The Waddell Factor

by: Gary Sorenson

 Cozy camp on Newsome Creek

Almost two weeks ago, Sue and I were set, packed, and ready to leave on our Whitetail deer hunt in the mid north part of the state of Idaho.   A strange thing happened though the night before we were to leave – we were ready – with time to spare.  I remembered I’d purchased Michael Waddell’s Road Trip #5 DVD a couple weeks before so we figured there’s no better time than now to relax and enjoy.  Maybe it would prime us up for the hunt ahead, as if we needed any more motivation, and excitement.  While we watched, there was two things beyond the hunts that stuck in my mind.  For one, the cabin they stayed in on one hunt had a mouse problem, or as Micheal called it, a rat problem.  If I remember right they ended up trapping about 20 mice and more time was given the trapping endeavor than the hunt.  The second thing that struck me was very un-Waddell.  On one hunt the camera man seemed to miss the immediate follow through of the shot and what followed it.  As Michael watched the play back I thought he came down a little hard on the camera guy.  Hey I thought, things happen.

Anyway that was our send off as we headed into the wet, dark wooded areas around the south fork of the Clearwater.  Sue was the one with the tag and I was the cameraman and we were about to try some eastern tactics on these western whitetails as we brought our tree stands and Sue brought her bow.  We were staying in our little canvas tent and with the wet we were glad we had brought along some plywood for floors to keep us dry on the bottom side anyway.  When we throw out the sleeping bags we try to keep our duffle bags at our heads so all our clothes and ‘possibles’ are right handy.  When I woke up that first morning I couldn’t believe the mess by my head.  I had dug around in the duffel and left the roll of TP right there on top and some time during the night within six inches of my head some mouse had shredded that roll and started to make a nest.  We spent some time that day trying to make our possessions mouse proof cause we didn’t have traps like Micheal did.  We finally named him Mortimer cause it looked like we were going to have to share space with him for the long haul.  I guess we could have succumbed to using the 7mm on him but I felt that was a little bit over kill, plus I kind of worried about what would happen to the rest of the camp.  I wasn’t about to let Sue use the bow, too close of quarters.  So Mortimer kind of controlled our nights for a week, and unfortunately it began to smell like he had several relatives move in with him, too although we never saw more than one at a time.

 Mortimer’s little toilet paper nest

I will write about the hunt later but I’m going to jump ahead to the other Waddell factor.  On the last day, because of an abdominal injury, Sue had picked up ‘The Seven’ (my 7mm) and had leveled a Forky.  She was excited as well as I.  After it was all over she wanted to know if I had gotten it on tape, and I was feeling a bit like Michaels cameraman cause I still have the hunters mentality and have a tendency to look around the camera right after the shot to see if the animal is down.  Yeah, I had gotten it but not enough by both of our standards.  While both of us were coming down from the high, I decided to go see how close I could get the rig before we started doing our after hunt interviews.  While I was gone Sue went back and looked at the tape again and then she rewound it to show me something that she had spotted and wanted me to see.  Trouble was when I got back she forgot she had wound it back and we went right into out post hunt interview.  On the way home she went back and reviewed the whole tape and when she got to the kill scenes, it was gone as we had taped over them.  Poor Sue was sick, sick, sick.  All of a sudden we realized what had happened in Michaels episode, the camera man had done the same thing, and without a shot scene you really don’t have a hunt.  Michael had rescued the episode by filling in the blank spot with showing him watching it on the monitor and in very short explaining to the camera man that this is the super bowl time of the hunt and that is not acceptable.  I’ll bet he never does it again and as sick as I saw Sue I don’t think she’ll do it again either.  I would like to talk Tom into making an episode out of what we have there anyway, it was just too great a time to not put it on the screen.  Maybe it’ll make the little wife feel better too.  We’re finding in this business you not only reveal your successes but also you’re blunders.  Next time Micheal, just show us your successes so we don’t have to figure in the Waddell factor.