My friend Starr Kelso sent me an email last fall detailing a stalk he had just made on a large gray log bedded down in a grove of young firs. Starr was bow hunting, so it was necessary that he move in relatively close in order to get a shot. At the moment he sighted the log, he was still upwind of it, but the log hadn't detected him yet. He crouched down and swung far out to one side of the log, maneuvering so that he could approach from downwind. He soon was within range, without the log having detected his approach.
It was at that point Starr noticed that the log was a log and not the resting deer he had first thought. Still, he was proud of the skill with which he had stalked the log and suspected that if it had been a deer it would have ended up in his freezer.
Starr's stalk reminded me of the time I was leading three friends on an early-morning hunt. We were all teenagers, although I can't remember exactly how old. My friends were lined up behind me, all of us tramping silently along in the snow. Usually, I wasn't allowed to lead on our hunts, or on other adventures either, but for some reason that responsibility fell to me on this occasion. Perhaps it was because the morning was beastly cold and it still wasn't light enough to shoot. Maybe no one expected any activity in the immediate future- who knows?
As we moved uphill, I glanced around some bushes and saw a herd of tree snags moving over the ridge and coming downhill directly at us. I gave a hand signal for everybody to squat down behind the bushes. Time passed slowly. The cold became more intense. Occasionally, I would hear an anguished groan from behind me, as the chill of the morning sank into young bones cramped in a tense crouch. My hope was that by the time the herd of snags reached us, there would be enough light for us to shoot. Than it occurred to me the snags might be approaching around the other end of the row of brush. I had the whole group follow me in a duck walk to the other end of the brush. Had the snags possessed hearing, they might easily have detected our heavy breathing, groans, and chattering teeth.
A half hour oozed by. My frozen ears strained to hear the approach of the snags. The guys had their gloves off blowing on their trigger fingers. I raised my hand for silence. Then I slowly raised up so I could peer over the bushes enough to locate the quarry. That's when I made out that the herd of snags was the same line of snags that had been there for the past hundred years or so. In the early-morning light, though, they had looked exactly like a herd of deer approaching us single-file. I mean it!
"Dang!" I said, standing up. "They must have gone back over the ridge."
This quick thinking probably saved me from a severe beating from my frozen friends. I'm not sure if they suspected anything. On the other hand, I never got to lead again.
Another such stalking experience occurred when I was ten or so. This time, I was the one being stalked. It was the middle of January and we had been released from school, because it was far too dangerous for the town kids to walk through the blizzard or for us country kids to wait for the school bus. We greatly appreciated this thoughtfulness on the part of the principal, because blizzards could be dangerous in our part of the country.
On this particular free blizzard day, as we referred to such days, I was returning to my house from several hours of skiing with my friend Vern Schulze. I lived about a quarter mile from Vern and was crossing a large field in front of our farmhouse. That's when I noticed a pack of animals of some kind prowling back and forth between me and the house.
I hunkered down in the snow. The animals continued their pacing. Even though I couldn't see them clearly, I was fairly certain the animals had to be wolves, probably waiting for me to return home. Somehow, they had picked up my scent, probably not that difficult to do, and knew I was in the vicinity. The wolves moved back and forth in a determined fashion, the blowing snow all but concealing the rascals. I made a snowball and threw it at them, but the snow was dry and fluffy and had no effect. In any case, the wolves didn't seem to notice.
I soon began to feel frostbite setting in, and it finally occurred to me that I might as well be eaten by wolves as freeze to death. I got up and started walking toward them. It was then I was able to make out a pile of logs protruding from a drift of snow, the same logs that had been there all year. The wolves had vanished. They hadn't even left tracks, but, of course, tracks would be covered almost instantly by the blizzard. This goes to show how once again keen woodsmanship had saved me from possible disaster.
All my experience with stalking as a youngster helped shape my approach to other aspects of life as I grew older. It has been my observation over the years, for example, that the most successful hunters are those persons who focus upon their chosen quarry with intense concentration. It was with this particular kind of concentration that I began to stalk a girl during my senior year in high school. Since a variety of creepos has given "stalking" a bad name, I will in this instance use the word "pursuing."
As with wild game, the pursuit of a girl requires that you first become aware of the particular quarry. In hunting, you can't wander about in pursuit of whatever comes along, an elk, a rabbit, a grouse, or whatever. If you hope for any success, you have to keep totally focused on the particular game. The same applies to the pursuit of a girl. You must have the particular quarry singled out.
One day my friend Retch Sweeney showed me a photograph of his cousin. I said instantly, "Wow! I'm going to marry this girl!" Recovering from a painful fit of mirth, Retch said, "Ha! She's beautiful and smart and rich and sophisticated. She's only seventeen and already in college, whereas you are--well, you!"
It was true. I was still only a senior in high school, poor, with bad hair, bad grades, and bad eyesight. I never wore my glasses at school, which easily could have explained my bad grades. I generally had not the foggiest idea what was going on up near the chalkboard. The only time I wore my glasses was when I was out hunting, and then largely at the insistence of my hunting companions.
My only attribute in those days consisted of my enormous self confidence. There was nothing in my life that might have provided any reason for this peculiar characteristic. Even though I lacked any reason for self confidence, I felt absolutely certain I could attain whatever goal I set my mind to, in this case a particular girl.
She was a Montana girl, by the way, and I highly recommend Montana girls as prospective wives for outdoorsmen. They are hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Well, maybe not all Montana girls. My mother-in-law, Dorothy, was born and ranch-raised in Montana, and she was hard on the outside and hard on the inside. One time I told her about a friend of mine who had died on the operating table and then been revived. Dorothy leaned across the table and shook her finger in my face. "If I die," she said, "don't you dare have me revived!"
I leaned back across the table and growled, "Don't worry!"
Dorothy looked shocked for a moment and then burst out laughing. Montana woman also have a great sense of humor.
I possessed the same intensity of the hunter, when it came to my pursuit of this particular girl. Sometimes I would use the on-stand method, placing myself in a particular area in which I knew she might be passing by.
"Oh, hi," I'd say. "Fancy seeing you here."
"My folks live in that house."
"Ah, that explains it. Would you like to go for a Coke?"
"No."
As with hunting, you can't become discouraged when the quarry eludes you.
The successful hunter needs to learn as much as possible about his quarry. I used my friend Retch as a research resource.
"Does she like pleasing aromas," I asked.
"I suppose."
"Maybe she would respond to scent?"
"I wouldn't describe your scent as a pleasing aroma."
"I was thinking of something along the lines of aftershave lotion."
"Might work. That and a shower."
I slopped on some of my stepfather's aftershave lotion, but it had no effect on the girl, although it did bring a nice mule-deer buck within easy range. The way it kept flaring its nostrils made me nervous, though, and I missed the shot.
Once I even tried camouflage. I borrowed one of my stepfather's dark suits and a tie, and even if I do say so myself, I looked pretty debonair. Unfortunately, my stepfather's legs were several inches shorter than mine. Maybe I should have worn some black socks or even painted my ankles with shoe polish. Whatever it was, something threw her off.
Once again, she got away.
As with hunting, though, persistence paid off. It took me several years but I eventually caught and married the girl. Her previous boyfriend reportedly said he wouldn't have minded quite so much if I hadn't been so funny looking. Ha! Talk about somebody who needed glasses!
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I slopped on some of my stepfather's aftershave lotion, but it had no effect on the girl, although it did bring a nice mule-deer buck within easy range. The way it kept flaring its nostrils made me nervous, though, and I missed the shot.
