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By Dale Young
Once upon a time there was a boy with a bow and arrow. Today there is a much, older boy with a bow, arrow and memories that span over 60 years. With the memories precious little would mark my archery life. Today, being one of the more elderly archers, ( not as old as St. Charles, but older than Asbell), I remember archery from a day of sweet innocence.
Howard Hill was my hero. Fred Bear & Ben Pearson sold things I wanted. I didn’t know anyone that actually hunted with a bow and arrow except me. The father of a friend said he knew a guy up in the Packwood area that shot a 90# bow. Got a deer, every year. He used a three inch wide broadhead. The last deer he shot was crawling under a fence. The arrow went through the deer and cut a strand of barb wire. Now I can’t say how valid that story is, but, between stories like that and watching short movies of Howard Hill at the theater, my perception was that I wasn’t much of an archer, but it was a lot of fun.
In my early teens I shot whatever points came on the arrows I bought. Then, as per instructions from Howard Hill, I put 38 cases on a couple arrows with their points broken off. Now I had small game points, blunts! I remember shooting a chipmunk with one of my blunts. The arrow knocked that chipmunk at least six feet and there it lay. Walking over I proudly picked up my prize and stuck it in my pocket. My brothers never believed I got anything if I couldn’t show it to them.
Now I would like to expound on a theory of mine. Anyone who says that in an emergency they figure they could wrestle a deer or a small bear has never had an irritated chipmunk in his pocket. I decided I needed more bow to hunt with blunts.
Returning home to Salt Lake City after a six year stint in the Marine Corps, my soul needed to spend some time in the high country. It was May. A lot of Utah was still snowed in. Strawberry Reservoir was sitting in an unpopulated piece of my map and was accessible by a major highway. My wife dropped me off at the head of the lake and said she would be back in two weeks. Sliding into my pack and picking up my bow I walked through six inches of old snow to the other end of the reservoir. I made camp on the west end of the outlet dam, 30 feet above the frozen surface of the lake.
The reservoir was frozen solid except for a half mile crescent about 50 feet wide where the prevailing wind had blown the ice away from shore. A fishing pole, my bow and arrow were what I intended to feed myself with. That afternoon the fishing pole gathered in 17 inch cutthroat trout from the edge of the foot thick ice. Half was supper.
The next morning sun glistening off the snow belied the 20 degree temperature. My fire, cooking the remaining half of the cutthroat felt good on my hands. Then I caught a movement on the other side of the dam. It took a moment to see what had caught my eye. It was a weasel.
As the weasel bounced across the dam toward me I held still. Without any hesitation she kept coming until she was two feet on the other side of my fire. It finally dawned on me she had smelled the fish from at least eighty yards away and had meant to take it. The weasel was a gorgeous little animal and I was curious to see if she could get that trout out of my skillet. She wasn’t afraid of me. She could see the fish but the fire made it tough. She ran off through the rocks and then returned for another look. In the end the fire defeated her. She went off through the rocks and the fish and I were again alone.
Good fortune has been my companion in the out doors and in life. We don’t always acknowledge our good fortune but, we who love the outdoors are blessed. Many small adventures happen in the life of a hunter. A lot of them don’t elicit much thought at the time, but they add to the overall experience.
These small adventures are of no real importance, except to me. Writing about them now gives me a warm feeling. I know everyone who has spent time in the outdoors has had similar small adventures. Treasure their memories. After you have eaten the deer, you will have nothing but the memories.
