Chapter Fourteen:
Saving Graces
I decided to hunt in 1998, fall, and even though I had obsessions and compulsions I needed to go hunting, to keep myself sane…. I would drive outside of Saskatoon (Saskatchewan!), by the small towns of Vonda, Smuts, Clavette, and St. Denis in the farmland, and watch for ducks,.... Once in a while I would see some ducks flying between a slough and a field and I would get in the flight line and maybe pick off one or two, or I would drive up by St. Louis, and spend the day looking for ducks and geese, getting one or two here or there, sometimes pulling a sneak job and getting a few…. I didn’t get any really good “shoots,” though. There was the prospect of the “dream shoot,” that I had realized to be possible, after hearing stories about people bagging 60 ducks in a single morning, and it made sense, the concept of a dream shoot, it was possible but you needed to have several factors line up and for that, you needed to put in a lot of time and money– especially for the locating of birds, you needed to drive a lot.... It was during my outings on hunting trips and voyages in search of game, that I would feel a resurgence of joy and hope. I would remember the times gone by of hunting ducks and partridge at Hungry Hill and I would renew my resolve to fight against the feelings of doubt and anxiety, to press on, despite the negative feelings and thoughts that occurred with such frequency and intensity.
Being in the countryside, in nature, was powerfully therapeutic. I loved the way everything looked, smelled, and sounded. I liked the feel of it too…. The cold comforted me. I loved a particular type of weather in Saskatchewan in November, overcast and windy, about minus 8,…the stormier the better, with a few flakes of snow swirling in the air,.... That is good hunting weather- the kind of weather that geese were less leary and more inclined to commit to a decoy set up in– the type of weather where there are no bugs and the ducks and geese are fat and easy to pluck and the thought of a hot meal and a roaring fire is particularly wonderful,...give me that forever…. Dirt, sloughs, fence lines,… willow bushes, buck brush, rocks…even rotten smelling slough bottoms –They were all therapeutic to me and just seeing it and being surrounded by it was– healing!
I loved to carry a couple of glossy green heads ( male mallard ducks) after a successful hunt, into the garage at home in Prince Albert, after a hunt, and my dad would come out and have a look…
“oh yeahhh…” he’d say, while he thoughtfully admired and contemplated the ornately feathered birds…, “Nice…”
I felt validated and hopeful at those times, and so I kept hunting whenever time permitted. You could talk about achievements and satisfaction, and take many things, like making a million dollars, or graduating from university as a “prestigious professional,” but I looked at the bagging of fat Mallard drakes in the late fall as one of the highest achievements and most satisfying things conceivable…! Admittedly, it wasn’t a cheap pursuit, but I didn’t care…. It was worth it. I was getting 80s and 90s in the classes that mattered (one or two classes with professor Matheson) and that gave me all the justification I thought I needed to skip classes and go out hunting! I had a class on Fridays at that time that I would often skip. I strongly detested most of my classes. I loved to skip class and head back to Hungry Hill for a late afternoon of deer hunting on Friday and then hunt again all day Saturday.
I had gotten deer hunting down to a science, where, on most occasions, when I went out in search of white tailed deer I would see at least one. You see, in hunting, if you get chances to shoot your quarry,... well, that’s about all you can ask for. If you get yourself into a position where you can shoot your desired quarry, but you decide to not shoot it, or you shoot at it but you miss it, well then, you draw your own conclusions…. Maybe you need to become a better marksman, or, maybe you need to study the animal that you are hunting, learn where it lives and what it eats and when it does what it does. I had learned that hunting could be broken down into its components of finding the game, and then getting a chance to shoot the game, and then actually shooting the game. I realized by 1998, that by far, the most challenging thing to do out of the three stages of hunting was to find the game. Once I found the game and got a chance to shoot it, I seldom, if ever, missed. Let me qualify that. I missed with a shotgun on moving targets, but on stationary targets with a rifle,... I didn’t. When it came to deer hunting I was confident that I could hit most of the deer that would present themselves to me because of the style of hunting that I liked which consisted primarily of waiting somewhere for deer to pass by, or rattling antlers to attract them to come to my location. I didn’t want to wound deer, so I made it a habit to only shoot at stationary, as opposed to, running deer. I never used bait to hunt deer and I didn’t often drive around looking to shoot a deer from my vehicle off of the road. For me, it wasn’t nearly as thrilling to sit in a car or truck compared to being on foot, hunting deer on their own terms. Sometimes I would sit on the edge of a field that deer would feed on in the mornings or evenings, and I would see deer when I did that,... and it was good. I didn’t need to shoot anything to have a good time in the bush,... just seeing game or sign of game was enough to excite me and motivate me to be patient and put the time in to get a chance at my target animal. White tailed deer were particularly exciting to chase because they were fairly abundant out by the farm and they were predictable too. I had figured all of this out by 1998 and I loved hunting white tails. The does, (females) I found, both in my experience and I heard from other hunters, were fairly easy to see, but the bucks, (the males), especially heavily antlered ones, not so. I noted that theory, and saw that it was true. I would see does and fawns, but never heavily antlered bucks. The challenge was on,... I saw signs of heavily antlered bucks, now I was determined to actually see a heavily antlered buck. (It should be mentioned here, that hunting white tailed deer, and bucks in particular was and still is a cultural pursuit that gets a lot of attention, even in modern times,.... If you went out and legally shot a big buck, well, it was something of an achievement and more people who go deer hunting are unsuccessful than their successful counterparts and bagging a big buck was and continues to be a really big deal!)
I thought a lot about hunting. How could I kill a big white tailed buck? And it had to be done legally,.... There was no satisfaction in poaching. You wouldn’t be able to talk about it openly for fear of getting pinched, and where was the excitement in that? (I guess a lot of it revolved around bragging rights,....)
How to kill a big white Tail…? Putting in the time was the first thing,... I knew if I wasn’t out in the field hunting for a buck, I couldn’t possibly see one, let alone bag one. The other things I decided to do were to hunt at the most critical times and to be patient and be ready. The more I thought about bucks the more I realized that they were indeed elusive. I had spent many days walking the bush out by the farm, hunting, trapping, quading, and snowmobiling and had never seen very many deer, let alone bucks. Deer, themselves, were tricky to get chances at,... so I figured out that the best way to shoot a big buck was to wait for one to come to me. That way, I could be ready and I could have the advantage of surprise.
I got so I could see deer most of the times I went out hunting. My dad was wanting to come out with me on a deer hunt one weekend, so, one Friday we made a plan to meet at a spot and try our luck. My dad didn’t have a deer tag so I was the only person who could legally carry a rifle. We met up and made a plan. We were going to walk into a spot I knew, where deer had been feeding and I was pretty sure that at the very least we would be able to see some does that evening. We snuck into the spot, taking into account the direction of the wind, for you see, deer will spook easily at even the faintest trace of any unfamiliar scent.
Now, we sat down at the edge of the field just in between some willows and small poplar. It was a lovely evening, minus -13,... about the 13th of November, with very little wind. The poplar trees out to the North of us in the distance were covered in hoarfrost. The field was secluded from any roadway,... and that’s why the deer liked it. Nobody bothered them there. The minutes ticked by. Four O’clock came and went,..., but nothing moved.
Stillness….
The minutes kept passing by, and I began to prepare my heart for disappointment. I hoped that we would at least catch a glimpse of a doe crossing the field out in front of us. I had been so confident that we would see at least one doe, but nothing stirred and I hated looking like I couldn’t deliver in front of my father,…. The time was coming where we would be required to stop hunting, by law. This is the time that is posted in the Hunting regulations, after which, it is “unlawful to fire a rifle.” I called it “legal time…” You could still shoot, but not legally. In truth, that was when the hunting was best, right in the last 30 minutes of light, but you could get “pinched” (fined) for it.
Just then– I noticed a scurrying motion off to our right, a gray-brown form,...and in a split second the scurrying form stood broadside to us about 75 meters away,... it was a white tailed buck with a huge body and a rack of antlers consisting of heavy main beams and several long thick tines! I was incredulous…! It snatched up a mouthful of alfalfa and looked on…,
“Look at that buck'' I whispered to my dad,....
“Give it to ‘im” dad whispered back…..
I flicked the safety off my rifle and slowly raised it up. I took aim, but my confidence had withered…. I had not taken the time to prepare for the opportunity of a shot like this and I found myself raising my rifle up to shoot with nothing to rest on to help steady my aim. I saw the buck’s antlers in my scope and I realized that it was the moment I had dreamed of for years, but also that I had failed to prepare adequately, and now I was shaky with my aim,.... You see, I was kneeling on the ground with both of my knees on the ground and I shouldered my rifle from that position and it was not a stable posture compared to the other countless postures I could have chosen when I began to set up for the hunt. That is a large part of hunting,..., the final setting up for the possible shot,.... Now, I was forced to shoot with no rest at all and I noticed right away that it was difficult to hold the rifle steady while shooting off of both knees. I held the crosshairs as steady as I could and the crosshairs bobbed and weaved recklessly on the bucks vital area,...! I thought I would miss the buck! I knew I had to shoot quickly because the buck was on the move and he had just stopped for a quick bite, so, in a split second I held the rifle as steadily as I could and I squeezed the trigger. When the rifle went off I was looking to the side at the trees next to me and my father who was excitedly poised watching the entire situation, and then “Ka-boom!” went my rifle, and I heard the bullet hit with a thwack, and, down fell the buck! I could hardly believe it….. I hadn’t been looking through my scope when the gun went off! But I still hit it! I could not believe it. I had really not made that shot in a good way, but the bullet had found its target. It was as if I had willed that bullet to find its target! Was this pure luck? Or was it God? We had never seen a buck like this,... let alone have a chance at it, let alone hit it! I saw the buck was moving a little so I finished it off and my dad and I walked up to it. We field dressed it, and had a tough time splitting the pelvic bone. We smacked it again and again with my knife…. But it wouldn’t break. I think we used a hatchet and finally opened it up, and got it all field-dressed when we returned in the truck.
I felt as if I had witnessed a miracle. Actually, I had witnessed a miracle. Usually, my dad didn’t accompany me on my hunts. What were the odds that this buck would show itself on this day at this time on the rare occasion that dad had accompanied me…? And then that I would be shaky with my aim and break the rules of aiming and kind of just shoot blindly and still hit That buck? At a time in my life where I wanted and needed a successful hunt, just like that? Let me tell you,..., it wasn’t luck, at all but rather it was God,.... I had the buck scored a few weeks later and it came out to a net of about 150 points. Just so you know, the magazine called “big buck” is a publication that draws the line at about 150 points…. Dad and I were more than happy. We had hunted together on many occasions, many seasons, many a Saturday, but this was the first time we had experienced something like this, and it wouldn’t be our last. We struggled to load the heavy deer into the truck. It was a good kind of struggle! I was getting better at hunting! I didn’t see it then but that day was a miracle.
The drive home was surreal. We stopped at Hungry Hill to show the buck to grandma and grandpa and again at my uncle Jim’s and aunt Anne’s. My hope was renewed in life. Good things did happen to me and I was capable of achieving successful outcomes. I renewed my commitment to making the effort and I enjoyed the days following the hunt,... taking pictures, phoning my mentors, and telling the story. In 1999 I had similar success in deer hunting, and again in 2000. In all three of those years my dad and I had been out hunting together in the same area at the same time when one of us connected with a big buck white tail. Of course we ate the meat. It was a real blessing to have those successes in hunting, and I thought if I could get that result, then I could maybe beat OCD. I remember many of the days I went out hunting and never saw anything, those experiences only made the success that much better, the pain of OCD and the darkness of the desperate days made the light of success that much brighter.
We had stopped at three spots on the way home that November night with our big buck. The stops included grandma and grandpa Hislop’s, and two of Dad's relatives’ houses. And that was it. I was a gregarious person who naturally liked to socialize, so why had I not gone to more places? There were a few people I had known since I was little, individuals with whom I had a relationship- whether we were relatives, school mates, or colleagues. I had known them for years and they all would have been politely interested to see the buck. They all would have made the usual generally polite and predictable comments– “good job” … “awesome !” I could have taken it to their houses and showed them,... I thought of it,... but I didn’t. You see, I had begun to grow angry toward certain people. I had begun to really resent people who upset me - and I was too uncomfortable with conflict to do anything about it. Too scared to do the wrong thing- whether it was arguing, or fist fighting or disagreeing,... I was angry at people for making me feel pathetic–and angry at myself for feeling that way. No matter what I did or did not do, I grew bitter.
Over the years My anger brewed and brewed. It was like a deep caldron of stew made up of memories, thoughts, feelings and imaginings and the heat that cooked it was the mind itself, and OCD, and that caldron of fury grew in size and Temperature over time, the more angry, guilty, or stressed I was, the more the caldron grew and the hotter it became….until one day it boiled over. It would take twenty years for that to happen, but it did happen, and when it happened, it was a most unpleasant time,..., to say the least.