Bright Idea Outdoors Weblog

Sick

I had planned to write today about the Nations Outdoor Sportsmen's Show that took place over the weekend in Chantilly, Virginia.  The kids and I went on Saturday, and I went back yesterday with a friend and a notebook to look for the "big story" for this week.

Only, right after we left the show I started not feeling right.  By 8 p.m. I was shivering in bed with a fever.

I feel somewhat better today, but I'm just not feeling it when it comes to writing anything of substance.  Hopefully, I'll be back to full strength by tomorrow.

Back From the Shore

The boys and I just got back from a three-day/two-night trip to visit my dad and stepmother on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  We did a little huntin', a little fishin', a whole lot of shootin' and, as always, had a great time.

I took a shot at a big eight-pointer but missed.  Oh well, he's still out there somewhere.  At least I've got an excuse to go back!

More on our trip and whatever else comes up later this week.

Images from Camp Cowboy

My wife and kids gave me this sign for our hunting cabin several months ago.  I finally remembered to put it up over the weekend.

Don't let the name fool you. The "Lodge" is pretty rustic.  It's actually a chicken house that the Captain and I (mainly the Captain) renovated.

Speaking of the Captain, here are a couple shots I took from his stand.  It has been known by a few different names over the last couple years, but I believe "The Captain's Condo" describes it best.

My son Jake and I hunted the Captain's Condo Saturday morning.  The odds were against us, as the field was full of deer when we crossed it on our way to the stand.  Deer were blowing and running all around us.  Jake had never heard deer sounding the alarm before and got a little nervous.

"I think they're getting ready to attack," he said, when a small deer stopped about 20 feet in front of us.

The same deer reappeared at around 7 a.m. and stopped well within bow range.  Jake and I agreed, however, that it was too small and probably a button buck.  We let him walk and didn't see any more deer.  Still, we enjoyed the hunt and are looking forward to many more over the next few weeks.

Happy National Hunting and Fishing Day

Don't forget that tomorrow is National Hunting and Fishing Day.  The following list of events going on around Virginia is taken from the DGIF's Sept. 24 Outdoor Report:

Wild Events You Don't Want to Miss

Join in the celebration of National Hunting & Fishing Day... Numerous sportsman's groups are hosting family oriented events to provide training and skill development for youth and novice hunters and anglers throughout September and October. Find one near you and participate, appreciate and celebrate our rich hunting and fishing heritage.

Quail Unlimited Hosts Youth Appreciation Day September 27 in Bumpass

The Central Virginia Chapter of Quail Unlimited and the Dove Sportsman's Society are hosting the 2nd Annual Youth Appreciation Day at "Breezewood" near Bumpass in celebration of National Hunting & Fishing Day. From 9:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. guided activities will be available including: fishing, sporting clays, archery, tree climbing, ATV safety and pointer dog demos. Live quail and dove hunting are available on a first come/first served basis with pre-registration required. For information contact Lanny Woolfolk by email: lwoolfolk@earthlink.net

Family Outdoor Festival in Farmville September 27

VDGIF in partnership with the Riverside Community Church and area Hunter Education Instructors is sponsoring a Family Outdoor Festival at the Five County Fairgrounds in Farmville September 27 from 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. Come participate in lots of outdoor skill activities including sporting clays, 3-D archery, VDGIF Hunting simulator and fishing pond. For more information call (434) 547-6770 or visit www.riversidec2.org.

Youth Fishing Day on Lake Orange September 27

Come join in the 10th annual Youth Fishing Day on Saturday, September 27 for a day of fun and friendship! This is a FREE event open to the public and sponsored by the Gordonsville Lions Club. Event is open to any child who can hold a pole up to age 16. Fishing is permitted from the shoreline, from your boat, or from one of the rental boats available at Lake Orange. Recognition for: Largest fish caught, Largest Largemouth Bass, Largest Catfish, Largest Crappie and many other categories too. Registration begins at 11:00 a.m. with fishing slated from 12:00 - 4:00 p.m. For more info call (540) 672-3997.

Rockbridge JAKES Event September 26-28

The Rockbridge Chapter of the National Wild turkey Federation (NWTF) is hosting their annual JAKES event September 26-28 at the Zollman Pavillion near Lexington. This event has been awarded Best JAKES Event in the Nation by the NWTF twice in previous years. For details on activities and registration visit the VA NWTF Web site. Billy Hall, event organizer and NWTF Regional Director, reminds participants that, "Adults must be accompanied by a child!"

Have a great weekend!

Hunting and Fishing/Reading and Writing

I've always been a reader. My love of books was passed down to me through my family, particularly my mom, who read to me every night when I was a kid and who still today reads more books in a month than most people do all year.

I can make no such claim; as much as I love reading it still takes me a pretty long time to read an entire book. I read every night before I go to bed, but sleep often overtakes me after only a few pages.

One book I'm reading right now, and have mentioned here and on the OBS site, is Hemingway on Hunting (The Lyons Press, 2001.) In this compilation of Ernest Hemingway's hunting related work, I keep finding quotes that relate directly to what I'm thinking about. The following passage from "Remembering Shooting-Flying: A Key West Letter, which first appeared in Esquire in 1935 and appears on page 180 of the book, speaks to the relationship I see between hunting and fishing and reading and writing.

Hemingway wrote: "When you have loved three things all your life, from the earliest you can remember; to fish, to shoot and, later, to read; and when, all your life, the necessity to write has been your master, you learn to remember and, when you think back you remember more fishing and shooting and reading than anything else and that is a pleasure."

I'll have more soon on how hunting and reading books might be more alike than you think.  In the meantime, I'd just like to say "Thanks Mom!

A Great Lunch on a Beautiful Day

I had a rare opportunity today to sit down and eat lunch with one of my heroes.

No, it wasn't Bill Heavey, and it wasn't Sonny Jurgensen or George Pelecanos.  Dining with any of those guys would have been a thrill, but I'm not sure I would have enjoyed it any more than sitting in the shade with my Uncle Tom and eating a turkey sandwich on the tailgate of his work truck.

I had called Tom earlier in the day with a business question.  We talked for awhile and decided to meet at a local fast food joint for lunch.  Only when we got there and realized we'd both packed our lunches, we changed our minds and instead ate in the parking lot, enjoying the beautiful weather and a few moments of catching up.

Tom and I both work in Leesburg, and he doesn't live far away.  But like so many important people in my life, I see him only a few times a year, and we often go months without speaking.  When we do speak, the time we have is easily filled with talking about kids, work and, of course, hunting.  I've never really had a chance to tell Tom what a positive influence he has been in my life.

I look up to Tom for a number of reasons, among them his work ethic, his integrity and his ability to overcome great obstacles. I admire the life he has built for his family and the unbelievable success he and my aunt have had at raising wonderful kids.  Tom is also a hero to me because of the times he showed up at my house at 7 a.m. to take me fishing as a kid and because he didn't give up on me as a hunter after I botched my first opportunity to become one at the age of 20.

Maybe Tom and I will get together more often; we talked about putting together a squirrel hunt in the near future.  Or perhaps we won't see each other again until our annual late season deer hunts.  But either way, he is one of my heroes and is one of a few mentors who is always with me when I go into the woods, even when it is by myself.

Random Notes on a Friday Afternoon

We're almost two weeks into the early deer season, and I've only been once. We've got little league football tomorrow morning, and the kids want to go hiking this evening and camping tomorrow night.  While I'm thrilled when my kids suggest activities such as these, I'm itching to sling an arrow at something besides a foam target.  I just have to keep telling myself 'it's only September; it's only September'. . .

Meanwhile, the Captain says he's done with warm weather hunting.  It seems that hornets weren't the only insects that attacked him on our last outing.  I'll let him tell you about that one if he so chooses.  Come to think of it, I've never had a guest blogger. . .

On a more positive note for my hunting and fishing buddy, the Captain finally received the mount he had made of the bass he caught on our February Florida trip.  I'm going to suggest that he use it as jewelry and hang it from the hook that may or may not still be stuck in his ear. . .

I had planned to write some serious stuff in this post, but I've had about all the serious I can take this week.  It's Friday.  Enjoy the weekend!

Will Economic News Slow Spending on Hunting and Fishing?

It sure would be nice to hear some good news about the economy.  The way things are going this week, however, I'm not holding my breath.

Just as I wondered earlier this year whether high fuel prices would force people to curtail their hunting and fishing related travel, I wonder now if fear about this country's economic future is going to cause widespread cutbacks in what hunters and anglers will spend on gear.  With what hunting licenses cost now (I just spent $54 on my license package) I wonder if some people might not hunt at all, choosing instead to save their money for the rainy day that now looks so much more imminent than it did at this time last year.

I'm already seeing these type of cutbacks in the business of my day job, which is landscaping.  Clients have been increasingly reluctant to spend money throughout 2008, and as the media bombards us with gloomy economic news this week, my phone just isn't ringing.

That in turn, is making me more cautious.  Buying a new muzzleloading rifle, or even a much-needed new scope for my old one, is out of the question.  I'm even regretting--just a little--the $150 I spent to get my bow restrung and some new carbon arrows and broadheads (the required archery stamp is, incidentally, one reason my hunting license was so expensive; it would have been even higher if I'd bought the muzzleloader and crossbow stamps.)

If things don't get better before next year, I may return to the basics of deer hunting.  I've got one shotgun that's killed every deer it's been fired at, and ammunition for it (slugs or buckshot) is still relatively inexpensive.  Although I believe a hunter's chances of harvesting a trophy buck diminish greatly once Virginia's general firearms season starts, the Mossberg has been extremely effective at putting food on the table.

And that could become an even more important part of hunting if my phone doesn't ring soon.

Vacation Checklist

1. Fishing Rods-Check
2. Beach Canopy-Check
3. Venison to Cook on the Grill-Check
4. Put Deer Head Back in Freezer-Oops!

I noticed an odor that didn't belong as soon as I walked in the house upon my return from an eight-day vacation.  When I went down in the basement it really smelled like something had died.  But I was busy unpacking and told myself we just needed to air out the house.  We'd turned the AC up to 80 when we left, and not much air had been circulating.

"What's that smell?" my wife asked.

"Oh, that's just what a house smells like when the AC isn't running but the windows are closed," I said.

Luckily, she was more determined than I to locate the source of the odor.

"I think it's coming from your freezer," she said.

"Damn!"

I hurried to the basement back room where I keep my freezer.  We've had some minor electrical problems this summer, and I was sure the breaker for the freezer plug had been tripped.  I opened it though, and everything was frosty and frozen solid.

"Maybe I left a package of meat out when I packed the venison for the beach," I said, frantically looking around.  In a moment, I saw it.  It wasn't exactly packaged meat.

It seems that I'd saved the head of the buck I shot last fall with the intention of making a European mount for the hunting cabin.  I double-bagged it, put it at the bottom of the freezer and forgot about it.  Only it somehow worked its way up on top of the meat packages I took to the beach.  When I took them out to put them in the cooler, I had to remove the bagged skull first.

Then I forgot about it again.

The rest of the story should be pretty self-explanatory.  My wife (who never knew the head was in our freezer in the first place) yelled at me to get it out of the house, and I complied.  I aired out the basement, and everything is fine now.

If I ever save a deer head again though, I'll be sure and put in on my vacation-preparation checklist.

Uncle Jim

Ever since I started this blog, I've wanted to sit down and interview my Uncle Jim and write a story about him.  That project like so many others, however, has taken a back seat to the struggles of everyday life. 

But as I sat here, watching the rain fall outside my window on this Independence Day, I thought about Jim and figured now would be as good a time as any to write about him.

Perhaps that's because some of the best July Fourths I can remember took place at the lakeside home of Jim and my Aunt Jean in Richmond, Virginia.  A few times, my entire family on my mother's side got together there on Independence Day.  Their home was in the city, but you'd have never known it as you sat in the shade of the tree canopy that covered their property.  The city seemed far away as we paddled the canoe across the lake or stood on the dock catching bluegill after bluegill and the occasional lunker bass.

When darkness fell, you'd also have been surprised to hear that most good fireworks are illegal in Virginia.  The show that Jim put on put to shame many of the professionally done ones I've seen.  I'm not sure where he got them, but Jim always had the best fireworks.

As far as I know, those pyrotechnic diplays have been the only time my Uncle Jim has bent the law a little.  In fact, he spent most of his life enforcing the law as an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and later with the Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation.  He joined the state police after retiring from the FBI and never talks a lot about either.  But once in awhile, I pry a little information and a story or two from him.

"I was called 'special agent accountant,' and I was supposed to investigate white collar crime," he once said of his tenure with the state police.  "But I did whatever the local sheriffs needed help with: murder, rape, whatever they needed."

I asked him if it was hard to learn how to work a murder after investigating white collar crime for so long with the FBI.

"It's just like anything else," Jim said.  "Legwork and asking questions."

That conversation took place in the cabin of the hunt club to which Jim belongs in King William County.  The cabin and the surrounding thousands of acres hunted by the club are where Jim spends as much time as he possibly can each November and December.  It's also where I deer hunted for the first time.

Other stories that Jim has told me have concerned various stages of his life: how he grew up on a plantation near Arcola, Mississippi; Aunt Jean grew up on the same plantation, but the two never dated until they both ended up moving to the Washington, DC area shortly after the Second World War.  Jim has also told me about his stint as a merchant marine and how he had a pet monkey for a couple of months.  Once he got out of the merchant marine, Jim returned briefly to the plantation, got bored and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps.

"Worst mistake I ever made," he's told me more than once.

Jim is long-retired from police work now, and he and Aunt Jean gave up the house on the lake to move to something smaller and easier to take care of.  But Jim's accomplishments in retirement are as notable as his earlier ones.  He and Jean have travelled the world.  He's hunted, he's fished, and he's SCUBA dived just about everywhere it can be done.  He took me deep sea fishing, and he got me into deer hunting, which, aside from marrying my wife and having my kids, was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.

Even now, at an age when many men have left the hunting to the young bucks, Jim still hunts hard and hunts often.  He invites me to the club every year, and each time I go, the trip is one of the highlights of my deer season.

Only last year I didn't make it.  The trip had been planned for a few days before Christmas, and work and other seasonal obligations had me so stressed I felt like I wouldn't be able to enjoy the hunt.  I called Jim the day before I was supposed to leave and backed out.

Several times since then, I've looked back on that decision with regret.

Still, it's July Fourth.  We're at the halfway point of the year, and the countdown to the 2008 deer season is on.  I know that sometime around Thanksgiving, my phone will ring.  Uncle Jim will want to know when I can come down to the club and hunt.

That's an opportunity I won't let pass me by again.