Herself wonders if I am depressed at being high-centered before our computer in Red Deer, writing a column, when I should be many miles south and east, “covering” the opening day of pheasant season.
Depressed, no; distracted, yes. This is the only pheasant opening day I have voluntarily missed in 60 years, the major reason being that our last Brittany, Beau, died in August. I’ve always said that pheasant hunting without a dog is not worth doing, and even though I have been unable to do the walking in recent years, it has been worth going just to see Beau sniff the air, realize he had been there before, and remember again what he was bred and born to do.
Looking back, I missed seven straight pheasant openers from 1955 through 1961, when I was away in Edmonton completing a four-year honours BA in French and English at U of A, then three years for a law degree at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Back in Alberta, I got going again on regular pheasant forays with friends, “torture tests,” really, to Brooks for the opening four days of the season. Until his death in 1976, my dad, the Guv, would join us with his dog for what he judged to be the best half day, depending on where we were hunting. We all missed either the ’69 or ’70 season, which was closed entirely because of what proved to be a spurious and isolated mercury scare.
I may have forgotten some of the opening days I’ve missed, simply because, when I was a kid, the Guv regarded them as a war zone, back when Brooks was billed as the Pheasant Capital of North America.
But he had to take me 60 years ago when I was first legal to hunt with my own gun, but he quickly called it off when shots boomed and shot buzzed from every quarter in the thick fog on our own ditch on our own land.
Occasionally, over the years, mostly because of harsh winters and/or springs, the pheasants themselves have missed, not just opening day but the entire season. The worst was the second season after the disastrous two-season experiment years ago of allowing one hen pheasant in every daily bag; that opening day our crew and reinforcements saw only one pheasant in all our usual best places.
Opening day is the acid test of survival of the adult birds and the year’s hatch of juveniles. Recently I’ve been receiving reports of few Hungarian partridge and Sharp tail grouse both of which have been open for some time in upland country, but, frustratingly, lots of pheasants that were not open yet for hunting, especially in the really tough cover I have loved to hunt over the years, mostly along creeks and drains into either the Bow, or Red Deer Rivers.
I’m remembering dogs long-gone and opening day hunting buddies also departed: the Guv, Al Schmidt, Lee Metzger, Lloyd Graff, “Uncle” Ben Janko, Vern Caddy, Roger Fink . . . . Then there are the more recent hunting buddies down there who have made it possible for Beau to get some hunting in while I’m blocking a ditch or two. By the time I press “Send” on this, I’ll be missing the traditional opening day lunch at the Patricia Hotel.
H H H
The last Stump Ranch deer stand still standing, a Warren and Sweat Texas tower stand, came down just before the Thanksgiving long weekend. For more than five years I have not had the leg strength to climb the near vertical ladder up into the stand’s revolving “cockpit,” and was worried that a naïve trespasser might try it and maim himself.
Friends quickly gave the stand a good home one Wildlife Management Unit away, overlooking a vast moose swamp. One of my many memorable stories from this stand was the evening a calf moose decided to browse right under my seat, giving me an anxious 15 minutes worrying that his nearby mama would join him and tip me over.
One of the gents riding with me noticed and asked about the remains of one of my old wood stands 10 metres up in the crotch of a tree . . . until a seismic line worker cut it down and paid big bucks for his vandalism.
But the real under-stand story of that stand came at the last light of the last day of the season when my friend, the late John Decore, was just about to come down from the stand when he noticed a tipsy, trespassing poacher come onto the property and start to sneak down the trail just beside the stand.
John had a very powerful, deep voice. “Season’s over,” he intoned from on high, “this is God.”
Back on Earth, the poacher probably suffered injuries just getting over the fence and away from there.
Bob Scammell is an award-winning columnist who lives in Red Deer. He can be reached at bscam@telusplanet.net.