Here Come the Rednecks

"There are two spiritual dangers in not owning a farm. One is the danger of supposing that breakfast comes from the grocery, and the other that heat comes from the furnace." - Aldo Leopold

This past weekend my brother, Travis, shot a nice sized buck, perhaps even big enough to warrant the $300 taxidermy bill to have it mounted. The buck, as it turned out, wasn't as eager to spend its afterlife standing guard over a living room. Travis thought his shot was well placed and that surely the buck would go down quickly, but apparently the shot wasn't as precise as he first thought. Though the blood trail was often thick, the buck remained at large as the night drew its dark curtain on the first day of deer season. The wounding of any animal is not one the ethical hunter takes lightly. There are no amusing anecdotes or whimsy, only the hope that the animal did not suffer long. Travis quickly retraced his steps the next morning, but the trail proved to be more elusive after an overnight rain washed away most of the blood trail. Soon, sometime in the early afternoon, a murder of crows began calling out from the same hill that the wounded buck had fled to. Crows are indeed macabre messengers. When their casual caws turn to violent shrieks you can bet every predator within earshot is going to take notice because 9 times out of 10 something has died or is in the process of doing so. Travis took notice and walked to the top of the hill where the commotion was coming from and, as sure as the mail, there was reason for clamor. Travis assumed he would see his buck laying on the wet, leaf-littered ground still majestic even in death with his proud rack of horns. Instead what awaited him was a fresh gut pile, complete with a set of gonads and penis! Someone had not only trespassed on our land that morning but had also took a deer that they did not shoot. Travis followed the overturned leaves and blood trail to the corner of our property where the deer was lifted over the woven wire fence and two strands of barbed wire and dragged a little further to the road.

This is why I rarely hunt during the bizarre phenomenon that is known as the firearms portion of the Missouri deer season. The tedious confrontations with trespassers has become all to commonplace these days. What's amazing is when you catch somebody they always swear up and down that they never crossed a fence... Indeed.

There is no room for elitism in deer hunting, but to ignore the obvious divisions of class when it comes to the character of hunters would be doing a disservice to those of us who conduct ourselves within the norms of lawfulness and respect. There is a small minority of deer hunters that must think that killing deer is the 'end-all' 'be-all' of human existence; why else would they throw caution to the wind and trespass on property and shoot deer from their vehicles with high-calibered rifles while traversing busy roads. This sect of bold hunters do not bother themselves with asking for permission, they just simply cross barbed wire fences with abandon as they blindly pursue whitetail deer.

These people have obviously never worked or lived on a farm. Fences are not easy to put up or repair. Fence distances are measured in miles, strands, and after their completion, the amount of blood it took to build the damn thing! (For those who don't know, building a barbed wire fence is like working with razor blades mounted on two stands of steel- yes, they're that sharp.) The fabric of fences have to be stretched to their limit in order to be effective in performing their most important task of turning cattle and/or other livestock. When weight of any kind is applied to the fence a finite amount of the integrity of the fence is lost. If this process is repeated enough or if a considerable instantaneous force is applied (especially a downward force) the fence tension will greatly weaken or even break in two. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you need to climb a farmer's fence please do the guy a favor and climb it at a corner post or better still, a brace post section. Now, I will also mention here that there are an even more diabolical trespassers; those who cut fences in order to get to a fallen deer or to "get even" with a landowner who took exception with the individual trespassers upon his land. Fence boundaries are in a constant state of flux as they are perpetually being tested by headstrong cattle, falling trees, and near-sighted deer; trespassers do not need to add to this already unwelcome list.

Another fact for the would-be trespasser: One of the few rewards for a farming family is the ability to hunt their land in relative safety and without having to worry about intruders. However, this rarely takes place in our neck of Missouri. Notwithstanding the priviledge of starting each day in the purified air of the country the farming life is one filled with little compensation, monetary or otherwise. Each penny is earned and with something always needing tending to the body & mind has little time to spare for rest. Wood needs to be cut, brush cleared, fences mended, cattle worked or fed, fertilizer needs to be spread, crops planted & harvested, hay to cut, and on and on. When deer season is over the slob hunter who trespasses will be back in his warm house watching football on a Sunday afternoon, while the farmer whose land he intruded upon is busting ice so his cattle can drink or chopping wood so his family can stay warm.

While it is a fact that 98% of Missouri is privately owned there is still a great deal of public hunting out there to be had. However, much of it is rugged and unmanicured unlike the majority of private land. Your standard trespasser is nothing if not lazy, it is easier for him to brush off an ass chewing after being caught by a landowner than it is to scout and walk public areas overrun with brush, brambles, and hills. If trespassers spent as much time asking permission from landowners as they do plotting out which farms they're least likely to get caught on they might just be surprised on the reception they receive.

Basically, there are two kinds of people in this world. There are those of us who try to treat each other with respect and attempt to get along, and then there are assholes. The assholes care only about themselves and they could care less how their actions for self gratification might affect you. I want to say that it is just the sign of the times, but you know what? There have been assholes since the beginning of time, heck, how else do explain the story of Cain? There were only 4 people on Earth and he couldn't get along with his only brother and finally killed him... Classy. Every generation believes that their current era has produced the most depraved and vile humans to date, but is that really the case? There have always been thieves, murderers, liars, and assholes and there is not one damn thing we can do about it.

All right I'm done ranting; it's just that people piss me off!

South Dakota On My Mind

The wind whistles unmercifully on the high lonesome prairies of South Dakota in the fall. Secrets are told, in a language long dead to humans, to the wildlife that listen intently to the loquacious and blustery currents that filter down from Canada this time of year. The animals of the prairie prepare themselves for the inevitable whisper of cold and snow by gorging themselves on the plethora of wastegrain that litter the fertile crop fields. An outsider can feel the harshness of this place long before the first snowflake falls. The farmers faces betray their ages, weathered before their time by inescapable sunlight, frigid winters, and almost constant wind. Within a day of immersion in this climate the lips become chapped and ones face turns a dark pink from wind burn like the rosey-red cheeks of a drunk. It's hard to imagine that tribes of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho (among others) flourished in this surprisingly rugged landscape and that there are still poor farming families that struggle through each winter today, using dried cow chips and corn stoves to stay warm.

Despite the palpable brashness of the climate there is boundless beauty for those who take the time to look. The glaciers that plowed their way south only to retreat 10,000 years ago combined with the meandering Missouri river have etched out a very diverse topography over the millennia across the land known as South Dakota. There are grassy buttes, impenetrable thickets, cattail-choked potholes of water, rolling plains, pancake-flat crop land, and rugged ravines that dare anyone foolhardy enough to trespass upon them. There are plenty of people, metropolitans and the like, who would turn their nose up at this landscape and retreat to the concrete refugem they call home. However, to the outdoorsman and specifically, pheasant hunters, South Dakota is a place of beauty and promise. Admittedly, the palette of the plains is a muted one, but the earthy tones that well up from the rich black soil compliment each other and please the eyes. Perhaps the lack of color is why the gaudy ring-necked pheasant stands out so brilliantly in this stark environment; its brown, blonde, auburn, and sky-blue bodies somehow flatter their blood-red cheeks and almost formal white collar. The raucous event of witnessing one of these beautiful creatures flush out of impossibly thick cover and straining for altitude and distance from its pursuers is one that plays out thousands, nay, millions of times every fall in South Dakota; and it is because of that fact that autumn in South Dakota is never too far from my mind.

The Hunt

To give you an idea of just how ideal the pheasant hunting is South Dakota the picture above was taken less than two hours after our first hunt Thursday morning- 6 birds in 2 hours! That's my buddy Lance in the background, my black lab, Nellie, on the right, and my english setter, Rose, on the left. If you think Rose looks tired that is because she is. Rose will be 10 years old this year and recently tore her ACL, but hunted fairly well over the three day stretch. It took a 2.5cc shot of Cortisone injected directly into her knee to get her out in the field, but once it took effect she was good to go. Now she is only a shadow of what she once was, but her nose is still as sharp as it was 5 or 6 years ago. It breaks my heart to finally realize she's nearing the end of her life, in fact this was most likely her last pheasant hunt. Oh, we'll go on a couple of quail hunting trips here in Missouri this fall & winter and with luck she'll grace me with a few more staunch points; back legs quivering with bridled restraint, her nostrils filled with the scent of birds, and her old eyes fixed upon the location she believes the quail to be holed up. During this hunt it became evident that her prime has well passed her by, as the the thick cover that is commonplace in South Dakota quickly tired her 10 year old arthritic body. She will live out the rest of her life on pillows in front of the fireplace where she will sleep and dream the dreams that all hunters have; misty recollections of perfect flushes and filled limits.

I probably make the pheasant hunting in South Dakota sound a little too easy. Rarely does a limit of birds fall without much effort, indeed it is often some of the most physical demanding hunting there is. Part of what makes South Dakota the Mecca of pheasant hunting is directly related to the abundance of thick ground cover in a variety of forms. There are soggy cattail marshes where musty black mud and duck weed sticks to your boots. Then there are the grass-choked shelterbelts of dark green cedars and plum thickets with branches at the ready to knock off your hat or slap you right across the face. 6 foot forests of horseweed; tangled masses of cane; cockleburrs; unharvested corn and milo; crp; brome; prairie grass; and common weeds all grow in loathsome tangles and cling to your legs and feet until it feels like you're walking through a thick mire of mud. After all that, there are still badger and jackrabbit burrows to keep an eye out for lest you disappear over your head or turn an ankle. In South Dakota walking distances aren't usually measured in yards, rather in miles or sections (a single section being a square mile or 640 acres).

Can you find Nellie and the pheasant?

The three of us brought back 22 roosters over a 3 day hunt. Yes, we should have easily brought back our limit of 27, but hey, that's hunting. We all had our share of misses and non-lethal tail shots, but you have to remember that even when you know a bird is in a specific location the flush can be a little unnerving and awe inspiring as well. In fact, Lance was thrice so enamored with the process of a rooster flushing that he failed to take the gun off safety; happy just to point at the departing pheasant with the barrel of the gun and give a little flinch, as if practicing with an unloaded gun. I often expected him to shout BANG! during these lapses, but he never did, opting instead for other more colorful interjections.

That's the place where we take our birds to get cleaned there in the background. Yeah, that's right we don't clean our birds. Your standard South Dakota hotel has a "pheasant cleaning station" i.e. a table and a hose, but we opt for a more, um, lazy way of doing things or smarter perhaps. Locals charge anywhere from $2.00 to $2.50 a bird to clean, wrap, and freeze your birds- a convenience too tempting to pass up. There's quite a bit of downtime too, I mean you can't even hunt until 10:00 am. This allows plenty of time in the evenings for food, cocktails, and laughs although we usually pass out well before midnight. As fun as the hunting is, it is probably the camaraderie that will be looked back on just as fondly when we're all too feeble and old to go hunting. Where else besides a hunting trip can three grown men sing a stirring medley of the BEP's lady lumps song and honky tonk badonkadonk (AKA slap your grandma song)in anonymity... I've probably said too much. We sleep like babies, eat like kings, and laugh like school girls and that is probably the best part of the whole trip.

Todd M. post 40 yard dash sans rooster

While we had plenty of pheasants that flushed early or simply ran ahead of us we were lucky enough to have a good number hunker down in thick cover and wait to be ousted. One privately owned strip of matted brome & weeds no wider than 30 yards in any one spot netted three roosters in a matter of 30 minutes. The hell of it was that about the only way you could get them to flush was to not move. Once the dogs got birdy we simply stood still and waited for the bird to flush. It is nearly an indescribable feeling that comes over you when a rooster busts through cover at your feet and tries to become airborne right in front of your face. I can't begin to put an estimate on the number of pheasants we saw. In just one small tract of milo on some public land we hunted a conservative 30 birds flushed out of a very small patch of woods. Then, as they flew over a private field of crp, already roosted birds became nervous and started to flush with them. We simply put our shotguns down and watched the show with mouths & eyes wide open. Once everything settled down, I'd say we saw around 75 pheasants flush in a matter of minutes... standard fare in South Dakota.

Nellie, after the retrieve of a wounded, but a very alive and very fast rooster.

That's all I got for now. Good luck this weekend all you Missouri deer hunters!

Back to Work

Out of the last 10 or so miles I have walked in the past 5 days the last 100 steps from the parking lot to my office have been the hardest. Though I am a little tired and sore I was not ready to leave South Dakota yesterday and return to reality just yet. I'll go futher into detail tomorrow (along with pictures) but here are a few quick statistics from the hunt:

I filled my personal limit (and a few more) everyday, but as a group we only limited out (9 roosters) one day, taking seven and six on the other two days for a grand total of 22 roosters in three days. Not too shabby, especially when you consider that we hunt primarily on public land and that this was the 4th weekend of the season. In all honestly we should have limited out fairly easily everyday. All of us had our share of misses and unfortunately we also shot a handful of wounded birds that were never recovered. Lance, dealing with the akwardness of a new gun and the different placement of the safety button, also had 3 gimmee birds that flushed a few feet away from him that he never even took a shot at.

I'll write up a more detailed synopsis tomorrow, hopefully I'll get back to my normal self by then.

Gone Hunting

Leaving for South Dakota today, and picking up Lance & Todd in KC. We won't be pulling into Platte, SD until about 7:00 tomorrow morning. Thursday will be a little rough, but it's worth it. With a little luck we can get our limits quickly leaving plenty of time for beer, food, and rest. Besides, we won't have to budge until 9:00 on Friday morning what with the 10:00 shooting time; a weird but welcome South Dakota pheasant hunting rule. Not being out there at sunrise is a little different, but most pheasants are killed in the afternoon hours anyway. Pheasants are out eating in the grainfields (some of which are wide open) early in the morning and are hard to hunt, but after mid-morning they begin returning to the CRP, shelterbelts, or uncut crop fields (usually milo or corn). In these types of habitats/cover pheasants are more likely to hold tight, ideally resulting in a close flush. That's not a steadfast rule as I have seen roosters and hens run in single file down a shelterbelt path.

I won't be back until late Sunday night, and you can bet I will have plenty of pictures and stories when I get back.