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Steelhead
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Pendleton
Posts: 166
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Elk Hunting, the reality show
Okay, here's the way it really is:
As I eased my way down Hazel’s ridge, senses acutely attuned to the sounds and smells of the forest around me, my mind drifted back to yesterday’s campfire conversation that led to this hunt. Elk hunting parties are as different as Marilyn Manson and mine was one of the most different. From our elk camp hunkered down in the Blues on the ridge between Looking Glass Creek and the South Fork of the Walla Walla River we fan out on our morning hunts in all directions. The first guy to return to camp is usually Tom, who, if it isn’t snowing or foggy and the wind isn’t blowing, usually will stay out until 8:00 or 8:30, a.m., of course. Owing to a little vertigo problem a few years back and several hours of walking circles in the fog, Tom has come to distrust his sense of direction in adverse weather conditions.
On his return to camp, Tom constructs an elk hunter’s fire, ordinarily about the height of Shaq, and, in true woodsman fashion, sets her off with a couple of gallons of diesel. The rest of the guys wander in by 9:00 or so with reconnaisance reports. Yesterdays elk forum proceeded thusly:
Mike: “Hey, Tom, nice fire. Any coffee made?”
Tom: “Yeah, its in the trailer. See anything?”
Mike: “Didn’t see anything but jumped something big on Hazel’s Ridge.”
Tom: “Big?”
Mike: “Real big!”
Tom: “Get a look at it?”
Mike: “No, but it was breaking some big branches.”
Tom: “Maybe deer?”
Mike: “Aw heck no way, too big for deer!”
Tim: “Hey guys, see anything?”
Tom: “Naw, but Mike jumped a big one on Hazel’s Ridge.”
Tim: “Elk?”
Tom: “Yeah, sounded big enough to be a bull, right Mike?”
Mike: “Well, if it was a cow it was awful big.”
Tim: “Tracks?”
Mike: “Well, its so darn dry I couldn’t be sure but I found some that didn’t look too old.”
Tom: “Which direction they going?”
Mike: “Towards the Bull Thicket.”
Tim: “Any sign?”
Mike: “None fresh, but a pee spot.”
Tom: “In front of the tracks or behind?”
Mike: “Might of been in front but the tracks were pretty tore-up.”
Tom: “You guys remember whether a bull pees in front of the tracks or behind?”
Tim: “I think in front.”
Mike: “Yeah, I think so.”
Murph: “Hi boys, any luck?”
Tim: “ No, but Mike jumped a good-sized bull on Hazel’s.”
Murph: “Branch bull?”
Mike: “Well I was pretty sure I could hear horns banging the trees.”
Tom: “Yeah, it was big, real big.”
Murph: “Where’d it go?”
Tim: “Bull thicket.”
Bob: “Hey boys, any luck?”
Murph: “Well, Mike’s got a good bull locked up in the Bull Thicket.”
Bob: “Big one?”
Murph: “I’m bettin’ 350 B&C!”
Bob: “All right, lets go get him!”
Murph: “Anybody seen Ernie?”
Mike: “Well, I think he was going to hunt the Swale and come out Nellie Kate’s.”
Tom: “We better wait for Ern, we need a shooter on the ridge and he won’t miss.”
Bob: “I won’t miss!”
Murph: “Yeah, like you didn’t miss that herd bull last year on the powerline.”
Bob: “It was those reloads, I bought factory ammo this year.”
Tom: “You were shooting factory loads when you missed that spike on Isabelle’s year before last.”
Bob: “I’m not so sure I missed that spike, Murph just claimed it.”
Tom: “If you’ll recall it took you guys two hours and 25 rounds to put that spike down and it was Mike who had to finish it off in the dark.”
Mike: “Yeah, lets wait for Ern.”
Bob: “What do you think would happen if you threw a 30-06 round into the fire?”
Tim: “I don’t want to find out.”
Bob: “Really, would it explode or just fizzle out?”
Murph: “Don’t throw the darn thing in the fire, okay?”
Tom: “Anybody want a beer?”
Tim: “It’s only 9:30 for heaven sakes, we’ve got hunting to do.”
Tom: “It’s noon somewhere.”
Murph: “Oh, I’ve never heard that one before.”
Bob: “Anybody want some Maker’s Mark in their coffee?”
Tim: “I am not going onto that ridge with you guys behind me!”
Mike: “Oh heck, Tim, you don’t look like an elk, except for your ears.”
Bob: “Yeah, I never shot an elk wearing a John Deere hat yet.”
Murph: “Anybody want some lunch?”
Bob: “What we got?”
Murph: “Ern’s leftover cheese and sausage casserole.”
Mike: “Oh, gosh, don’t talk about that stuff, my bowels are still rolling over.”
Tim: “Yeah, I don’t know if he’d washed his hands for 3 days before he made that.”
Murph: “Well, we’ve got what’s left of Tom’s Kenucky Fried in that bucket.”
Tom: “I can’t tell if its the light or if this stuff is kind of greenish.”
Bob: “I’ve got some peanuts.”
Murph: “Break ‘em out. I’ve got some hunter’s sausage from last year that’s still pretty good.”
Tom: “That’s not from Smitty’s roadkill is it?”
Murph: “No, Smitty got rid of the last of that after he had to have his stomach pumped.”
Tim: “Maybe we should look for Ern.”
Mike: “He always said when he goes he wants to go in the elk woods.”
Bob: “Yeah, we just watch for the magpies and they’ll lead us right to him.”
Murph: “He’s been hunting elk so long he’s starting to act like one. I swear he bolted into the timber right alongside that bunch we jumped on Sugar Ridge yesterday.”
Tom: “Yeah, and I noticed he’s chewing grass and moss and crap.”
Mike: “Hey, remember that story about the Windago, the guy who turned into half man and half elk.”
Tim: “Ern did that a long time ago, he may have gone all the way now.”
Bob: “These marshmallows are stickier that heck, we got any clean water?”
Tim: “Get a bucket from the spring.”
Murph: “Oh, yeah, a bucket of beaver fever, Nellie Kate’s outhouse used to set on that spring.”
Tom: “I say we go to the Elgin Elk Hunter’s Ball tonight, how about it?”
Bob: “Is there really an Elgin Elk Hunter’s Ball?”
Tim: “Yeah, all the elk season widows in Union County show-up there looking for adventure.”
Murph: “One of these days somebody’s wife is going to believe that stuff and we’ll be hunting with our wives from then on.”
Tom: “I heard our wives were at the Ball!”
Tim: “Bob, what did you throw in the fire?”
Bob: “An ‘06 round, what do you think it’ll do?”
Murph: “I haven’t seen you jerks move like that since the horse bucked through the fire.”
Tim: “I’m going to throw Bob in the fire if he ever does that again.”
Bob: “Can you believe it just made that little ‘poof’sound?”
Tom: “Yeah, well what if that wasn’t it and its still in there?”
Ern: “What are you guys hiding from?”
Mike: “Get away from the fire dad, right now!”
Ern: “Why?”
Mike: “Bob tossed an ‘06 round into it.”
Ern: “They just go ‘poof’,we used to do that all the time.”
Murph: “Hey, you see anything?”
Ern: “No, you?”
Murph: “Mike’s got a big bull staked out in the Bull Thicket.”
Ern: “How big?”
Tom: “Real big!”
Ern: “Why did Bob throw a shell into the fire?”
Mike: “You figure out why Bob does anything and you’ll be the first.”
Bob: “Let’s go get that bull.”
And so, here I am, creeping down Hazel’s Ridge, with Ern strategically placed on the other side of the bull thicket, Mike and Tim on either side of me, Bob in front of us and back at camp Tom tending the fire since a light snow had started to fall.
Well, that Boone and Crockett bull escaped us somehow, despite our cleverly planned assault, and he did it without making a sound. Those old boys are slick!
As we reached hailing distance of camp we were startled out of our reverie by a loud rifle shot right from camp. One thought seized us all: the bull had slipped by us and run by the camp where Tom, hopefully, had ambushed it. We burst into camp yelling for Tom who was nowhere to be seen. Slowly, his head emerged from the bed of his pickup, his face covered with grime and his eyes wider than normal.
“Bob, I’m going to choke you to within an inch of your life you,” he said. ‘06 shells do not just go ‘poof’.”
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"And if it isn't true,well, it makes a darn good story! "
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