July 20th- "Dinner with a Writer"

July 20^th   Dinner with a Writer

Last night I attended our Orange County Safari Club chapter meeting.  This one was a little more special than most.  Aside from the prime rib, fare not usually available at our dinner meetings, my “date” last night was my ten year old daughter Chaney.  She is a huntress and felt it was high time she start attending the meetings of the club.  I couldn’t agree more.

We also had a unique treat last night.  Our guest speaker was the great outdoor writer and hunter Craig Boddington.  I’ve met Mr. Boddington at events over the years and I own a bunch of his books.  It is not so much that he is a great writer….he is…or that he is unbelievably prolific in his writing….he is that too… in spades.  (If you are wondering who Craig Boddington is go to any magazine stand and peruse the shooting and hunting rags.  I can guarantee you that in any current issue you will find at least one article penned by him.  What really makes Boddington stand out though is his ability to speak.  He is a storyteller and a teacher. 

Way back in my earlier Jungle Cruise skipper days I learned from veteran that the key to being a good skipper was not just simply being a comedian.  Anyone can make someone laugh if they had the requisite skills….what really stood you apart was your ability to tell a narrative in such a way as to make the person feel that they were being let in on a secret. 

Mr. Boddington is a master at this.

Last night we learned about Cape Buffalo. 

This is a Cape Buffalo that my wife photographed a few years back on our safari.  I wasn't hunting them at the time...which is too bad...this guy was a beauty!  They have a look that subtly says "I can kill you at any moment...and you are beginning to annoy me."

Well…not just Cape Buffalo, but the whole culture, cruelty and majestic beauty of these might African beasts.  Thankfully my checkbook was home with my wife.  Had it been in my possession I would have booked a hunt last night.  The lecture was that infectious. 

Cape Buffalo are one part of what is called the Big 5 in Africa.  Lion, Elephant, Leopard, Hippo..and Cape Buffalo.  Each has a long rap sheet of human animal contact with the human part coming out the looser in the equation.  Make no mistake….these are dangerous game, and their lethality is their identity, and ironically the source of their cruel beauty. 

But, as we learned last night, not all Cape Buffalo are created equal.  Some are worthy of being removed from the gene pool, and some need to be kept in the herd longer to allow them to pass along their DNA.  It is our job as hunters to help manage those herds and make the snap decision as to what is a shooter and what is a trophy for someone else a couple of years down the road.

Something else struck me last night…

The people of SCI are as unique and important as the animals we pursue.  SCI is a fairly egalitarian club.  Rank and economic status play no part in the quality of the person shaking your hand, or sitting at your table trading hunting stories.  Rolexes, and Timexs mingle with each other without a shred of self-conciseness.

To a person all treated Chaney less as a young novelty…(10 year old huntresses are just not that common in Southern California)…and more of an equal in our hunting tradition.  Adults that talked to her wanted to hear of her hunts…and she told them the details of her stories enthusiastically.  Once she would finish they would reciprocate with their own adventures. 

Our campfire was white linen table clothes and banquette chairs, and the stars over our head were replaced with fluorescent lighting, but the tradition was the same as it has been for thousands of years.  Hunters telling other hunters stories of their hunts as they shared a meal.

These are good people. 

Men and women who abide by a code of honor that restrains them far more than legal ramifications, or public condemnation can.  They are protectors of the environment that do the hard work.  They literally protect the environment. And they do it with a dedication and humility that borders and the transcendent. 

They are hunters. 

My girls and I are proud to call them our friends.

July 17th "Sorry about that!"

Ok…sorry sorry sorry,

I’ve been posting my blog twice a week for a couple of months and then I suddenly left you guys hanging without any explanation.

Yeah…sorry about that.

So here is the deal:

On July 1 our family business ceased being a family business.  A fairly large multi-national company bought us out…(well not our buildings…the family still owns that and is leasing them to the new company).  The generation above me “took the package” and walked out the door.  We now have new blood and new policies and procedures. 

The new owners seem cool.  A little too much interested in process and less on product…but that may just be my jaundiced initial assessment.  Like my new CFO commented when I mentioned the employees were nervous….”we are the new owners…we are all liars until proven otherwise”.  It is a good turn of phrase, and while a little harsh, does sort of nail the zeitgeist around here.

With all the new business practices I’ve been a little swamped and really have not had time to write about anything…much less shoot or hunt!

Anyhow…that will change shortly.  Look for a new blog post next week!

Again sorry about the abruptness of  it all, but hey…things happen right?

July 3rd The First Rabbit Hunt

July 3^nd,

The first of July each year holds a special promise for me.  Longer days and sunny mornings mean the extension of work and chores, but it also means the dying away of June gloom and the easing into the blast furnace that has become Southern California summer whether. 

July 1 also has a nostalgic value.  Saturday morning cartoons of my youth shed off their yoke of impossibility and I transform Kafkaesque into one of their characters.   For when the rooster cries the arrival of July the 1^st…..I become the mighty Elmer Fudd.

Yeah….I’m bald… and when I get excited I stutter too.

Each year the first of July in California marks the beginning of rabbit season….and just like in the cartoons, Buggs seems to innately know this.  The weekend before rabbit season there are a bunch of the critters all over the place….but at the opening bell they disappear.

This year my youngest daughter Chaney earned her hunting license.  This year my wilderness adventures would not be solo.  This year Chaney would be taking her place in a long and ancient line of hunting ancestors.  Ancestors that hunted the mighty rabbit and relied on it’s protein for sustenance.

Normally when I hunt I prefer to start early in the morning.  I do afternoon hunts, but not usually in the National Forest. (Typically I have to be home in the afternoon taking care of chores or running around with my wife and kids.)  However,  opening day for rabbits this year fell on a Sunday, and Sunday mornings at our house involves a weekly trip to my 93 year old grandmothers’ house for a visit. 

Well….as you can imagine that wasn’t going to get postponed, so Chaney and I decided that we would head up to the National Forest late in the afternoon.  We figured that shouldn’t be a problem.  Rabbits are nocturnal, but stay out of their burros in shaded areas in the early morning and late afternoon hours.  The cooler temperatures are a benefit to us as well.  Hiking through the hills of Southern California in July can be brutally hot…doing it when the sun is going down helps keep things more pleasant.

Now I’ve  been to a little “rabbit hole” in the forest and seen boatloads of the furry beasts. I figured that would be the best place to start.  What I didn’t consider were the other forest creatures that would be out that same time, namely the evil black footed kaki cladded Mountain Biker (homobipedalas horriblis)

Rabbits like to stay in open areas (good for us!) but spook ridiculously easy, and scurry back to the holes never to be seen again.  A biker zipping along on a trail can scatter rabbits for a hundred yards in each direction.  Bikers also tend to be fairly skittish fellows themselves.  Apparently seeing a couple of people walking along the fields wearing blaze orange and carrying firearms tends to put them off a bit.

Fortunately the bikers we saw were far enough over on the other side of the field to really not interfere with our hunt.  What did cause us problems were the golden eagles flying overhead.  (Rabbits tend not to like them either). 

So…off Chaney and I went....hiking about 6 miles up and down the forest hills….slowly scanning the ground for killer rabbits.  As the sun set and we began our long hike back to the truck when we spotted him!

He was in an open space about a hundred yards down a hill from us.  Just as Chaney went prone and tried to get her scope on him he scampered off towards a bush and out of sight.  He wasn’t running fast though, and we thought if we sneaked up we might have a crack at him.

We took a long way around to get to that bush and with a couple of missed opportunities we finally connected!

Chaney had her first wild rabbit!

A trophy bull!

Ok…it was a small one….but it was her first! And we spent a hell of a long time hunting it. 

This was also her first time completely gutting and skinning a creature she shot.  She did a fantastic job!  (With her new knife I might add).

Thankfully she didn't want to hang it from a tree branch to do the skinning!

She then cut the feet off to dry. 

She told me she wanted to keep one for good luck, and she wanted me to have the other one….a memory of my first rabbit hunt with her.

How friggen cool is that!