A Premier Hunting Stand Ruined in a Millisecond: You may understand that hunting conditions change over the years, but would you thing they might be altered instantantly? Once again, I stress is important as a hunter to notice evidence of alterations in the forest. These changes can affect your hunt, particularly if animals remember what happened during the twelve and a half months when you were not there. (See Reindeer and The Iron Curtain Fence in animal behavior.) Linda and I alternately used to share an evening stand facing an alcove across the upper terminus of a long south-facing meadow. There was no question that elk would move into the night feeding ground. The problem was when. We hoped it would still be within legal hunting hours, and not after another discouraged hunter prematurely returned to camp early and sashayed the lingering, forage-eager elk back into the black timber. We sat under and against a large spruce tree and waited. Little did I know what would happen to that tree one summer. I scout-checked the stand prior to fall hunting. My heart fell as I approached and saw the carnage of Zeus. The tree was rent with several fissures and largely nude of bark. The basal pine needle and cone duff was charred. The tree had been a refuge to deer in one of the Flat Tops typically violent summer storms. The bones and charred remains of seven deer circled the tree base. I instantly named them the Pleiades – the Seven Sisters in the Constellation of Taurus the Bull. My mind rocketed to childhood. At daybreak, our cows did not respond to my “Keeee- bossa” whelps calls to morning milking. I found thirteen dead under an apple tree, and the rest of the herd milling around in confusion in distance. This was a tremendous loss for our fledgling dairy farm. It was heartbreaking to watch the mink farm crew indifferently winch my favorite friendly cow into the back of a large truck. My pet was to eventually become a woman’s mink coat. I worked out my discouragement the next few days – installing a six year old’s conceived bailing wire lightning rod system in the remaining apple trees (thinking that would save the rest of the herd). The cows never again bedded under the death tree. Our parents used to take us for evening walks to study the night sounds and the stars. My brothers and I were eager to first find the Seven Sisters – the Pleiades. Young Dad had spent some summers as a cabin boy on North Sea clipper ships. He knew all the constellations and delighted in the heavens. However, he claimed his failing eye acuity made it difficult to find the Sisters. So, we “helped” him do that. I still relish night hiking to listen to and dark- view the nocturnal side of outdoor life. Note: Dad remarried on retirement. He and his landlubber new wife sailed a thirty-foot boat across the Atlantic to Norway, guided by his revered stars and only sextant readings. Phooey on unchallenging modern contrivances like GPS! What Happened? A Pleiades Prolog: Our area of the Flat Tops has still-solid timber killed in the early 1940’s by a beetle outbreak. By contrast, an unusual, strange thing happened to the Pleiades tree during the next half dozen years. It quickly lost limbs, roots rotted, and then it toppled. The fungus and bugs ravaged the carcass until the trunk crumbled into pulp. While nearby fallen trees sustained dignity for fifty years, lightning stripped this tree of its ability to survive even as a hulk like its brethren. A mere low mound of wood dust remains of our stand. The Pleiades stand was no longer elk-productive. Why, I wondered? It was if animals avoided the area. Some insight came when I mentioned this to a Wyoming rancher. He explained that cattle will not eat hay from a lightning-struck haystack. He did not understand what happened to the hay. Like our dairy cattle, the stricken hay was just some useless thing to truck away to a dump site. Perhaps the deer and elk avoided the site for the same reason(s) the cattle had for the tainted hay. A stroke of lightning created some kind of an avoidance aurora. Be Not Defeated, But Judge Your Capabilities: A Gem of 2016 was to meet the well-last of ten men strung along an uphill trail. “Gene” slowly but surely walked toward me as I hiked to base camp after hanging my bull to cool. His friendly face invited my rest. Gene had undergone triple bypass heart surgery after a completely unanticipated heart attack. Here he was three months later plodding undaunted uphill at his own regulated speed. His aurora squarely hit me: I knew he “Saw the elephant” and now will enjoy every moment of my remaining life. I gave him a tip of where he could sit halfway up the trail at dusk. The ten-minute conversation with this elating spirit-of-a-man was inspiring. Do not prematurely cash in your chips. Continually prepare for and adjust to your abilities; do not follow the crowd to disaster. (Note: I left Gene a copy of my book on his ATV seat. His crew inexplicably came down two hours earlier than prime evening elk hunting time. I hoped they would come earlier and stay later the next day.)

Educational Hunting Stories - E