Images

I grew up captivated by images in Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, Cabela's catalogs and a hundred other publications that are made specifically for the outdoors-lover like me.

Paintings and pictures like these blended together into one mental image of an ideal: Cold loaded steel in hand, well-trained dogs working fields full of pheasants flushing out of the early morning frost-covered grass. Followed, of course, by an afternoon gathering of family and friends with food, football, sore legs and stories of the morning's hunt. I imagined myself like these lucky hunters:

As a young hunting teenager growing up in a non-hunting family, I had somehow been lucky enough to shoot a pheasant or two here or there after school, whether at nearby railroad tracks or a local irrigation canal. Those times were much enjoyed, but I had yet to go on a real pheasant hunt, and I knew that as soon as I had that chance I would take it. The images I had collected in my head had already made me nostalgic for hunts yet to be had, dogs yet to be trained, trips yet to be taken, and future memories yet to be made.

Sadly, as I grew, I discovered that endless fields of flushing birds existed only in my mind. For a guy like me in the state where I lived, the best pheasant hunting I was going to get was at one of the places we called pheasant farms...

...places where pheasants were raised like chickens, but rather than slaughtered, packaged, and sent to the grocery store, you could pay to have the owner release a few into his fields the morning before your hunt. Whatever birds you couldn't shoot or couldn't find eventually fell prey to foxes, coyotes, cars, or the cold of winter.

Pheasant hunting clubs and ranches exist because without them pheasants wouldn't, at least not where I grew up. The truth of it is there just wasn't enough habitat to support a healthy, huntable, publicly accessible population of birds. Reality set in, and somehow the thought of paying for pen-raised birds to be planted in front of me destroyed the idealistic images from my youth.

However, this Fall I found something worth daydreaming about, and now I can't stop doing just that. Nebraska has no shortage of wild pheasants, and two months ago I was invited by some friends to come experience Nebraska's best, first-hand.

I used to think that publicly accessible fields like this didn't exist...

...but they do in Nebraska, and inside them live hundreds of pheasants as wild as can be.

We hunted for four days, and only saw the sun once. The rest of the time we were hunting in the remains of ice storms and frozen fog

On the last morning I stopped to fill up with gas and realized how cold it actually was:

All the dogs' noses were bloody from the ice and cold, as demonstrated by Rudy:

Without the dogs there would have been no birds. They hunted their hearts out, even little Rudy who really is more of a pet than a hunting dog. A time or two he flushed a hen all by himself, but mostly he couldn't even keep up with me in the thick grass, yet alone the other dogs. He's just too small. A bird would flush, guns would go off, and by the time he'd get to where the bird fell one of the other dogs already had it back to its owner. He struggles to fit birds that big in his mouth anyway, even if he could get to them first, but he never quit trying. As much as I love him I'm excited to get a bigger dog like my buddy's Springer Spaniel Lily:

Or another friend's four-year-old female Brittany, complete with safety vest:

That little gal put up three roosters for me one morning a few weeks ago and I missed all three. It was in the middle of a 25 mph blizzard, but I admit, I sucked it up.

I'm not saying that hunting clubs and ranches don't have their place. They do, and I plan on hunting them in the future, especially when I have kids or can't make it to places like these. I'm just saying that I'll always prefer wild birds in wild places with dogs that wont quit till you force them to. It's an ideal that lives in my head pieced together by a thousand images.

Here's one of those images that I'm glad to have stuck in my mind:

Sweet onion catalina pheasant breast glazed with cranberry honey sauce, wild rice, steamed vegetables, toasted focaccia parmesan bread, and sparkling pink catawba grape juice to wash it down.

Latest Pics From My October Woods

A couple of weeks ago I found another scrape near a corn field where the deer gather, so I put up a trail cam.

In my last post I concluded that there weren't any bigger bucks around because neither me nor my trail camera had spotted any all Summer and Fall. Well it turns out I was wrong. There are bigger bucks hanging out in the woods where I hunt.

Now that the rut is getting closer the bigger bucks are coming out of hiding, and as a result I've changed my mind about shooting the first little buck that comes near. They aren't monster bucks, but they're plenty good enough for first-timer Dan.

I have dozens of pictures of little bucks like these:

Here's one that's interesting. I have no idea what's wrong with his chest. Some cancerous growth or something.

I could have flung an arrow at him a few mornings ago, but he's too young. Plus, I don't want whatever disease he's got.

I did shoot at this doe a couple of weeks ago. She has bright white eye spots, and has lighting fast reflexes. She ducked my arrow at thirty five yards, and my bow shoots at least 280 feet per second.

I suppose I might cave in and shoot a smaller buck if I don't get a chance at a bigger one, but I'm still holding out for a few more weeks...at least till my buddy Jake comes to visit/hunt during Thanksgiving break. The truth is I don't actually have that much time to hunt each week, so I may cave sooner than later.

And finally, here are a couple of non-deer pics that are kinda cool:

Whitetail Tales

I grew up in Utah hunting mule deer the way you're supposed to hunt mule deer, and I assumed, in my ignorance, that the way you hunt mule deer is the way you hunt all deer. Unlike the rest of the country, we don't have whitetail deer back home.


The idea of shooting a whitetail deer with my bow was something I always dreamed of...something exotic...and I hoped some day I'd have the chance to try it.

Well I do, now that I live in Nebraska, and I feel bad that I've let school and other obligations limit my time in the woods so severely. I'll only be here a couple more years, so I've recommitted myself to "use it while I got it"; and I gotta admit, hunting whitetails is almost more fun than hunting mule deer.

All summer I've had a trail camera up snapping pictures of the various deer that live on the land that I hunt, and have been reading magazines, talking to locals, and exploring, trying to figure out this whole world of whitetail hunting. Apparently whitetails often make territorial scrapes this time of year, which are just spots of ground they scrape up and pee on, usually under tree limbs which they also lick and rub to leave their scent on. This year I found one...

...so I put up a trail camera near it to discover its owner.


I think it's the same small buck I got pics of this summer that I posted about two posts ago. Here he is on video:

It's good because it means he is hanging around, but it's bad because usually only dominant bucks make and return to scrapes; which means he's probably the biggest buck in the area, and he's not big. I'm not surprised since the land I hunt is public. I'm sure if I don't shoot him before the general season next month some rifle hunter will, and I'm sure that's the reason why his daddy isn't still around to be the big buck on the block.

But what do I care? I'll be happy with a doe at this point, as long as she's a whitetail. Later in life when I have time, land, and experience then I can fuss about finding a big one. I'm just happy to be out hunting. I've set my tree stand over a frequently used trail that deer take between where they eat and where they sleep. I've had my trail camera in it recently, and even though it has offered proof that I'm not the only one in the woods...

...it has also given proof that the deer still walk under my stand at least every other morning:

Yesterday morning I was in my stand at first light and saw that little buck come through before it was light enough to shoot or video, but later when the sun came up I pulled out the video camera.

Just after I put it away a doe came in on the red line and stopped where it meets the yellow. I drew my bow and held aim on her, but thankfully I had no shot because her vitals were covered up by that small tree. I say thankfully because as she took the yellow path toward me I realized that she in fact was not a doe, but a very young buck with almost invisible, half-inch button antlers.

Though I legally could have shot him, and I have a tag for both a doe and a buck, I just couldn't bring myself to arrow a baby deer. Call me a softie. Don't get me wrong...I'm not trophy hunting and I'm not going to be picky when it comes to my first whitetail, but this time I hung the bow back up and watched him bed down under my tree.

I'm having so much fun and there's always next weekend.

They Say You Can Never Go Home

Of course you CAN go home geographically speaking. Sure the city, neighborhood, and house you grew up in all still exist; and yes you can stop by to see your little hand print in the concrete of the back porch, or play on the old tire swing at your elementary school. But times change. Things change. People change. It's not that change is bad, but all that really remains of the way things were back home are the memories you replay in your mind. Yet even the memories get sweeter with time and their facts fade with age. Hence they say you can never go "home".

But I did. Two weeks ago.

I made a quick trip to Utah to go elk hunting with friends, and it was as good as it has ever been. The house, the church, and the school of my youth, and all the people that were in them have aged and grown, but the woods where I learned to hunt are immune to time. The same Autumn smells fill the same canyons year after year. The rain falls, leaves turn, and trails wind in the same way. Squirrels still squeal the same scoldings when you enter their property. And my favorite little spring still trickles out it's precious water, which still attracts the same big bucks and bulls, whose approach still makes my heart pound and nerves quake. The feeling I get when I enter those woods is the same year to year - like a big welcome home.

Here's a quick look at some of this year's hunt:

Jake never did find that big deer. He hit it, but I don't think well enough to kill it. I'm sure that buck is healed up by now and standing on some ridge somewhere showing his big buck buddies his cool new scar.

I made the mistake this year of hunting during the first week of the hunt with only an elk tag. It wasn't until too late that I remembered we see mostly deer during the first half of the hunt, and mostly elk during the last half. Next year I'm going to hunt later when the elk are breeding and easier to find. But even without an elk in the freezer I am glad I was able to go...home.

My Leave of Absence

Yes I realize I haven't posted anything for quite a while. To say that school has kept me busy this last year is a major understatement. It has just zapped every ounce of blogging energy out of me. But I'm graduating very soon and already feel the freedom, along with the desire to start posting again. Despite surrendering my life to my education, I actually did get outside for a few days this last year. Here is a quick catch up of a few things since I last posted.

I was able to shoot a whitetail doe with my traditional style muzzleloader on new year's eve. I thought it was a good shot, but I trailed her for a quarter mile in fresh snow and she just stopped bleeding. Maybe I'll meet up with her again this fall.

And hunted turkeys a couple nights after class, but the only thing I got close to was this:

While home on vacation I spent a couple nights in the Uintas backpacking with family.

I also revisited an old tradition of catching monster trout in box canyon on stonefly nymphs, only this time it was in the middle of a hail storm. I think I could live and die in that river and be happy.

While on vacation Chris and Jake and I wet a few flies on one of my new favorite trout streams:

I'm excited for this fall because not only am I going to have stuff to post about, but I'll have the time and energy to do it. For example, a week or two ago I got a few good pictures off of my trail camera. A couple of bucks (albeit small) on land that I can hunt have already got my blood pumping.

What do you think, should I fling an arrow at this little guy if I see him while the season is open?

I can't wait. I've been so excited I even set up my treestand in my backyard. Yeah I know I'm a nerd. Check it out on Courtney's blog. Yes it is a private blog, (I prefer to keep my clientèle out of my private life, á la "What About Bob"). Just email her and she'll invite you in.