My Scrapbook: Hunting Career

Here are three stories that describe me as the great white hunter. I warn you, there are graphoc scenes in this story. But it does have a happy ending.

When I was 16, I lived in a small farming town of less than 5000. My Dad was the Protestant Minister there and he made about $3000 a year, which was pretty bad even back then. To help keep us alive, I hunted. My uncle had given me a .303 rifle, and my grandfather had given me a 20 guage shotgun. These facts are important to a true understanding my hunting prowess.

I was quite used to bringing home rabbits which my mother would turn into stew. And occasionally I'd arrive with a duck or two which always made for good meals.

On my first trip out with the .303, we, two friends and I, decided to seek out our first deer. We found tracks and spent quite a while following the elusive beast. Or beasts, we guessed, since there were many tracks. After an hour or two we knew the animals were just up ahead.

We knew that because we heard them mooing.

Mooing! We'd spent the hours tracking a herd of cows!

Being 16, we spent the next few minutes debating whether or not to shoot them anyway. But decided against it, turned back, and headed home.

From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move. Peering carefully through the brush, I saw it. A reasonably sized jackrabbit.

No shotgun, (the gun of choice for hunting rabbit) but what the heck, a gun's a gun, right? I aimed my .303 and slowly squeezed the trigger. Having never shot such a powerful gun before, the recoil set me back about 2 feet.

It hurt.

But when I recovered (it only took about a second) I leaned back over the brush to see my prize. Except my prize was no where to be seen. Just a fine red mist descending slowly from about 3 feet above me.

Powerful gun that.

My next trip out was with the shotgun. Me and my buddy sneaked up on a flock of ducks. Sitting ducks actually. We lay on the riverbank watching them quacking, burbling, and paddling happily, unaware that they were about to get their heads blown off, and decided on a plan. I would shoot the one on the right. He would shoot the one on the left.

"Ready. Aim. Bang!!"

But only one bang was heard, and it wasn't mine. In the split second before my friend's gun went off, I was overcome with a strange sadness. Here was a duck innocently swimming around in circles, probably looking forward to TV and a movie with the wife later that evening, while only feet away lay the one being in the world right then that determined if that would ever be. I couldn't do it.

I wandered back home. I haven't picked up a gun since.

I thought some music from today's true great white hunter would be appropriate. And no, I will not be taking up the bow as Mr. Nugent is noted for.