicknames. One was ‘the blazing snowball.’ She was mostly white, and she was possessed. She had this insane drive to get from Point A to Point B.

“Her other nickname was ‘the ferret.’ She weighed about 40 pounds. If there were cattails, she would swim over them or blast under them. Occasionally, she’d disappear for several seconds.

“I didn’t have a release command for her. If she was on point, I’d just kick around in front of her. If the birdwasn’t where I was, she would break and go farther.

“There was a time in North Dakota with a friend of mine. There was snow on the ground. She went on point. I was kicking around and kicking around, but the birddidn’t get up. She would not break from that point. Finally, I looked down and there was the pheasant, sitting about 6 inches from her nose in a spot that was all blown over with snow.

“I grabbed the rooster and picked it up. I have this rooster in my hand, alive. I said to my friend, ‘Kent, what should we do?’ He didn’t know. I said, ‘I’m going to throw this pheasant up in the air. If you hit it, we’ll get it.’

“I threw it up. He shot twice and missed both times.”

Lindgren supplied his own moral for the story.

“A bird in the hand is not necessarily a bird in the bag.”

When Cassie was 13, in her final season, Lindgren went out to hunt ruffed grouse near Bagley, Minn., one day. The hunt would have been too much for Cassie, he figured, so he asked his dad to keep Cassie in the cabin until well after Lindgren had left to hunt with his younger dog, Annie.

Lindgren was in the woods, hunting, sometime later when Cassie came running up to him.

“Dad had opened the door, and she ran a mile and a half to find us,” Lindgren said. “I almost cried when it happened. I just hugged her.”

Cassie died later that fall, he said.

She was one in thousand, one in a million,” Lindgren said.

Mike and Linda Neault, through the Carlton County Chapter of Minnesota Deer Hunters, are again hosting a free firearm safety course for women.

The class runs from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 22, 23, 25 and 26 (no class Sept. 24) at Sandy Lake Baptist Church in Barnum with a field trial [...]]]> From the Pine Journal
published Aug. 21, 2008

Mike and Linda Neault, through the Carlton County Chapter of Minnesota Deer Hunters, are again hosting a free firearm safety course for women.

The class runs from 6-8 p.m. Sept. 22, 23, 25 and 26 (no class Sept. 24) at Sandy Lake Baptist Church in Barnum with a field trial day on Sept. 27. Those interested must register by calling Mike or Linda at 218-389-0055.

Registration is limited to 24 people.