Another beautiful fall morning, and honestly, I felt such an appreciation for living in this gorgeous country. I was an avid hunter and outdoorsman living in a very remote and unpopulated southern Canadian wilderness. Nature was literally at my doorstep. I could walk out of my home, jump on my ATV, and be hunting in 10 minutes or drive a little further to reach the beautiful glaciers and high Alpine mountains that were everywhere, too numerous to count. In these beautiful mountains were mule deer, mountain goat, grizzly bear, and elk. The valley bottom held many Whitetail deer, black bears, cougars, and coyotes. It was truly a hunter’s paradise. Not to mention, I was born and raised in these hills, and every human around was either a friend, a relative, or both. I had my choice of hunting partners, and this day I had made arrangements with my very favorite, my longtime friend Nathan Adrian. Why was he my favorite, you might ask? Because he knew what he was doing, and hunting with someone smart and experienced makes a big difference. Nathan had the same love for the outdoors as I, maybe even more, and even at his young age of 25, he knew more than most hunters twice his age. Plus, we hunted together a lot and found that often our thinking and reactions were incredibly similar when hunting. If we saw game and Nathan suddenly ducked off to one side, I knew exactly what he was doing, where he was going, and how I should respond. I think for our age, we were a couple of smart cookies and we really enjoyed hunting together. The year was 1992, 31 years ago now. I was 23 years old, and Nathan a couple of years my senior. That day, Nathan was picking me up in his old hunting truck, and we’d be heading up to the area called “Deception” to hunt for mule deer. It would be a great drive as we always enjoyed our time together in the cab of a truck, drinking coffee and swapping stories. We were both big talkers, and the cab of that truck rarely heard silence. I think hunting was a great activity for us because at times it forced us to be silent. That’s kind of funny, but keeping quiet, being silent in the forest is a beautiful thing. Perhaps only hunters can really understand. For how many people nowadays walk out into the forest and sit in dead silence for hours at a time? Well, we did, but we weren’t there yet, and until then, our mouths never stopped moving.
The light was coming up, and it was time to leave the truck and start walking up the old skid trail. There was lots of logging in the area as it was pretty much the only occupation around there. Both Nathan and I worked in the sawmills, cutting that fine timber from these mountainsides. I love logging and could never understand those who thought of it negatively or as some kind of destruction. It’s a renewable resource that put food on our tables, paid the mortgage on our trailers, and bought clothes for our ever-expanding young families. Not to mention logging opened up the country, giving us roads way back into the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen. And these places were teeming with wildlife. A logged area was always a place to look for game. The deer and elk would be in there foraging on the new growth sprouting up all over.
We left the truck and started walking. Still early in the season, there wasn’t even a frost, and we were dressed lightly with our rifles slung across our backs and binoculars dangling from our necks. Bullets neatly arranged in a handmade leather pouch from a local leather artisan. I was also proud of the antler-handled knife on my belt, handmade by one of my schoolmate’s dad. That’s how it was in those days… A time before Amazon and online shopping. A time before the Internet. A time when if you wanted to learn something, you had to go find someone or go bug your uncle or your dad for answers. “Hey Siri” didn’t exist, and the closest thing I had was a telephone where I could punch in a few numbers and then say, “Hey Dad, how do you fix this?” or whatever other problem or dilemma I had. Looking back on it now, those were special times.
We hadn’t walked that far, maybe 2 km up and to the south, ambling along the road in silence, our eyes peeled for any movement. As the road crested at the top of the hill, Nathan suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, extremely fast, and his eyes shot open to the size of saucers. “Well, he definitely sees something,” I thought and looked in the direction of his gaze. Absolutely nothing. Ahead lay an open logged area with downed trees and willows shooting up everywhere. I looked back at Nathan, who was now looking at me. I gave a silent shoulder shrug to indicate I hadn’t seen anything. Nathan looked back into the field for only a split second, then looked back at me, still wide-eyed, and placed his hands on his head to indicate a buck was there. Again, I turned my head toward the cut block and saw nothing but stumps, willows, and a big tree lying over about 80 yards away. I looked back at Nathan, who was now becoming completely unglued. His entire body was vibrating, and he was pointing straight ahead back-and-forth so many times
and with such force I thought his arm would fly right off.
Again, I moved my gaze in the direction of his frantic pointing, and again there was nothing I was starting to think my hunting partner had lost his mind. It was my turn to shoot, and I appreciated him giving me first crack but gosh darn it Nathan there isn’t anything there. I looked back at Nathan shrugging with a very confused look on my face and he whispered “right behind the log.” I knew exactly where he meant as I had looked at it four times already now. For the fifth time I looked, and this time the timing was right, my head turned to look at that spot just as the bucks head rose from behind the log. You see that downfall log was about exactly the height of the bucks back, Nathan spotted his neck, head and antlers but each time I went to look, the buck had his head down grazing on some fresh grass. As I look towards Nathan, the buck’s head would come up and Nathan‘s eyes would just about bulge out of his head. As I looked over again, down with the head… I seen nothing!
But ha ha luck was finally with me as I now seen him clearly and at only 80 yards, heck maybe it was more like 60, a head or neck shot was gonna be easy. One thing I couldn’t get out of my mind was how did this buck not see us? There were Nathan and I standing in the middle of the road on top of the hill not 60 yards away completely in the open with Nathen flailing arms, pointing and making signs of antlers on his head. Oh well, never mind time to make the shot. His head was up and through the scope. I could see him chewing grass and paying me no mind whatsoever. Boom the shot rang out, taking him high in the neck and hitting the spine he dropped like a sack of hammers. Not a trophy buck but a nice four-point whose antlers I could nail to the side of my shed and meat that would help fill my families freezer. Woo hoo, nice one, way to go, we exclaimed and high-fived each other with great excitement and joy. “Funny that Deer didn’t run away” nathan said. “Yeah I know we must be really camouflaged.” I jokingly stated, as we were wearing old work clothes and didn’t own any fancy hunting attire. We made our way over to the deer and all was revealed. “Hey, look at this.” Nathan said, showing me the damaged and blind left eye of that mule deer buck. I thought, he must have lost an eye while fighting another buck but my thoughts were interrupted by Nathan‘s grand, boisterous and long horse laugh. “ ha ha ha Nathan laughed and laughed. “ Look at that I must be the best hunting partner in the world. I found a blind mule deer so even you could shoot one!” he continued, laughing and laughing and laughing, and I thought to myself maybe this guy isn’t my favourite hunting partner after all, but then I found my sense of humour and joined in the laughter as he continued to tease me as we dressed that blind buck out. Wait a minute half blind buck. The day was beautiful and Nathan and I enjoyed our conversations as we skinned and cut for the next hour.
To this day, Nathan will still always ask me if I found any Half blind me to shoot or if I feel like I could graduate to fully sighted ones. Having a hunting partner is a great thing, but be prepared to get razzed and teased only the way a friend can do. Thanks Nathan for that wonderful hunting experience and good times.
