Modern Wild Man ~Old Friends~

Modern Wild Man

A great hunt with an old friend.

As sportsmen we trickle through life between outdoor sporting experiences.  Weekdays at work are often spent with our hearts in the field.  We anticipate opening day, and then the next day, and the day after that.  The last day of a season is kind of marker of experience, or maturity.  How was your season, how often were you afield, and what did you learn.  Whatever your quarry, sportsman spend the time away waiting.  We wait for the next sunrise in the duck blind, the next perfect day in the tree stand, the crappie bite, or a trout rise to a fly.  As a child I spent countless hours waiting to grow old enough to be afield.  I poured over brown paper pages of sporting catalogs.  Dreams of wool hunting vests, sharp stag handled sheath knives, strings of duck decoys, and rubber bottom boots filled my imagination.  Before I was old enough to shoulder a gun I had already been on countless hunting adventures in my mind.

One aspect of the sportsman is the sporting friend.  Sporting, or outdoors friends are their own kind of friend.  For many of us, that first sporting friend is family.  Our father, a cousin, grandfather, brother or uncle are as good a sporting friend as you can hope for.  But then their are sporting friends who start off friends, and become family.  Many times a sporting friend comes along by accident.  We are drawn together somehow with a common thread in our lives.  I think the friends we make along the way in the field and on the water are so important because of the experiences we share.  A four AM breakfast before a cold morning on a goose field, or a dark walk through the woods to a deer stand become things of ritual.  Sportsman are often superstitious, and forgetting the lucky camo hat your friend gifted you 10 years ago may very well curse your hunt.

We spend our weekends, holidays and vacations together; seeking out time in the field or on the water.  Our children grow up to know our sporting friends through deer seasons, pheasant hunts, and western road trips.  Often times, sporting friends fade away to phone calls over time.  Life takes us in different directions and lives part at forks in paths.  Some we stay in touch with, we find ourselves thinking of old times, past hunts and old friends.

I have had the privilege in my life to know many great men.  Men with conviction for their country, for their families and for the sporting life style.  Many role models who value conservation and time afield over bag limits and trophies.  This past season I was fortunate enough to reconnect with three of these sporting friends.  My son and I made a trip to Wyoming for a great antelope hunt with a great friend and his wife.  We spent time in their home, we had fellowship, and to top it off we harvested an antelope.  Great trips with great old friends are often times the most rewarding.  Also this fall, I was able to reconnect with a sporting friend from almost 20 years ago.  A man who I met through a friend of a friend and took me on my first elk hunt.  We got together this fall after years of only phone conversations, to chase upland birds.  It was a great day catching up, remembering old times. and making new memories.  The hunt wasn't the most successful, but I would say the time spent together was well invested.

Most recently I had a great privilege to reconnect with a great sporting friend of mine.  A man that I met by happenstance some years ago when we worked at neighboring businesses.  We connected over a short conversation of the up coming fall and the weather.  Somehow our conversation drew to our mutual admiration for duck hunting, and our time spent afield together began.  I cannot tell you how many hours, even days we spent together over the years.  From marshes to lakes, and frozen rivers we chased ducks and geese.  We spent hours between flights of birds discussing life, family and careers.  Sporting friends you see develop a level of trust that goes farther than that of many friendships.  Confidence in the security of the location of ducks, the lure the fish are hitting, or the trust of mutual private land access go beyond many sacred bonds.  Life and circumstance had moved us apart some 7 years ago, and our time afield together was left to phone conversations sharing each others current adventures.

Then, just like that, I reached for my ringing phone.  I had just jumped into my pickup, on my way to a corn field to hunt ducks.  The voice on the other end was familiar, and I was about to share my plans of a great field hunt, when the other voice asked where I was off to.  Looking in the rear-view mirror I saw my friend, he was passing through my town on his way between family holiday obligations, and he was hoping to catch up with me for a few minutes over a cup of coffee.  Quickly I explained that I was off to pursue ducks in what was sure to be an epic late season mallard hunt, and asked if he would like to go along.  Low and behold he was ready.  Licenses, stamps, camo, gun, duck call, and shells ready to go, he jumped in the truck and off we went.  

Life and friendship is funny sometimes.  With my old friend and the shotguns and decoys we had hunted with for years, but years ago, I was taken back.  Riding along on our way to the field, I went back in time.  Somehow, for a short while, it was some sort of time warp.  We picked up right were we had left off, almost a decade ago.  Conversations and references seemed familiar, and unexplainably time seemed to stand still.  We hunted ducks, and it was a great duck hunt.  We had more mallards over us than I think I have ever had.  Large groups of ducks circled our decoys, and the sound of their wings cutting the air filled our ears.  Each time a flight worked, we looked at each other and grinned.  The sound of working ducks, the smell of gun powder, and the cold winter air on our faces made for an exciting new hunt.  We took some ducks, but not a limit.  After the hunt he had time to join my family for a meal.  The time we had together was great, the hunt was great, but the feeling of belonging and reconnection was the best part of the day.

I hope that you have a sporting friend or two.  That traditions of opening days, or a shared investment on decoys or tree stands will bring you and your friend together in the field.  Include your family and pass on traditions of friendship in the field!

My friend and I with a mutual sporting friend on a mallard limit day, circa 2002.