Five Things Hunters Should Know

Benji forwarded me a link a few days ago that really made me smile.  It was a list of five things to do when you’re not catching fish.  Now, if that isn’t useful information, then I’ll be forced to fall back on traditional education…I’d rather not.

This list got me to thinking about those of us who hunt – what are five things to do when we’re not seeing game to sound like a better hunter when we have to tell everyone we didn’t get anything?  I thought about it long and hard and here are the fruits of my thoughts:

1.  Hunt with a bow.  This was an easy one.  This way you can always blame the wind – always.  Someone asks you why you didn’t get anything, you can answer, “Well, you see, I was bow hunting and the wind was just swirling like crazy.  I just couldn’t close the distance.”  This does several things – first it impresses everyone that you’re accomplished enough to try to pursue game with a bow, and it gives an automatic excuse.  Anyone who has hunted with a bow knows that if the wind is wrong, it doesn’t matter how good of a hunter you are – the game is up.

2.  Hunt with a rifle and become a trophy hunter.  This came to me as I was remembering a time a few years ago when, during archery season, while hunting with a couple of my cousins and my wife, we found ourselves near a heard of about 150 elk and the herd bull was an absolute once in a lifetime monster.  It was the first day of the season and that 150 number is no exaggeration.  Later, I was explaining to a stranger that we just couldn’t get in on that bull because of the number of other elk around – he looked at me and said, “Well, did you get in his living room?  I mean you should have….bla bla bla”  He was a know-it-all, the last type of person I would want in my hunting camp for sure, and I realized that #1 would not be a serviceable excuse in this situation.  If I’d known this before hand, I could have employed excuse #2 and left out the fact that we’d seen a monster bull and said, “Well, we were rifle hunting and we had belly crawled and used every draw and sage brush in the country just to get in rifle range, but you know I just didn’t feel like shooting a 360 class bull on opening day.  I’ll wait for the big daddy.”

3.  Unwrap any food items and smash it all into a small baggy.  Then at the end of the day, make sure you’re the last person back.  Make it as late as you possibly can.  Hide out around camp and wait for everyone to get in if you have to.  When the time is right, and the others begin wondering about you, take some brush and scratch yourself up with it a bit, and put on a real exhausted look.  Then stagger in to camp and tell everyone that you were down in the bottom of the canyon when you realized someone had taken your food from your pack and look accusingly at each person.  They’ll all know they weren’t the ones, but they’ll think someone did it – “That sounds like something Jimmy would do.”  They’ll think.  Then tell them how at the bottom of the canyon and realizing you had very little food, you had to struggle through cliffs, brush, and the pure ruggedness of that canyon using every last ounce of energy just to make it back to camp – you were busy trying to survive and didn’t have time to to even think about hunting.  It might be a good idea to eat your food several hours before wandering into camp because the camp cook will realize you must be starving and will proceed to try and pump you full of food.  If you just ate, you might get away with telling them that your stomach is so empty it hurts to eat.

4.  If your spouse or significant other is a non hunter, make sure to take them along.  When you get back to camp put on a big smile and say, “Well, I just wanted to get him/her out to enjoy the scenery.  We had a great time just taking in the sights!” Take a still camera and take lots of scenery pictures and take a few of the two of you.  Offer to show everyone the pictures while telling everyone what a great thrill you had.

5.  Make sure you’re the first one back to camp.  Tell everyone you never left camp in the morning because the moon phase was keeping the big bucks from moving.  The use of the term, “moon phase” will imediately make you sound knowlegable to a few and possibly confuse everyone else.  On the off chance that someone else in your party shoots a big buck that day, just smile and say knowingly, “That’s a great buck, Jimmy.”  Make sure to emphasize how impressed you are as all the others will be impressed at how you’ve forgiven Jimmy for stealing your food yesterday.  Then say, “I’m just holding out for that buck I saw while scouting – and he never moved during this moon phase.”