Hunting alone for the first time

My oldest son, Rob, was born in April ‘86. We started hunting together that fall. Bundled in a snowsuit, he’d ride along in a backpack, lulled to sleep by my stride.

A year later he was a livelier hunting buddy. A bright yellow leaf would catch his eye and a pudgy hand would shoot past my eye as he’d point it out. “Ta!” meaning ‘Hey, Dad, look at that!” Hunting up in the Yaak one evening that year we rounded a bend and came face-to-face with a close-range cow moose and her calf. Parents on both sides eyed each other for a few long moments before the two-legged parent with the smaller ‘calf’ backed off.

Rifle season ‘08 looks like the first time since ‘86 that Dad will be hunting alone. Rob’s living in Spokane and working weekends. His younger brother David is a soph at Washington State and is more interested in chasing girls with his homies than chasing elk with his old man.

Ah, but the memories.

David was another April baby. That first October his mother and I alternated hunting and babysitting. I had the advantage of knowing how to drive a standard transmission, so I could road-hunt when it was my turn with the kids.

We were up the Yaak again with B tags for antlerless whitetails and I was grinding along in the old Nissan pickup when a flat-top whitetail ambled by. I don’t recall measuring to see if I was the legal distance off the road before cutting loose with my .30-06. The muzzle blast woke David up.

“Not cy, Deet-dee,” Rob said. “Daddy just shots deer.”

A couple of years later, after a hunt with his mother, Rob ratted her out: “Mom say sit down, be very quiet. I sit down. Mom get down one knee. BAFF! BAFF! Deer run ‘way SUPER fast!”

The boys grew older and wore my old blaze-orange t-shirts in the woods, looking like pumpkin-colored Druids in ancestral robes.

It was a late elk rut one snowy October morning and the bulls were bugling on Mohawken Creek. I’d never killed a bull in those days and was beyond ready to leave a gut pile on the mountainside. Rob and David had other ideas.

“Dad! Is this a deer track or an elk track?”

Deer track. Now be quiet.

(Sound of a bull bugling maybe 300 yards off.)

“Dad! What was that?”

An elk. Ssssshh!

“Daddy elk or mama elk?”

Daddy elk! Now shut!

The hunt was over when David slipped and went head-over-heels down the hill. With all his orange he looked like a tumbling jack-o-lantern and I laughed out loud. Pulling himself out of the brush he was not a happy lad.

“Dad! It’s NOT funny! I could have rolled all the way down the mountain!”

Jump ahead a few years. Both boys had taken their hunter safety classes and gotten their licenses. David, in his first attempt, had drawn a moose tag.

Early in the season we went scouting for Goliath. I was tired after a week’s work and an early-morning drive and took a nap in the truck while the boys went off scouting for moose.

When they returned, David’s jacket pocket was bulging.

“Dad, is this moose sign?”

No, that’s deer.

“Is this moose sign?’

No, that’s elk. Old elk. At least a year. See how it’s turning white?

“How about this?”

No, that’s fresh elk. Now go wash your hands.

Ah, the memories. Rob shooting his first grouse on the wing with his 16-guage.

David, humbled after killing his moose, a 43-incher. “Dad, I need to go be by myself for a little bit.”

Rob, after our last hunt together two years ago up Mohawken Creek: “Dad, I’ll come hunting with you any time I can.” We were deer hunting and had spotted a bull elk down in the basin and half a dozen cows up on the ridge.

I won’t hunt alone this season. I’ll hunt with my memories.