Everyone who has this Elk camp fever that I do caught it from somewhere or someone or both. It's something you just can't stop and once you are bitten by the Elk camp bug, you've got the fever for which there truly is no cure. Now you could skip a season or two and tell youreself all manner a lies but you'll be back, It's a certainty. What kind of lies you ask, well how bout this one? "I just don't have the time". Sheesh, thats as lame as a foundered pony. Time? This is the time of your life, if you don't take the time, it is lost forever. You can't go back and visit last years camp that you didn't make it to, it is gone, finished, passed on, and stuck with a fork for it is done. The memories that you won't be a part of will carry on forever in someone elses heart and mind.
Here's another one, "I'm just not in shape to climb hills". What it really means is that you've been to tied to TV to get your sorry behind out to take a walk. I should know, I've been that character. I'm no slim Jim, I've never been accused of being off my feed. But I'll tell ya this I'm gettin my steps in every day and gettin' the ole legs & lungs ready. And besides, you don't have to be the half billy goat feller that heads to the steepest canyon he can find, just cus it's there. I mean for cryin' out loud, when I can't hike in woods, somebody better help me set up a chair in a blind and I'll set there and wait em out, cause the Elk are where you find em and I intend to find em for years to come. I'd even be glad to be the camp cook & fire minder. At least I'll be there to hear the stories and see the faces that tell all the wondrous stories when the rest of the crew gets in off the mountain.
I caught this bug when I about 12 years old. That the first time I got to go to Elk camp. It was an honor above honors and my Dad asked me to go with him and his buddies. Holy cow I could hardly believe it, I had come of age!! I had to be the most excited kid in the whole world, or at least in Eastern Oregon. We were hunting in an area that allowed a hunter to shoot whatever he saw. We refered to it as havin' a "hair tag". I can't even remember how many times I had asked, heck I'll be honest, I begged to go to camp. But I was always too young. Now I was going and I even had a coveted "hair tag", it meant that I didn't have to wait to see a bull, I could get me an Elk, any Elk would do just fine.
First problem was tha I didn't have an Elk rifle. Dad had a 30-30 carbine that I got to hunt deer with, but he didn't think it was big enough for Elk. So we borrowed a 45-70 single shot Ruger #1 from Ron. Now thats a lot of rifle for 12 year old kid, but I wasn't yer normal 12 year old. I was already standing about 5'-10" and wasn't a bean pole either. So we took out this blunder bust of a gun and went target shootin'. That means we filled up some jugs with water and went out to the hills and shot em from about 150 yds. Well, I hit the jug and figured that was good enough. We weren't big on sightin' in to real high standards, but if you could hit the jug you were in business.
I'll tell you more about this first Elk camp a little later, until then, make sure you get those youngins out there and enjoying camp. It's a gift that they will cherish more than a silly ole video game for sure. Keep on dreamin' bout the next camp, cause it'll be here before you know it.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Anticpation "or" Dang Long Time til Wapiti
Oh my word!! This year is just draggin, for cryin out loud!!
Every year, my huntin' partners and I fill out these confounded controlled hunt applications. We get our copies of the huntin' regulations, Oregon calls it a synopsis. Then we study the thing and try to figure out how on earth to fill out our applications in a manner that will, God willin', get us Elk tags for the upcoming season. We have this one special spot, and NO I'm not gonna spill the beans about it, that we're shootin' for every year, but it is one tough son of a gun to draw. The last time we had good fortune shine on us was 2003. Now for Pete's sake, that is now 6 long, long years.
What makes this so downright irritating is that back when shep was a pup (that means a long while ago), we could just go down to the local sportin' goods store and buy our tag and hunt just about anywhere we dang pleased. Not now!! There's this preference point system that gives you another point every time you are unlucky. It's like winnin' cause you lost. The more you lose, the more points you get, and eventually, or so the story goes, you get to hunt where you want to.
Well, for 5 straight years we have been winning, or is that losing? I'm not sure how to look at this thing called "preference points". I mean really, if I have a preference, it's not to be messin' with points unless I'm counting them on a bull's rack. Enduring, yes I said enduring, 5 years of of "winning" has gloriously come to an end. We have lost all of our preference points, they are all gone. We drew that tag, that beautiful, wonderful tag. We are headed back to our favorite haunt to pursue the mighty bull of the woods in ________. Now you didn't really think I was gonna tell ya where did ya?
So here's the thing. We applied for this tag May 15. We patiently, well not very patiently, wait until mid June to find out the results. Then, having heard the fantastic news, we now have to wait and wait and wait until the end of October before we can finally be in the woods. So in the meantime, we plan and we plan and we search for that new piece of gear that we are just certain we cannot make it through another season without.
We'll continue emailing each other weekly if not more often with silly emails like; "wapiti, wapiti,wapiti" and "the elk are where you find em" or "it's just 17 weeks until Elk season". We seem to be acting very strangely, very strangely indeed. Our families and friends are beginning to wonder if we are completely certifiable or just plain ole nuts! Our thoughts drift off to mountain and meadow, to stream and wallow, to trails and rocks, to Bulls and, well, Bulls. Our evenings are spent pouring over "Bugle" magazine and reading short stories by Jim Zumbo (our hero). It is only July, and I fear that by late August there will be a very serious need to begin a new chapter of Elkaholic Anonymous. There will likely need to be an intervention as well, and maybe even the reading of a self-help book or two.
This Elk camp can not come along too soon. We will be ready, we will be lean, mean, Elk huntin' machines. Our minds and bodies will be fit and prepared to encounter the wilds and successfully bring meaning to the ceremonial hanging of the meat pole, which cannot be done without the ceremonial meat pole dance. Brad always leads the dance. He is a dancin fool, even performs a nightly snow dance until the flakes begin to fall, but that is a tale to be told at a later date.
Anxious, yeah I'd say so. This is the year, the year of the "Any Bull" hunt. This is the year we have been hoping for, praying for, searching for and yearning for. And it is still three plus months away. Will we survive until Elk camp? We'd better, cause, well, this is the year!!
Every year, my huntin' partners and I fill out these confounded controlled hunt applications. We get our copies of the huntin' regulations, Oregon calls it a synopsis. Then we study the thing and try to figure out how on earth to fill out our applications in a manner that will, God willin', get us Elk tags for the upcoming season. We have this one special spot, and NO I'm not gonna spill the beans about it, that we're shootin' for every year, but it is one tough son of a gun to draw. The last time we had good fortune shine on us was 2003. Now for Pete's sake, that is now 6 long, long years.
What makes this so downright irritating is that back when shep was a pup (that means a long while ago), we could just go down to the local sportin' goods store and buy our tag and hunt just about anywhere we dang pleased. Not now!! There's this preference point system that gives you another point every time you are unlucky. It's like winnin' cause you lost. The more you lose, the more points you get, and eventually, or so the story goes, you get to hunt where you want to.
Well, for 5 straight years we have been winning, or is that losing? I'm not sure how to look at this thing called "preference points". I mean really, if I have a preference, it's not to be messin' with points unless I'm counting them on a bull's rack. Enduring, yes I said enduring, 5 years of of "winning" has gloriously come to an end. We have lost all of our preference points, they are all gone. We drew that tag, that beautiful, wonderful tag. We are headed back to our favorite haunt to pursue the mighty bull of the woods in ________. Now you didn't really think I was gonna tell ya where did ya?
So here's the thing. We applied for this tag May 15. We patiently, well not very patiently, wait until mid June to find out the results. Then, having heard the fantastic news, we now have to wait and wait and wait until the end of October before we can finally be in the woods. So in the meantime, we plan and we plan and we search for that new piece of gear that we are just certain we cannot make it through another season without.
We'll continue emailing each other weekly if not more often with silly emails like; "wapiti, wapiti,wapiti" and "the elk are where you find em" or "it's just 17 weeks until Elk season". We seem to be acting very strangely, very strangely indeed. Our families and friends are beginning to wonder if we are completely certifiable or just plain ole nuts! Our thoughts drift off to mountain and meadow, to stream and wallow, to trails and rocks, to Bulls and, well, Bulls. Our evenings are spent pouring over "Bugle" magazine and reading short stories by Jim Zumbo (our hero). It is only July, and I fear that by late August there will be a very serious need to begin a new chapter of Elkaholic Anonymous. There will likely need to be an intervention as well, and maybe even the reading of a self-help book or two.
This Elk camp can not come along too soon. We will be ready, we will be lean, mean, Elk huntin' machines. Our minds and bodies will be fit and prepared to encounter the wilds and successfully bring meaning to the ceremonial hanging of the meat pole, which cannot be done without the ceremonial meat pole dance. Brad always leads the dance. He is a dancin fool, even performs a nightly snow dance until the flakes begin to fall, but that is a tale to be told at a later date.
Anxious, yeah I'd say so. This is the year, the year of the "Any Bull" hunt. This is the year we have been hoping for, praying for, searching for and yearning for. And it is still three plus months away. Will we survive until Elk camp? We'd better, cause, well, this is the year!!
Thursday, July 9, 2009
A Great Friend Passes On
I haven't been very faithful of late in sharing with you all about Elk camp and what makes Elk camp so doggone enticingly interesting. One of my huntin' buddies, Randy, sent me an email the other day that reminded me of so many absolutely hilarious and heart warming moments spent at camp. This email message was sent to let me know that one of our own had passed. Never again will Elk camp be quite the same, even though Rosco had not been out on the mountain for a few years now, we never failed to spend a moment or two each day reminiscing about our dear old friend.
Rosce started showing up at camp when he was just a pup. A ball of fur, chocolate lab, happy to just be there, pup. Always up to something and keeping those big ole "don't you really want to scratch my belly" eyes right on whoever was nearby. Now Rosco had a boy, named Ryan, and Ryan loved this ole lab just as much as a boy could possibly love a dog, and Rosco loved him back just as strong.
Now to illustrate this, I gotta share a story that was passed on to me. Ryan and his best friend and huntin' & fishin' partner were out huntin' ducks, as they often did on an Autumn weekend and along with them, of course, was Rosco. They were huntin along the river bottom and along the old railroad track near home having a great time shootin' ducks, watchin' Rosco retrieve and generally havin' as good a time as a couple of teenage outdoor types could have. Now this was all about to come to one real abrupt close, when to all of their surprise, a big ole Mountain Lion decided that this here trail along the railroad line was his and he wasn't interested in sharing it. This big ole tom has his ears laid back and his teeth bared and he is just about to have a real up close and personal pounce on these boys when Rosco jumps right in between the cat and the surprised hunters. Well here's the deal, this here Chocolate Lab would have gladly sacrificed himself for these young fellers, but because the boys were able to both unload their shotguns into the cat, Rosco was spared. Now I ask ya, can you have a better friend than this? I think not!
Rosco was protective for sure. He even protected entire meadows from invaders who dared to think that it would be all right to set up camp too close to his people's camp. We had been up at camp for 3 or 4 days, gettin ready for the upcoming opening morning. We had hauled wood, scouted for Wapiti, readied our packs, studied the maps, and just generally allowed the joy of all that is Elk camp to soak in. On the afternoon before opening morning we were all sittin around camp tellin tales and havin good ole belly laughs, when along comes this early 70's chevy pickup with a canopy on back, it slows down and the occupants take a gander at OUR meadow and then they drive on by. We commence to sayin things like; whew, sure glad they went on by, and looks like we've still got the meadow to ourselves, when here comes this ole truck again. This time they pause for a few seconds and pull on ito the meadow and start in to gettin ready to set up their camp, in OUR meadow. These fellers spread out their tent and are about to start puttin' it up, when along comes our dear friend Rosco. Well, he plants himself right smack dab in the middle of the canvas and starts in to barking. Now Rosco does not have a soft little bark, nor does he have a rather normal bark. This guy has a big ole deep chested, I mean business, type of bark. He's standing his ground and has the invaders standin back not knowin what to do. Here's where this gets funny! Randy's wife comes over to him as he sits there in his camp chair and says "aren't you going to do something", and Randy remarks, quite simply and very matter of factly "nope, he's just protecting our privacy". Well, he eventually calls Rosco off, and we have a chat with the invaders, who are darned apologetic about being invaders. They seem like pretty decent fellers and I guess they figured we were as well. Anyway, we shared OUR meadow, and had to remind ole Rosco now and then that it was gonna be okay. They were only there for a couple of days and then the meadow was back to normal.
I'll share more about Rosco later, but I sure hope you get the idea about what kind of friend he was. We miss him dearly, and we'll share Rosco stories at every Elk camp from now until we can't get up on the hill anymore. Rest in Peace ole friend, you were like no other.
Rosce started showing up at camp when he was just a pup. A ball of fur, chocolate lab, happy to just be there, pup. Always up to something and keeping those big ole "don't you really want to scratch my belly" eyes right on whoever was nearby. Now Rosco had a boy, named Ryan, and Ryan loved this ole lab just as much as a boy could possibly love a dog, and Rosco loved him back just as strong.
Now to illustrate this, I gotta share a story that was passed on to me. Ryan and his best friend and huntin' & fishin' partner were out huntin' ducks, as they often did on an Autumn weekend and along with them, of course, was Rosco. They were huntin along the river bottom and along the old railroad track near home having a great time shootin' ducks, watchin' Rosco retrieve and generally havin' as good a time as a couple of teenage outdoor types could have. Now this was all about to come to one real abrupt close, when to all of their surprise, a big ole Mountain Lion decided that this here trail along the railroad line was his and he wasn't interested in sharing it. This big ole tom has his ears laid back and his teeth bared and he is just about to have a real up close and personal pounce on these boys when Rosco jumps right in between the cat and the surprised hunters. Well here's the deal, this here Chocolate Lab would have gladly sacrificed himself for these young fellers, but because the boys were able to both unload their shotguns into the cat, Rosco was spared. Now I ask ya, can you have a better friend than this? I think not!
Rosco was protective for sure. He even protected entire meadows from invaders who dared to think that it would be all right to set up camp too close to his people's camp. We had been up at camp for 3 or 4 days, gettin ready for the upcoming opening morning. We had hauled wood, scouted for Wapiti, readied our packs, studied the maps, and just generally allowed the joy of all that is Elk camp to soak in. On the afternoon before opening morning we were all sittin around camp tellin tales and havin good ole belly laughs, when along comes this early 70's chevy pickup with a canopy on back, it slows down and the occupants take a gander at OUR meadow and then they drive on by. We commence to sayin things like; whew, sure glad they went on by, and looks like we've still got the meadow to ourselves, when here comes this ole truck again. This time they pause for a few seconds and pull on ito the meadow and start in to gettin ready to set up their camp, in OUR meadow. These fellers spread out their tent and are about to start puttin' it up, when along comes our dear friend Rosco. Well, he plants himself right smack dab in the middle of the canvas and starts in to barking. Now Rosco does not have a soft little bark, nor does he have a rather normal bark. This guy has a big ole deep chested, I mean business, type of bark. He's standing his ground and has the invaders standin back not knowin what to do. Here's where this gets funny! Randy's wife comes over to him as he sits there in his camp chair and says "aren't you going to do something", and Randy remarks, quite simply and very matter of factly "nope, he's just protecting our privacy". Well, he eventually calls Rosco off, and we have a chat with the invaders, who are darned apologetic about being invaders. They seem like pretty decent fellers and I guess they figured we were as well. Anyway, we shared OUR meadow, and had to remind ole Rosco now and then that it was gonna be okay. They were only there for a couple of days and then the meadow was back to normal.
I'll share more about Rosco later, but I sure hope you get the idea about what kind of friend he was. We miss him dearly, and we'll share Rosco stories at every Elk camp from now until we can't get up on the hill anymore. Rest in Peace ole friend, you were like no other.
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