Duck Hunting

Thursday morning I rolled out of bed, turned my alarm off and stared at my clock which read 5:45. Slowly, I put on my hunting gear. I grabbed my bag and my shotgun, a beautiful semi-auto 12 gauge that used to belong to my grandfather. Andrei, one of my little brothers, ran out to greet me and wish me luck. I went down stairs to wake my Dad up, then left to start the coffee.

After we got every thing together I started the truck and loaded Chewy, our black lab, up and grabbed two pieces of pizza my Mom had made the day before and went into the truck. We drove into Manhattan and pulled into our hunting spot.

After walking to the river my dad set up our decoys. We then hid in some trees and waited. A duck flew by us and I pulled out my shot gun and took the safety off. "Not yet!" my Dad said. I put the safety back on.

Dad tried to call the duck back. Suddenly it flew over, not 20 feet away from me. I stuck my shot gun out and tried to take my safety off, but it had frozen in place! We didn't see any more ducks the rest of the day.

As we left for the truck my hands started hurting they were so cold, Dad's gloves froze in place, both of our face masks froze and Dad's coffee, which was in the truck, froze. We went in the truck and I looked over at Dad. "That was fun!" I said. My Dad laughed.

The next morning we also went, only this time I had cake my Mom had made the day before. Once we got walking to the hunting site some of my gear fell out of my hunting bag, so I went to pick it up and by that time my Dad was gone.

So I picked my bag up and left in the general direction that he went. After a couple minutes of searching I found him setting up the duck decoys. For most of the morning we didn't see much [O.K, I didn't see much. My Dad saw plenty, but I couldn't.]

Later on though a group of golden eyes were flying by us. I was kneeling at the time, and I stuck my shot gun through some branches and fired. Since I wasn't standing, I wasn't prepared for the kick which knocked me down on the ground. "You got him!" My Dad shouted.

The duck fell on the far side of a river. Chewy ran off after it, stopped, looked back at my Dad and walked over to him. "I'm not going over there, that water's cold!" He was probably saying. My Dad tried to get it but the water was too deep and the current too strong. Oh well, at least I got my first duck.

Thanks Giving!

This morning at 5:30 I crawled out of bed, put my hunting gear on and walked downstairs to wake dad up. I carried our rifles up and soon Aaron, [a family friend] drives up. We all pile into our truck and are on the rode. We drive into the Bridger mountains. There were spots at least a foot of snow. Why did we do this, you ask?

Elk Hunting.

So far my first Elk has eluded me, but this time I was ready. After about an hour we stumble on some tracks, some several days old, others fresher. We followed the tracks to an opening where several animals have been living. Suddenly I saw something. I motioned for my dad to look where I saw it. He looked for awhile.

"All I see is that tree stump" He said. I looked again, and true, it is a tree stump.

We didn't end up seeing anything but a couple more tracks.

Well, who knows. Maybe next time I'll get my Elk.

So, it's today we remember the Pilgrims escaping England and persecution, who came here to practice their beliefs; those who had more than half die through the winter, who, with friendly natives like Squanto would have all died.

Who knows where the turkey got its name?

It was named by one of the first Europeans to set foot on American soil, Luis De Torres, who sailed with Columbus in 1492. He wrote, in Hebrew, a letter home describing all the exotic animals, including a 'peacock'. The Hebrew for peacock is Tukki, translated into English Turkey!

Happy Thanks Giving!

Antelope hunting

Last Sunday my Dad, Molly and I went antelope hunting in eastern Montana. We only had two orange vests so I wore one of my dads orange shirts over my coat.

We had to wake up at 4:00 am and got to the hunting spot around 7:30. We hunted until 9:30. After not seeing a single antelope at all, we drove down to Forsyth, Montana and there had lunch.

Afterwards, we drove back down to our hunting spot and sat in the car, scanning the area for antelope with binoculars. Not only did we not find any antelope with binoculars, we didn't even see any regular ones.

At around three, we started heading back home when we spotted a herd of antelope, almost half a mile away from where we could hunt! We then drove home and got there around 6:30, sadly with out any antelope.

A Pheasant hunt

A couple of weeks ago I returned from a five day Pheasant hunting trip in South Dakota with my dad, two of my cousins and my Uncle.

The twelve hour trip there was no fun, I must say, mostly as I couldn't reach my back-pack with my books in it. We finally reached Winner SD at nine and after checking in to a R.V park, set up our pop-up camper. Afterwards me, Dad, Zack and Josh [my cousins] played hearts while eating cookies. After awhile we went to bed, final score Dad:23, Me: 24, Zack:29, Josh 46 [I think I got the scores right].

In the morning after breakfast we drove over to our first hunting spot and waited for 12:00, when the season starts. Finally we set out, me using my dads 12 gauge since I didn't have the right shells with me. Chewy, our 10 year old lab got up 3 birds in the first couple of minutes. They flew away before I could get a shot at any one of them. Then he got one more up and, with my first shot of the hunt, I killed my first pheasant. I was the only one to get a bird that day.

Towards the end of the day we drove over to a spot to ditch hunt [hunt the ditches on either side of the rode]. Dad shot a bird a ways from the truck and Uncle Chal asked Zack to drive it up to let Chewy out to look for the bird. Zack drove the truck, however in to a mud hole where it got stuck. After awhile of trying, me and dad were elected to walk the mile and a half to the nearest house. After half a mile it got dark. Finally we got to a house who could help [or, rather the guy in the house could help.] He offered to drive us into Winner so we could grab our truck, as his was not big enough to do it. We borrowed a chain from the R.V park and drove out there. We finally got the truck out then drove back to the R.V park to drop the chain off and get some desperately needed sleep.

In the morning Dad got eggs and turkey bacon and bread and we had that for breakfast. Than we headed out to hunt. The first spot Chewy got up a bunch of birds [and I missed them] and even Dutch, my non-hunting English Setter, pointed a couple. Uncle Chal Got one. The day went by quickly and ended with only Uncle Chal getting a bird. While me, Zack and Josh played poker, my dad made steak, potatoes and sour-kraut for dinner. [YUM!]

The next day we had eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast. The day went by with several misses, a couple of hits and the birds running off [I kid you not!] and more misses. My dad shot another, but we couldn't find it. It ended up only Uncle Chal got any birds, again. We went back to Winner and had Tacos, Burritos and salad, all home made with home made guacamole. [YUM!]

In the morning after breakfast we unpopped the camper, and said good by as we had to leave that day. After another 12 hour car ride, we got back home.