Full Circle
Most of us learn how to hunt and fish from our fathers. As children, our fathers are bigger than life. When I was little, I knew my dad was the best outdoorsman in the world. He knew everything there was to know about guns, tree stands, calling ducks, catching walleyes and gutting deer.
In one of my earliest memories, my dad and I are walking by the National Guard tent at the county fair on a crisp August night. To get people to stop, they have an airgun range with moving targets set up. “Hey Doc, let’s see how you can shoot!” one of the soldiers calls out as we walk by. “I’m not joining the Guard,” my dad responds. “I’m too old.” This resulted in laughs all around. I have no idea who these men in camouflage uniforms are, but it’s obvious my dad does. Soon they’re needling him for free medical advice, information on where the walleyes are biting and what his plans are for deer season. As I listen to the conversations of men, I finally can’t contain myself. “Dad, shoot the gun!” I whisper as I tug on his hand.
One of the soldiers hands my dad the air rifle and says with a smile, “This is the end the bullet comes out of.” This gets a round of laughs from everyone around. As the target moves down the track, he shoulders the rifle and there is a light pop as he squeezes the trigger. When the target is returned, there is a small hole through the bullseye. “Lucky shot,” the soldier says putting the target back on the track. “Let’s see you do that again.” Three more times the target goes back and forth in front of us. Each time, there is a small pop as the gun goes off. When the target is returned, all of the shots are in a tight cluster in the center. “That’s the best shooting we’ve seen all night,” the soldier comments as my dad hands him the rifle. Of course it is, I think to myself. My dad is the best shot in the world!
As I got older, I started accompanying my dad and older brothers on hunting trips. We hunted waterfowl in North Dakota and Manitoba, Pheasants in South Dakota and deer in our home state of Minnesota. He taught me everything he knew about calling ducks, driving a slough for pheasants, training dogs and finding the best place to put a deer stand. As I got older, my hunting interests started expanding beyond my father’s. We always subscribed to Outdoor Life, Minnesota Sportsman and Field and Stream. I read each of these magazines from cover to cover soaking up every bit of information I could.
For the past twenty years, my family has made an annual trip to northern Minnesota for the opener of the firearms deer season. While we’ve never had much luck finding trophy animals on the land we hunt, the deer are plentiful. In the years when I was starting out my professional career and my brothers were in medical school or residency, deer opener was one of the few “guy weekends” we spent together.
As my brothers started their own families and I found myself more and more focused on my career, I realized that the time we spent hunting together was some of the best family time we had and we needed to start doing more of it. Five years ago, I met a rancher in SE Montana who has some prime hunting land on the Little Powder River. We soon developed a friendship and an annual trip or two to hunt deer and antelope have become part of my normal hunting season. Three years ago, I asked him if he would mind if I brought my dad with me to hunt. He didn’t have any objections, so the following year my dad and I put in for antelope licenses.
To get ready for the trip, I bought him a new bolt-action rifle and binoculars. I carefully developed loads for the rifle and sighted it in at 250 yards. After all these years, this was going to be my chance to teach my father a new way to hunt, as he had never hunted big game outside of the Minnesota woods and always from a stand.
October found us with a twelve-hour drive in front of us and gave us a good chance to get caught up. Over the past few years, we haven’t had a lot of one on one time with each other. While Dad’s in his seventies, he’s always been young for his age. He’s in great health and very active, but listening to him talk about life and the world, it was clear that his perspective on things had changed. In some ways he was more opinionated, in others more reflective. His pride in “his boys” and what they had accomplished was very clear, but there was also a twinge of his own mortality in his words. For the first time, I realized that the number of days I have to hunt with my dad is fixed, and one day I’ll use the last one.
On our first day of hunting we slept in, still a little tired from the long drive the day before. We grabbed an ample breakfast of eggs, pancakes, bacon and thick, black coffee at the local truck stop then drove out to the ranch. Within minutes, we spotted our first herd of antelope. “Do you see one you like?” I asked as we glassed the herd of about twenty animals. A lone buck looked back at us from the group of does. My dad said that he thought the buck looked good, but after looking at him some more, I thought we could do better. Besides, it was a warm, sunny fall day and I wasn’t ready for his hunt to be over so soon.
As we drove the ranch roads, we stopped and glassed several more herds. All of the herds had one or two bucks in them and all of them were about the same size. My dad has never been much of a trophy hunter, so he was getting a little frustrated with me for not letting him shoot one of them. “I think we should go back and shoot that first buck,” he said as we sat on the tailgate of my truck eating our lunch.
When we returned to the spot where we had seen the first buck, we found that the herd had moved further back into a series of draws. “That’s good,” I said. “It’ll be easier to sneak up on them.” Using the contours of the land for cover, we were soon within about 200 yards of the herd. “We can’t get any closer. You’re going to have to shoot from here,” I told him as I pulled out my rangefinder. “They’re smaller than deer and a lot closer than they look. Hold dead-on for his heart.”
As I watched through my binoculars, he squeezed off the first shot. The buck’s head snapped to attention and he stared right at us as in ones and twos, the does started running up the draw. Another shot rang out. This time I saw dust fly on the hillside far behind the buck. At the shot, he took off with the rest of the herd for parts unknown.
“I think you shot over him. I know you didn’t hit him,” I said as I watched the antelope go over the crest of the hill. “No biggie, there are a lot more.”
As we walked back to the truck, we discussed the shot. In all the years we’ve hunted together, I can only think of a one or two times where my dad had missed a deer. We both decided that it was just because he wasn’t used to shooting at antelope and wasn’t used to shooting his new rifle yet.
Over the next few hours, the scene replayed itself several times. Each time, I would get us into place within what I had thought was easy shooting distance, which would be followed by one or two misses. The sun was starting to set when we pulled into the last section of the ranch we hadn’t hunted yet. As we came over the crest of a hill, we spotted a lone antelope on top of the next ridge. A quick glance through the binoculars showed that he was a mature buck. Normally, I would have just set up for the shot from where we were stopped. But given the difficulties we’d had earlier in the day, I wanted get us as close as possible.
The plan was simple. This was the opening day of the season and this antelope probably hadn’t been shot at yet. Trucks are a common sight to the animals and at this point in the year, I didn’t think that he would see the truck as a threat. “Dad, I’m going to drive right up to that antelope. When I get about a hundred yards from him, I’m going to turn the truck broadside to him and stop. Then, you get out and shoot him.”
The plan worked like a charm. I drove straight at him until we were a hundred yards away, then turned the truck broadside and cut the engine. Dad got out, leaned over the hood and squeezed off a round at the curious antelope. At the shot, he turned and walked over the crest of the hill.
It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that he had missed again. Filled with a combination of frustration and disbelief, I jumped out of the truck and motioned for him to follow me as I started jogging up the side of the hill.
Reaching the top of the hill, we quickly spotted the buck in a small wash at the bottom of the hill. “That’s him,” I said pointing. Dad extended the legs on the bipod on his rifle and took aim. The rifle went off, shattering the silence of the evening. At the shot, the antelope looked up at us, but didn’t move. Another shot, and still the antelope stood staring up at us.
“That’s it,” I thought to myself. “We’ve spooked every antelope on the ranch and still haven’t killed anything. I’m going to go back to the truck, get my rifle, and shot the S.O.B. myself.” As I turned to start back to the truck, I saw the antelope slowly walking away from us. I was about half way back when another shot rang out, this one followed by a loud slap of a bullet hitting meat. “Finally,” I yelled out and looked up to the sky for a quick moment of thanks.
When I got back over to my dad, I saw the antelope laying dead a long way from the wash. “You got him,” I said with a big smile on my face. “Yeah, I finally just aimed right for his heart and it dropped him.” “Where had you been aiming before?” I asked, puzzled. “Well, they looked like they were so far away so I’ve been holding over the top of them. I guess they’re really not that far away.”
Pulling out my rangefinder, I did a quick check on the distance. “That antelope is 315 yards from this spot. Now do you believe me that you can hold dead-on out to 300 yards?”
We walked down the hill in the fading light, the sun painting the landscape in pastel hues of orange and pink. As we admired the fallen antelope, the smell of sage and goat filled our nostrils. “He’s a good one?” dad asks, as he runs his hands over his horns. “Yeah, he’s a good one,” I reply with a smile. “One I’ll never forget.”
