COLUMN: Hunting excursion

I don’t mean to jump the gun, no pun intended, but the way time is flying by, hunting season will be upon us in the wink of an eye.

Yeah, I know it’s still June, but fall and the traditional hunting days are coming up fast. In just a couple days it will be July. August will come and go like it always does, with the opening of football camps on the horizon.

And in Montana, nothing says fall better than football and hunting. Remember to keep them separate.

I have never been much of a hunter. Part of it may have come from a Dad Bandel “wiseguy” musing that the only people who need to hunt are those who have lost something.

Scarred me up mentally to think about that.

But like so many other young boys growing up in Montana, hunting was on the list of “rites of Manhood”. So naturally, I wanted to go with the guys and blast away.

Deer were the primary target, easiest permit to get and to this day the most populous of the wild game animals roaming the woods and backwoods of this fine state.

One need only drive to the store in Plains to see the abundance of deer we have been “blessed” with. Some of us are constantly at war with deer, mostly trying to build the ultimate garden-protecting fences. My chain-link and chicken wire fences are now at least six feet high and seemed, at first, to be high enough to keep even the best deer leapers out of my yard and garden.

But the other day I came home and found three deer in my yard. My heart sank. It was not yet the time of year to shoot them, nor would it have been legal in the confines of Plains.

And, as it turned out, they did not jump my fences, they walked through a gate left open by the propane delivery guy.

Anyway, I remember well my first “big game” hunting trip, which involved a four-wheel drive deep into the Beartooth Mountains with three high school buddies. I had been out shooting rabbits and coyotes with my brother for several years, but just never got around to trying to shoot a deer.

And no, I don’t think they look like Bambi and therefore I just can’t pull the trigger. I see them as venison and thereby tasty enough to blast during the legal season.

On this particular day, the four of us, equipped with a wide array of firearms, drove to the top of a ridge and got out to see if there were any “signs” of deer. Poop, not a neon sign with an arrow and bright letters that said “Deer, this way”.

To our surprise, there were about six deer standing a short distance away from my friend’s short box 1958 Chevy.

Be calm and move slowly so as not to spook them did not enter our minds.

“DEER”, I blurted out in unison with two of my friends.

Rifles went up to shoulders and smoke soon filled the air. When the gun smoke cleared, one of the deer was fatally wounded, the others no doubt scared out of their minds.

From the corner of my eye, I could see one deer running with difficulty and disappearing over the ridge. One of us, forensic analysis would have been required to identify who had wounded the animal.

The chase was on.

My friend Bobby and I raced into the trees and began searching for the wounded survivor while the other two guys began field dressing the deer one of us shot. Again, all claimed the fatal bullet(s) were from their gun but it would have taken some detective work to verify that.

I didn’t think I shot it, my gun was an old rifle, one step above a blunderbuss, that my Dad had let me use. No fancy scope like the other guys had, just 35mm of raw power that I’m convinced was capable of dropping a deer as a result of a massive coronary event from the sound of that rifle being fired.

After about 15 minutes of what we thought of as “tracking” the wounded escapee, we came upon a deer lying in the leaves, panting profusely and staring at us with, dare I say, “Bambi” eyes.

A bullet had rendered one of its hind legs useless and we reached the ghastly decision that the deer had to be put down.

Bobby drew his .22 pistol from its holster and shot the animal in the head at point blank range.

My life changed at that moment. Bobby had spaced out the fact he had birdshot rounds in the .22 and when the pellets in the round hit the deer, she screamed.

Yup, deer can scream.

For me that was pretty much the end of my hunting days. Bobby gutted the critter and in what he said was tradition among Hispanic hunters, cut out a kidney, rolled it in the snow to clean it off, then took a big bite out of it.

For me it was game, set, match.

Hunting was not going to be my sport. And let me be very clear, I totally support deer, elk, bear, etc., hunting, as long as it’s done legally.

But the unpleasant nature of the day left me, no pun intended again, with a bad taste in my mouth.

The clincher came a short time later. One of the guys, as we were quartering up the meat, let it slip that the big mule, aka me, should carry the biggest section. I was, it turns out, selected to the group in part because I was a large guy who could carry a large piece of deer.

Waiter, check please.