Under the Wire

A good friend who lives several hundred miles away and I keep a pretty steady stream of emails back and forth between us.

We met as college freshmen, had similar college experiences, went our separate ways upon graduation and with hardly any contact the next 30 years, wound up living nearly identical lives. He on his ranch in southwestern Colorado, me on our ranch in northeastern Colorado, both running red cows.

Recently he emailed an account of taking his grandson on an elk hunt in the mountains of Western Colorado.

With no mountains, elk or grandsons I see very often, the hunting experience I could provide would be far different. We could scare up a few jackrabbits, a poor substitute for a bull elk.

His story did open up a flood of memories of boyhood hunting with my father. As soon as I reached 14 years of age, the Colorado legal age for a big game license at the time, a trip to my Uncle’s Virginia Dale ranch, home to lots of mule deer, became a tradition.

Dad carried our only big game worthy rifle, an old cut down military rifle weighing about 40 pounds it seemed when my turn to pack it, unloaded, due to its recoil equal to a two hoof kick from a very large mule. The rest of the time I was given a 22 rifle to carry, it being incapable of hurting me or any unlucky deer I might encounter. Our hunt kicked off with a huge breakfast my mother had prepared for us. Donning heavy jackets, gloves and boots, we drove the 50 or 60 miles to my uncle’s ranch, I’m sure on the list of Colorado’s coldest zip codes! Uncle Albert would be waiting for us in his pickup with the necessary four-wheel drive to make it up to “34,” the section name of our hunting destination. As soon as I stepped out into the crisp, sagebrush scented air, just knowing a big six point buck was waiting for me, I morphed into a cross between Danial Boone and Davey Crockett. All 320 acres of section 34 was just barely big enough for me!

My Dad was a very good shot and most of our hunts ended with him bringing down a nice buck which always breathed his last in a very deep canyon or draw with about three uphill miles between it and our pickup. The men drew and quartered it and after admiring our trophy, each shouldered a quarter and began the long, very tiring trek to the truck. My quarter always seemed to weigh about 75 pounds by my estimation, about 25 pounds more than I weighed. I didn’t complain. Nope. I was “one of the men” and there was no way I was going to shirk my grownup hunter’s duties.

OK, so after the two men got way ahead of me, I took off my belt, looped it around any two legs still attached to my quarter and drug it, hair side down, as far as I could until carrying it again began to seem like a good idea.

By the end of the day I was tired, dirty, hungry and smiling from ear to ear as we told our hunting tale to anyone who would listen.

It would be several years before I bagged my first buck, a two point offering very few bragging rights but no one has ever been more proud of their trophy.

I haven’t thought about those days for years. I owe it to my friend Ralph for opening up the doors.

Some non-hunters who read this may not find the subject matter entertaining. I just ask them to look not at what happened to the deer but rather at what happened to the boy!