Category Archives: reflections

reflections, Uncategorised, writing

Breaking Clays and Busting Chops

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There’s not much better than clay-busting therapy time spent with a shotgun. Case in point, our annual “family and friends” skeet shoot this past Labour Day long weekend.

Yes, I know I’m using the Canadian spelling for Labour Day. No I’m not changing it, despite the pleadings of Microsoft’s spellchecking software.  You’ll also need to be aware that it isn’t a “skeet-shoot” in the Olympic sense of the term…but more on that later.

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This event has had ebbs and flows over the years, sometimes drawing dozens of shooters and other times just a meager crowd of relations and close friends.  Past champions, myself included, gloat over former glories and lament their inability to repeat those triumphs.  Egos are boosted on the back of a streak of good shooting form, and hopes for victory can shatter like the targets thrown against the sky.

Enough flowery metaphors though.  It is ideally a chance to make the scatterguns go boom, tenderize shoulders in advance of a fast-approaching waterfowl season, laugh and reminisce with pals, and air out petty personal grievances in the form of not-so-subtle trash-talk.

The 2015 iteration of this event took place just this past Saturday, or September 5th for those of you without a calendar.  While there was some buzz about it, we found a slightly smaller group lined up in the back hollow.  Some regular attendees were indisposed at a camping trip, while I’m sure others were discouraged by the sweltering temperatures and blazing UV index.  It was well over 30 degrees Celsius when we started the event but the eight of us in attendance were all game to compete, and as we uncased shotguns and peeled open shell boxes the sense of anticipation was obvious.

For a time we milled around, no one really wanting to be the first to lead things off, but eventually one of us crossed onto the shooting line and began thumbing shells into the breech.  As the first clays broke, earplugs were inserted and everyone’s confidence grew and before long everyone was lining up for their turn, shooting long flyers and low crossers while we crudely critiqued each other’s shooting prowess with colourful language and witty rejoinders.  We set up a line of two or three guns and tested each other’s speed and accuracy, even managing to dust the broken flyers of split clays a couple of times.

There were also tragic misses and hilarious reminiscences told.

In time, and in a way that was mostly informal, we came to the competition round.  I had won this single-elimination competition in 2012 by heating up at just the right time and going on a 9-for-9 streak, after a preliminary warmup that exposed just miserable shooting on my part.  To say many ‘superior’ wingshots were rightly embarrassed that day is an understatement.

The elimination round allows a shooter three shots in a round with the intent being to break single clays thrown more or less similarly.  This year, our designated thrower decided that one of the clays would be randomly selected to be a fast, low, left to right crossing shot, which is arguably one of the harder shots to make in my opinion.  After my cousin Luke had run a perfect 3-for-3 in his opening round, and my brother followed up with a 3-for-3 of his own, I stepped up and broke the first two clays (and I looked damn stylish doing it too, but that’s for a future post) before our thrower whipped the third clay, which was the low crosser.  I snapped the 870 to my shoulder and fired in one smooth motion, powdering the target and drawing cheers of surprise from the small gallery of other shooters.  I snapped the pump action on the 870 one last time and confidently headed back behind the firing line, content in my glory.  My friend Jason, who was firing a side by side shotgun of reasonable vintage, also managed a 3-for-3 so a quartet of shooters headed to round two.

I powdered two more clays in the next round, including another low crosser before tasting defeat on a clean miss at the third target.  My brother also bowed out in the second round, while Luke and Jason had perfect second rounds to advance to the final.  In the final round, Luke missed one clay, which was enough of a window for Jason to run another perfect round, finishing 9-for9 and taking this year’s honours as the champion.

We celebrated by shooting more clays, telling dirty jokes, and critiquing my wardrobe.  We put the guns away and attempted to catch thrown clays in our bare hands.  My brother and I each managed to make some catches, showing that soft hands are for more than smoothly swinging a shotgun.  Eventually the hour came to clean the field and with the guns stowed we had some cold beers, piled up the empty shells, and retrieved any unbroken clays before sitting on truck tailgates and laughing some more.

As I sat there in the sun, shoulder tingling from the pounding of countless rounds, laughing with good friends and enjoying the last weekend of the summer, the sense of fellowship and freedom hung heavy in the humid late-afternoon air.  A family and friends barbecue was going to start in a couple of hours and it required me to shower and change my clothes…not for my own pride but out of a sense of politeness to the other guests.  We posed for the annual photo shoot and made plans for the upcoming weekends of goose and duck hunting, and then we headed back from the hollow down to the farm house.

The turnout had been on the small side, the shooting had at times been atrocious, and the sun had been a bit hard on us all.  Still, traditions are made to be maintained, and blazing away at our annual farm skeet shoot is one tradition I’m happy to honour.

deer hunting, hunting, reflections, Uncategorised

A Season Opener for a Failed Deer Hunter

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With the faintest, furtive greys of the predictably wet November day spreading from the east, I step out onto the deer camp deck and the chill of a pre-dawn drizzle bites into my bare legs.  I could have put pants on, but didn’t see the point just yet.

I grab the jug of orange juice off the picnic table and I swirl the grainy slush around inside of it.  The drink pours like cement into the red plastic cup and I chug it back as though it were a heavy dram of whiskey.  The chill of the ice tightens in my throat as I pour another cup before re-entering the cabin.

The wood stove crackles and pops.

“She’s looking a bit damp.” I announce, and a few grunts acknowledge my observation.  I set the jug of juice on the long wood table and a portable radio crackles some trendy country song.  In the back room I can hear gear being organized for the day.  A gas lantern hisses a yellow haze, and next to it a modern, battery-operated unit glows silent, clean, white light.

I sit in the stiff-backed wooden chair and unwrap a granola bar, content for a moment to watch the primal dance of grown men in tight deer camp quarters.  My father and uncles, in their late-50’s or older, are seasoned veterans of this ritual and they move purposefully around the perimeter, eating lightly, pulling on lined work pants, and double-checking their coat pockets or fanny packs.  These men travel light in the bush, but don’t ever want for comfort.

My cousins, and others in camp that are of my generation, move less smoothly.  We all seem to have more equipment in our ponderous backpacks, and we mill around testing grunt tubes, clipping thick foam seats to our belts, wriggling into space-age, skin-tight athletic shirts, and then pulling thermal hoodies or camo sweaters over those.

I’m a throwback.  I wear an old wool sweater over top of my Under Armour.

I get up and move upstairs to my corner of the cabin.  From the edge of my cot, I finish getting dressed before I stuff a couple of apples and a candy bar into my backpack.  My coat hangs over my bed, and I feel around in the pockets for my gloves and toque.  I find my two way radio and flick it on; the ‘full battery’ icon is good news.  Descending the stairs, I see that men are already filing out the door.

“Shawn, where’r you going today?” someone says.  I had not really thought of that yet.

“Beaver Pond, I think.” It is a snap choice to go to a run of hardwoods that forms a funnel between some ridges and, as the name implies, an old beaver pond.

“Okay,” my dad chimes in “Make sure you stay there until lunch.  A deer could come through there anytime.”

“Will do.” I tell him, even though I won’t if the wind changes and gets bad for that stand, or if I just get too cold.  Dad nods and heads out.  I slip on boots and grab my rifle off of the gun rack on the wall. I’m the second to last one out.

I exit the cabin door, a shining blaze orange beacon.  I look to my left and watch similar orange forms slip up the trail, silently headed to their posts.  Stepping off the deck, I reach into my pants pocket and find the clip for my .308.  With a satisfyingly snug ‘click!’ it nests into the rifle.  I check the safety with my thumb and then I work the bolt, smooth and almost automatically.

The familiar, metallic ‘snick-snick’ of the shell being chambered tells me that now, after a year off from it, I’m finally deer hunting again.

I push the safety off and then click it back on again.  I picked up that habit from my great uncle Bower, and I do it every time I load a gun.  Bower was there in 1995 when I shot my first deer, one of the first on the scene as I recall.  He was quite pleased with the little doe fawn I knocked down that day, and so was I.  Bower has been gone for over a decade now, but his memory floods back every November.

We smile and laugh when we tell stories of him.

I do not shoot many deer, and it seems that the ones I do shoot are never more than 2 ½ years old.  The others in my camp shoot plenty more deer, and those deer are oftentimes a lot bigger, so my lack of prowess has become, in a way, my badge of honour.  My feet move quietly on the damp grass and wet leaves, and through wind and spitting rain I hear the cabin door open and close one last time.

I don’t bother looking back, I know who it is, and I know where they are going.

They are going deer hunting, just like I am.

hunting, reflections

In Defense of Beagles

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This past week, a beagle won the Westminster.  That’s good.
 
I have a soft spot for beagles, and although I’d rather see one running low through the snow on the trail of a snowshoe hare as opposed to jauntily trotting around in a show-ring, I couldn’t help but smile to see the Best in Show ribbon next to the stately little canine.
 
I enjoy beagles.  Real beagles. Working beagles. Not a Puggle (that wholly unnecessary Pug/Beagle cross), or a beagle/collie hybrid, or anything like that.  Nope, for me it is a low, sleek, tri-colored beagle with stern eyes, a keen nose, and a stiff-flagging tail.  Now there are many, many breeds of hounds and working, scent-tracking dogs, and they all have merits, but my affinity for beagles comes from the same place as my love of hunting at large, and that is from the earliest memories I have of the outdoors.
 
I was at a very young, impressionable age when I first got bundled up and ventured down the road with my father and Chum the beagle to ramble through snow covered cedars and bare winter hardwoods in search of snowshoe hares.  I learned patience, perseverance, and early lessons in bushcraft all to the ringing music of a baying and tonguing beagle.  The hare would make wide circles, through the hardwoods and cedar edges, and the persistent sing-song howls and “ba-rooo!” of Chum would grow ever closer. As the dog came nearer and nearer, Dad would move his .22 from a cradle carry to a two-handed ready position and his eyes would scan the snowy ground for the ghostly movements.
 
“Stand still” he’d softly hiss at me. I had a problem with that then, and I still do.
 
If I was lucky, stock-still, and attentive I’d pick up the prey first, but more often than not it was the smooth mount and swing of Dad shouldering his rifle that tipped me off to the approach of our quarry.  Sometimes the rabbit would dodge and evade the volley, and Chum would run single-purposed after it as we moved to reposition ourselves, but often the crack of the .22 would be the last thing the hare would hear.  When that happened Chum would run up and nose the lifeless animal, snuffing and whining, while Dad would pat the dog’s side and tell him he what a good job he did.  I’d be tasked with carrying the rabbit, and before long we’d cut another track and Dad would give the command that Chum, and frankly I, loved hearing.
 
“Hunt ‘em up.  Go on.  Hunt ‘em up now…”
 
And we’d begin again, Chum tonguing and baying along, Dad and I trying to get ahead of the next loop that the rabbit would run, and the rabbit doing his best to get around both of us.Chum was high-strung and a typical beagle. He was single-minded when on the trail, and more than once he ran off and couldn’t be immediately brought back.  He was rough around the edges and wasn’t the best with kids, but as soon as he had gone hunting with you, his personality turned around.  He had snarled and barked at me more than once, but after I began joining him and my Dad in the field, things got better.
 
Some say that the beagle scores low on intelligence scales relative to other dogs, I’ve heard that beagles are temperamental, annoying, noisy, and prone to erratic behaviour.  I’m not an animal psychologist and certainly not an expert on dogs, but the handful of beagles I’ve hunted with were sure happy to be running in the snow and that’s about all I’m really concerned about.
 
Chum was lost many years ago, while running deer in Central Ontario. It was never confirmed if he took an injury and couldn’t get home, or if he was picked up by other hunters, or maybe he ran afoul of wolves or coyotes.  He was fairly old by that time, and I remember hearing about Chum being lost from Dad.  It was sad, losing a hunting buddy, and for a few years we ran a mutual friend’s beagle, and although that dog was an eager runner, he was overweight and struggled to keep the levels of endurance that we had been spoiled with when Chum was on the chase.  When that next beagle inevitably went on and died, no subsequent dog replaced him.  With the loss of the beagles, came the loss of the earliest form of hunting I’d known.  Winter weekends running snowshoe hares with a baying dog had been a sporadic holiday-season occurrence before, and with no dog they disappeared outright.
 
I made forays into the bush with a .20ga on a few December afternoons looking to jump ruffed grouse and track a rabbit on my own, and while the thrill of getting close to game was still there, something was missing.
 
It wasn’t long before I came to the realization that it was not just shooting rabbits that I enjoyed.  Others before me had fallen under the spell of it, and I’m not the last to be drawn in by the howl ringing in the crisp, still winter air.  There was a quiet joy in watching the icy blue skies of a late December afternoon slowly turn to red and purple to the soundtrack of Chum the beagle.
 
My current job and home situation precludes a beagle of my own, as I find an inherent cruelty in keeping a running dog like a beagle in a small backyard in the city, and my heavy travel schedule combined with the activities of two rambunctious young boys doesn’t leave much time for a recreational hunt after snowshoe hares.
 
But the day is coming, I can sense it like an inevitability.  And then I’ll say “Hunt ‘em up” to a beagle and cradle a rifle while I watch the white-tip of a tail take off through the bush and I’ll hear the howling again.  And it will be great.
hunting, hunting ethics, random thoughts, reflections

Honour Among Thieves & Unity Among Hunters, or, The Seven Deadly Sins of Hunter Relations

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As surely as there are death and taxes, you can bet that however, wherever, and whatever you choose to hunt that there will be someone out there that knows how to find fault with the way you do it.
 
I long ago got used to the opinions, taunts, jibes, and snide remarks of the taciturn, illogical anti-hunter or the misinformed and self-assured non-hunter (which are two distinct sides to the same coin), but it was not until I started this pseudo-public, completely unprofitable forum for my hunting stories, opinions, and general bunk that I came to realize how much hunters truly hate other hunters.
 
Now before you send the hate mail which would only go to prove my thesis, hear me out.  I’ll also apologize for a moderate use of salty language in the following.
 
In observing this, I’ve found that there are a few ‘classifications’ for this hunting community ill-will and for lack of a better term, bullying, which I’ll outline now.
 
Jealousy
Some people don’t get to hunt as much as they would like, and others don’t get to hunt the species or areas that they would like.  Sometimes this is a function of time, occasionally this is a function of funds, and sometimes it is mixture of both.  Regardless of the cause, jealousy at the opportunity, success, or enjoyment that other hunters experience can be a catalyst for much resentment.  The jealous hunter will scoff at others, and disparage their skills or outcomes, solely because the jealous hunter cannot or has not yet had that opportunity themselves.  Consistently successful hunters have to deal with this as well, and can fall prey to all sorts of accusations of unethical hunting or benefiting from being in a ‘target-rich’ environment.
 
Low Self-Esteem
Related to jealousy, but with its own distinctive patter, hunters that don’t hone, respect, or value their own abilities often find every opportunity they can to denigrate and humiliate those with skills, no matter how modest or extravagant those skills are.  This type of hater calls the seasoned marksman ‘lucky’ or ‘nothing without a scope on their rifle’.  They may have never placed a decoy in their life, but they’ll tell you how your pattern isn’t working.  They tell you you’re doing everything wrong, or too much, or too little, but they don’t ever do it themselves.
 
Competitiveness
Competitive hunters attempt, and are sometimes successful in their efforts to suck all the joy out of hunting for others.  You shot a 10-point buck?  They’ll make it their life goal to shoot a 12-pointer.  Shot a banded mallard?  They shot ten of them.  Trying for a wild turkey Grand Slam?  Well they have five of those and are working on an Ultra-Super-Extra-Difficult-Intercontinental-Mega Slam.  I don’t have any issues with hunters driven to succeed; I know and hunt with plenty of those and in some ways I’m one of those myself.  But when every personal goal comes at the comparison of the outcomes of others, I fear you may be missing the point of hunting altogether, or worse, you are using hunting to compensate for some psychological deficiency (see Low Self Esteem above).
 
Anger
Unbelievably, I missed a deer this year.  Several factors I could not control, and one that I could (my decision to shoot at all), contributed to this.  I don’t get a lot of opportunities to shoot deer, so I can safely say I was ticked.  Maybe even angry.  It happens.  But within two hours, a steak, and a couple of beers later, I was fine.  What I’m referring to here is not the attendant frustration that comes when you make a mistake.  No, no, what I’m talking about now is the hunter that is always mad at something.  They are mad at the weather, they are mad that game isn’t moving, they are mad that game is moving when they themselves aren’t there, and most of all they are mad at other hunters for having the temerity to hunt with, near, or remotely adjacent to them.  They want all the hunting to themselves, and they are visibly and permanently enraged that anyone else impinges on their ‘right’.  These people are not fun at all to be around, and if you find that no one wants to spend a lunch hour in a cabin with you, odds are you’re an angry hunter too.
 
Puritanism
It is the job of the puritan to keep hunting elite. Do you use a turkey box call?  They use their voice, and think you should too.  Do you shoot rifles at deer?  They bow hunt and are smug about it.  Did you pack mule into an elk or sheep hunt?  Sacrilege, why you should have been doing it on foot, humping all your equipment in on your own back you lazy schmuck.  See where I’m going with this?  The puritan not only understand ‘fair chase’ but they feel it is their sole responsibility to define and enforce the standard. 
 
Now, there is a difference between adherence to a high ethical standard and puritanical ways of viewing hunting, and this is often the grey area of the debate.  Laser guided scopes, ultra-high quality electronic game calls, and high-definition camouflage and scent elimination systems often push that ‘traditional’ envelop, but there is a reason we aren’t all still chucking pointy sticks at mammoths.  Progress happens and you can only avoid it for so long.  Likewise pride is different from puritanism, but when you value ‘your way’ as the ‘right way’ or worse the ‘only way’, well then I haven’t really got any time for you.
 
Hypocrisy
Hypocritical hunters will criticize and lambaste other hunters for things that, admittedly, they have no problem with.  Their issue and argument always seems to be that there is only a problem when you shoot a duck on the water instead of on the wing, when you shoot a big whitetail over a bait pile, or when youenlist an outfitter for a trophy hunt.  They like to reserve special privilege to their own situation and worldview.  Again, we all recognize hypocrisy when we see it, so start identifying it and cutting it out of the hunting dialogue.
 
Expertise
The most insidious of the groups of hunters hating hunters are the “Experts”, both of the self-proclaimed variety, as well as those acclaimed as experts by consensus.  I would wager that the ‘expert’ class, or the ‘expert’ mindset is responsible for reducing hunter enjoyment more than any other of the above.  I’m not talking about the benevolent, avuncular mentor that guided you to your first deer or took you pheasant hunting for the first time when you were a child.  I’m talking about the ‘expert’ that finds fault in the methods, ethics, and outcomes of even the most earnest and experienced hunters.  They are in your hunting camp and they are in magazines.  They are online and on TV, and part of the hunting ‘industry’ at large is based on this servile toadying to the “expert” caste.  These people hold others to a moral standard that they themselves have defined, and only they will ever be above their own judgment.  They know the better way, the secrets, and the overall fashion of how this sport of hunting should be done because they are experts, and you never will know those things, because you won’t ever meet their standard of excellence.  They take the democratic equality out of hunting, and they boil it down to a contest.  In short these people are the embodiment of all the above types of unpleasant person, which makes them assholes to be around.  Avoid them.
 
I guess all of the above is somehow tied up in the psychology of the kill in some way; maybe seeing someone else’s success or enjoyment of the hunting pursuit somehow diminishes the self-worth of people with the above character traits, forcing them to belittle others so as to aggrandize themselves.
 
I don’t know…maybe some people are just jerks and cannot help themselves.  The truth is probably a fraction of both at play.  The worst part about all of it is every one of the above traits (and I’m sure there are more that I haven’t discovered yet) is that they all serve the same purpose; to divide hunters against hunters.  It may well prove the downfall of the modern hunting culture.
 
I also guess that there is a bit of irony in me taking the pulpit to sermonize and decry these types of hunters, but that’s not really what I’m doing with this piece (or at least I hope it isn’t what I’m doing with this piece).  My policy has long been that so long as it is legal, safe, and that it most importantly does not negatively impact the public perception of the hunting tradition, then I don’t really care how you hunt, so long as you’re enjoying yourself, and I’ve been on record in this forum and other social media with that stance for a long time.  I think we all have a bit of enviousness, puritanism, or self-exalting expertise about ourselves; that’s just how people are hooked up.  The hard part is to set those traits aside when we’re discoursing and involved with other hunters.
 
Hunting is an intensely personal thing, and people forget their impact on others when it comes to things they are passionate about.  I get it, and I know that it’s a fine line, but it may be the only chance hunters have to see the common ground between themselves.