Coyotes in Idaho

As the sun began its descent over the mountains to the west of Malad City, Idaho I stood on the rim of a canyon shooting skeet with friends in the cool evening air. 

We had stopped about half a mile up a road leading into the mountains south of town.  The spot serves as a makeshift shooting range for locals.  As we pulled off on the shoulder I noticed that the steep hillside to the left of the road was dotted with “shoot and see” targets that someone had used on a previous trip.  The hill rose hundreds of feet in steep fashion, serving as a wonderful backstop for a rifle.  We walked off to the right, and set up our skeet thrower on the edge of a small canyon, whose rim was dotted with sagebrush, and had a draw choked with tall trees and thick vegetation perhaps 100 feet below us.

It was a leisurely evening of busting clay pigeons.  A few trucks passed us, rolling deeper into the mountains as we speculated whether they were camping, hunting, or just going for a drive.  Everyone threw us a friendly wave as they went by.  Not long after we started, a truck pulled up across the road from us and a guy was setting up with a rifle and spotting scope to pound the mountain side behind us.  

As the setting sun lit the sky on fire, our shotguns boomed across the sagebrush canyon, and the other shooters rifle thumped the stony slope behind us.  It was as relaxing and peaceful a way to end a day as I’ve spent in a long time.

After a while the rifle shooter put his gear away and walked over to us with his young son.  As it turns out (as it always turns out here) my buddy Tony knew the guy.  His name is Jeremy and he came over, said hello to everyone, shot a few skeet, then bid us farewell.  

Later that night, Tony got a text and asked me with great anticipation “Do you want to go hunt coyotes in the morning?”  His buddy Jeremy who we’d seen earlier on the mountain texted to see if I wanted to go chase some predators while I was in town.  Tony had obligations with church on Sunday and couldn’t go, but he very graciously said he could get me all the required gear, and just needed to know if I wanted to go.  

A word about Jeremy is in order here.  He is one of the coolest dudes you’re going to meet.  He’s an oil rig driller by trade, and when he’s not at work he’s probably in the woods or on the water with his family.

The first time I went to his house was with Tony when he had to drop off a skull.  Tony runs a business called Beetles and Bones that does European mounts, and I've seen no one that comes close to his level of work.  When we arrived the first thing you noticed was that the entire house was adorned with trophies, to the point where you’d think this guy must be a world class taxidermist.  If my memory is correct there was a full body mountain lion on a limb above the fireplace.  At first I’d thought he was a taxidermist, but instead he’s just a very dedicated, and very capable hunter.  

One of his favorite pursuits is coyotes.  He’s hunted them all over Idaho and has competed in State and World class coyote hunting competitions.  Deer hunters in the south kill coyotes as a byproduct of deer hunting.  If we see one, we kill it.  I think I've killed maybe four or five in my life.  Jeremy killed more coyotes last year than every southern hunter I know put together has killed in their life times.  The guy is like the Grim Reaper of predators.  I jumped at the opportunity to go with him.  Even if we killed nothing, I’d be getting a world class education on how to hunt predators.  There are probably tens of thousands of rabbits out there that have lived a lot longer than they would have if Jeremy hadn't bee on the job, killing their main tormentor.

The final decision was cemented when the text came in saying he’d pick me up at 0515.  I laid out my gear and tried to sleep. When the alarm rang the next morning, I was dressed and ready in under 5 minutes.  Soon after, headlights were in the driveway.  I grabbed my rifle and pack, then headed out into the cool, pre-dawn darkness of a southeastern Idaho morning.

The Drive

That morning the plan was to drive about an hour and a half from Malad, to one of Jeremy’s favorite places.  We were the only car on the road as we slipped out of town to the south.  As we drove I asked as many questions as I could about coyote hunting, their behavior, and tactics used to take them.  Despite only having met him twice and having spent a grand total of maybe 5 minutes around him, he’s just one of those people who you feel like you’ve known since high school once you start talking with him. 

Even in the pre-dawn darkness you could make out the ridge tops that surrounded you.  The truck rumbled and bounced through the mountains on a dirt road that would take us through a valley to the other side of the range.  Along the way my host would point out places he’s hunted in the past, along with the challenges and successes that surrounded them.  We passed an area he’d considered hunting this morning, but he knew it was bow season and didn’t want to crowd anyone trying to tag a deer.  It gives you a window to his mindset when he says things like “I thought about hunting there, but if I were a deer hunter I certainly wouldn’t like it if someone were up there calling and shooting all morning, and just messing up the area.”  That’s the kind of thoughtful attitude that can make public land hunting a much better thing.

Onward we rolled with ranches and homes, and even giant ghost-like windmills slipping past us in the dark.  As the sun began to rise we were pulling into the general area of the hunt.  Thankfully this was a relatively flat part of Idaho.  I live 338 feet above sea level, and the elevation there was 4,500 feet.  I am in good shape, but at that elevation I get a little winded.  Heck, just opening a farm gate can get my heart rate up at that elevation.    It’s not all fun and games for me there.

The plan for our first set was to set up on this relatively flat plateau in an area where the flat-top gave way to a rocky, sage-choked draw that led to the agricultural fields 100 feet or so below us.  

Tony had set me up with a very nice Savage AR platform chambered in 6.5 Creedmore, topped with a Burris scope.  Jeremy had an extra pack for me that converts into a seat cushion with a supported backrest, and it was a wonderful piece of gear. I was properly equipped for a long morning of comfortable shooting.

The sightlines were a little deceptive.  A non-hunter might say the place was wide open, where the only places a coyote could hide were behind a mountain.  However, the rolling ground, sage brush, and deep draws offed a dog a lot of ways to approach with stealth, or to conceal his retreat.  In fact, the ground rolled just enough that sometimes you could literally hide a pickup truck just 50 or 60 yards away.

It’s true that you could see the entire country for many miles.  The horizon was really the only limit to how far you could see…unless you wanted to see detail.  Details could be hidden.  Like a plane can fly below the radar, a coyote can "fly below the sage" and be almost completely hidden.  In some of these areas, if a coyote really wanted to, he could sneak to within 10 yards or so to the front of us before being seen.  In fact, Jeremy is the only person I know who has been bitten by a coyote.  He’s actually been bitten by TWO coyotes.  In both instances they got so close before he saw them, that they mistook him for something to eat, and got teeth into him.  One bit his boot and started to thrash.  The other approached from behind and was so close he couldn’t get a shot off.  Before he could get a gun up, that dog ran at him, bit his shoulder and ran away.    

The hunt

As we reached our first stand of the day, Jeremy sat his FoxPro call in the top of a sage bush, and we got set up. I sat with my back to a sage bush, Jeremy 10 yards to my right.  We were sitting on the rim of a rocky draw that dropped off the plateau 40 yards to our left, and opened into a vast, yawning gap as it descended to the edge of a green cornfield 100 feet below, and 300 yards to our right.  The area below and to the front of us was a jumble of grass, densely dotted with sagebrush, until the short ridge that formed the far side of the draw jutted straight up out of the ground.  It was about 150 yards to the ridge straight across from me, and 250 to where the far ridge extended closest to the corn field.  I could see just about everything in the draw, and a lot of ground on top of the opposite ridge.  It was a great vantage point.

The sun was rising beyond the mountains to my right, and as it did, it silhouetted the mountains with intense bands of yellow, orange, and gold.  I sat comfortably with the support of the backpack seat as the FoxPro call emitted its howls, cry’s, and yelps.  The Savage AR rested on a bipod with the rifle butt firmly in my shoulder, and my hand holding the grip.  The only movement require for a shot was to get my cheek on the stock and release the safety.  We were now two shadowy figures, tucked into the landscape with semi-automatic rifles, and getting to work.  We were officially hunting.

Maybe 10 minutes into the first set I heard Jeremy whisper “There’s one!”  

“Where?”

“Right in front of us.” Came the response.  

Even if you say “right in front of us” it still doesn’t narrow things down enough because I can see about 7 miles to our front. 

“How far?” I inquired, trying to narrow down my search grid.

“Thirty yards!”

My only thought was “OMG.  This dog is almost on top of us.”  I looked down into the draw and I saw fur, darting and bounding up the draw toward our call.  There was plenty of light to see with, but even with the critter this close I couldn’t see anything I could put a bullet in, it was all ears and tail.  On he came, running, bouncing, and weaving his way through the sage and toward the easy meal he knew awaited him when he got to the source of the crying birds that flowed through our speakers.  The hunter was becoming the hunted.  Every step brought him deeper into a trap he could never understand. 

He got so close that he was able to hide below us at the base of the hill.  I had to stand up, bipod dangling from the rifle, searching through the scope to find his vitals.  He stopped maybe 50 yards from me, I could see his ears sticking above the sage but there was no sight of his body. I had no shot.  

It might have seen me stand up, because it wasn’t long before he’d turned 180 degrees and was executing a bounding, running, retreat.

“Take him if you can” I said, “I have no shot.”  

I could see Jeremy tracking with his rifle out of the corner of my eye. BOOM! The report shattered the morning silence as dust kicked up just above and behind the running critter as he dashed through the draw.  BOOM! Another shot came, also missing high, and causing the critter to dart and dash even more as he executed every evasive maneuver he had in his tactical inventory.

As the predator exited the draw we stood on the rim, rifles in hand, shaking our heads at the experience.  We immediately agreed that that was the smallest coyote ever. As the heat of the moment passed, Jeremy began to wonder if it had actually been a fox.  We’d never have full knowledge of it, but in the end that’s kind of where the facts led us; that had to have been a fox.  After that, we packed up and moved to our next stand. 

As we bounced and eased our way along the very rough trails that criss-crossed this sage-brush plateau, the cab was filled with the alternating scent of sage and Marlboro reds.  Another lesson from a master predator hunter was that you are not going to fool a dog’s nose.  “If a dog can smell drugs that are concealed inside a gas tank, they can smell you no matter what type of de-scent product you try.”  It was a solid insight, we’d use the wind, and nothing else to keep our scent away from our prey. 

Our second setup was similar to the first.  It was almost identical except this time there wasn’t an ag field at the bottom of the draw.  This time the draw just emptied out into a large sage flat.  Again, Jeremy was to my right, working the FoxPro remote as we scanned for targets.  I alternated between scanning with binoculars and looking with my eyes.  As happens so often, when I have binoculars available to me I tend to look far past the opportunity that’s right at my feet.  The last stand had me searching the far reaches of our zone with bino’s, only to have a critter almost crawl into our lap.  There’s so much ground to track that there’s absolutely no way to cover everything. 

After perhaps 15 minutes, about the time we had planned to pack up and move, I heard Jeremy whisper “There’s one!”

“Where?”

“On the ridge, coming in from the right.”

I glanced at the ridge and saw fur darting in and out of view as the coyote flew around the bushes on his way toward breakfast.  It was a glorious sight to see this dog running along that rocky ridge, bouncing around sage brush above the draw.  I had him in the scope but couldn’t really ‘track’ him because there was so much going on. I just tried to keep the flashes of fur in the center of the scope until the running stopped; hopefully with the dog coming to a halt in a gap between the obstacles.  I was hoping he’d stop on top of the ridge to look around before committing to dropping into the draw and closing on us.  If I could get just two seconds, that would be enough time to get on him and pull the trigger.

I watched through the scope as his running came to an abrupt halt to the right of a large sage, just at the edge of the rocky ledge.  Safety off, get the crosshairs on his…whoosh!  Just as abruptly as he had stopped, he was gone again.  He stopped just long enough to look for movement in the direction of the sound, then hit the gas again.  He was hell bent on coming in.  

“He’s moving again” I whispered as I pushed the safety back to the "on" position.

As the dog ran around the back of the bush Jeremy let out a loud “whoop!”

The coyote slammed on the brakes, screeching to a halt right on the very edge of the rocky rim of the draw.  If you hadn’t been watching him come in, you’d have never picked him out against the brush around him.  I can still picture him as if it just happened; black rocks under his feet, green sage to his right, tall khaki grass to his left, and my crosshairs on his chest.  “Click, squeeze, BOOM!”  The safety came off, the trigger was pulled, and the gun sent him one. 

Tony’s Savage is a fairly heavy rifle. As it’s equipped, I’d guess it weighs around 12 or 15 pounds.  It’s heavy enough that the recoil doesn’t disrupt your sight picture.  When the round left the gun, I heard a muted “thump” from the report, and I watched as the round impacted his chest.  He dropped to the ground like the gods of gravity were trying to suck him into the very earth upon which he stood.  It was over.  143 yards away, on the rocky rim of a sage covered plateau, surrounded by the mountains of Idaho, was our first kill of the day.

Jeremy and I had never hunted together before that morning.  We’d not talked at all about what we’d do when the coyotes showed up, but both of us had hunted enough that in the heat of that moment, we knew what the other would do, and why.  As dangerous a predator as coyotes are, they have nothing on mankind.  Nothing.

I got a quick fist-bump congrats from Jeremy, then he handed me a piece of rope I could use to drag the varmint back to the truck.  We took a leisurely walk off our ridge, crossed the draw and retrieved the coyote.  All the way to the truck we discussed various aspects of coyote hunting. It was an awesome break from life’s normal routines.  Here there was no stress.  Here you could get completely focused on the one thing you want to be doing. There were no distractions, there was only focus on the task.  We were fully immersed in the hunt.

The morning progressed using that same pattern of setting up, calling, then moving on after 15 minutes or so.  Perhaps three sets later, with the sun getting higher in the perfectly blue morning sky, we found our next action.  As we bounced slowly along this trail that looked more like a wagon trail than a truck trail we passed an official sign that said we were on the Oregon Trail.  This particular spot was actually part of the Oregon Trail.  It was a fascinating interruption of our train of thought.  We joked about the Oregon Trail game everyone played as a kid, and concluded that he would have died crossing the river, and I would’ve fallen to cholera.  After discussing the many difficulties those early settlers must have faced, the talk turned back to the hunt.

Our next set up was a little different than the draws we had hunted earlier in the morning.  The topography here was just rolling grassy plains, interspersed with sage brush.  The sage appeared in “clumps” with small openings of khaki colored grass between them.  We had a fair amount of open space in front of us, and if anything came closer than 75 yards it would have to do so across very open ground.  

It was a picturesque place to sit.  The weather was perfect, and a gentle breeze kept the long grass swaying.  As I looked across the expanse before me I noted a pair of large grain silo’s far off in the distance.  This giant piece of state owned ground was surrounded by dairy farms and ag fields.  The land was brown for miles, then it was interrupted by a ring of bright green where irrigated ag fields were planted.  Then the land turned brown again before climbing up into the equally brown mountains.  In this mostly “brown” world, those tall red and white grain silos really stood out.

Maybe two minutes into the set I heard Jeremy whisper those familiar words “There’s one”.  I looked to the left and saw Jeremy kneeling behind his rifle, looking through his scope, as the long legs of the bipod stabilized the gun.  He looked exactly like the cover of one of those books about American snipers during the Vietnam war.  I used his rifle as my directional clue and got on mine as well.  I looked just in time to see a piece of a coyote dart through an opening and into the last patch of sagebrush between him and open ground.  I lost my view when the dog entered that brush.  Jeremy was to my left when we’d gotten set up, but the dog came in from our left, so we swiveled; which now put him to my left-FRONT.  He was clearly waiting for me to shoot, but I didn’t want to take a shot with someone 15 feet in front of me, even if they were to my left.  I told him to take it if he had the shot.  

BOOM!  There was no hesitation.  He’d had the scope on the critter, and let the shot off the leash the moment I told him to take it.  I saw a flash of movement after the shot, but it crashed in a heap right where it stood.

The second coyote of the morning was in the bag.  As fate would have it, that would be the last dog of the day.  The sun got high, and it became uncomfortably warm to be wearing dark hunting clothes.  When we got back in the truck we each grabbed a cold Dr. Pepper and began the long, slow, crawl over the Oregon Trail that led us back to the gate.  I bet those early settlers, choking on dust, and toiling in the heat in an inhospitable environment would’ve killed for a cold Dr. Pepper, and all I had to do was reach into the cooler and grab one.  Modern life is full of convenience, and it’s not all bad.  

Eventually the trail led us back to the gate and we picked up speed over blacktop roads, under blue skies, and past an endless supply of tall mountains that we knew were each covered in stealthy coyotes.  The next two hours were a blur of hunting stories and discussions on coyote behavior.  It was a great education on predator calling, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity.  So, to Tony I say “Thanks for setting me up on that hunt” and to Jeremy I say “Thanks for taking a stranger along and showing me how it’s done.”

A day in the sun

This trip has been a long time coming.  My world has been full of stress, big stress, life altering changes are happening and there’s no escape from the pressure.  The lake has always been my escape in the past and I hope it can be so again. It is the one place where solitude and adventure can drown all of your worries.  

Monday we lost another guy at work, the latest in a long line.  Our market is getting hammered and people are losing their livelihoods.  I looked around Monday afternoon and told everyone I was taking the rest of the week off.  I needed to be someplace other than work for a few days.  My morale and my outlook needed an adjustment, and I knew exactly where I would go to make it happen.  

It rained almost non-stop for the next three days.  There was no way to fish.  I was locked inside, sitting at a computer, brooding.  The weather forecast for Friday looked good so I prepped everything to be read for when the weather broke.  At 11 AM Friday morning I hooked the boat to the truck, grabbed a mug of coffee and a bag of Redman, then pointed the truck toward Pickwick Lake.

I was intent on having a good time.  I’d have a two hour drive to the lake, 6 hours of fishing, and a return trip that night.  I was a man on a mission.  I was going fishing and no stress would find me.  

After an uneventful drive I was finally sitting in the boat prepping sonars and camera gear when I saw the familiar green truck pulling down the launch.  My buddy Gary is a park ranger here and it looked like he was coming down to say hello.  I began walking toward the truck, about to let loose a good natured insult when the drivers door opened and I saw that it wasn’t Gary.  It was a pair of game wardens.  They’d come to ‘inspect’ me.  

This was a seasoned officer training a rookie and they’d been out stopping people all day.  I was merely the latest in a long string of inspections.  I handed my lifetime license to the rookie and thought that would be it.  It wasn’t.  They told me I needed to have a throwable life jacket for a boat my size and said that was an infraction.  So much for the “no stress” day.  Next he said my registration was expired, much to my surprise it was.  

They were cool about the whole thing.  He said he’d skip the citation for the throwable life jacket since I fish alone, and he wrote me up for the much lower cost "registration" issue.  I cracked some jokes with the wardens while they did the paperwork then got underway.  The rookie looked very uncomfortable with the whole thing so at the end I shook his hand and told him not to feel bad about what he’s doing, it was my fault and he’s doing a job that needs to be done.  It’s 100% my fault, not his.  Rules are rules.  Then I got in the boat, put it all behind me, and eased out of the marina to find some adventure. 

As soon as I left the marina I was greeted by a familiar Pickwick site, a barge.  These run day and night.  You’ll notice some very large spotlights mounted up near the wheelhouse.  If you’re heading toward them at night, in a manner they see as problematic they will hit you with one of those lights.  It’s only happened to me once, and I simply could not see.  I had absolutely no choice but to turn the boat another direction.  I still think they did it just to mess with me, but at night it’s difficult to tell how far away a barge is.  It’s probably the most dangerous thing out there because it’s so deceptive. Several times I’ve had a barge just a few hundred yards from me but thought I was looking at house lights on the hillside miles down the river.  The lights are so spread out, and so high and small that they look like everything BUT a barge at night.  Regardless, here’s one in the day time.  

I made a slow run to Panther Cove.  I say slow because the north wind had the main lake chopped up badly.  It was a bone jarring ride, and when I arrived I found the cove completely full of boats.  I didn’t even throw a line.  I wasn’t here to hang out in traffic, I was here to find some peace, and hopefully some fish.  

Despite the clear skies, on my run to the next spot I had to zip my rain jacket all the way up to my chin and tighten down the hood.  It was crazy how much water was spraying in my face as I made the journey to the next spot.  Even if I’d had windshield wipers on my sunglasses they could not have kept up.  Without the rain jacket I’d have been soaking wet and freezing cold.  After a few minutes of  getting splashed and pounded I pulled off the main river and into a cove that always produces in the Spring.  It was still windy in this cove, but with my Terrova Spot Lock feature I’d have no trouble at all.  I’d just hit a button and let the trolling motor do the work while I fished.

I deployed the trolling motor, hit the spot lock button and began to cast around a rocky point.  I quickly noticed I was being blown onto the bank.  “Hmm, I must have hit a button and de-activated the spot lock.”

I moved the boat a few yards out and hit it again.  Two casts later, same thing.  The wind was blowing me into the bank.  I turned the motor toward deep water and hit the “high power” button to zoom me away from the shore but the motor suddenly quit.  Nothing.  Dead.  “Wha?!”  It was quickly obvious that one or more of my deep cycle trolling motor batteries was dying or I had a loose connection somewhere.  I had virtually no power.

“Ugh! First I get a ticket at the ramp, now on a windy spring day I have no trolling motor!?!”  I was starting to get mad when I realized that I could still make this work.  I needed to keep my attitude right.  Sure it was windy and I had no trolling motor, and I got a ticket the minute I got here; but it was still a nice day to be on the lake.  Surely I could make something happen.  Heck, people caught fish all the time before trolling motors were invented.  

With a positive attitude I sat behind the wheel jumped on plane and motored to the next cove.  This is a cove where I’ve had a lot of luck over the past few years.  I idled down the bank to where I usually see beds and BAM!  Beds galore.  

The wind was everywhere.  Despite the fact that it was a north wind, every east-west cove on the lake was swirling and choppy.  There was nowhere to hide.  I got the boat about where I wanted it, then broke out my “old school” Spot Lock: a 20 lb fluke anchor.  I can’t tell you the last time I anchored up to fish, but I was sure glad I had that trick in the bag.  It looked like I’d be able to leap-frog my way down this bank, moving from anchor point to anchor point. 

I looked around the cove and reveled in my good fortune.  It was a windy day, and at times cold, but when the sun was out it glistened off every emerald green wave that rippled across the lake.  The hills were turning from Winter to Spring.  In the fall and winter my fishing is usually done in a world of gray skies and brown earth.  Today I had blue skies and areas of green popping out from the brown woods. Trees and flowers were blooming, grass was growing.    There wasn’t much wildlife to be seen or heard due to the wind, but nature was clearly coming back from her long winter slumber.  The sun was warm on my face when the wind wasn’t blowing, and the ground around me was soaking up that same heat.

I had my lucky “Lizard of Oz” tied on a Carolina rig and was slowly and patiently probing the depths around me.  There was a small, gravelly secondary point to my right that dropped off quickly into 7 to 9 feet of water.  In most places the drop off was a ledge, dang near straight down as you can see on some of the sonar pictures.  

I got a few encouraging bumps in the first 10 minutes which helped increase my confidence.  I really didn’t want to be pulling up the anchor and moving very often, and with this small bit of feedback from the fish I was willing to sit here with the patience of a Heron.  I figured if I was anchored on a good spot in the Spring, tossing a lizard into beds then I’d eventually score.  I had nowhere to go, and could sit here for a long time.

After a few bump-and-go incidents in the same spot I finally got a fish to commit.  On perhaps the fourth time I drug the Lizard of Oz through the bed I got a solid bump and I set the hook.  I could tell right away I had one on, though it felt like I’d probably caught a small male.  “No big deal” I thought.  “At least I’m on the board.”

The fish didn’t come on strong.  One moment I was just watching my line lazily slice through the glistening emerald chop that surrounded my boat under a warm early spring sun.  The next moment I was shocked from that idyllic scene and dragged into aquatic combat. I thought it was a fairly small bass until it came up and smashed the surface of the lake. That creature absolutely flailed through the air and crashed down with a spray you normally only see on a Disney log ride.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  This has gone from a routine catch, to a very nice and highly aggressive bass!

My previous calm and patient demeanor was suddenly nowhere to be found.  At this point I was a mumbling mess.  “Oh!  Dude, DUDE!  Oh man, oh jeez, man, dude.”  There was no coherent thought expressed at any point during my rambling.  I guess it was just an un-regulated expression of my pure excitement.  My “fun throttle” was stuck wide open and my brain didn’t feel the need to slow it down for the sake of grammar.  So I just paced back and forth mumbling incoherently but paying keen attention to the important stuff like maintaining tension on the line and monitoring my drag.

As that long green monster darted past me I could see an almost iridescent spot on his aft half.  It really stood out as a different color than the rest of the fish.  As it moved through the light it  changed almost like the hologram you see on a credit card.

I grabbed the net, extended the handle and put it in the water for the catch.  The next time this fish swam by I’d net him, land him, and snap a pic.  That was the plan.  But the fish had a vote too, and it saw things quite differently.  He was moving down the length of the boat and I was easing into position when he did it.  That fish pulled some aquatic black magic (perhaps I should say ‘green’ magic since he’s a bass) and my rod tip instantly slammed into the net, becoming hopelessly entangled.   

I was stunned.  How does a man shove the rod tip into the net when trying to land a fish?  I could see if maybe two people were involved, but I controlled both pieces!  I tried four or five times to free it but no dice.  In one swoop the fish had taken both my rod AND my net out of the battle.  This fish was good, crazy good.  I’d never seen a move quite like it.  Now that he had my rod, reel, and drag totally sidelined, all he had to do was defeat the tensile strength of my line.  I was sweating it.  My ambush was beginning to have the feel of defeat.

After a few failed attempts to free the rod I reached for my knife.  My rod and reel lay helplessly on the floor of the boat and I held the rim of the net in my left hand.  As my right hand slid down to my pocket my mind was racing.  “Do I really want to cut my net?  Heck, what if I accidentally cut my line?!?”  The fish was still on and he’d  occasionally rocket out from under the boat to mock me.

“No way I’m using the knife.  I’ll have to hand line him.”  I had the net in one hand and started to pull in the last few feet of line by hand.  I knew he was on the end of it, and that he’d try to kill me if he got the chance.  The first time I tried to lip him he blasted past me.  “Dang!  Where’s the line?  Is it going to break?  Don’t let pressure build up on the line!”  

I had this weird dance going on where I had to keep track of the fish, but also had to keep the net under control and make sure the rod didn’t twist so tight that it severed the line. The last time I had something green come up top and mess up this much gear it was a 10 foot gator.  Today this 20 inch bass was wreaking almost as much havoc.

After several more failed attempts at lipping him, I decided to pick him up like I see on the bass tournament shows.  I eased my hand under his belly and lifted him in like a football.  Piece of cake!  Despite it’s valiant attempts at escape, the Beast was in my boat, in my hands, and in my phone.  

The ice had literally and figuratively been broken.  Winter was officially over, and I’d caught the first bass of the year.  Despite all the recent trouble and stress, the lake had come through for me again.  It delivered 6 hours of adventure and fun.

I checked a few more spots and drove around the lake but I caught just a few small fish for the effort.  Soon the sun was setting and I decided to head for the truck.  

I stopped in one last spot on the way to the truck.  It gets cold back in these hollows, and despite the sunshine from earlier in the day, darkness was closing in.  It was a dusky, dark, quiet place surrounded by high forested hills.  The cold was reminding me that nature was in control.  If you weren’t prepared, she could kill you.  My hands were starting to burn from the cold and I could see my breath on the air.  Many time’s I’ll camp in this very spot.  I bring my firewood and camping gear on the boat with me, then simply nudge the boat ashore, start a fire, and sleep by the waters edge.

Tonight as I looked around the cove, I saw my breath hanging in the air and I was rubbing my hands to keep warm.  My trolling motor was dead and even in the shelter of this cove the wind was still pushing me around.  It was a good day, but it was time to head home for the comfort of a warm soft bed and an opportunity to fix my gear.  The first official day of my fishing season was over.  I drove home smiling, the stress was gone.

A storm is raging

It's 11:30 PM and I just turned the TV off.  The house is quiet and I hear only the lonesome sound of a train crawling by.  I can't see the train but I know it's there.  It's a mile away; past manicured lawns on quiet suburban streets.  Past blooming Dogwood trees signaling the beginning of Spring.  Past an entire city of sleeping human beings.  That big steel beast is coming in from the west just ahead of cold front that's bringing large volumes of rain.  

The beast will continue it's eastward journey, exiting the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee and powering into the rolling hills, forests and farmlands of north Mississippi.  Hundreds of tons of train will roll along on cold steel rails, taking that freight through small towns like La Grange and Grand Junction, TN.  It's lonely horn won't wake anyone at the hour of it's arrival.  It will snake through the swampy bottoms of Big Hill Pond, making owls and raccoons aware of it's presence as those big diesel engines rumble through the swamp.  It'll roll into Corinth, Mississippi sometime around 3:00 AM.  Then it will continue through the dark of night into the  hills of East Mississippi where it will cross the TomBigbee Waterway, perhaps crossing over a barge that's moving a different load of freight down to the coast.  Just a few more miles and that big train will cruise over a long, low, wooden trestle bridge that spans the southern reaches of Bear Creek on Pickwick Lake.  

That train is carrying more than freight tonight my friends. It's carrying my mind eastward to Bear Creek.  A creek 12 miles long, a mile wide, and loaded with large and smallmouth bass.  Tonight under that dark, cloudy sky, the train crosses a body of water loaded with hundreds of thousands of pre-spawn bass.  Like the train, the bass too are traveling a well defined and scheduled route at the moment.  Theirs leads from deep winter haunts, to warmer, shallow flats where they will spawn.  Some of them will take a journey that includes a trip to my boat, and into my memories.

As I drift off to sleep tonight with a raging storm outside, my dreams will ride that train to Pickwick, and I'll be setting the hook in my sleep all night. 

Another first

The weather has been uncharacteristically cold for our region recently.  Lows have been in the teens every night and daytime highs don’t exceed the freezing mark.  People and buildings in this region are not built for such weather.  It’s been a tough few weeks of winter lately.

Today though we had a break in the weather.  The daytime high jumped up to 41 degrees and we had clear skies with very little wind.  That was a nice change because today we’d be taking another new hunter on his first trip.  

My sons friend Sean would be joining us this afternoon.  He’s a super nice, super smart kid who plans to study mechanical engineering next year when he starts college.  He has a good bit of experience shooting pistols, but has never hunted. 

I took him through the usual process of ensuring he was familiar and competent with the rifle we’d be using.  We discussed deer behavior and anatomy, along with where to place a shot depending on the position of the deer.  

This would be an overnight trip, which would give us more opportunity to score.  I hadn’t hunted this farm in a while so I had no clue what the deer had been up to. I thought we might need the extra day to find success.

We had a short walk from the truck to an elevated two-man box stand.  The stand was situated in a corner that allowed us to look at a field that ran 150 yards to the west, and another that ran 250 yards to the south.  Both fields were planted in a mix of greens and were surrounded by thick bedding areas and rolling hills covered in mature hardwoods.  The area is as pretty as it is productive.

As we approached the fields I scanned to the west and found that field to be empty.  The stand was another 80 yards ahead and the field to the south was blocked by a low hill about 15 feet high.  We eased up the back of the hill and before we crested it I scanned through the grass with my bino’s.  A deer was already on the field.  It looked like a big old doe, but it was early, and it was by itself which made me skeptical.  

With Sean on my left I watched that deer feed as though it hadn’t a care in the world.  It was facing away from me so I couldn’t get a great view of it’s head.  Before I tried to stalk us into a position for a shot I wanted to make sure this wasn’t a button buck.  The timing and behavior screamed “young buck” and I had to be sure.  About a minute later the deer turned just enough to the left that I could see a long spike sticking up off his head.  It was indeed a young buck who had decided to raid the food pantry early.  

I let Sean look at the deer through the bino’s, then we walked to the stand, happy to run the buck out of the field.  I’d rather have him gone than have him hold us hostage until something worth shooting actually showed up and found us out of position.  

We climbed a wooden staircase to the box stand stashed our gear inside, then climbed in.  The stand is furnished with two padded office chairs and has narrow firing windows on all sides.  It’s made of black plastic, so even on a cold day, if its sunny the box will absorb heat and stay artificially warm until the sun gets low.

When we got in the box it was so warm we took off our jackets and hunted in tee shirts.  I had Sean practice getting the gun out the window in a quiet and stealthy fashion.  I gave him yardage markers based on prominent trees around the field, and generally helped him settle in to the hunt.  

He was in the chair on the left, which allowed him to shoot South.  I was in the chair on the right, which gave me a view to the West.  Between the two of us we could easily monitor everything.  However, if a deer came out on the West field, we’d have to switch chairs so he could shoot.  It was tight quarters and switching chairs would take some deft maneuvering but could be done.  With the plans set, we began to scan.  

We didn’t have to wait long before a small spike buck emerged on the West field.  It was obviously not a shooter, but I thought it would be a good exercise to have him get the scope on a real live deer, pick out where he would shoot it, and generally become comfortable behind the rifle with a deer in front of him.  This deer was 100 yards away, calmly feeding in a green field two hours before sunset.  It seemed to be shaping up to be an active hunt.  

The kid was a natural in the blind.  He paid attention to the details, moved slowly and positioned everything quietly.  If the hunt got busted it clearly wouldn’t be from him spooking a deer.   Sean looked at me to say something, then turned back to face the West field.  He immediately said “There’s another deer.”

I got the bino’s up and sure enough, a big bodied deer had entered the field about 100 yards away.  It was a buck, a much bigger buck than we’d seen so far.  I wasn’t huge, but it looked like it might have eight points, which is the minimum for this farm.  After a few more moments of study I could see it had nice brow tines, which made it an eight point.  “Kill that deer” I said as flatly and unemotionally as I could.  

“Really?”  Came the response..

“Yeah, he’s a good deer, kill him.”

He silently went through the motions again, got the gun in the window, put gun to shoulder, cheek weld, and then something new…shaking.  Five minutes ago he was fine looking at a spike through the scope, but once the kill order came down he was an absolute shaking mess.  What is it that causes this?  Why is a man perfectly calm looking at the deer when he’s not going to kill it, but the second that changes, he gets flooded with adrenaline?

I could sympathize with him, I’ve been there.  No matter how hard he tries to control it, he can’t.  It is a violent, uncontrollable shaking. In a perfectly warm box-stand his body was shivering like a hypothermia victim.  He was shaking so much that I could feel the box-stand vibrating. 

The buck stood broadside at 110 yards.  A whitetail buck, standing in a green field next to a hardwood forest at sunset is a majestic sight.  This buck stood there like he owned the world.  Head up, perfectly calm, in command.  110 yards away a young predator was shaking like a jackhammer running on adrenaline.  It was like we existed in two different universes.  How could two beings occupy the same space, with one placid, the other running like a rocket, and the first not be aware of the second?  Such is the nature of the hunt; one hides their presence and intentions until the moment is right.  Sean was trying to hide his but the longer he shook the less likely it was.

Still the buck stood, broadside at 110 yards.  He’d occasionally drop his head to the ground to eat, but he’d always come back to his statuesque pose with antlers held high and massive body standing like a sentinel.  

The gun was in the window but we had a problem, and a big one at that. The setting sun was now low enough that it was blinding the scope.  All Sean could see was a white glare when he peered through the lens.  From inside the shade of the blind you could see the deer perfectly, but to get a shot with the rifle you had to put the gun in the window, and then you were blinded.  This was a conundrum.  We had to take a shot before that deer ran off, but you couldn’t see through the scope to take a shot at all.  

Looking over his shoulder I could see a ton of glare coming off the rifle barrel.  I thought that if I covered the barrel it might cut down enough glare to see.  I had Sean pull the gun back in, and I put my fingerless gloves over the barrel.  I ran the barrel into the glove where my hand would go, and then out the pinky slot.  With both gloves now covering the barrel in a non-reflective cloth we gave it another look.  

Nope. The scope was still full of glare.  Ugh!  This was nuts.  You just don’t see a decent buck walk onto a field with two hours of light left, and then just hang out.  He was going to leave any second.  We couldn’t make the sun set any faster, so we desperately needed a plan to play the had we’d been dealt.  All I could think about was adding a sun-shade to that scope the minute I got home.  That gave me an idea. 

I took my ball cap off and put the bill out the shooting window just in front of the scope.  Maybe, just maybe I could find a position that would block enough light that Sean could find the target and release a shot.

He was sitting in a chair with the rifle out the window.  I was standing behind him, reaching over him and the rifle, and sticking my ball cap out the window just enough to block the light but not touch the scope.  From my position I could no longer see the deer, and I was leaning on one foot, which required that I support myself with the same hand that was holding the hat.  I put my right index finger up against the wall above the window, and the rest of my fingers held the hat in position.  There was a good deal of weight pressing on that one finger, and I couldn’t wait until this was over.

He said he had a good sight picture!  Yes, finally!  Standing over him, leaning with one finger on the wall in front of him I waited for the safety to be disengaged.  “Click”.  Yes!  The shot was almost here, and with it I’d get relief from this uncomfortable position.  I heard him breathe in deep “hhhffffff”, then he let half of it out, I could picture the deer standing there 110 yards away.  I watched from above him as Sean shook violently.  Suddenly the rest of the breath got let out in a sudden whoosh.  No shot came.  He was obviously trying to regroup, to gather himself and calm his nerves before releasing a bullet.  

“OK, it happens.  Surely the next time he’ll shoot.”  My finger was burning and my back was starting to ache from the awkward position.  Another deep breath, another image flashed through my mind of our target that was just a few yards away on the other side of this black plastic wall.  The exhale came next, then the shuttering vibration of a stand that held a very anxious hunter.  Again he passed; he blew out the last of his breath and tried to regroup, no shot came.

The deer was sill there, but now that we had a plan to deal with the sunlight, we had a hunter so excited that he couldn’t steady the gun.  I had to laugh a little bit because if he were to hand me the rifle to me the deer would be dead in literally two seconds.  One second to mount the gun, and one second to shoot.  To a seasoned hunter it’s just that easy, I don’t get nervous around deer any more.  

At one point I had to rest my hand.  I pulled the hat back in and gave him a short, calm pep talk on the fundamentals.  I whispered “It’s no different than at the range.  Focus on your sight picture, breathing, and trigger pull.  If you do those things well, everything else will fall in place.”  Looking me directly in the eyes, he nodded in acknowledgment and we both went back to our previous positions.  He on the gun, and me on the hat.  

The deer was still there.  Unbelievable.  This just does not happen.  The only thing this deer could do to further hasten his demise would be to climb the ladder, knock on the door, and beg us to kill him.  

This time I used TWO fingers to support myself while on “hat duty”.  Again I watched from above  as he drew a deep breath, let it halfway out, and failed to fire.  I could tell he was trying his best but his body was shaking really hard.  Sometimes no matter how hard you command it to be still, your body just has other ideas.  I bet we went through the motions another five times.  Five more false alarms that ended with no shot against a ticking clock.  That buck would not stay forever.  He’d get tired of being there, a predator might spook him off, or something as fickle as the wind could change and carry our scent to him.  Time is not your friend in situations like this.

Finally Sean told me he was ready.  He was getting calm enough that he thought he could get a shot off, but now the deer had moved!  A buck that had stood broadside for near an eternity, now decided to face us head on, taking away our preferred shot.  Oh the humanity!!!

I took a seat and just marveled at our situation.  It was both great and absurd at the same time.  We had the worlds calmest whitetail buck 110 yards away, perfectly still and broadside for several minutes, but couldn’t see him through the scope due to the setting sun.  Now that we had a solution for the sunset, he turned and took away our shot.  I had to laugh.

Soon he turned broadside gain.  Sean and I went through our “routine” maneuvers to get set up.  On perhaps our fifteenth run through our shooting cycle it all paid off.  I had the hat held perfectly to shade the scope, in came a deep breath, he let it halfway out, the shaking was noticeably less, and then BOOM!  The .30-06 shattered the calm, peaceful vibe in this little valley and relieved me of my duty to balance on two fingers while holding a hat out a window.

As soon as I knew the shot was away and my moving wouldn’t interfere with it, I dropped down to look out the window.  I was not prepared for what I saw.  The floor of the box stand was lined with a decade of debris; leaves, dirt, dust, wasp nests…all kinds of stuff.  When that rifle barked, it shocked up a cloud of dust like I couldn’t believe.  I was actually swatting with both hands trying to clear the view a little. It looked like I was viewing the world through a brown lens from all the dirt in the air.  

What I saw made me happy though.  That buck took off running with his tail tucked, and his body hunched up a little bit.  He ran a large semi-circle, away from us and to the left, taking him through the field and then back into the woods.  That deer was hit solid.  I smiled broadly and told Sean we’d wait a few minutes, then start tracking him.  

The first thing I had him do was cycle the bolt and make the gun safe.  We were happy and wanted to talk 100 mph about how that hunt went down, but safety was paramount.  The gun would be secured before we even shook hands.

He pulled the gun in, made it safe, then I shook his very shaky hand.  I handed him the empty ..30-06 shell and told him it was his to keep.  It’s the brass casing the from the very first shot he ever took at an animal. It’s a small keepsake of an adventure he’ll never forget and 

I imagine he’ll keep that in a desk drawer somewhere until he is an old man. 

In the interim we sat in the blind and discussed everything that had just happened.  It was a crazy set of events for anyone, let alone for someone on their first ever hunt.  It was beyond my wildest hopes that he’d get a shot on a buck his first time out.  As it is, this is one he is going to have mounted to put on his wall.  

A few minutes later we got down from the stand and hiked over to the scene of the crime.  We found the spot where the buck was shot, then began looking for blood.   I looked around on the ground for a moment and then scanned the woodline.  I expected he’d be dead just a few yards in, and was hopeful I could see him from the spot where he was shot.  Sure enough, about 70 yards down the field I saw a white belly a few yards into the woods.  I told Sean to keep the gun at the ready in case it jumped up, and made certain he had the scope dialed down to it’s lowest power.  If he still had it on 9X and a wounded deer jumped up 20 yards away he’d have a mighty hard time finding it in the scope to get a follow up shot. We then made our way to him with a quick pace.  I had Sean approach the deer and poke it in the eye with the barrel just to make sure it was dead, and it was.

I shook his hand again then we looked the beast over.  There was a .30 caliber hole directly behind the shoulder, exactly halfway down from the backbone, with a matching one on the far side.

“Is that a good shot?” he asked.

“No, that’s a perfect shot.”

From there it was just phone calls and pictures as modern technology allowed us to share his success and happiness with friends and family far away.  

The temps dropped well below freezing after dark.  We stopped in town for a hot dinner then started the hour-and-a-half drive home.  As soon as we hit the highway the boys fell victim to a full belly and a day full of adventure; and they fell fast asleep.  I drove through the cold, dark, windy night satisfied with the days events and wondered if they were dreaming of the hunt.  I know I would be.