Gary Greene’s Memories from an Old Hunter……..#23
Near a wetland in the Kramer/Bottineau area of North Dakota, is where my most entertaining (for me) pheasant hunting anecdote took place. We were there for a five day duck hunt, but we did a little pheasant hunting on the side. This brief storyline, when I get to it, I have repeated it numerous times. It brings a smile to my face each and every time. Fellow hunters, Brian and Jesse always laugh heartedly, as I replay the scenario.
Brian, Jesse and I were on this trip and for the only time, Jack (fictitious name) and his dad joined us. Jack was a hunter and his dad came along for a father/son outing. At the time, my son Nate was in Iraq fighting a war, so he wasn’t on the roll call here. I actually don’t remember Jack’s dad’s name.
Leading into the main event, we were driving along a gravel road and some roosters flew over the truck and landed in the ditch behind us. Brian, immediately stopped the truck and the three of us; Brian, the dad, and I ran to the back of the truck, and got out our guns, and loaded up for a quick hunt. Since it was our first day of hunting, we were polite, as we waited for the dad to get his gun. Then he couldn’t decide which jacket to wear. Well, I lost patience with him and I spoke loudly with a: “Let’s go!” His response was: “We know the birds are there. What’s the hurry?” Now, Brian and I looked at each other and we knew he was clueless. We finally attacked that ditch and there were no pheasants to be found. We never waited for him again.
The old, cardboard, beer toting, swimsuit girl goes on all our hunting trips.
One nice thing I can say for the guy is that he brought loads of snacks. I mean more snacks than I have ever had on a trip before or since. He had bags of this and cans of that. For that aspect of our hunting trip……….he was well prepared! So for the rest of this memory, I will refer to Jack’s dad as “Snacks.”
Numerous times on the trip, Snacks lost his keys, only to be found in the pocket of another pair of pants. I believe his wallet also got lost in his pants. At least once, he locked Jesse’s truck keys in the vehicle. The second time, he claimed it was someone else. I’m not painting a real rosy picture here, and it wasn’t, but he was a real nice guy. He was just not a hunter and a bit of a bumbler. He was that real nice guy and he paid for 1/5 of the room and gas, and he brought all those snacks.
One night, as the other three men went to bed, Brian and I went to town. We wanted to have a steak and a beer. We found a small little bar/café that had “Steaks” in the window. As we came in, the waitress was sitting at the door. From that seated position, she gave us two menus and stated the normal: “Sit wherever you like.” Later on in the evening, she got herself a beer. As we soon learned, she never moved unless it was for her own personal needs. She would yell out: “Go help yourself to a beer there in the cooler behind the bar.” Then later, she added: “Grab a steak from the frig, and make it on the grill behind the bar.” After a couple of beers, the two tired hunters that we were, we laughed our tails off, because she was the first waitress we ever had, that didn’t wait.
In one corner of the bar was a life size, cardboard cutout of a beer holding girl in a swimsuit. Well, after dinner was served to us by us and add in a few beers, I needed that cardboard beer girl. As Brian paid the bill to the sitting waitress, I walked out the backdoor and under my arm, I borrowed that girl. The next morning, Jesse woke up to that girl lying in bed with him.
Dookie, nearing 12 years, was in her hunting prime during this memory, but now is limited in her harvesting.
Since that day, every hunting trip we have taken that life size, cardboard, beer toting, swimsuit girl has come along. On her body, each hunter will write a comment regarding the specific trip and I total the number of species and harvested birds and those are listed as well. As I bring her in with me to a motel room or a hunting lodge, I usually get a few good, long, questionable, looks.
Now for my most entertaining pheasant hunting memory….….We were pushing an upland field bordering a wetland. We were five abreast, about 60 yards part from outside man to outside man. My dogs Hershey and Dookie were quartering back and forth and we weren’t having any success. I was the outside man on the far right and Snacks was the outside man on the far left. I’m stating again, that he and I were about 60 yards apart. Dookie flushes a hen pheasant far to my right, but the bird circles left and it passes in my direction. Since hens are not legal targets, as the bird passes to my left, I yell: “HEN!” As the bird reaches Jesse, he yells: “HEN!” The bird extends past Brian and he proceeds to yell: “HEN!” The bird closes in on Jack and he yells: “HEN!” Then as the hen pheasant approaches Snacks, I kind of had this strange feeling. Snacks had watched that bird approach him from over 70 yards to his right and none of us raised a gun. Now that bird is flying right in front of Snacks. Well, old Snacks shoulders his gun and gets off three quick shots and the hen kept flying. Initially, nothing was said, a few seconds passed and I yelled out: “Nice Try.” The four of us dropped to our knees in laughter…..Old Snacks was not a hunter as I now describe him as Elmer Fuddish. This is my most prized pheasant hunting memory, because of the way we simultaneously laughed hysterically and we still do, as I repeat that story at least once (OK, maybe more times) every season.