Palin shows poise in caribou hunt

Sarah Palin is a local Wasilla woman who has moved from the ranks of small town local politics to the national and international political level in only a few short years. I won’t itemize her meteoric rise simply because the national media reminds us to the point of monotony of her situation daily.

Before I comment here, I want a few things clearly understood. I am not a “Palinbot” who hangs on her every word and action, believing she can do no wrong. I have not bought nor read either of her books. I also am not a Palin hater, who sees everything she says or does as some self-serving action designed to line her pockets and further her own political agenda. I may be one of a small minority who neither worships nor hates Sarah Palin.

She has generated a lot of media coverage with the latest installment of her reality television show, where she and her father, Chuck Heath, go caribou hunting. I’ve read columns criticizing her for her gun handling, her marksmanship, and her “diva” status while on a remote Alaska hunting trip. I’ve even read a couple of so-called news articles dealing with stories in the Arctic where the reporter had to slip in a dig about Sarah Palin and caribou hunting when the comment had nothing whatsoever to do with the article topic.

I am not a fan of reality television and have made no effort to watch any of the Palin reality television shows aired. I happened to be flipping channels on the satellite dish over the weekend and noticed the Palin show with about 12 minutes left in the program. I had read what the show was about and tuned in to see if they were actually showing any caribou hunting – a type of hunting which I personally really enjoy.

As the show came on, Sarah was taking what was, apparently, her fourth shot at a caribou. She kept telling her father the rifle wasn’t shooting to point-of-aim and he kept telling her to keep trying. Palin missed with shots number four and five and, at least to me, was apparently getting very frustrated with the situation. After the missed fifth shot, the family friend who had accompanied Palin and her father, took the first rifle and offered Sarah his rifle to try.

In the meantime, the caribou moved, but stopped within range, offering a less than ideal shooting angle. After quickly rearranging their backpacks to make a higher rifle rest, Palin settled in, took aim and fired. The small caribou dropped in its tracks – as clean and humane a shot as I have ever seen or made myself.

The next scene shows the hunters approaching the downed animal. Heath told his daughter to make sure the animal was dead before getting too close — wise advice which any hunter should heed when approaching a downed animal close to your own size in the field. The animal was dead and had died very quickly.

The two men started the butchering process in order to pack the meat back to camp from the kill site. Palin was criticized in the media for avoiding this segment of the work. I don’t think she did. The two guys took over the job before she could begin. Palin would have had to either elbow her way in or say something perhaps unkind to get the two guys to back off.

When we lived on Afognak Island, my wife and I hunted together for deer. If my wife killed an animal and I was close, I usually did the gutting and carrying/dragging of the animal home. She always helped and probably even gutted a few animals when I wasn’t handy, but I usually tried to help with the gutting/dragging since she had got the animal to begin with. It’s a guy thing. I didn’t see anything unusual in what happened!

After the trio arrived back at their camp, the family friend took a paper plate and set it up as a target 100 yards or so from camp to check the sights on the first rifle Palin had used. Her father insisted the rifle was fine. Palin bet him $5 the rifle’s scope had been bumped out of alignment. Heath took a rest and fired a couple of times, missing the plate with every shot. Palin called the shots high. The friend confirmed the misses. Heath then acknowledged that the problem had been the rifle and not Palin’s shooting ability and that he owed his daughter five bucks. The camera showed Palin’s smiling “I told you so” expression as Heath made his comments.

I didn’t watch the whole show so maybe I missed something worth criticizing Palin over. What I did see was a woman obviously familiar with hunting trying to harvest an animal while her father was overseeing the situation to the point of almost micromanaging her every move.

If I did that with my wife, she would tell me firmly to back off, but then, we don’t do reality television so we don’t always speak “kindly” to each other. Heath was trying to help his daughter and Palin was being understanding of her father’s concerns. I saw a very normal, polite family situation.

I don’t care if you Palin haters want to criticize her, just pick something worth criticizing her over! This constant nit-picking of every detail of her life is as monotonously boring as the media coverage and commentary of her political situation.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can leave him a message by e-mailing sports@frontiersman.com.