Raimey invited me to come and hunt the opening day of the Alabama season at Kirk’s farm. R.J. would be there also, and it would be a chance for the Kansas-trip hunters to reunite after I had to skip last year for work reasons. I accepted of course, and I was almost as anxious to see my “new” friends again as I would have been to see the old gang, but I was still a bit down in the mouth. Preparing my things for the trip, I found an old metal folding chair in the garage. This was one of the chairs used at the Tennessee dove hunt and inadvertently brought home in the back of my truck years ago. I decided to take the old chair to Kirk’s as a link to all of the Tennessee hunts.

The day of the hunt, we met in the field for barbecue sandwiches and cold drinks before legal shooting time began at noon. We all took our places, and both birds and lead were soon flying. I was using a side-by-side double that I’m not too familiar with yet, and for a while, I shot poorly. Everything seemed wrong. I don’t think I could have hit the ground with my hat. As the afternoon wore on, however, I began to relax. I tried to put my depression about the “glory days” out of my mind and focus on the present. I started having fun, and while I didn’t put on a Tom Knapp exhibition, birds were falling to my gun. Sitting on my metal chair in the blistering sun with a big stupid grin on my face, I didn’t feel any older than when I went on that first Tennessee hunt. No, you can’t escape change, but at just the right moment, you can stop time.

Waiting for birds to come over back in the glory days.

Hershey wants to see some birds too.

Apparently, dove hunting involves a lot of sticking out your tongue for Hershey and the Sporting Wife.

- Raimey looks on as Kirk “explains” a wild melon to young Purdey. Note the orange check-cord for field training.

Sunday, November 5, 2006

Today is Kirk’s birthday, and we mark the occasion by singing to him at 4:00 A.M. What we lack in pitch control, we make up with enthusiasm. I am certain that he appreciates the serenade, though he does conceal it well. The day dawns cold and windy, and two of us have to answer nature’s call by the time we get to the campground. This is noteworthy only because it is a paperwork job, and the only “convenience” available is an enclosed toilet with about a twelve foot tall, large-diameter standpipe for ventilation. I am forewarned that the seat is cold. Just when I’m thinking that it’s not as bad as advertised, I hear the frigid wind outside pick up with a howl. There’s a lump in my throat as I head back toward the truck, and I’m pretty sure I used to pee with it.

We make a short run through the CRP grass and then drop off into the basin. As usual, this is straight up, straight down stuff, and before long I’m exhausted. I’m starting to think this hunt will be a replay of last year when I wasn’t anywhere near keeping up with the group. Before long I am walking by myself, as I have somehow gotten on the wrong side of an impenetrable stand of cane and cattails. Nasty feelings of self-doubt start to take hold, as I haul myself to high ground so that I can get my bearings. Stopping to catch my breath, I notice great Vs of geese passing overhead so high above me that their cacophonous honks are barely audible. Scanning the clearing, I see two whitetail does about 150 yards away from me. Although I’m making no particular effort to be still, they are more interested in two bucks that are about 200 yards to my opposite side than they are in whatever I might be doing. I decide to see just how close the does will get to a man standing in an open field, and they run within 20 yards of me before the lead doe throws on the brakes. It’s like I’ve stepped into the Outdoor Channel. Suddenly I don’t feel so bad about myself or what I’m doing out here.

I decide to make a big circle back to the parking area, and I’m just easing along when something explodes out of the grass almost at my feet. It’s a rabbit, and I remember someone saying the night before that rabbits are in season, although it would be extremely poor form to shoot one in front of the dogs. There are no dogs around, so I decide to let him have it. One, two, three, four times I slap the trigger, each time eliciting a puff of dust right behind the speedster. He’s close, and the pattern of #4s from the modified choke tube is small. I almost don’t fire the fifth and final shot, but what the heck, I’ve already embarrassed myself. At least the bolt will hang open and it will be easier to reload. The fifth shot is the charm, though, and I see the rabbit flipping and flopping on the other side of some low brush.

As I approach to end his misery, I notice that something is amiss. He’s a big joker, bigger than all but the largest of the “swampers” we have at home. I’ve seen jackrabbits in Texas when I was a boy, and I realize that instead of the King of all Cottontails, I’ve bagged a juvenile jack-hopper. This, as my Papaw would say, brings on more talk. That guy last night didn’t say anything about jackrabbits, did he? I’m suddenly faced by a dilemma brought on by my ignorance of the small game laws. I’m unwilling to leave the animal having killed it, so I figure I’ll have to take my lumps if I’m in the wrong. Until I find out what the score is, though, I’m not exactly advertising. It’s gotten warm by now, so I wrap the jackrabbit in my coat. Note to self: jackrabbits are heavy. When I get back to the truck, there is a mob at the parking area where we were the only vehicle this morning. I slide the coat and its possibly contraband cargo into the truck bed and hope that all the dogs around will not raise too much of a ruckus.

When the rest of our bunch returns, Kirk and one of the KS dogs have been sprayed by a skunk. Their efforts to “step back in their own tracks,” as Kirk puts it, were unsuccessful. I couldn’t be more relieved when I casually mention jackrabbits to the KS guys, and one of them notes that there is no closed season on them. Many farmers consider them a nuisance. Whew, not going to jail in Kansas! Can I get an amen?

We walk the milo and wheat stubble in the afternoon, and I am hating the weight of my shotgun. Purdey is so tired she goes back to the truck, and that makes me feel better. If you’ve walked that dog into the ground, you’ve done something. Rudy and the KS bunch leave after this run, and I skip the last foray of the day. It has turned off unseasonably hot, and I am concerned about the jackrabbit spoiling.

I field dress the rabbit on an old log with my pocket knife. A half-empty bottle of water from the truck provides a quick rinse for both of us, and he goes into the cooler. I watch an owl hunt in the tall grass as I wait for a cell phone call to drive around to the other parking area to pick up the rest of the team. As it turns out, Raimey has forgotten to take his phone with him, and it is well after dark when the guys return. Tired and smelling bad, we head back to the hotel to finish cleaning the jack-hopper and the three pheasants that represent the day’s total take. We must switch hotels in the morning, and we are all grateful for the necessity of lounging in bed until 6:00 A.M.

Saturday, November 4, 2006 (Opening Day)

The day begins with a 3:15 wakeup necessitated by the forty minute drive to the area we will be hunting. We are headed to the Glen Elder Wildlife Area, approximately 13,200 acres of land surrounding Waconda Lake. We will meet our friend Rudy and a bunch of other hunters from Kansas. Some background is in order. We met Rudy on a previous trip. The more the merrier on a pheasant hunt, so we fell in with Rudy’s group and hunted together. Over handshakes at the end of the day, Raimey commented that he’d sure enjoyed hunting with Rudy and his friends, including Rudy’s dogs. Now you can’t go wrong praising a man’s friends, but if you praise his dogs, your stock goes way up in his estimation. Rudy responded in kind, and said,”4:30 opening day next year, you know where I’ll be. Right here in this campground.” Raimey replied that it was a “date,” and so began the Kansas Connection.

We arrive at Rudy’s tent and are out of the truck by 5:00 A.M. We greet our friends, and when legal shooting time arrives, we hit the CRP grass behind the campsite. There are about 15 of us in all, and we walk the easy fields quickly with no points or flushes. By 8:00 we have dropped off the near-vertical bluff into the river bottom and we are stomping the cattails. This requires a particular technique Raimey refers to as “high-stepping,” in which you raise your foot until your thigh is perpendicular to the ground and then force it down into the thick bed of native grasses. It is not a natural motion, and there is no way to prepare for the toll it exacts on your body. Raimey tapes his ankles as he did in his football days. I’m wearing neoprene ankle gaiters to keep my socks in place, but it is little comfort.

The first rooster I see flushes as I am picking my way through a stand of saplings. A young man shooting an over-and-under fires two anxious shots, “pop-pop,” as the cock exits the far side of the cover. The bird hasn’t really got his wings under him, and he is no more than five yards ahead of us. The golf-ball-sized pattern fails to connect. Because the shooter has a clear line to the bird, I hesitate, waiting for a third shot that never comes. I don’t immediately realize that owing to the double-barrel, he has shot out. By the time I get my wits about me, the bird is at 70-plus yards, and I have no business shooting at him. I instantly rationalize that if I can wound him, we have enough hunters and dogs to walk him down and put in a finisher. I fire three times, hoping to send a long distance telegram, but he doesn’t sign for it. In response to all the commotion, a hen gets up for what would be a beautiful shot if they were legal.

The afternoon begins rather inauspiciously with a blown hunt. We divide up into two groups. Most of us will stand on the high ground and block, while the smaller group work their way around to the opposite side of a bowl and walk through the low ground pushing back toward us. I am fortunately in the blocking group, and I take advantage of the opportunity to stop walking for a while.

We wait for what seems to be more than enough time for the drivers to come into view and, seeing no hunter orange, we try to raise them on the radio to make sure everyone is O.K. R.J.’s voice comes back tense and irritated. He says there’s a problem; the group has met two hunters on the other side, and they claim that there are others ahead of them. Seeing no one in between us and the other hunters, R.J. explains that we are in position to block that and they will ease on down the hill watching for other hunters. R.J.’s request is denied, so he adopts another tack. Pointing off at a side-hill angle, R.J. suggests that it might be possible to work around the other hunters, but the fellow angrily replies, “I’ve got guys down there too!” We learn later that a heated exchange ends with one of the other “hunters” saying something to the effect of, “We’ve got guns out here, you know.” Wisely, R.J. decides to avoid the confrontation completely and our guys backtrack out the way they entered.

Although this is public access land, none of us has ever had an encounter like this one before or since. We are discussing the matter around the truck in the parking area when two hunters walk out alone. I speak to them as they walk by the lot of us, asking, “Did y’all kill them all?” One of the guys mutters a response, and they get into their truck and leave quickly. It is only when R.J. rounds the back of our truck, red-faced, that I realize they were the other “group” of hunters that were supposedly dispersed over an area of roughly 40 acres. R.J. relates that he believes they might have been drunk, because while they were talking, a rooster got up right underneath them and neither seemed to notice.

One of the Kansas bunch has secured permission to hunt some private land, or “ground” as they call it out there, and we decide that it would be a good idea to go. This will allow us to avoid bumping into our new friends again until they are hopefully either somewhere sleeping it off or in jail. We drive to a beautiful field of milo which should make for easy walking. Unfortunately, the owner’s house is situated such that if we walk parallel to the rows in the “right” direction, we will be pushing birds directly toward the house. It’s a large field, too large for a group our size to position blockers in front of the house and yard, so we walk against the grain, the heads of the unharvested milo at just the correct height to bang our knees with every step. Raimey expresses relief that the milo is only knee-high, as there are worse places to get continually whacked with the heavy seed heads.

In working this field, we kick up more pheasants than I care to count. No one fires a shot, though, as they are all hens. I think to myself that if all these hens raise progeny during the off season, Kansas should have a banner pheasant season in 2007. That is little consolation in 2006, however, standing in the middle of the seemingly endless field with aching legs and feet. Defeated, we plod back to the truck, resolved to return to the walk-in land were we at least saw legal roosters.

Back at Glen Elder, we are row-cropping again, this time in a wheat field. Kirk shoots a fine cock pheasant, and Raimey connects with one also. A younger hunter fires after Raimey, though, and Raimey makes no move to claim the bird. At one point in the afternoon, we are walking along in a widely spread line and two roosters sail parallel to every gunner. Whether from the angle of the sun, fatigue, or the sheer number of hens we’ve seen, nobody calls out or fires a shot until the birds are halfway down the line. It is only after they have passed me that I realize they are fair game. I fire three times, but I’ve started my swing too late and I fail to do any damage.

Kirk kills another bird in the basin before the afternoon is over, but I am not there to witness it. I am sitting on top of the bluff watching the line of hunters make one last pass through the thick stuff. I’m exhausted, and my shooting glasses are fogged up like I’ve been in a sauna. I watch four roosters and two hens glide silently in behind the hunters and light, but I am in no shape to go down after them. One cock and a hen flush far out in front of the advancing line, but none of the hunters has a shot, and legal shooting time fades into early evening.

Thursday, November 2, 2006

We all meet at Raimey’s house and load our stuff. Somehow everybody’s gear fits into Kirk’s toolbox, in the truck bed, and on the receiver mounted rack. It’s 9:15 P.M., and we are headed for Kansas. The late departure should put us there just in time to check into the hotel. We drive through the night in 4 hour shifts. At first, everyone is jacked up with the excitement of finally getting away from work and home, and no one can sleep. This makes the small hours before daylight a brutal slog, because that initial surge of energy wears off for each man at about the same time. We use the buddy system to keep an eye on each other, and we stop whenever necessary to take on fuel, exercise the dogs, or make a restroom pit stop. At one point during the night, I am certain that I am inches from taking out a deer leaping into the road. Fortunately, it’s only a tumbleweed.

Friday, November 3, 2006

We arrive in Concordia, Kansas, at 11:30 A.M., road weary and saddle sore. There is a Pizza Hut directly across the street from our hotel, and we descend on the lunch buffet like a plague of locusts. Locusts that drink beer. There is a surprise in store when we check into our hotel; the only room they have for us is a Jacuzzi suite. A couple of the guys are grumbling about the amount of floor space taken by the tub and the extra cost, but I could kiss the girl behind the counter. I know from last year how sore I’ll be tomorrow evening and how good that hot water will feel. I make no attempt to hide my enthusiasm for all things wet and bubbly, and the guys snort derisively. What can we do, I shrug unconvincingly, it’s all they have. Darn the luck, I’ll just have to soak in that pesky tub after all. If we’re stuck paying for it, somebody should use it. I’ll take one for the team.

We unload the truck, and each man does a gear check. We all install slings on our shotguns, and some of the guys add magazine extensions and longer springs. This will later be the subject of some controversy, but we’ve hunted this country before, and we know how long you can push the birds without seeing a rooster. Then, after miles of rough walking, the birds you’ve been chasing all day get up in tremendous numbers. We have seen groups of 50 or more in a pheasant “covey rise.” If you only get to do this once a year, and you’ve driven 15 hours to do it, “3 and out” is not the way to go. The long recoil design of the A-5 limits me to an unplugged 5 rounds, but you can bet your sweet bippy that plug will stay in the hotel room. Pheasants are not migratory birds, so all the extra rounds are legal.

Kirk is missing his sling, so he borrows one from R.J.’s backup gun. We swap money around to cover the cost of groceries, licenses, and shells, and we stage all of our clothing for in the morning. Dinner finds us at the El Puerto Mexican restaurant, and we stop off at a wonderful store called Liquor Outlet on the way back to the hotel. They have a banner that says “Welcome Hunters,” so we make ourselves right at home. Raimey always makes our morning coffee, and he buys some Amaretto Di Saronno to “wake up the flavor.” Somebody gets some Bailey’s Irish Cream as well, and R.J. and I purchase Bud Light and Bud Heavy respectively.

Back at the hotel, I do an hour of reading for work. I hope my supervising attorney reads this and rewards my extreme dedication to duty. Having managed to get through the day without a nap, we’re asleep at 8:30 P.M.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Work is horrifying today. It’s always like this with a big trip. The pressure builds and builds until you reach the tipping point, and then you just don’t give a rip anymore. You reach nirvana, the satori of perfect bliss. I’m not there yet, but I am feeling around the edges of it. At least I have finalized my packing list:

Browning Auto-5 in floating zipper case, magnum friction rings installed, sling system attached, extra magazine cap, choke tubes, plug removed

Benelli Nova in floating velcro case, sling attached, choke tubes, choke tube wrench, plug removed

Break-Up Duffel: Game toter straps (2), fleece face mask, black waffle shirt, 2 long sleeve camo shirts, 2 long sleeve knit camo shirts, 3 pr. wool socks, zip leg camo pants, brush overalls, fleece gloves, orange boggin, orange hat, cotton waffle insulateds, expedition weight insulateds, 1 pair ankle garters, Past recoil pad, mesh orange vest, parka shell, chamois shirt, black long sleeve cotton shirt, 10 pr. tightey whiteys, 1 pr. Wranglers, 2 pr. sleeping shorts, 6 pr. cotton socks, Guy Harvey t-shirt, trash bags

Leather bag: spare contacts, various ear plugs, phone charger, big Swiss Army knife, Burt’s Bees Lifeguard’s Choice, camera, spare batteries, battery charger, blood pressure medicine, Prilosec, Pepcid, vitamins, supplements, cough drops, Benadryl, Tums, bore snake, WD-40, towel, other toiletries

Camouflage cooler: Green tea

And that’s it. Now that I think about it, it looks like the combined take from two robberies: a sporting goods store heist and a pharmacy job!

Sunday, October 29, 2006

We’re just days from the start of our Kansas trip, and I’m still ordering equipment. I’ve decided that my luggage isn’t up for the rigors of a trip like this. We will be hauling our gear in the back of a pickup. Everything will be double bagged in yard size trash bags to prevent water incursion, but I don’t have a large enough bag for all the clothes I will need. Raimey ordered flats of shells months ago, but I’ve waited until the last minute. I also realize that while hard-sided luggage won’t compress and will take up too much room, I won’t have any way to protect my camera and other breakables if I stuff them down in a massive duffel bag. A call to Mack’s Prairie Wings solves both problems. I order the requisite massive duffel bag for the clothes, and an Avery soft-sided cooler for the breakables. The cooler space may also come in handy when we get there. I have to spring for 2-day air freight, but I am assured that my bags will arrive in time for the trip. I pick the camo pattern for each bag (why not, right?) and that’s one less thing on my list.

I check my guns, making sure that both are ready for travel and use. It’s Raimey’s suggestion to take a backup shotgun. A malfunction could ruin the trip, and there’s too much planning and preparation involved to blow it with a broken ejector or a weak magazine spring. Raimey and the other guys have been reviewing satellite photos and topographic maps of the area we will be hunting, even though R.J. and I went last year and this is the third trip for Raimey and Kirk. A change in the water level in the river basin could make areas we hunted with great success last year inaccessible now. They also check to make sure that a massive logjam across the river is still in the same position as before. The result of a flood some years ago, the logjam provides a difficult but passable route to the other side of the river without walking out, driving around to the parking area on the far side, and then walking back down into the bottom.

The hunting conditions are difficult to impossible, high-stepping through the cattails to flush birds that have taken to the river bottom for refuge. This is public land, and the row crops receive a tremendous amount of hunting pressure on opening day weekend. Our style of hunting depends on this pressure to concentrate the birds in a small enough area for the four of us to hunt effectively, but thick native grasses six to eight feet high are the rule and not the exception. Couple the exertion with the tremendous daily swings in temperature and a steady wind that sometimes exceeds 20 miles per hour, and you’ve got a recipe for heat exhaustion, hypothermia, or both.

Just getting there is bad enough. It’s a good six hour drive from the Gulf Coast to Raimey’s house where we will all meet. From there, it’s another sixteen hours in the saddle with each man driving a four hour shift. I’ve scheduled extra time off from work after we return, because the immune system takes a beating in a solid week of dawn-to-dusk hunting. Everyone seems to come back with some kind of flu bug and some nagging injuries. For all the planning and effort, I still love this trip. I’ve been on a few guided hunts before, and I’ve also taken friends from out of town fishing in the salt. Just from these few outings, I know that the experience of the guide is far different from the experience of the guided. A mediated adventure is not the same as the outdoors unfiltered.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

I’m sitting at home in front of a Saints game. I’m not really watching the game because I’m preparing to go hunting, and in my mind I’m already on the trip. That’s the best part of any vacation, really. You get to leave long before you even get off work. There are only four days to go or, counting this one, four and a half. I know I won’t get to watch much TV while I’m gone, so I am clearing the Tivo, gorging myself on brain candy and the fattening kind too.   The sugar rush is a welcome change.  I’ve lost twenty pounds over the past two months.  This is partly a result of exercise and diet and partly damage control.  I was recently diagnosed with a hiatal hernia which means small meals, nothing fried, and no alcohol.  These are basically things I needed to do anyway, but the searing pain that results from a violation of any of these guidelines is very motivational.  It’s comparable to the sensation of having eaten a box of ten-penny nails, hot-dip galvanized.

This trip physically hammered me last year.  The other guys  are in much better physical condition that I am.  Raimey is a surveyor, so he basically walks for a living.  The other two, Kirk and R.J., install and service heating and air conditioning systems, crawling around in basements and attics in the Alabama heat.  And then there’s me, the desk jockey.  I type, I talk on the phone, and when I really feel like stretching my legs, I walk fifteen feet to the copier or, if I’m feeling adventurous, the water cooler.  I’m a modern day Walter Mitty, a legend in my own mind.  I’ve had African adventures with Hemingway, Ruark, and Capstick, but our safaris are all within the pages of a book.

The World’s Largest Ball of Twine, and not much else, is in Cawker City, Kansas. This fact, while certainly interesting and impressive by itself, is not the only reason for visiting that part of the world. No sir or madam, this sleepy little town is a veritable hotbed of activity come pheasant season. For two years running, I have hunted the first week of pheasant season in Kansas with three of my friends. We drive out from Alabama with all of our equipment and our dogs, stay in the cheapest hotels we can find, and hunt walk-in access land. The birds are wild and wary, the days and miles are long, and we all enjoy every minute of it every year. I am just about to leave for my third such trip, and I thought I would post some of my notes from last year’s trip to whet everyone’s appetite for this year’s story.