The hunting partner
02-18-2009, 06:00 AM
#1
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: MICHIGAN
Posts: 2,568
The hunting partner
No the weather isn't to bad to shoot. In fact there has been very few days this winter when it was so w3indy or snow to thick to shoot.
Just trying to do some post that are not repetes of all the others.
The hunting partner
Isn’t easy to find a good hunting partner. I guess I was lucky finding mine at an early age. We waded marshes hunting ducks and geese. Tramped soybean and cornfields for pheasants, Slashings and new growth for Partridge and deer.We waded creeks and rivers with fly rods, drug a pram thru the woods to a big beaver pond full of fish & ducksone fall. We used shotgun and rifle like a knife and fork at the dinner table. A fishing rod was like a spoon in a coffee cup for us. Many a sucker ended up on our spears on a cold dark spring night.
He got me in to reloading shotgun shells and I got him into to reloading rifle shells.He got me shooting trap, I got him into sporting clays.
He tied the flies and I made the lures, we both made our own rods.
We did much of our hunting & fishing at either my dad’s farmor his brothers in laws property. The fishing together stuff went by the way side when our kids were young.
Then I bought the place in the UPPER. We were older then, still working, with wives and kids although the kids were grown and married for him and mine were in college. He still shared most of his vacation time with his wife traveling to see his married kids and grand children. We had the first week of Michigan’s deer season off. That was our time together. His second shift job finished about 11:30 PM so he could get home and catch a few hours sleep before I got out of work normally 4:30 AM.
Just before I left work I would call him and say I would be there in an hour and a half.
I would have fresh hot coffee waiting for me when I got to his house. We would load his things in my truck and the plan was for him to drive and I get some sleep. We had not seen each other for 12 months most years so the sleep never came most years, We talked about our year. We had 14 years of great times up there. We shot our first UPPERbucks the same year the same day and almost the same time. He has the two biggest racks from up there, I have the two smallest and the strangest rack.
In 2003 he told me as we were dragging his buck to the trail that we would have to stop doingthis some day in the not to distance future.I told him that myDad had given me his rifle that spring, he was 88 and I planed to hunt as long or longer than that.My partnerhad just turned 65.
My dad passed in June 2005. My hunting partner came to the funeral. My mom called me about Sept and saidmy partnerhad a heart attack.
Seemed like we could read each other’s minds. If wood needed cutting and I was pumping water he cut it. He cooked the breakfast and I cookedsupper and some times lunch but lunch was mostly a bowl of bean soup he had made and had simmering on the wood burner or chili that I made and had setting on the wood burner simmering, many times a sandwich.
I have hunted alone every year since. I know of no one I would trust with my life like I did him.
People ask me if I am afraid to be there all alone. I’m not as I have had my time learning the area with him watching my back. We learned together that you took two compasses to the woods so when one said there was iron ore in the area we could look at the second one and say YUP. We learned together that the big bucks would cross the narrow spot in the cranberry bog and use the long finger to go from one cedar swamp to the next. Hunting the oaks was fruit less unless there was a acorn crop. Then the place to be was where they exited the cedar swamp to enter the oak ridges. He taught me that root beer and good whisky go great together.
Lee was 65 when he passed just short of 66. I still think it is because I could never get him to stop smoking, I miss him a lot.
My grand son is 3 and has a deer rifle waiting for him. It was his grand dads, I shot my last buck with it in 2003. Dad had never shot a UP buck with it. Kare knows that if i am not home by Dec 2nd to send out the dogs to find the remains. If I die while up there I will die happy.
Al
Just trying to do some post that are not repetes of all the others.
The hunting partner
Isn’t easy to find a good hunting partner. I guess I was lucky finding mine at an early age. We waded marshes hunting ducks and geese. Tramped soybean and cornfields for pheasants, Slashings and new growth for Partridge and deer.We waded creeks and rivers with fly rods, drug a pram thru the woods to a big beaver pond full of fish & ducksone fall. We used shotgun and rifle like a knife and fork at the dinner table. A fishing rod was like a spoon in a coffee cup for us. Many a sucker ended up on our spears on a cold dark spring night.
He got me in to reloading shotgun shells and I got him into to reloading rifle shells.He got me shooting trap, I got him into sporting clays.
He tied the flies and I made the lures, we both made our own rods.
We did much of our hunting & fishing at either my dad’s farmor his brothers in laws property. The fishing together stuff went by the way side when our kids were young.
Then I bought the place in the UPPER. We were older then, still working, with wives and kids although the kids were grown and married for him and mine were in college. He still shared most of his vacation time with his wife traveling to see his married kids and grand children. We had the first week of Michigan’s deer season off. That was our time together. His second shift job finished about 11:30 PM so he could get home and catch a few hours sleep before I got out of work normally 4:30 AM.
Just before I left work I would call him and say I would be there in an hour and a half.
I would have fresh hot coffee waiting for me when I got to his house. We would load his things in my truck and the plan was for him to drive and I get some sleep. We had not seen each other for 12 months most years so the sleep never came most years, We talked about our year. We had 14 years of great times up there. We shot our first UPPERbucks the same year the same day and almost the same time. He has the two biggest racks from up there, I have the two smallest and the strangest rack.
In 2003 he told me as we were dragging his buck to the trail that we would have to stop doingthis some day in the not to distance future.I told him that myDad had given me his rifle that spring, he was 88 and I planed to hunt as long or longer than that.My partnerhad just turned 65.
My dad passed in June 2005. My hunting partner came to the funeral. My mom called me about Sept and saidmy partnerhad a heart attack.
Seemed like we could read each other’s minds. If wood needed cutting and I was pumping water he cut it. He cooked the breakfast and I cookedsupper and some times lunch but lunch was mostly a bowl of bean soup he had made and had simmering on the wood burner or chili that I made and had setting on the wood burner simmering, many times a sandwich.
I have hunted alone every year since. I know of no one I would trust with my life like I did him.
People ask me if I am afraid to be there all alone. I’m not as I have had my time learning the area with him watching my back. We learned together that you took two compasses to the woods so when one said there was iron ore in the area we could look at the second one and say YUP. We learned together that the big bucks would cross the narrow spot in the cranberry bog and use the long finger to go from one cedar swamp to the next. Hunting the oaks was fruit less unless there was a acorn crop. Then the place to be was where they exited the cedar swamp to enter the oak ridges. He taught me that root beer and good whisky go great together.
Lee was 65 when he passed just short of 66. I still think it is because I could never get him to stop smoking, I miss him a lot.
My grand son is 3 and has a deer rifle waiting for him. It was his grand dads, I shot my last buck with it in 2003. Dad had never shot a UP buck with it. Kare knows that if i am not home by Dec 2nd to send out the dogs to find the remains. If I die while up there I will die happy.
Al
02-18-2009, 11:16 AM
#4
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: indiana
Posts: 1,621
RE: The hunting partner
ORIGINAL: Breechplug
Your not alone in your story, Im sure there are many of us who could add in some names and call this our story. God Bless and Remember the Good Times. BP
Your not alone in your story, Im sure there are many of us who could add in some names and call this our story. God Bless and Remember the Good Times. BP
I could not have said it any better,as i have a hunting partner just like yours.We go good together, and i think we read each other too.We do
think different on hunting setups but thats what makes it better,i want to
hunt here,he wants to hunt there.But thats what makes it so good,between the two of us we will find them.I can't imagine haven that taken away.I'm truly sorry for your loss,and if we lived closer you would have two more hunting buddies, as far as i'm concerned
02-18-2009, 01:25 PM
#5
Fork Horn
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 473
RE: The hunting partner
I hear what you are saying, My best friend passed away a few years back. In Northern Wi. He hunted deer out of a large pine. Every year on the last day of deer season I go over there and say hello. I lot of good friends have passed and I am the oldest at deer camp now. We used to have 20 of us and now its down to 6. No young ones coming up. Thats real sad
Redclub
Redclub
02-18-2009, 01:29 PM
#6
Fork Horn
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: Kitchener Ontario
Posts: 245
RE: The hunting partner
My hunting partner had a heart attack 3 years ago around this time. Fortunately the Lord gave hin a second chance. Triple bypass and a stent later and he's not as good as new but still working OK. He quit smoking. We both backed off on the drinking. Life really is too short.
02-18-2009, 02:28 PM
#8
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Eastern PA
Posts: 12,747
RE: The hunting partner
Very nice story - and a tribute to your hunting partner. God bless his soul.
My story is kind of different. My father had little interest in hunting. He had a rifle, an old Mauser 98 '06 with a custom stock. But he made sure I had a rifle and shotgun when I turned 12 (the legal age for hunting in PA). He would take me occasionally when he wasn't working (he averaged over 60 hours a week) and I relished those times.But my fishing an hunting toutalage was mostly with my grandfather and 2uncles. One of them would always take me hunting either after school or on weekends. My one uncle was the only one in the family that archery hunted and taught me to shoot a bow when I was about 5. He would take me out every day after school during the archery season.
He, as well as my grandfather are now gone and my remaining uncle has health problems that keep him from going anywhere.
I had a cousin that I fished with later in life but he started getting lazy and got caught up in gambling and lost interest.
I guess all things happen for the best. About 20 years ago I met a guy my age in a local coffee shop both of us frequented. We got to talking about hunting and stuff like that. We made arrangements to go hunting one day and have been together ever since. Sort of like Alley and his partner, we are like two peas in a pod. We think alike (scary) and will do anything for each other. We live literally next door to each other now. Either he is over here or I'm over there every night. We help each other fix our car, trucks, cut each other's grass. Just a great friendship. And unlike Alley, I pretty much got him off cigarettes. He has one of his wife's occasionally or smokes a pipe once in a while. But that's a lot better than over a pack a day. We've been to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, Virginia and soon Texas on different hunts. I would trust my life to him as he would his to me.
True friendship is hard to find. And when they are gone, they leave an empty space in your heart.
My story is kind of different. My father had little interest in hunting. He had a rifle, an old Mauser 98 '06 with a custom stock. But he made sure I had a rifle and shotgun when I turned 12 (the legal age for hunting in PA). He would take me occasionally when he wasn't working (he averaged over 60 hours a week) and I relished those times.But my fishing an hunting toutalage was mostly with my grandfather and 2uncles. One of them would always take me hunting either after school or on weekends. My one uncle was the only one in the family that archery hunted and taught me to shoot a bow when I was about 5. He would take me out every day after school during the archery season.
He, as well as my grandfather are now gone and my remaining uncle has health problems that keep him from going anywhere.
I had a cousin that I fished with later in life but he started getting lazy and got caught up in gambling and lost interest.
I guess all things happen for the best. About 20 years ago I met a guy my age in a local coffee shop both of us frequented. We got to talking about hunting and stuff like that. We made arrangements to go hunting one day and have been together ever since. Sort of like Alley and his partner, we are like two peas in a pod. We think alike (scary) and will do anything for each other. We live literally next door to each other now. Either he is over here or I'm over there every night. We help each other fix our car, trucks, cut each other's grass. Just a great friendship. And unlike Alley, I pretty much got him off cigarettes. He has one of his wife's occasionally or smokes a pipe once in a while. But that's a lot better than over a pack a day. We've been to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Oklahoma, Virginia and soon Texas on different hunts. I would trust my life to him as he would his to me.
True friendship is hard to find. And when they are gone, they leave an empty space in your heart.
