| |
I
was raised in New Jersey. One thing I learned in those nineteen
years was that hunting season (portrayed in Elmer Fudd and Bugs
Bunny cartoons as being in the fall) actually lasts all year long.
There
is no downtime for the mighty-hunter. Fall is the most active time,
but there's never enough preparation. My father shopped for nifty,
neat-o, hunting accoutrements all year long. Particularly so in
the months that he could not actually pick up a gun and go shoot
something.
Just
as Thanksgiving is more than eating until you puke, hunting is so
much more than lying in wait with deadly weapons for helpless animals
that will starve or freeze if you don't kill them. Novices take
note: all the following are firm and traditional aspects of hunting.
Do you have a killer instinct or not?
Hunting
is:
Fox
piss: Just a splash here or there and it attracts horny deer for
miles around. Don't be surprised if a deer suddenly comes up to
you and gives you flowers.
Self-heating
seat cushions: The accessory that's good all year long. It's camouflaged,
like most hunting paraphernalia. Thanks to NASA, ass-friction is
now a verifiable heat source that can be stuffed and peddled.
Call-whistles:
Not every mighty hunter can imitate a duck, pheasant, deer, wild
turkey, or goose. For the impersonation-impaired, a variety of devices
have been created. The only skill you need to operate them is the
ability to believe that the fauna and fowl have no idea that they're
actually listening to stupid humans who are trying to kill them.
Flannel
shirts: except for the smell of 'dead guy or thing', no one would
ever know that you're wearing a 30-year-old shirt. Conversely, a
new flannel shirt looks just as old. Who's the wiser?
Electric
Socks: You'll need some thick, gray socks powered by a nine-volt
battery. Just try not to get them too wet in the snow--you wouldn't
want to awaken from an electrical shock and find yourself surrounded
by a herd of hysterical deer.
Huntin'
Cap: Vital. Nothing less. You should opt for something bright orange
or red. Drunken poachers and rednecks mistake everything else for
deer and you wouldn't want the last words you hear to be: "I told
you they wasn't antlers, Bubba!"
Thermal
Underwear: It must've been invented by a man-repelling women. Nothing
makes beer-gut, inverted pear-shaped turtle-butt, or spindly legs
more unappealing to women than waffled white tights with stitched
jock cup.
Boots:
Well, as any hunter can tell you, the deeper the treads in your
boots, the better for catching beagle shit. What's a camping trip
without the wives or the smell of dog crap everywhere you go?
Tree
seat: You may not know this, but hunters don't just squat behind
bushes or in trenches for hours, they also perch in trees. The vantage
point is unbeatable. Just remember to secure your tree stand solidly.
There's no reason to compromise your safety or let anyone see you
hanging upside down trying to save all the hard candy falling out
of your flack jacket.
Transportation:
A Winnebago with your nickname painted on the driver's side door
will do. All the better if you do the stenciling yourself--free
hand. When a stranger saw my dad's camper with the giant retard
scrawl saying: 'BIG BEAR', they could assume that an actual bear
wrote it. Other than that there are only a few sure things to remember:
portable-toilet, beer, microwave. Remember to have a CB radio in
all vehicles. This way you can broadcast "I have to take a leak"
in CB lingo anonymously, to other mighties when good and skunked-up.
Food:
contrary to the obvious assumption that the mighty hunter would
eat his kill, he does not. It is important to bring lots of bacon,
eggs, bread, potato chips, cheese-puffs and candy and, of course,
alcohol. It should be said that the most voluminous alcohol intake
happens at backwoods bars on your way up the mountains.
*Make
sure you bring your sons, nephews and their friends. Teach them
how to look older so they don't get carded. You haven't had a real
hunting trip until you've been tossed from at least one pub.
My middle
brother was hazed thusly: all my kin and his buddies are at a bar.
Big
Bear overturns a table trying to avoid his best buddy who wants
to plant a big wet kiss on my brother. He spills a dozen screwdrivers
and drenches the waitress bearing the tray. Dad gets thrown out
of the bar and leaves one of my under-aged siblings behind in the
bar. Not afraid to be a man, he demanded that the bartender pour
at least one drink from every letter in the bartender's dictionary.
Whiskey
isn't something you want to drink after drinking anything
from A-to-N in the mixology guide. Upon downing a shot of Old Granddad
(a particularly nasty whiskey appropriately named after the smell
of an old man's hangover breath) my brother loses it. "It" being
everything in his stomach, his memory, and the rest of the night.
A guy who actually lives in the mountains offers to take my brother
home. Because my brother is now strong like a drunk Hulk, he has
to ride to this guy's cabin in the below-freezing night in the back
of this mountain man's pick-up truck.
He doesn't
remember falling asleep or returning back to camp in any real detail
but it certainly must've been after he vomited on this kind stranger's
walls. Hazing completed, Big Bear gives the boys an extra big and
hairy piece of back bacon for breakfast. He may not have sex for
several years, but that night, he was a man.
Staking
Your Spot: in case you've never hunted, killing is actually the
smallest component of hunting. During daylight hours, you hike miles
away from your base camp. You tag your trail with yellow plastic
ribbons on trees along the way. This is so you can find your way
back to camp the following morning at 3:30 a.m. This takes fifteen
minutes, maybe a half-hour. Returning to your permanent mighty hunter
perch in the dark and cold now runs a good two hours each way. Somehow
little yellow ribbons don't seem so glaringly obvious before dawn.
You must be very quiet (as Elmer says) when retracing your path,
so you must move slowly. Slow movement combined with a complete
lack of direction equals two or three hours.
The
Kill: Well, this is where the pussies jump ship and the mighty hunters
forward-ho-forward. It's all well and good to prepare, camp, haze,
puke and stake your sight. But can you kill? In addition to having
the guts, the true mighty hunter must be able to shoot straight
and only when he knows he can kill. The last thing a real hunter
should ever do is take crazy wildfire potshots. Train your gun-site
on the "kill spots": the heart, the aorta in the neck, between the
eyes, or any visible road sign. You don't shoot to maim. You never
shoot to mutilate or relive "Platoon".
Psycho
Hunters: you have a huge number of mighties who aren't out to shoot
at an overpopulated herd of deer. They're just looking for ways
to channel their need to beat their wives, drag race or outrun state
troopers.
Armaments:
My oldest brother Willie is a huge gun fanatic. Not just your standard
.22 rifles or .38 revolvers. I'm talking semiautomatics, vintage
WWI and WWII firepower. He's studied, collected, maintained and
mastered all sorts of weapons. I heard a story about my brother
coming upon a herd of deer. Many females. You're not supposed to
shoot does or fawns. But my brother took his automatic firearm and
virtually blended into thin air these poor bastards.
I repeat,
I'm related to this person and the military would not take him because
of his history with guns. I share genetic information with this
person, who now finds killing animals boring. As I write, and later,
as you're reading this, some grown man is defecating in the woods
and wiping his rear-end with crunchy leaves because he doesn't want
to lose his spot. There's also a man sitting on the toilet, drinking
beer and browsing a gun magazine. Both men are in a quiet place
far away from their wives. I think that's what hunting is all about.
Copyright
© 2000 Viki Reed. All Rights Reserved.
Viki Reed is a mother and a writer.
comment?
discuss this article on our discussion
board
|
