As you read this, I am less than a month away from the big 6-5.
Lord, I’m old.
As one approaches those senior moments and plentiful-but-pitiful discounts (see, the glass is half full), you are bound to contemplate those great milestones that are past and those that are coming.
“Your Speedo days are over,” a physical therapist recently commented.
I’m not exactly sure what made him say that, but I chuckled at his not-so-subtle humor. Later, I thought, “WTH?” I’ve never worn or owned a Speedo, and I’m OK with that. I once made my wife angry and ill at the same time on a Florida beach when I said, “Look at that.” and she got a quick, long-lasting glimpse of a leather-tan senior in said Speedo. “I hate you.” was the only thing she could manage. We still joke about it years later.
Loyal readers (you do read my drivel, right?) will recognize that what I lack in ability, I make up with enthusiasm. If you can’t blind them with brilliance, baffle them with BS. It’s a T-shirt and a lifestyle.
I’ve learned 10 lifetimes of information about hunting and a bit about fishing, because I’m a voracious reader (and book lover), I’ve met many experts as a full-time outdoors writer for almost eight years and grew up with a dad, a granddad and two brothers who loved to hunt.
I’ve also stumbled through the woods and tripped over woodcraft almost accidentally for almost 60 years. When you fall down enough, some of that hunting dirt and moss and pond scum is bound to soak in.
Patience came from bowhunting. Living in Wisconsin now, it’s easy to forget the “corn deserts” and vast mostly deerless woods of northern Illinois in the 1970s, where my older brother, Brian, and I spent countless hours waiting for the whitetails we rarely saw. We shot a few with shotguns, and he tagged a couple with a longbow, but I had to get a compound bow to bag my first archery buck in Carroll County.
My early love of hunting came from rabbit and duck hunting. My dad grew up on a farm during the Depression, and rabbits were food (as an adult, he wouldn’t eat them because he had eaten so many as a kid), so game laws to him were just a suggestion. Starting with a .410 bolt-action and eventually moving to a 20-gauge, I pursued bunnies every Saturday, normally with my uncle’s mixed-breed, overfed coon-beagle cross named Tinker Bell.
Growing up on the Mississippi River at Fulton, Illinois (Lock and Dam 13), I saw plenty of ducks. Dad never owned a boat and didn’t swim, so we were shore hunters. I dropped a few coots and wood ducks, with an occasional teal. I once saw one of the big flights of mallards, possibly 10,000 or more ducks, in a machine-like formation that made a churring sound. I stared up in awe from the Johnson Creek bottoms and begged Dad to shoot.
“They are too high,” he whispered, teaching me my first lesson in sky busting. Another hunter with a long-barrelled goose gun took a shot and pinwheeled a single duck. “See, Dad?”
He shot. Can we shoot now?” He just shook his head. I get it now.
I’ve never shot a “book” buck, or anything close, but I’ll tell you that the 7-point, scrub-racked buck I shot with an Ithaca Deerslayer at 88 yards in 1978 is my best trophy. It was my first deer and it’s still on my wall. I also shot a dandy, symmetrical 8-pointer on public ground in Wisconsin, also with a shotgun slug, and he’s on my wall, too.
When I watch deer hunting shows on TV and they start talking about shooter bucks, I change the channel.
In hunter safety class, we talk about ethics and the stages of hunting. There is a shooting phase when we want to shoot at everything we see and shoot plenty of ammo. Take your kid on a pigeon or crow shoot if they are in this phase. I had an open dump and rats, the absolute best live shooting gallery.
I planned to share some hunting insights, but I scoff at most modern gear and gimmicks.
Ozone pumps? Scent blockers? Charcoal-lined clothing? One magazine had the audacity to risk angering advertisers by writing about dogs that found owner-touched socks in the bottom of a pile of scent-blocker-sprayed clothing in a matter of seconds.
Deer have more scent receptors in their noses than dogs. If the wind is wrong, you will be busted. Save your money for a better knife or flashlight.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in six decades of hunting and outdoor adventures is that there’s always more to be learned each year. Sharing the woods and waters with family and friends is all that matters. Pass on your knowledge to the next generation and save this nation’s precious hunting heritage, so they can feel the same outdoor passion burning in their hearts.
Ross Bielema is a freelance writer from New London and owner of Wolf River Concealed Carry LLC. Contact him at Ross@wolfriverccw.com.
Becoming 65, it’s clear Speedo days are over
