I was introduced to bow hunting when
I was 13 years old by my cousin and some of his friends. They would pick me up and bring me to some of
their top-secret hunting spots and drop me off.
It would usually be at the end of the shelter belt, end of trial or
draw, or a section of river bottom that they wanted me to push toward
them. I was really too young to know
what I was doing but figured I didn’t really care because I was outside and
hanging out with older guys and that is
always cool when you are younger. I soon
realized that all I was there for was their grunt work. I would walk miles of old deer trails
climbing over trees, walking through water, and crawling under bushes trying to
push deer toward the guys posting on the other end of my hike. I don’t think that first fall anyone
harvested any deer, but I was hooked on bow hunting and have been ever since.
The next summer in between baseball
practice and games I worked on our family farm trying to raise enough money to
buy my own bow and all of the attachments.
At this time I was 14 years old and had my drivers’ license. So after baseball would come home and either
jump in the combine or grain truck and work till dark. After saving enough money I went up to Fargo Scheels
and bought my Browning bow for $300 and with all the other necessities it
totaled around $500. I didn’t care how
much it cost because I knew I was going to enjoy it. I blew my load of savings
and it didn't suck.
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| Same car wrong color. Just picture this beaut in brown. |
Being the novice bow hunter that I was, the next day after school with my bow in the back of the 86 Chevy Cavalier I drove to Miller’s Service and bought a resident bow deer tag. I didn’t even practice shooting before I went out on my first hunt but I figured I wouldn’t see anything because I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn't even know how to use the three iron sights. Geesh. But I drove out west of Lucca on some of our farmland and decided to sit at the end of a shelter belt that I had seen deer use as a cover trail when I was combining earlier that year.
I remember it as if it was yesterday. I got out of my car grabbed my bow and
started walking toward the belt. All I
had on for camouflage was Sigco Seed jacket I got from my uncle, blue jeans,
and nothing for camouflage on my face.
There was corn on the east side of the belt and a coolly on the south
end of the belt. So I decided to sit on
the south end figuring they would probably need to drink sooner or later. I did not have a blind set up or a tree stand
so I just decided to kneel on the ground and wait for Mr. Big to walk by. I wasn’t there more than 10 minutes and I
heard some rustling in the corn and I almost soil my pants! I remember thinking it could not be a deer,
it must be a raccoon or a loud squirrel.
But against all odds a doe poked her head into the shelter belt and
stared right at me. I was shaking
uncontrollably and we stared at each other eye to eye for what seemed to be
forever. But then to my surprise she
didn’t get spooked by my presence and walked to the north. I could not believe that she didn’t get
scared by me or by my scent. Because
being the novices’ hunter that I was I did not have any cover sent on. After settling down I realized that even if I
wanted to shoot her I couldn’t have because I didn’t have my arrow nocked on my
string, it must’ve gotten bumped off during my shaking.
Anyway after calming down I heard another
rustling in the corn. I figured it must
be another doe, maybe her fawn from earlier that spring. But to my surprise, on the same trail that
the doe came, a 4x4 buck poked his head into the shelter belt and stared
directly at me. I proceeded to re-soil my
already full pants. We stared into each
other’s eyes for a brief moment but he must’ve been more interested in the doe
and started to follow her. At this time
I raised my bow, drew back and let my arrow fling. And that was all it was because the next
thing I knew my arrow was at least 2 feet over its back bouncing off of
trees. He didn’t even move he just
turned around, looked at me and slowly walked away. He must’ve realized he had nothing to worry
about.
If I wasn’t hooked before after that
night I was definitely a bow hunter for life after that. Over the next couple of weeks I would go out
hunting from time to time and try my luck but with no success. After that first night I also realized that I
would probably need some practice actually shooting my bow and hitting what I
was aiming at. What a concept. I would
also have to hone my skills in the stealth and wisdom of deer and their
tendencies. So I also started reading Outdoor
Life magazine, plus asking my Uncle Floyd and other people that I knew about
bow hunting.
I remember making a life-size target out of
a couple idiot cubes (small square straw bales) for target practice with my
bow. I remember getting good out to about 20 yards. But I am pretty sure I
didn't even know what 20 yards looked like back then. I even made a silhouette
of a deer out of cardboard from 30 packs of Schmidt Light. I would take 10
shots a night. That was about all I could take with that bow. The poundage must've
been sent on 65 lbs. I was wore out after 10 shots.
That fall I decided not to go out
for football, instead I would work on the farm so I could go hunting whenever I
wasn't in the field or at school. It
wasn’t just bow hunting I was interested in.
I also loved hunting ducks and mourning doves. Who am I kidding, I loved
any type of hunting. After school I would drive home, grab my single shot 16
gauge shotgun, drive out to the field, hop into the Versatile or John Deere and
plow or chisel plow until dark. But on
my way out to the field I would jump a couple of my favorite duck sloughs and
whack a couple of mallards or teal. When
I would get home, I would breast them out and throw them in the freezer or the
frying pan. Seeing that I didn't go out for football that meant all of my buddies
were at practice or at the games. This meant I spent a lot of time by myself
learning how to hunt and shoot. I learned that you can learn a lot by yourself
just spending time in the outdoors making mistakes and learning from them.
Anyways, football sucks when you are 5'2" and weighing in at 110 pounds as
a sophomore.
On the weekends when there was no practice I
would go out hunting with my buddies who had pump shotguns or semi-automatic
shotguns and I had my trusty single shot. I wouldn't show them where all the
ducks were. They would all get pissed at
me because I could shoot more ducks with my single shot shotgun than they could
shoot with their pumps or semi-autos. I
would have one in my chamber, one in my hand and another shotgun shell hanging
out of my mouth. I could get three shots
off and drop something most of the time.
In the meantime they would shoot three shells and maybe get one
duck. I don’t know how many birds we
shot that fall but it was one of the best times in my life. We have a lot of
great memories just of driving around drinking Mountain Dew, chewing tobacco
and smoking the occasional cigert. Thank
goodness gas was only around a dollar those days because we put on thousands of
miles in that five-speed Cavalier hatchback that got 36 miles to the gallon. I
believe it was an 85 model. We named it the duck.
We would wake up on Saturday
mornings drive around scouting deer, looking for spots to sit for bow hunting that
night. During our scouting for deer that
is when we did our duck hunting other stuff and things. During the afternoons
we would also find places to build stands for bow hunting. All of them were sketchy stands made out of
any type of old 2 x 4's that we could find.
Old rusty nails, a hacksaw, and a hammer were all we needed to build the
scariest stands anyone would ever feel uncomfortable on. I cannot believe none of us ever fell off one
of these prehistoric engineered tree stands.
Every weekend during the hunting season this was the routine. Good
times.
In November of that year wrestling
practice started and that pretty much put an end to hunting during the weekdays
and most Saturdays were busy because of tournaments. Practice would at least go to 6:00 p.m. and
that would be a little too dark to go out hunting. Hunting was usually down to days when there
was no school because of holidays and Sundays.
During Christmas break of that year
we would have wrestling practice once a day, usually in the mornings and after
that we would go trudging through the snow looking for deer. You could find us
northeast of Enderlin in the “Hartford Valley.” There was always a big group of
deer that wintered there. We would spend
hours pushing deer back and forth but no one ever got a real good shot at any
deer. That is probably because they were running by us at 30 miles an hour.
On December 28, 1994 during one of our
hunting expeditions my life would change for ever.
Two friends and I decided to push
the whole mile of river bottom from one section line to the next. We dropped off one friend at the north end of
the valley and the other friend and I were going to post at the south end. The
plan was to wait for the deer to come to us. The friend who was walking towards
us did not have a bow but he brought along his 22 caliber rifle and was hoping
to shoot one of the many squirrels or rabbits along the river bottom.
As we were posting at the south end we both
could see our friend coming towards us but there were no deer. I started to get up when I realized that my
friend was aiming right at me. The next
thing I knew I was flat on my back and I could hear some yelling. I remember lying there not been able to feel or
move anything. I had a warm, tingly
feeling all over my body. It was the
weirdest feeling in the world. The next
thing I knew my friends were looking down at my asking me if I was hurt and
then they realized that the bullet went right through my neck. They asked me if I was in any pain and to
their shock I said no, but now we know why.
I probably wouldn’t be here telling you
this story if one of my friends did not step up and take control of the
situation. He packed my neck with some snow,
reached in my pants pocket, grabbed the keys and ran back to the pickup. I later learned that if he would not have
packed my neck that I probably would’ve bled to death. I was conscious the whole time this was going
on. I later learned that when my friend
was running back to the pickup he had to cross the river which was flowing but
was not deep. When he was crossing the
river he was shaking so bad that he dropped the keys into the water, thankfully
he found them right away. If not, the outcome would have been not so good.
I remember hearing the pickup start up and
him driving about a mile and a half to the nearest farmstead where he called
the ambulance. Then I remember the sound of the siren coming, I swear I could
hear it coming all the way from Enderlin.
Once the rescue squad got there, I remember getting into the vehicle and
that is when I lost consciousness.
Thanks for reading, Clint.Part 2 coming soon…
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