August 31, 2023
The hills
and mountains are my church, my place of reflection and peace. The place I feel closest to God and loved
ones gone. Whenever I am in the hills
alone hunting, my mind often wanders to friends and family who I have lost over
the years. I think about the times spent
with them hunting, fishing or just being together. I think not only of the times together, but
how I wish they could be there with me still.
I believe that they are in spirit, I believe that every time you
remember someone who has passed, they know you are thinking of them, especially
in the solitude of the mountains.
I sometimes think of missed opportunities to
be with them. For some reason or other,
we didn’t get together for something.
Those are the things that we often regret in life, missed chances to
spend time with someone special, even if you don’t realize how special they are
in your life at the time. I would give
almost anything to have my father be here to hunt with me and my daughters, or
at least be able to share the stories of our hunts with him. I believe he knows, and is there, but it is not the same now that he is gone from
this earth.
There are
other people who were influential in my life besides my father as well that I would
love to share the woods with again in life.
They are the ones who are with me every time I go into the field to
hunt, I hear their words of wisdom, sometimes their jokes and sometimes I even
ask for their help to encourage a buck in my direction! George Hoeper, was one such man. He was the best running game shot I have ever
seen, and a fantastic writer. He wrote for
several newspapers and published a couple of very fine books. I think of him every time I teach Hunter
Safety especially. He is the one who
pounded into my head that “we are Sportsmen, and we use rifles and shotguns,
not weapons! The word ‘weapon’ changes
the feel of everything when you use it, so use the correct word!” He told me that when I asked him to proof
read an article I was writing for a newsletter when I was just 15. That was about 40 years ago, and I can still
perfectly hear his voice and see him saying it in my mind like it was
yesterday. I use a similar statement in every class I teach.
Today, I lost
another good friend too soon. He and I never
hunted together, although we always planned too. For one reason or another, it just never happened. We texted back and forth quite a bit about
hunting for sure. He was mostly a bird hunter;
he was a fantastic duck hunter and loved hunting turkeys and pheasants as
well. He shot one deer in his life, it
was a nice Blacktail buck that he actually shot from a duck blind, not during duck
season tho! We were constantly sending
pictures back and forth of turkeys we saw and/or harvested. We even texted pictures and videos while we
were hunting sometimes if it was slow. He was also excited about becoming a Mentor
with me in the First Hunt Foundation and helping grow the program here in
California, bringing new people into the sport we both love. I know
the next time I take a picture of a turkey; I will want to send it to him, and
that hurts so much right now.
There is a
large flock of turkeys that live on our half mile long dirt road to my house. I see them every day as I drive in and out. I
have sent several pictures to him of the poults when they were little, of the
big Toms and even the one bearded hen I occasionally see. Usually the turkeys scatter and run, some fly
across the ditch to get away from the truck.
But today as I drove home, thinking of my friend, the turkeys didn’t
scatter, they didn’t fly, they all stood, stoically and silent as I passed, as
if they knew. I will miss you greatly my
friend, and I am deeply sorry I missed our opportunity to share a blind, but I will
always have you with me. God speed.
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