Jim Fergus - A Hunters Road: A Journey with Gun and Dog Across the American Uplands

A Journey
with
Gun and Dog
Across
the American Uplands

JIM FERGUS

Holt Paperbacks

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Copyright 1992 by Jim Fergus

All rights reserved.

Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn and Company Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fergus, Jim.

A hunters road: a journey with gun and dog across the American uplands / Jim Fergus1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-3008-2

ISBN-10: 0-8050-3008-5

1. Upland game bird shootingUnited States. 2. Hunting stories, American. I. Title.

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Originally published in hardcover in 1992 by
Henry Holt and Company

First Holt Paperbacks Edition 1993

Printed in the United States of America
11 13 15 17 19 20 18 16 14 12

To Barney

I regret that space does not allow thanking individually the many generous hunters who took me afield in the course of my travels around America, who showed me the countryside and allowed me into their favorite cherished bird coverts. I owe each of you an unpayable debt of gratitude and thanks. You know who you are, and where I can be found, and you are always a welcome guest in my country.

Special thanks to Colleen Daly, the first to learn the particulars of this unlikely scheme, for her invaluable early support and suggestions. Ditto to David Seybold, who is always performing unpaid favors and kindnesses for his many writer friends, and to whom I am greatly indebted for his help all along the road.

It is impossible to modify the word thanks with any adjective adequate to the tireless efforts on my behalf of my agent, John Ware, without whose unflagging faith, enthusiasm, and encouragement this project would never have come to pass. So thanks, John. And to you, too, Bill Strachan, my editor, who took a flyer on this at the beginning and made it better than it would have been at the end.

Now, how to thank you, Dillon, for loaning me your dog and sending me out on the hunters road?

Although this is essentially a work of nonfiction, certain fictional devices and techniques have been used. In some instances the names of characters, places, towns, regions, and states have been changed, and situations and events altered or otherwise disguised. In the same manner, some of the characters in this book are composites of two or more real people, while others are entirely the creation of the authors imagination. Even the narratorthe hunterof this book may occasionally slip into the guise of a fictional persona. Sometimes this fictionalization and intentional obfuscation is undertaken simply to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. At other times, it serves to obscure this hunters trail, to brush his tracks, as it is not the authors intention to serve as chamber of commerce, to promote the sport of bird hunting, or to advise the reader where, or with whom, to go bird hunting; there are plenty of organizations, publications, and individuals already in that business. It may seem somewhat anachronistic in this age of information to withhold such specifics, but there was a time, not so long ago, that a favorite fishing hole or hunting covert was a carefully guarded secret. The author adheres to such old-fashioned discretion.

A HUNTERS ROAD

One of the principal advantages of hunting, my dear readers, consists in its forcing you to be constantly moving from place to place, which is highly agreeable for a man of leisure.

Ivan Turgenev, A HUNTERS SKETCHES (1852)

Without his meaning it to, the hunters soul leaps out, spreads out over the hunting ground like a net, anchored here and there with the fingernails of his attention. Now everything is imminent and at any instant any figure of the countryside can becomeas if by magicthe hunters prey.

Jos Ortega y Gasset, MEDITATIONS ON HUNTING (1942)

The hunter is the alert man.

Ortega y Gasset

I cant tell you what makes one man a hunter and another not. But I can tell you how this all happened for one hunter.

It began when I was a boy growing up in the midwestern suburbs. I was small for my age, asthmatic, quiet and somewhat timid, solitary and frequently afraid; at night I would make a tent of my covers and read sporting magazines by a pen flashlight, while my parents battled downstairs, saying things to each other that this boy simply could not bear to hear. My mother had dark troubles with drink; only a few years later she would die young, a hard death, alone on another continent.

Under the covers in my den with my flashlight I was safe; my dog, Sugar, a little Welsh terrier, nestled beside me. Under there, enormous fish leapt on mirrored lakes and huge coveys of game birds blackened the sky over field and forest, while jocular, self-reliant outdoorsmen such as I longed to be cooked hearty meals over an open fire and slept in bedrolls under the stars. These were my companions, all superb shots and incredibly proficient anglers. Of course, later I would learn that many of their tales of sporting triumphs were pure fabrication, but I didnt need to know that yet.

I had a slingshot that I used to hunt squirrels with in the ravine near my house, although for a long time I never actually hit any. I did kill a few robins with my slingshot, and one time I made a campfire in the ravine and roasted a robin on a stick as a kind of sacrament. Even then I believed in eating what I killed and not killing what I wouldnt eat. I plucked and drew the bird first, and it was quite delicious. But a neighbor saw the smoke from the campfire and called the fire department and that put an end to my robin roasts. I got in a good bit of trouble at home.

One day I finally hit a squirrel with my slingshot, but I only wounded it and then I had to kill it with a stick; it was a nasty, messy business and the squirrel suffered. This made me feel terrible. I still, all these years later, feel terrible thinking about it, and to this day I remain squeamish about killing things. I hate suffering of any kind, human or animal. Dont think because Im a hunter that this is not so.

I had a cheap spun glass fishing rod, too, and I often fished for perch in Lake Michigan. The lake was only a few blocks from my house, and I would walk down there with my rod and tackle box. Already I wanted a bamboo fly rod, and I had my eye on a Daisy BB gun at the hardware store, but I wasnt old enough to have that yet.