every skilled hunter......

[Leatherstocking]

Be Still

Every skilled hunter knows that in order to be consistently successful, requires being still while on the hunt. Hours spent quietly glassing hill sides, watching for movement, listening for movement, and yes even using the sense of smell to wind the musky order of deer or elk, are essential for taking big game in the vast wilderness areas of the Rockies. Though evry year more and more hunters come into the woods with four wheelers, hand held radios and yes even, aaaargh!...cell phones, trying to somehow give themselves the advantage over their prey...or perhaps victims should be a better term, still the age old methods employed by our ancestors, both red and white, seems to me the most rewarding, both in actual results and to the spirit. Hunting for me has long since stopped being a "competition", and the actual "bagging" of a game animal is less important now than the hunt it's self.

Last year I had applied for elk and deer tags in the pre season drawing, being successful in receiving both. As the hunts approached, I was acutely aware that the possibility of an elk hunt was remote at best. I returned my tag for a refund, but decided to go for my buck anyway. Part of the problem was that, I would have to hunt alone and though I enjoy stalking alone, spending the entire hunt that way has little interest for me as I enjoy the fellowship. Also I had drawn in an area I was not familiar with and expected the first day or two to be just scouting. That first day was cold and windy, and though it was said that there was a nice buck in the area, by day's end I'd had decided that it was time to move on. That for me it was a waste to be there alone, in an area I didn't know with little game. The next day found me still hunting but with out a gun in an area outside where my tag was valid. I had discovered some doe that were grazing along the edge of a small clearing. For the next thirty minutes, I carefully and quietly snuck within 15 feet of one big doe, that even when I decided to expose my position, was so startled and uncertain of what I was as to hesitate long enough for even a full draw bow shot, before she bounded away. Oddly enough just the short stalk was sufficient, to redeem what became the some total of my 2001 hunt.

For those who may not understand, it's all about tuning senses to the environment....sounds kind of new age when I say it like that, but being quiet, being still allows all the small critters around you accept your presence, without raising the alarm to all the large four legged ones. It's settling in so that everything that stopped moving when you came into their world, will start to begin their life again as though you weren't there. If you've checked the wind when entering, you are all ready at the advantage, as long as your movement is slow and quiet and your ears and eyes are trained to hear and see movement.

Once my older son Young and I on the first morning of rifle season, at about seven in the morning, had just entered an area that just the year or two before I had killed a bear. It is a somewhat secluded spot, even though it is only a few hundred yards off the main highway that comes into our small mountain town. Once again we had checked the wind to see if it was with us, and were quietly moving to the very spot where I had shot the bear, when a very faint sound was heard coming from just over the small ridge we had just climbed. At first it was an indistinct muffled noise. No snapping limbs or brush, more like movement in dry grass. Question was, was it a small rodent like a squirrel or gopher, or something larger. Suddenly movement revealed the tine of an antler. A bull that no doubt met the legal requirement for having at least four points or tines on one side. At first, all I saw was antler. Deciding that a proper shot would require getting into a better position, we carefully advanced another 10 yards or so, bringing us to within twenty yards of the bull. As we were standing in the open it was my hope that the bull, would himself, walk a couple more feet from behind the spruce where he was grazing. Finally he did, revealing no more than his head and neck. Concerned that the wind would change or that he would see us standing so close, I decided to take a neck shot. As I was carrying my single shot Sharps 45/70, one shot was all I got off as the bull suddenly bolted down the hill, but as Young was hunting with a bolt action repeater in .308, he managed to hit the bull a couple of more times before he disappeared from sight. A huge blood trail revealed he was mortally wounded in the neck and within an hour and a half we were field dressing and dragging him down the hill to our truck.

There are many more similar stories, but the point is, as I have always hunted somewhat primitive with muzzleloader, bow or single shot Sharps without the aid of a scope, stealth in seeking game and getting as close as possible, has always been the order of business in my hunting. It has usually paid off with, what I consider as success, but recently has been a reminder of how important "being still" is in an even more important area of my life...seeking the face of God!

Jeremiah 29:11 is probably as well known as any other scriptures, at least from the Old Testament. The New American Standard Bible says, "For I know the plans that I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope." Praise God, we all want a future and a hope....maybe it will be a good one...maybe I'll be rich! But then it goes on in verses 12 and 13, " Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart." Stop! Before you go on to the "restore your fortunes" bit, consider this. God knows when we are new in the Lord, we will discover if there is anything we need, we just need to go to the Lord. In time we discover, if there's anything we want we just go the Lord. And in the beginning God is often very cooperative to "bless us", but in time it seems to me that some of our most desperate request seem to fall on deaf ears. Could it be that God continues to allow us to come seeking His hand because he eventually wants us to seek His face. And the longer we seek desperately His hand, in time we will get to the point where we will either give up on God or realize it is intimacy with Him that we really seek and need. God wants us to know that He has a plan for our lives. He wants us to know that He has a plan for good not bad. And if by getting us to merely seek after the good, He has at least accomplished our seeking Him, if only for what He can give us. But if He withholds the answer to our request, it is in order to test us as to whether we will in time, "be still" and have intimacy with Him alone. Have we not found the better part of "finding Him, because we have searched for Him with all our heart.

In the past when I prayed, I always launched into what I needed from God. Now I wait, silently, being still, waiting to hear Him. After all I've entered His Kingdom, His neck of the woods, His dominion. I know so little of Him because I've been so busy shooting off my mouth. Silently I enter His presence. Listening for sounds, looking for His movement. Waiting! "Those who wait upon the Lord, will renew their strength. They shall mount up as wings of eagles"....eagles are among the greatest hunters. And yet all they do is catch the wind and soar, rarely flapping their wings, only looking keenly for God's provision. You almost never hear them. They slip silently through the air, surveying all below them. "And their Father feeds them!"

Intimacy with God....learning from observing, by listening, by reading the sign. "Be still and know that I am God." I want intimacy with God, more than anything I desire or need. Took a long time to get here!

Be Blessed! Leatherstocking

[gpeak]

Amen Brother! Says it all for me too!










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[Josh A.]

Ok, I hate to be the wet blanket but being still and patient has little to do with my hunting. When I was a kid we got out in the mesquite flats and chunked rocks in the headers and arroyos and kicked out the deer. Shot 'em when they ran. I've killed turkeys as they took off flying, and once waited until a gaggle lined up and shot three with one shot (ok, it was 40 yds and a 7 mag) I have been known to take off running like an antelope to flank a bunch of javelinas and kill one with a longbow. I was a smidge thinner then. Just in the last week I saw a bunch of hogs down below my house early of a morning and jumped in my jeep wearing a black cowboy hat and fuzzy slippers. My wife said that the sow died from the shock of seeing my big white butt and not the Sharps slug through the heart. She's a cruel woman. The point is that quiet patience and harmony with nature may be neat and cool, but they are not necessarily the only way to make lots of things dead.

Take care,

J

[Leatherstocking]

Josh,
I too have hunted the mesquite country of west Texas as a kid............hard to compare west Texas with the Rockies, though I must confess, many try to hunt it like it was and some are even successful. I was talking about hunting and not necessarily killing. I have met too many older guys who got tired of killing....probably cause they hunted too long with high-power scopes on rocket repeaters. Patience has allowed me to sneak within 15 yards of antelope, five yards of mule deer and elk, whether with bow, flintlock or my Sharps. That's the only ways I have ever hunted. It has brought home meat and trophies and a lot more than bragging rights.
Wasn't taliking about "neat and cool" or leaving things dead. I'm talking about taking something more from the hunt than flesh, bone and brag and leaving something more than a gut pile!

Be Blessed! Leatherstocking

[Omaha Poke]

The key here is that both of you guys are hunting in totally different terrain. You can't use the same hunting techniques in Colorado that you might use in the brush country of Texas. If you throw rocks at deer in Colorado, parts of MT, WA, OR, ID, or a number of other states, they will just move farther up the canyon, deeper into the trees, etc. The only way that this method wood work is to have multiple hunters positioned in key areas. Hunting alone in these conditions requires a totally different approach and possibly mindset.

I would love to try hunting in the brush of Texas, I have hunted in the other states listed, and all offer different challenges and rewards. Randy

[gpeak]

Can't speak to Texas hunting but never have had much success w/thrashing about(unless you are talking small game).I have hunted the East and stealth and observation work there too. I completely understand where Leatherstocking is coming from. Some of my greatest experiences have from hunts where I became "one"(for lack of a better term) with the enviornment. The heightened awareness associated with the hunt is an amazing experience in and of itself whether you make a kill or not For some of us it is a spiritual experience strange as it may be to some other folks.

[Leatherstocking]

gpeak,
I would love to hunt in your neck of the woods............as you can see from the handle, I am a big James Fenimore Cooper fan and love the stories he webbed about the old days (1750's) in up-state New York!
I guess hunting means different things for different folks. I have enjoyed my Sharps these past twenty years, but unlike a fly fisherman, and I do that too, but don't tie my own flies, I am not the purist that some of the other folks on this forum are, as I have taken a lot of critters with factory loads in the early years, and continue to load with smokeless in my 45-70. I guess one could say I'm a pretty good shot, but don't have any desire for competitive shooting. I just like to hunt and shoot! Also, if I could afford to pay for, (will be able soon) a guided hunt, I'd do it just for the fun, as I have drug, packed and hunted hard all these years, and wouldn't mind someone else doing a little of the work, especially hunting private property rather than having to compete with some many rifle hunters in the national forrest. I was in an auto-pedestrian accident and wasn't expected to ever walk again and continue to have difficulty covering very much ground on foot. Actually that's why I bought the Sharps. I knew that sneaking up on animals was going to be at best difficult and needed something to give me a few more yards. Wouldn't give in to any firearm that was post 19th century though.....that's personal prefrence and wouldn't condemn anyone who hunts with bolt action rifles with fast moving bullets and high-powered scopes. If hunting is to survive, we got to stick together, no matter the method, and stop trying to be "superior", in our methodology.
Thanks for your comments and be Blessed! Leatherstocking (Doug)

[gpeak]

Doug,
Check your PM.

[gpeak]

Hi Doug,
Check your PM(again). Sorry 1st did not make it.

[bulldog]

I don't think noisy or silent is the real point though I like silent hunts and waiting and such too. Seems to me the real thing is feeding your family. Hitting a deer on the head with a rock qualifies for that. If you got to do that, then any got game animal is a blessing to give thanks for. Or same for feeding yourself, I suppose. I've seen films of injuns saying prayers and asking forgivenes before a hunt and then shooting the deer. That's something else and I don't exactly understand it unless again, it is related to survival hunting. Dragging a deer back to a cattle ranch doesn't just make the right scene to me for understanding any spiritual aspect although I suppose it could be symbolic of the past or of what the ancestors did. Saying this, it doesn't make sense to me that any modern hunter can much really give thanks when munching prime rib before and lobster tail after a hunt. Or, as one guy said, sasuage and gravy on biskutis during the hunt! Not that I wouldn't do it and enjoy it, but I won't pretend it is some sort of religious thing with blessings and such except perhaps to the cook if it's great sausage gravy and such. Lets just say that for most of us (and there are exceptions and sustenance hunters are one) it's hard to make hunting be a real religious experience of honoring the creator except the scenery and watching the animals might be close to that - closer than the shooting, for sure. That's my opinion for now anyway.

[Leatherstocking]

Bulldog,
Religion really has little to do with it. There is nothing spiritual about creation unless, as the pagans do, you worship creation. One could argue that the man who lives in town, has more of a "spiritual experieince" because he rarely gets to experience God's creation, unspoiled by houses and people and such. On the otherhand someone who lives in a rural enviroment, may begin to take for granted the blessings of his enviroment, or in pride, might consider his blessings, no big thing. My grandfather who was a farmer all his life, once told me as a youngster, "Boy if you go out and sit under one of those old misquite trees, and begin studying everything at your feet, taking in every blade of grass, grain of sand, rock and insect, and then let your eyes go out a few inches more and study everything you see in those few inches and keep going out further and further till you reach the horizon, if you've done all that and still don't know there's a God, you never will! After 50+ years, that still is true for me.................and the Bible says that the attributes of God are seen through His creation! Thankfulness for our blessings is something we have to make an effort towards. Repetitiveness isn't something which necessarily should cause us to be less thankful. The very fact that you have the physical ability, a good horse under you, and a fine Shiloh rifle, ought to make a fellow appreciate his blessings, and thus the God who not only created him, the horse, the man who made the rifle, but also the creator who made the ranch, the deer and the ability you have to track it down and kill it. Whether food or trophy, I never think myself so great a hunter as to deny God's hand of provision. When I'm out on the trail, I stay very humble that it is God who made the earth and all that is upon it......................I'm just blessed to be here for a short time to enjoy it!
Be Blessed! Leatherstocking