It's more than the hunt, it's about living

Out & About, by Howard Delo

I received an interesting e-mail the other day from my friend, Dan, in Big Lake. He was forwarding an explanation of the humorous events (at my expense, I might add) that occurred one evening, as we were moose hunting, to another friend in Southeast.

Let's just say my hearing isn't what it used to be and the cow moose wasn't the brightest bulb in the neon sign, either. The moose and I managed to startle each other and Dan was sitting at ringside, watching the whole event and enjoying the humorous antics.

Anyway, in his e-mail, Dan said, "I think the best part of hunting is not shooting something, but everything else that goes with it -- from listening to trees crash in the forest, to watching hawks fly over, to sitting in the fall colors as the sun sets around you." I couldn't agree more.

For someone who is just beginning to hunt, the emphasis usually is the size of the rack or the number of birds killed. For those of us graybeards, other, more important facets of the hunt have now come to dominate the experience.

Andy and I have just returned from a trip up the Dalton Highway, he to take pictures and glimpse the Arctic Ocean, and me, to revisit places I hadn't seen in 30 years and hunt for caribou with my bow. Andy took some fabulous photos. I didn't get a caribou but I did relive some moments from a time long past.

After returning home, I began thinking about how the best memories I have from my days hunting rarely involve the actual killing of the animal. Rather, the memory of my friend, Paul, laughingly calling across the snow-covered landscape: Did you hit him, yet? As I plinked away at a sitting snowshoe hare near Fairbanks.

In my mind's eye, I can see Nick and I, bivouacked beside a small campfire in the Kenai National Moose Range, listening to wolves howling forlornly through the night as we watched the northern lights dancing in the September sky.

I remember watching a marten investigating intriguing smells while I was hunting for blacktail deer on Afognak Island with my grandfather's rifle. I remember glassing for sheep near the top of a mountain in the Alaska Range, spellbound by the brilliant fall colors blanketing the mountains all around me. I remember how wet Jeff and I were after descending a ridgeline in a driving rainstorm while hunting mountain goats near Kachemak Bay.

I never mentioned the disgusted looks I used to get from my black Labrador, Troubles, when I missed an easy passing shot on a Golden Eye or Harlequin duck, but I vividly remember his expression. I remember watching my dad make his way to his deer stand in the early morning light of the northern Michigan woods.

Yes, Dan and I did hear a tree come crashing down in the forest that evening. We glimpsed an unusually dark-colored hawk flying overhead. And we watched the sun set behind a tree-covered ridge where the leaves were just beginning to hint at their autumn colors of yellow and burnt orange.

After my folks moved to Georgia, my father went back to Michigan almost every year to hunt deer. His favorite place to sit on stand was a beautiful birch-covered ridge not far from the deer camp. When I asked him why he always went to that ridge, he said he missed having white birch trees around. Since these trees don't grow well in Georgia, he enjoyed seeing the birch again. I will never know how many bucks he passed up over the years, because he didn't want to end his hunt and his time among the white birch trees.

I think my friend Dan has it exactly right.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist living in Big Lake. Send your comments and ideas to editor@frontiersman.com, or call (907) 352-2268 and leave a message for Howard.