John Husar - A Voice in Our Wilderness: John Husars Timeless Writings on the Outdoors, Strange Meals, and Lifes Simple Moments

7. Sunset

John once grumped to a friend about the expectations people had for outdoor writers. He had been in a small Illinois town the night before the pheasant season opened, and a bunch of hunters had gathered at the local trap range for some last-minute practice.

I got up there to shoot and everybody got quiet, John moaned. They wanted to see the expert in action.

John would have been the first to tell you he was no expert. He got his fishing lures tangled in tree branches just like everyone else. Thick eyeglasses made it hard for him to see a speeding clay target, much less hit it. And if you talk to Johns hunting and fishing pals, before too long they will tell you a hilarious story about the big guy falling into the river, or breaking through some ice.

Yet when it came to appreciating the world and its wonders, John really was an expert. John saw extraordinary things no matter where he found himself, and as the world roared around him, he squeezed out quiet moments when he could stop and smell the roses.

December 6, 1995

Honor and pride uncompromised by lousy hunt

This was not my best deer hunt. I had seen more than a dozen whitetails, but most were moving or out of sporting shotgun range. I wont shoot at moving deer. Its unethical to try a chancy shot.

One silent eight-pointer had stopped 15 yards to my side while I hunkered like a frozen lump on a plastic bucket with my gun propped against a tree. I had been munching an apple. The deer fixed his eyes on me for a minute while I tried not to breathe. Then he wheezed once, danced to the side and plunged safely across a creek.

An even bigger rack jumped a neighbors fence at sunset during the first season and I took a whack from 40 yards with my wifes gun, my own being out of commission. I missed badly and vowed to have my gun fixed by last weekend.

A nice doe edged within 30 yards of my scent fieldthe first doe I had ever summoned with a male grunt call. When she didnt find her buck, she began edging away. It was now or never. I forced a shot through some twigs and the slug was badly deflected. She loped away without a scratch.

Last Saturday, a herd of deer stole past my ground stand in the predawn gloom. It was too dark to try a shot. They sniffed and pawed and jumped the fence and were gone. That was the story of my season.

But a little more than an hour later, five deer stopped at a rocky ford near my spot. I was wedged between a dead tree and a fallen log with a beautiful view of a creek and forest.

Two grown fawns crossed the creek, followed by a large doe. Two more followed. This being the sixth of seven days of firearm hunting allowed in Illinois, I now was hunting for the table. The big doe would be prime venison and her fawns were old enough to fend for themselves.

Good hunters carefully pick and choose their shots. I have been proud most of my kills never took more than seven or eight steps. But now and then you just make a lousy shot. Then you are obligated to follow a wounded and possibly dying deer.

I watched with sickening dismay as the five deer, trailed by my wounded doe, ran hard along the creek bank and out of sight.

The last time I had to follow a blood trail, the young buck was dead within 75 yards. Thats reasonably acceptable. Dying, for any creature, rarely is as clinical as old shoot-em-up western films depict.

I gave her time to lie down and hopefully die nearby. Then I began the real hunt, the sleuthing after sometimes tiny droplets of blood on leaves and twigs and patches of remnant snow.

It took me half an hour to cover 100 yards and the deer still was moving well. I saw where she crossed the creek and entered a public park. Because you just dont carry shotguns in parks, I gave my gun to my son-in-law, Kevin Coyle, and continued the search. Half an hour later, I spooked the deer from a deep ravine and watched her top a ridge and head toward a county road. She would cross the road, I thought. All I could do was go back, get my gun, and drive around the park to the other side.

We wolfed a snack at the cabin and changed boots, giving the deer more time to settle down. Then Kevin and I drove the county road looking for blood along the shoulder where the deer had crossed. We found none. We walked the road and the edge of a farmers field and saw nothing. The doe still had to be in the park.

Kevin and I struck off in different directions, hoping to find where the doe had left the ravine. I finally found a place that seemed familiar, spotted a major deer path, walked 30 yards and came to a splotch of fresh blood.

But in 15 minutes of pacing in ever-widening circles, Kevin and I could find no more. We chose a likely direction and trailed different paths. Ten minutes later, our hearts stopped as a doe bolted from some underbrush and lay down beside a log. And there we were with no gun.

You stay with the deer and keep it from spooking back down that deep ravine, I told Kevin. Ill get my gun.

I knew the law was somewhat ambiguous about this. You dont hunt in closed areas of parks. But the state also recognizes a moral obligation to pursue and humanely destroy a wounded animal. Because I had located the deer and feared it would be lost, I was certain I was doing the right thing.

I found Kevins blaze orange hat and his urgent hand signals directed me toward the deer. It took two shots, but the hunt finally was done after three hours of painstaking search. I apologized to the deers spirit and thanked her for feeding my family. Kevin then took my gun back to the truck while I tagged and cleaned the carcass. Then we tied it to a pole and hauled it about 400 torturous yards to the county road.

As I said, this hunt had not been my best. My shot had failed by four inches from being an instant kill. A noble deer needlessly suffered.

But Kevin and I at least could be proud we hadnt quit. We twice had lost the blood trail, but we persisted. We honored that deer, we satisfied the Code of the Hunt, and we thankfully did not dishonor ourselves.

November 5, 1995

Spare ducks, and bag satisfaction

The magic of duck hunting begins in the dead of a drizzly night, when trucks and vans rumble into a crowded barnyard near a musty marsh. The dogs leap out, scouring through underbrush, sizing up each other, quickly forming packs.

The men stretch and rummage at their tailgates, donning waders, swilling home-brewed coffee, checking guns and shells. Someone tests a duck call, but quietly. The night must not be sullied by rushing dawn.

Inside the barn, in a bright, stuffy side room, hunters face each other from wooden benches against the walls. It reminds you of a prizefighters dingy dressing room, of the tiny warrens set aside for visiting basketball teams. They munch doughnuts or coffeecakes and talk of ducks they have seen on other lakes.

The walls are predictable. Ribald cartoons of ducky doings tilt in ratty frames. Tired homilies, including rules and warnings, glare from marker-scrawled cardboard. Faces of long-gone duck hunters beam from yellowed photos, piles of ducks at their feet. We certainly dont kill ducks like that anymore.

At Jim Scheers barn near Wilmington, a placard proclaims the fine for unethically killing a mallard hen at $20, scratched down from $50. When it was $50, no one ever paid, Scheer grumps.

In a clanging, metallic voice, he ordains that hunters in his blind this year can shoot three mallards, and maybe a teal or pintail or other bonus duck that happens by. Nothing like the official five-duck bag limit authorized by the feds. A lifelong eccentric who has con tributedand wrung from friendsbushels of money for waterfowl causes, Scheer thinks he can protect ducks better than the feds.