 Toxophilite Index |
Next Article  |
Down to my Last Buck!
by Jack Bowers
The postmaster in South Prairie was a bear hunter. He’d done his homework and came up with a sure fire plan, and for thirteen years put bear hams and summer sausage in the smoke house. It was a slam dunk affair. He cast 220 grain solid bullets for his 30.06 to guarantee positive results and packed one dead chicken to the orchard and hung it, nose high (a bears nose high) in an old apple tree, about thirty feet from his kitchen chair, planted at the base of an old, very large, fir tree. After work in the early fall he’d trudge up the grown over lane to the low end of the Smith Homestead (long since abandoned) and park himself on the chair load up the .06, take the safety off and wait. After an evening or two he’d hear the foot falls of a bear come off the hill behind him down a path many bears had used for many years. Moments later it would pass right by the waiting hunter, walk up to the dead chicken stick its nose out to sniff in the aroma and never hear the report of the rifle.
Thirteen years, thirteen bears like clock work. Forty years ago I was deer hunting and came across the old orchard, the kitchen chair and one odiferous chicken carcass from his last hunt a month previous. The scene didn’t make sense at first, but when all the parts of the puzzle came together I set out to find out who this hunter was. Over time I found out and introduced myself to him. He was an older gentleman, quiet and unassuming. I wanted to kill a bear, bad. I hadn’t even seen a bear in the wild before, but a couple had crashed through the brush as I made my way into the woods in pre-dawn light on my way to hunt deer. One episode happened in the very same homestead earlier that same year.
The postmaster told me all the details and finished with a story about the last one he’d shot right off the end of his gun barrel that was so big he couldn’t move it and had to have a neighbor drive his farm tractor up the grown over road and drag it down to the pickup to be hoisted in with the front loader. That’s a big bear! That was his last bear he said, no more.
I was shocked, here I was a young man just home from Vietnam and killing a bear, lots of bears, haunted my dreams and here was this guy who could do it in his sleep, and he was calling it quits.
It was hard for me to believe. “I’ve killed enough, its too easy and I guess I consider ‘em friends now,” he said. I can’t do it anymore. Things change. The old homestead and the thousands of acres around it are all houses the orchard is gone, its history vanished. The century old bear paths unused. Things change. My dad and I have killed more deer between there and the Carbon River than we can remember. I learned more about blacktail deer hunting there than I can recall, and I can recall a lot. Even South Prairie creek is a sad little stream compared to when I used to fly fish it for hours on end in those days.
Things change. I learned how to hunt bears and killed plenty of them. In the bottoms or in the high country, early in the year or late in the fall, I got my share. Now I’ve killed enough, its too easy and I consider them friends now. I watch for them and love being around them. A bear track, a fresh pile of dung, marks on a tree all keep me excited, but to kill one more, well? Not anymore.
Things change. I think I’m down to my last buck. I stopped hunting elk a few years back. Arla and I just can’t eat that much in a year and it is a lot of work to take care of one and I’ve had my fun and taken my share so I save the money and time for deer. Besides I’ve got elk around the place all year and I can walk up to most of them all winter. There are so many killed along the highway that I feel sorry for them. It is not an easy life. Even after the season the killing goes on. Next week, I go to court against a couple of locals who we caught poaching and selling the meat for drugs.
Still things change. I used to kill blacktails anyway I could. First it was a rifle, then muzzle loaders (real muzzle loaders, not this fake stuff!) and for the last thirty years long bows. Well at this point I’m down to my last buck, sort of. What I mean is I’m going out this next week and I’m going to look for a nice buck. Might even get one too, and he just might be my last buck. On the other hand I might not get one so next year? Well I’ll go after one again. Maybe the last one is the one I got a couple years back or maybe I’ll get so picky that I won’t get one for a couple years or more. I’m looking for my last buck. I’ve killed enough, I guess I consider ‘em friends now.
No regrets.
