Little Guys Big Birds. Big Guys still Big Birds.

  Just yesterday , it seems, I wrote a little story about little guys with big birds. It was about a hunting trip I made with my brother and nephews. I will kind of highlight some of that trip.

 I was down from Alaska in Idaho visiting family and hunting with anyone who would go with me. Wayne called me to say the geese had been flying over his farm and we might want to come and make a field set to see if we could harvest some big honkers.
  About that time my brother called saying he wanted to take his middle boy and his friend on a hunting trip. Sounded good to me.
  We arrived at Wayne's after a couple days of snow lay on the ground and it was snowing that morning. Biting cold, and not a for sure hunt.
  We bundled the young boys up with all the clothes we could find and headed out into the field to set decoys. In the darkness we could hear the geese roosting on the river honk occasionally. At least there were birds nearby.
  At shooting time we raced the trucks out of the field and got the boys hunkered down on the ice of a frozen pond behind a big clump of tules.
  Snow fell in the early dawn making the cold feel even colder. The boys were cooling off from running around during the decoy set up. Little feet were stomping and gloved hands were slapping.
  "Geese! I hear geese," I hissed to the mounds of moving clothes around me. We all crouched low behind the weeds.
 A big flock of geese rose from the river and came directly towards the decoys, as they back flapped down I barked, "Take em!"
 The quiet morning erupted in gunfire. We adults let the boys shoot first and we noticed a couple birds dropped at their shots.
  "Go get your birds!" I shouted to the excited boys.
  We watched as they dragged the monster geese back to the ponds edge. Wow, those looked like big birds for those small boys.
  The morning was non stop goose action. as one flock would scatter out another would come sailing out of the snow and into the decoys. It did not take long for all of us to shoot our limits.

  Just yesterday my Nephew Nick called asking to take a friend on a duck hunt.
  "I haven't found much, but we can go try the river," I told him. "Meet me at the boat ramp."
  Instead of being driven hunting by Dad, it is now driving himself in Dad's truck.
  How can yesterday move so quickly?
  I race the boys up the river in the jet boat. I look at them crouched against the biting cold of a teen degree morning boat ride and realize they are not boys, they are young men.
  We unload the boat at my selected island and by the time I get the boat tied and hidden the young men have most of the decoys set out.
  White frost covers the trees adding the white of the snow on the ground. "Better put your whites on," I inform the guys as I check the time. "Just a few minutes till shooting time."
  "I hear geese," I hissed to the young men. "One coming right at us."
  We crouched low in the brush and weeds of the island and watched as the goose sailed into our decoys.
  "Get him!" I shouted and again the morning stillness is shattered by the thunderous roar of guns.
  The young men are so quick at getting on the bird that I don't even get my gun up. I smile to myself.
  Little Halibut dog makes a retrieve on the goose and high-fives get passed around.
The cold morning is busy on decoying birds and guns speak over and over again. I watch as the young men hold up the big geese admiring each one.
  My mind cannot help but go back to that morning sitting on the frozen pond watching the little boys lug the big geese around. It was only yesterday, my mind keeps saying, but my eyes tell the real story.
  Yesterdays pass by so quickly. Little boys grow into men so quickly.
  Once again I am thankful for every day I get to spend with my family and friends out in the wild hunting or fishing. There are few memories cherished more than some of these tough trips.
  We laugh at the frozen guns, the craziness of doing some of these hunts, but it builds character, it builds a life time of memories, and believe me, each instance becomes a memory far too quickly.

                                          Young Boys Big Birds

                                              Young Men Big Birds

A Whale Watching Duck Hunt

  A couple of my good friends, hunting buddies of course, came to Sitka in November to hunt Sea Ducks
  Terry and LaRell have sat in the snow goose blind beside me, telling stories for many years. It is always a pleasure to have them around.
  The weather forecast was typical for November... wind, wind, and more wind. "Gale warnings. Northwest winds 35 knots building to 50 or higher. (50 knot winds is about 58 miles an hour)
  I was wanting to get out on the ocean to try for some of the more exotic sea ducks but that might have to wait.
  Our first day found us trying to get to a spot I has scouted and found some Harlequin Ducks. We crossed a channel and started bucking our way in some fairly choppy water. Spray drenched the front window of my charter boat and then started spilling a bit of green water over the sides into the back of the boat. Nothing too bad, stuff I have to go through much of the summer guiding clients to fish.
  "This could get pretty ugly by this afternoon if the wind builds to what the forecast is calling," I commented to the boys as I concentrated on my twin throttles to keep the boat as dry as possible.
  "I thought it IS bad now," LaRell shot back. I noticed he was hanging onto the crash bars fairly tightly.
  "This is totally do-able," I informed them. I went on to explain how we go through water like this much of the summer.
  "Let's go around the islands and take a look. I will pull the plug on the day the moment the wind starts building", I said.
  We arrived at a rock that I have shot birds at in years past and unloaded the skiff and decoys.
  "You guys go set up at that rock. I'm going to just drift around out here and keep an eye on the weather," I said as I spun the boat away from the departing skiff.
  I had no more gotten out of sight when I hear some shooting. "Good," I thought, "I just need them to find a few birds."
  It wasn't long before the wind start puffing like it was going to blow for real. I raced around the islands to the boys and informed them we had to move.
  They had shot a few birds, but not a great hunt.
  We raced back through the ugly water, which had now built to where the waves seemed to have teeth, very slow going. I did my best to distract attention from the pounding waves with stories.
  "Right over there is where a boat went down in a storm..." I started telling the first of many boat sinking stories.
  I think my stories worked as grips on the hang on bars increased. White knuckles glared in the storm darkness.
  We beat our way to town and then headed out a different direction. We found the sea ducks!
  A calm spot was black with resting Surf Scoters.
  We set up and I anchored the big boat and joined the boys for a great sea duck shoot.
  We shot enough that we maxed Terry and LaRell out on the Scoter species for their annual limits.
  It took a couple of days for the weather to settle down enough to get back to the rock of our first morning hunt.
 It did not take long to harvest some beautiful harlequin ducks and I shot a couple Surf Scoters as my limit allowed.
  We picked up and headed back to town. Crossing Eastern Channel we came upon a huge pod of bubble feeding whales.
  Birds were hovering over the whales by the thousands, telling the story of the bubble feeders.
  We pulled over to watch the show. We could not tell how many humpback whales there were in this group but there were a bunch... to say the least.
  The huge whales would surface for mighty breaths of air, dive deep and begin blowing bubbles into schools of herring. The bubbles confuse the herring and allow the family of whales to open their enormous mouths and come straight up through the little bait fish.
  It was an amazing show. I see it several times a summer while guiding, but never with this many whales.
  Our phone cameras were click and rolling video as much as we could. We just wished we had some better cameras with us.
 Once again Alaska has blessed us with one of its many surprises. The rough water delay forced us to wait until we timed a magnificent whale show perfectly.
  Why not turn a duck hunt into a whale show?


                                       Bubble feeding Whales

                                     LaRell and Terry hunting sea ducks

                                 
                                Surf Scoters and Harlequins

Ocean Weeds

  I grew up around gardens as a boy, and later, doing some gardening myself. I love to grow vegetables then pluck and eat them. One thing I did not enjoy during my gardening career was fighting weeds.
  I also grew up in a church setting, and as a boy learned of the sin of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and how that sin lead to God implementing weeds as a reminder to us all of that disobedience.
  Genesis 3:17 and 18 tells me ; "Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 3:18 "Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee..."
  Weeds!
  My move to the ocean had me all excited. I could work harvesting fish and not have to pull weeds! Oh how wrong I was.
  The ocean is full of its own variety of weeds.
  We are in our third season of El Nino water currents. Warm water, and with that comes big fat juicy jelly fish.
  Starting slowly, the jelly numbers have increased until it is now hard to get bait to certain depths due to getting slimed by the jelly fish. One little strand of jelly on a bait and salmon or halibut will not touch it.
  I troll two lines for salmon and one side will be catching and catching while the other just drags along doing nothing. I quickly run the dead side to find it totally engulfed in jelly fish. I have a brush on my fish cleaning tray just for that reason.
  I grab the brush and scrub jelly fish all over the back of the boat, add fish attracting scent to the bait and send it back down on the down rigger hoping it will catch a fish before getting clogged with jelly again.
  Running back and forth all day checking for jelly fish has a guide sweating just like pulling weeds in the garden back in the lower 48's.
  Another weed in the salmon garden is the huge Sea Lion. A line will pop out of the down rigger and the client has a big salmon fighting grandly... all of a sudden line starts screaming off the reel and the pole is nearly dragged out of the clients hands. The "fish" rushes towards the surface even though they don't fight like that. A huge brown head will burst out of the water displaying the lovely salmon. "Sea Lion!" someone will shout. We all stand and watch helplessly as the massive beast shakes the fish in the air, breaking it into bite size pieces to be quickly consumed. One more fish lost to an ocean weed.
  Every once in a while a big Salmon Shark will show up and bite salmon off the hook. There is not much tell other than a client reeling in a fish to the boat and have it show up as just a fish head, the body bitten neatly in half.
  Halibut fishing brings a whole set of different ocean weeds. In August the ocean waters of South East Alaska reach its warmest temperatures and with those warm waters come Blue Sharks. Blues are the worst of the weeds to be fought. Any blood washed out the boat into the water will have Blues quickly circling the boat. A client will drop a nice fresh chunk of halibut bait and the waiting Blue will simply bite the whole thing off. You can reel back in, bait up, drop back down only to have the swarming Blues bite the bait off again and again. When you run out of hooks or lead weights your halibut fishing day is over. The Blue Shark "weeds" cost us guides a whole lot of money as well as mental stress.
  Dog Fish. Spiny Dog fish is a little sand shark that is also a type of ocean weed. The dog fish lives near the bottom and bites like a halibut. Nibble, nibble, nibble then nothing for a while on the line. I have the client reel in to find a shiny bare hook. The little dog fish can eat bait off a hook in no time at all. It doesn't sound bad until it is you reeling up from nearly 600 feet deep to find another bare hook. In a short time all on board are hoping to get rid of the spiny dog fish weed!
  The daily battle of weeds on the ocean is wind. Morning after morning all the guides are glued to computer screens trying to figure out wind and wave patterns.
  I work with a group of guides and each morning we will gather and lay out our days game plans, it always centers around the wind.
  "Windyty shows it might blow till noon then drop a bit," one guide will remark. "I checked Fishweather," another will comment, " it shows nice near shore with the blow coming later."
  We will only know for sure by heading out to open ocean for a look. Monster waves smashing over the top of the boat means the wind is definitely blowing and a new "plan" followed. 
  Summer after summer I find myself battered and beaten by rough ocean. I have to go where I can catch the best fish for the clients. I don't want to be out in nasty ocean, but at times there is just no other way to produce. I do my best to be safe, to call it quits before the ocean turn too ugly, but it seems there are many times I find myself driving my boat through some very blowy heavy seas.
  I am looking at about three more weeks of guiding left, my body is beat up I am so very tired... and mostly from dealing with all the silly ocean WEEDS!!!

                                 Salmon  Shark

Blue Shark

Rough Ocean

Amazing Alaska

  A doctor made me realize how amazing Alaska really is. Well... the doctor himself didn't do much for the amazing part... a slip with a knife during a routine gallbladder surgery caused him to open me up like a zippered duffle bag, and instructions of no lifting anything for 6 weeks.
  I was due to start taking clients out fishing in one week from the surgery date. Not suppose to happen according to Mr. Dr.
  When ones income is based on a mere 100 days, missing five weeks is not an option.
  I started thinking of anyone who could come to Alaska and help me on the boat as a deck hand.
  A charter company in town loaned me one of their deckhands for a week until I could get my Nephew, Luke, flown up from Idaho to help.
  Luke dropped a very busy baseball schedule to help his ailing Uncle. Of course, like any good fisherman I did dangle some very  tempting bait in front of the young man. Money! Like most fish I catch, He jumped at the bait and was hooked instantly.
  Luke was to spend two weeks with me but my recovery was a little slower than I thought, so I talked him, and his dad, into one more week.
  The first sunny day we were on the ocean Luke stood in awe of the view. Jagged mountains rise from the ocean to scratch the sky with snow crowned peaks. He imparted most of his wisdom in his words. "Wow," he said, but I noticed his phone taking picture after picture. At sixteen words are few but phones are busy.
  We (Luke my lifting arms and legs) dropped the anchor for halibut, baited the hooks, and sat back munching on cookies waiting for halibut to bite.
  "Whoosh!" 
  "Whales!" someone shouted.  Everywhere we looked was blowing spouts from whales. Phones were in hand and filming began. One whale wanted to be the star of the show and began jumping (breaching) over and over again getting closer and closer to our anchored boat. We had a front row seat to the most marvelous whale show of the summer. Luke was so impressed. "Wow," he said.
  He burned the airways back home sending photos and videos so I knew he enjoyed it.
  Fishing was tough and we had to make a long run to a bay for King Salmon and on the way saw a boat stopped. Around the boat were killer whales.  I stopped a mile short of the other boat as I could see the pod working our direction. We drifted as the Killers puffed and displayed the tall fins coming ever closer. In no time they were right on our boat. All of our phones and cameras were filming when one of the whales did what is called spy hopping. He (or she) came straight out of the water and turned to get a good look at us.
  "Wow! Did you see that? Did you get that on film?" everyone was shouting. Fishing took a second seat that day to that wonderful killer whale stunt.
  Luke wrestled 100 pound halibut that shook him like a dog ragdolls a stuffed toy. I was too busy watching to think about filming it for him. He will always remember the sheer power of a huge fish.
  We caught giant Ling Cod, even caught a small one that tangled itself in three lines so badly it could not even wiggle. Luke took pictures while I did my best to untangle the mess.
  We caught Skates, Dog fish sharks, rock fish of every color, as well as most of the salmon species.
  Some got a "Wow" but all got a ride home on Luke's phone.
  Our final day on the ocean  with Luke, a client hung his bait on the bottom while fishing for halibut. I grabbed the rod and jerked and jerked trying to pry the hook out of the snag. It was very stuck. At last I cleated the braided line to the boat and allowed the huge ocean swell to either pull the hook free or break the line. The hook pulled free but it felt like the client had a big rock coming up with the hook.
  "Must have worked a rock off the bottom," I commented to the client, "or it could be an octopus, but it seems far to heavy to be an octopus."
  I have clients catch a couple of octopus each summer and it always seems like they are snagged on the bottom until you pry the octo off the bottom.
  I was ready as the "rock" came into view. It was a huge octopus! I quickly swung it on board and the fun began.
  It was so large I could not get it off the deck by myself . The tentacles suctioned so tight that Luke had to help me. That critter would get legs stuck on everything. I had to laugh when it was plastered to Luke's rain pants, making little popping sucking sounds when he peeled it off.
  "Oh Wow!" Luke exclaimed, and I knew he had the prize of his trip. The phone was once again snapping pictures after pictures.
  I took Luke on a hike up a mountain to show him where I deer hunt. He found a bear paw print in the mud the made him realize we are not entirely the top of the food chain.
  I am so thankful I had the weeks with my Nephew. I am more thankful that he once again showed me how incredible Alaska really is.
                                      
                                         breaching whale

                                          spy hopping killer whale

                                                   huge octopus

                                                    bear track    

The Debt

  For some reason I realized today that I have been acquiring and paying a debt my entire life.
  It is the end of Idaho snow goose season and I had gathered a group of guys to help pick up decoys. After hunting dark to dark for the past 18 days I felt it high time I call my folks. Mom was going to a birthday party at noon and was wondering if I would take Dad to lunch. I had one better. Take him to lunch then to help pick up 1,500 white decoys.
  Driving to Parma I realized how often we had made that trip in the years gone by and now it had been one full year.
  Dad has been my best friend all of my life. As a runner in high school I could always hear his soft voice above the slap of our feet as he always encouraged, "That a boy, your doing good."
  Dad loved hunting and fishing and hauled my older brother and I all over the place to find new adventures. He was leading edge in wanting hunting vehicles, buying a jeep like amphibious for hauling out deer and elk. The silly thing just never seemed to run. He then bought a two wheel drive motorcycle that would almost climb trees.
  Later in life, I found myself in the middle of a muddy divorce. That steady calm voice on the track field was in my ear once again through the wires of the phone line. Every day, without fail, Dad would call and always end with, "Ok, just checking on you."
  Dad was one of the first recruits drafted in world war two. Like the movie, Hacksaw Ridge (I strongly recommend every one see it though I Never push movies on this blog) Dad refused to take up a gun against another human. He chose, like the movie, to enlist in the Medics division. He worked as a nurse helping the doctors save lives be they American or Japanese. To dad they are all humans with lives and dreams, families, and goals.
  I did not know Dad before the war, but I grew up knowing a man who raised farm animals for food and money. He treated them with respect and kindness even though many ended up on our supper table.
  At age of 19 I moved into my own house and our relationship changed a bit. I now see it as a debt meter.
  Children, as a whole are racking up debt to their parents. Food, lodging, cars, gas, in my case shotgun shells, and rifle bullets. Teenagers rack up the most and quickest debt. Now it is clothes, girl friends, endless school activities that require almost endless funds from the parents.
  My parents were so gracious in giving even though they probably could not really afford it, or it cut into things they were dreaming about. My brother and I worked on farms in the summer to help out, but our small earnings ran out way before the school year.
  So I moved out and now I began taking my dad on hunting and fishing trips. I would have dad meet me each morning of duck or goose season for a hunting trip some where. I worked nights so days were for a quick hunt before bed time.
  I bought a jet boat for running the river in search of ducks, and a bass boat for screaming across a lake in search of bass. Dad was a ride along on most of my trips.
  I never hunted with a friend that I didn't ask if my dad could come along, most of them would quickly say yes.
  The debt meter had stopped swinging my way and was swinging slowly to "repay".
  The divorce years once again had that meter swinging wildly my way. Even on hunting and fishing trips, I was hard on Dad. I knew it but the anger inside would burst out aimed at him. How I regretted it each time it happened. He was meek and mild and would just grow quiet. My debt meter was pegging at the top.
  I then headed to Alaska, the land of adventure, to the very town my Dad had fished out of after the war. I bought a boat eerily similar to the one he owned some forty years earlier.
  I brought Mom and Dad up to Alaska as much as I could. For Dad, it was like living a dream, for Mom it was just a way to touch base with her son.
  I wrote constant letters, then when email was invented, I flooded their computer with emails. The debt meter was swinging nicely back in repay.
  My winters, after summers of fishing, were always back in Idaho and the hunting trips were endless. Dad and I did our best to keep the waterfowl migrating past our area.
  I went from commercial fishing to guiding and once again I had dad up as much as possible. I still recall him catching a 90 pound halibut on his 90th birthday! Amazing.
  Age comes calling to us all so quickly. A man in his 90's feels it so much. A friend of that man also carries that load. The tough hunting trips were replaced with less often simpler ones. I turned to my age friends for those grueling long hour hard work episodes.
  Dad sat at home more and more. My hunting fire still burned almost out of control. I had nephews coming up and was channeling energy towards them. I was staying long in Alaska to partake of the nectar of that amazing land.
  Dad and Mom caught up with me through phone and emails, and eventually I started this blog for them. Dad always love reading my writing pushing me to become an outdoor writer. Now he could read each experience tempered only by an internet that reaches all people. I try to keep the killing and the details to where all can read and enjoy.
  My debt meter slowly worked its way past half and into his corner. For that I am so thankful.
  Today, just a long month away from reaching 98 years old, Dad is helping stack snow goose decoys in a muddy corn field. I take him to the blind where we used to shoot mallards and Canadian geese. I explain all the improvements since he hunted it a year ago.
  I had told mom I would put him in a chair to watch us work but Dad was not about to do that. I didn't want him falling in the pond so I placed him on the four wheeler and gave him his first ever lesson in driving a four wheeler.  This was the machine he had dreamed of when I was a teenager. but it hadn't been invented yet.
  Halibut, my dog, raced to her usual place behind the driver and I stood on the trailer as we circled the corn field picking up stacks of decoys the boys were piling up.
  Dad got off a couple of times wanting me to take over but I insisted he finish the course. He could not hear me say, "That a boy, you can do it." over the slap of the four wheeler tires,
  We then went from and ATV to a UTV to feed Wayne's cattle. The UTV is a three person side by side with a dump bed. Once again I saw the pleasure in Dad's eyes. "Wow," was his choice of words.
  I dropped Dad off at home and then it hit me about the debt meter.  I so hope my debt meter has pegged out on repaid!
  I have tried to live my life with my folks so I have no regrets. At the end of it all I want us to be all squared up.
  I try to call my folks every day. I usually end by saying, "Just checking up on you."
  I love you Mom and Dad and thanks for such a great life.
             
                           Dad driving his first four wheeler at age 98 halibut riding shotgun

For The Love of Hunting

  Many times in my married years I have come back home from hunting trips, told my dear wife about how thing went to have her roll her eyes and say, "You've got to be crazy to do that."
  I think she has hit on something but keeps most of it to herself.
  Snow has been piling up in South West Idaho and the reports were almost unthinkable. I was pacing in front of the window in Alaska watching rain fall at the rate of a quarter inch per 12 hours. Snow?
  My bored pacing finally lead my wife to hand me a plane ticket to Idaho ( I think hoping to have me disappear into a deep snow drift).
  "Go. Get out of here. Do whatever bored hunters do in lots of snow." she commanded me. I am such an obedient husband I grabbed my hunting dog and was on the first flight out of town.
  Snow was everywhere. It was piled in the streets, in parking lots, and crumpling sagging roofs. Perfect hunting weather.
  I dug for two days to free the jet boat and headed for the Snake River.
  Wayne, my trusted scout had been seeing some geese on the river near his farm.
"Launch down river and run up to my farm," he told me thinking that if I had engine trouble I could simply float back down river to my truck and trailer.
  The thermometer was tickling the minus numbers so that was a wise call. Things happen to mechanical equipment in very cold conditions.
  Bright and early I arrived at the boat ramp areas. There is a ramp on both sides of the river right near a bridge.
 The Idaho side had a huge mound of frozen snow blocking the entrance from  the highway. Snow plows. Those crazy plows had thrown massive walls of slush off the road and into the driveway of the boat ramp. It would take a tank to remove it now that it was frozen solid.
  I drove across the river to the Oregon ramp. Same situation. "Probably the same snow plow doing this to me. How dare he shut down my hunting for highway snow removal."
  I turned the truck and trailer around and headed up river to a ramp that might be open as it is on fish and game property.
  I cruised down a little bumpy lane that it looked like one tractor had bladed a deep groove in the snow just wide enough for a truck to pass through." If I meet someone on this road one of us will have to back up a long ways,'' I though.
  I made it to a little boat ramp tucked away in some wooded area. The tractor had plowed out parking for three truck and trailer rigs and all three were full of trucks with empty trailers. Hunters who had beat me to the river.
  It was difficult to get the trailer lined up with the ramp working in the confines of walls of plowed snow, but at last I had the boat lined up with the ramp.
  I knew the ramp would be icy with the other trailers dripping water as they launched earlier, but was not prepared for just how slick it was. (the chains on the other three truck tires should have warned me).
  The boat crested the lip of the ramp and then the back tires of the truck. I eased down a bit and then things went south in a hurry.
 The boat trailer tire caught the deep snow at the edge of the ramp and took off upriver, the truck hit sheer ice and slid with all tires locked up.
  Instantly the boat trailer jack knifed and the heavy truck sliding out of control pushed it sideways till the whole catastrophe hit the water of the river.
  I put the truck in low range four wheel drive and tried to east forward. Four wheels spun like it was not in gear. I tried backing into the river a bit to get a little run at it but did not want to kink the trailer any more than it was. I was stuck.
  I called Wayne and told him my dilemma.  "Hang tight, I'll be right there. You can hook onto me with your winch and we'll get you right out." Like I was going anywhere!
  While speaking to Wayne on the phone, a Department of Fish and Game truck with two officers towing a boat arrived. Great.
  I jumped out of the truck slipped my way up the ramp.
  "I'm kind of blocking the ramp," I stated the obvious to them.
  "Yup, looks that way," college education dripped from every word.
  " I can't get moving as the wall of snow the boat plowed under itself is jamming things up," I said. "I've got a shovel in my truck but it is buried under 50 goose decoys. I'd have to unload to get to it."
  "There is a shovel in the back of my truck, " the officer said, "and we have sand bags we can open to give you more traction."
  I grabbed the shovel and slide down the ramp to the truck and trailer. I dug like a mad man knowing I'm holding up these two gentlemen who are being paid by me (government wages). 
  The two officers saunter down to my jammed up outfit, I think after a cup of coffee, and start pouring sand up the ramp.
  "Ok, give it a try," they said to me.
 I handed one of them the shovel and try to open my truck door. Locked!
  The truck is idling away with the door locked. My lab pup jumped up on the door to see out the window and locked both doors.
 Both officers look at me like I have egg on my face.
 "Hey no worries," I smile back. I have a hide a key somewhere under the back of the truck. I might have to lay on my back in the river to get it, but I'll find it.
  It is not very pleasant laying on your back in the slush you have just shoveled out from under you boat in zero degrees weather to look for a key, but I did find that little magnetic box.
  "Got it!" I whimpered to the officers who were rolling their eyes.
  I unlocked the door, received licks in the face by the smiling lab puppy who, I'm sure, locked the door on purpose to show me how cold it is swimming in a river in January.
  I try to drive the truck onto the sand the officers have spread. The truck just sweeps it right into the river.
  Wayne shows up but cannot get around the fish and game boat and truck. One of the officers has to figure out where to drive his rig out of the way without getting stuck himself.
  Wayne parks at the top of the ramp and runs my winch cable up to his truck. In no time we have winched my truck up straight and I back the boat into the river.
  It takes some time to thaw the engine enough for it to turn over but at last it roars to life in a cloud of outboard smoke.
  I tie the boat to a tree, load my gun, decoys, and bags, then drive the truck back up the ramp, the sand doing its marvelous job.
  At the top there is no place to park. Wayne and I talk it over while the fish and game boys launch their boat.
  "I think I can back the trailer into the deep soft snow and keep my truck on the plowed surface and leave this guy room to back his trailer past me," I told Wayne.
  The plan works until the boat trailer hits soft snow. It jack knife's just like the boat ramp. I  ease forward to unkink the trailer and the front of my truck drops into four feet of soft snow. I'm stuck again just as the officers come zooming up the ramp with their trailer.
 Wayne and I do the winch maneuver again and get me back on the plowed surface.
  "Just bring your trailer to my house," Wayne offered, "I'll bring you back to the boat, and then we can do the shuffle when you get ready to trailer again tonight."
  I have to run back down the ramp and unload all my valuables like my gun and pack out of the boat, of course, right past the waiting officers.
  I smile and wave as I trudge back past them with an arm load of stuff, my drenched backsides frozen into a solid block of ice.
  I spoke to my wife that night.
 "How was your day?" she sweetly asked.
  "Oh the usual. I just went hunting by myself today. Got to meet a couple new guys on the boat ramp and spend some time with Wayne."
  "I'm so glad. must be so nice to do the things you love," she said.
  Hmmm... if she only knew... I would ONLY do it for the love of hunting.


                            
                                     plowed lane through the snow