Predator: A Marriage of Firsts

Predators

A Marriage of First
By Angela Miller

It wasn’t long ago that the door to hunting was closed to me. My journey into becoming an outdoorswoman was a long and often fruitless venture. I had grown up dreaming of enjoying the outdoors and had actually ventured forth from time to time, but I didn’t have anyone that could truly baptize me into the “faith” of hunting. That is until I met my husband David. David and I have been married now for two years and both of those years have been filled with firsts for me. The following are a few of my favorite “firsts:”

1st “First” – While not exactly the perfect date, it was one that I couldn’t wait to go on. David and I were going duck hunting and I was pumped up for the experience. I was decked out in new cold weather clothing and rain gear as we headed to David’s duck club in west-central Oregon. The day was cold and rainy, and I was ready to climb into a nice warm blind and shoot ducks. Little did I know that the “blind” would be a five-gallon bucket in the middle of a flooded corn field. Rex, the club owner, explained that he was feeding approximately 5,000 ducks every night and that our best chance for birds would be sitting hidden in the corn and decoying them as they came in to feed. To say that it stunk would be the understatement of the year, but it was well worth it to be hunting ducks. The first couple of flights didn’t quite go the way I had planned. Two volleys of shooting, and I hadn’t even touched a feather. So, after a couple of small shooting tips from Dave, I was ready for the next flight. When it happened, it happened fast. A flock of mallards came in low and fast over the corn. As Dave worked them with the call, I picked the lead bird, swung smooth and rolled my first duck. I don’t know who was more excited, Dave or me. Dave immediately got up and retrieved my bird. It was one of the most exciting moments of my life to that point and the joy must have overtaken me as the next thing I heard myself say was, “Will you marry me right here while duck hunting?” Guess what his answer was? Duh. “YES!”

2nd “First” – Picture this: it was the last day of the duck season, the temperature was hovering in the low 30’s and it was raining sideways. I was tucked into a blind watching as Dave worked a flock of birds into the decoys. Just as I picked out a huge pintail drake and drew a bead on him, there was a blinding flash of white light coming at me from five feet away. I was temporarily blinded. In desperation, I tried to shake off the orange ball burning into my retinas and get back on the bird. No luck, I just couldn’t see. Jokingly, I turned to the source of the light and said, “Don’t ever do that again or you are fired!” Sulking and apologetic as he could be, our wedding photographer promised not to mess up anymore shooting opportunities. Poor guy probably never thought he would be shooting a wedding in a flooded cornfield while wearing waders. (A first for him also.) So, with light fading and thirty of our closest friends watching, we got married while duck hunting. Is Dave lucky or what? Why get married in a nasty flooded cornfield in pouring down freezing rain on the last day of the duck season? Our reasoning was pretty simple – this way the last day of duck season wouldn’t be so depressing!

3rd “First” – The 2006 archery elk season was a great experience for me as I got to be present as Dave arrowed a nice spike elk from one of our favorite northeastern Oregon ranches. While it was a great experience, I was bummed that I couldn’t hunt because I had just undergone a major surgery. However, the memory of that awesome beast motivated me to practice with my bow for countless hours during the off season. I told Dave that this was going to be my year to take an elk with my bow. He told me not to hold my breath as the average harvest rate for archers is one elk every seven years. Low odds or not, I was going to work my rear end off to get my first elk. The 2007 season was plagued with one fire after the next in Oregon and there was a fear that some areas would be closed to hunting. As luck would have it, we were able to hunt and I was healthy. During our week of hunting, we tried everything from calling to sitting in ground blinds. Dave had told me early on that the best odds of getting an elk would be to sit in a ground blind while watching a good game trail. On the next to last day of the hunt, Dave and I decided to spend the afternoon in a ground blind and stay until dark. While it can be fairly boring just sitting and waiting, we enjoyed the time together and got to see all kinds of animals from snakes to turkeys to coyotes. About an hour before dark, we had a herd of about forty cow and calf elk wander past the blind. It was so exciting and incredible to be in the middle of such a herd. As I gripped my bow while waiting for a bull to appear, Dave coached me through the mental preparations that would be needed if a shot arose. Control your breathing, pick a spot, focus on that spot and nothing else, good trigger squeeze and follow through. I practiced these tips on a number of cows (without drawing the bow) and found that it calmed my nerves. Although no bulls appeared, it was an awesome learning experience for me. About fifteen minutes before the end of shooting light, I asked Dave if we should go since the elk had already gone past. He told me that we needed to stay put for a few minutes more as the last half hour of shooting light is usually the best. Just as Dave finished telling me this, he looked out one of the side windows in the blind and announced that a spike was walking down the trail. I was thinking, “Yeah right, quit pulling my leg,” when I noticed that “serious guide look” that he gets when guiding other hunters. Just then I saw the elk for the first time. Man was he beautiful. Long velvet-covered horns and a body that looked much bigger than the average spikes that we had been seeing. Holy cow, this was it! I grabbed my bow and began to draw when Dave went into guide mode and told me to wait for the right shot angle. He calmly walked me through the same breathing and concentrating drill that he had given me earlier. I found that I was actually calming down a bit. Dave ranged the bull at 27 yards and told me to aim for the lower third of the chest just behind the shoulder. It was the moment of truth. I took a deep breath, held my thirty-yard pin on the spot I wanted to hit and slowly squeezed the trigger. I didn’t even feel the bow shoot. I just saw the arrow fly true and the elk bolt through the trees. As I gathered my wits and calmed down, Dave went and inspected the blood trail. It was dark red and flowing like a stream. Dave said that it looked like a heart shot. The elk traveled less than 100 yards before piling up on a hillside. While holding those antlers in my hands, all I could think about was the fabulous journey that life has taken me on. In my wildest dreams as a child, I wouldn’t have imagined that my first big game animal would have been this majestic or taken in this manner.

4th “First” – During early January of 2008, Dave was busy running a trapline in eastern Oregon. He was rarely home, and I was beginning to feel like a trapline widow. Well to heck with that, I was going to learn the art of trapping. So, off I went on my first trapping trip. Dave was a very patient teacher and willingly shared some of his cat trapping secrets that he made me swear not to share. After watching him set traps at a couple of locations, he told me it was my turn. I scouted out a beautiful rimrock that had lots of potential and held some decent sign. As Dave coached me through things, I set and baited my first trap in a cubby set. I was so excited that I wanted to check the trap twenty times that day. The next morning when we checked the traps, I was somewhat deflated to find that my flag was still up and the trap was still set. Then Dave explained that bobcats have a large home range and that in our part of the country it could take a tom a couple of weeks to return to the area. This was not exactly the answer I was looking for, but then again its called trapping, not catching. On Day Two, I was anxious to check the traps, but wasn’t expecting much. Dave had caught a nice medium-sized tom on one of the traps, so my excitement level went up a little. When we approached the area of my sets, Dave scanned for the flags with his binoculars and told me that it looked like the flag was down. I started to get extremely excited when Dave took a deep breath and said, “You have a huge tom in your trap.” I almost tore the truck door off trying to get out. I ran up that mountain so fast that Dave thought I should try out for the Olympics. When I got there, I was greeted by the biggest Tom bobcat I have ever seen in my life. He was, without a doubt, the most beautiful animal I have ever seen. We took a couple of extra minutes taking photos of the cat and I, of course, made Dave take about a million pictures of me with the cat after I shot it. What an experience.

To say this life journey has been interesting would be an understatement. In two years I have done more in the outdoors than most people do in a decade. As I look to the future, I keep memories of the past close to my heart. I am lucky and blessed to have experienced so many “firsts.” I hope that the future is filled with many more.