The year the wildlife refuge felt more like a mall.

I remember opening the letter from the government notifying me (back in 2001) that I had been drawn on a quota hunt to take a doe with a muzzleloader on the Hiwassee Refuge. Just the word refuge makes you think of wilderness and protected unspoiled land. I immediately called Ron who had put in with me, we had hunted the water fowl sanctuary on an earlier bow hunt. It was a great trip, we had placed our stands so close together (due to the fact that most of the property was corn fields with only small stands of trees) that we could see each other. Most of the morning was filled by watching a drunk shoot arrows from his stand into the empty field that separated us until he climbed down and fell asleep on the trail. It wasn't long till TWRA's finest came and loaded him into the back of their truck like a sack of laundry. The first deer we saw was a fawn which I had missed with my Hoyt Raider compound bow not once but twice (I have since switched to a cross bow). Only an hour later we heard a crashing of limbs, then bursting from cover directly behind Ron bounded three does running full speed. By the time Ron got his bow up and let an arrow fly it was aimed at the last deer in line. I cannot explain how but the deer dropped only twenty yards out in the corn field this hunt ended successfully with a miracle shot. Needlessly to say we were excited about the upcoming hunt with a firearm. we began to plan immediately. We were to camp on the refuge and not leave the woods until we had harvested suitable table fare. The kind of hunt I like. As Ron and I rolled up on the area that the warden had told us to camp I was shocked. The camping area looked more like a shanty town must of appeared back in the gold rush days out west. We found a small patch of ground between a pop-up camper full of some pretty rough looking hombres and a tent occupied by a old school longbow naturalist. We spent the evening scouting and hanging tree stands. we bedded down that night to the sound of drunken campers raising hell and one gunshot! It rained that night and my father met up with us in the morning and took a spot close to the campsite. He was smart enough to know the only place that would not be crowded would be close to the front since most people believe you need to go deep to see deer. I had my stand on a tree only 100 yrds or so from dad and was surprised upon my arrival by someone sitting in a tree only 5 foot from the one my stand was hanging on. The joker kept shining his flashlight on me like I didn't see him, finally I said "hey pal I have to get my tree stand if I'm going somewhere else". I hiked for 20 minutes past hordes of flashlights all being shined at me. I felt like the guy no one wanted to sit next to in the lunch room. I had gotten to the end of a long finger of woods jutting out into a corn field before I lost sight of any flashlights. I had never seen a more crowded stand of trees. It reminded me of the claustrophobic feelings I get at the shopping malls when my wife talks me into subjecting myself to the rude and numerous masses. Just as the sun rose I was in the middle of wrapping my summit climbing stand around a tree when a fawn jumped from the corn about 15 feet from me. We stood frozen for what had to be a decade when I made my move for my side hammer frontiersman 50 cal muzzleloader. By the time I got the iron sighted gun up, the deer had ran 60 yards. Luckily for me curiosity got the best of her and she turned broad side to look back at me. After filling my tag and gutting the whitetail version of veal I started my drag back to camp by way of dad. Half way back our long bow shooting neighbor fell in beside me (couldn't even be alone dragging my deer). He congratulated me on my deer and followed me to where my father was sitting with the year and a half old doe he had shot, then had to track all the way off the reserve. I left this hunt with meat but also with the realization that hunting is best when people are not around. I would rather kill nothing in solitude than fill my freezer in a crowd. The reserve felt more like a mall that day and I hate malls.

How much is a rockfish worth?

It was a seemingly normal summer day in 2007 when Stacy called me saying I should come with Ron and him rockfishing below Fort Loudon Damn. Earlier he had produced pictures of himself holding fish as long as a man and I had thought "how many fish steaks could I get out of that". There are not many fish safe to eat in Loudon lake due to mercury and pcb's, but the Rockfish or Striper (as some locals call them) can be consumed, at least for now. I jumped at the chance to battle these non-native giants with two of my best friends. Stacy, who could grow a beard in middle school, had not changed physically in a decade but was no longer the wild man that gave him the moniker "crazy Stacy" on the football team. Since returning from a short college football career he had graduated college and became a family man. His amazing instincts for harvesting game makes him one of my favorite people to hunt with. On the other hand Ron had grown to 6'3" tall and weighed at least 250lbs which happens to be 100lbs heavier than when he wrestled in high school. He is the hardest working man in the world, holding down two jobs for as long as I can remember and still spending more time in the woods hunting and trapping than the rest of us. I myself had gained weight like Ron but with out the growth in height. I went from being little Gabe at 5'7" to being "stocky" to anyone not wanting to insult the bowling ball I had become. I always expect adventure when I am with the boys since they seem to have little fear of anything and a curiosity of whats over the next ridge. But I had no Idea how close we would come to meeting our makers this day. We slid Stacy's 15' modified V aluminum boat into the river and started up stream toward the damn. Even though Stacy had used this boat in the boils below the damn before, I wondered if he had considered what difference adding me, a 200 pound man, to the back end would have. The first sign of trouble was during Stacy's explaination that we may not have that good of success because the moon was wrong. Then he mentioned the fact that my job was to put the two naked wires laying behind me against the battery terminals to start the bilge pump anytime the boat started filling up with water! The roar of the boils were evident before we could see them. the water being generated from turbines at the bottom of the damn looked like a whirlpool in a class 5 rapid. For the first 30 minutes we bounced around in the boils pumping water and trying to cast large plugs in to the concrete cut-ins on the face of the damn. Ron was standing at the front of the boat tempting fate every time the boat was jarred by the upheaval of water when Stacy had to gun it in full reverse to keep us out of the most dangerous area. First I felt water rush in over the back and up onto my legs. then I felt my heart jump as I reached for the afore mentioned naked wires to get the pump pumping. I was having trouble since water was over the battery and something kept hitting my elbow. When I realized that the something was the gas tank I almost panicked. Luckily Stacy stayed calm and set the engine full forward and shot us up into one of the cut-ins in the damn we had just been casting into. For reasons I am unaware of the water is as calm as a swimming pool in these little concrete coffins and this gave me time to regain my cool get the battery in the dry and proceed to pump the calf deep water out of the back of the boat. After some heavy duty pushing by Ron and some fancy boat work by Stacy we popped out of the cutout and raced across the boils to safety. Oddly enough this was the first time I noticed a family of Mexicans on the rocky shore fishing and I wondered what they thought about the crazy rednecks that just attempted to drown themselves for a few lousy rock fish.

Turkey Day

There is a reason to be thankful on thanksgiving and it is turkey. We have these wonderful birds just roaming free, available to anyone willing to brave the outdoors and out smart these big breasted birds. I don't think enough people appreciate the fact that everything needed to survive is just outside. This is why conservation is so important and I believe that the best way to save the natural world is to convince people that land is more valuable (even monetarily) as a stand of woods than as condos. I think the best example of it working is in S. Africa where elephants were on the brink of extinction. Africans killed them because they were in competition with cattle which the Africans perceived as more valuable. When in fact sport hunting of elephant has brought far more money to the locals. Since then hunting preserves were set up so people could spend insane amounts of money to shoot one elephant. The potential profits have motivated people to preserve the habitat and work to increase the numbers of elephant so they can sell more permits to would be hunters. There are more elephants in Africa now than anytime in recent history. Whatever people place value on will be protected. More people simply need to value the outdoors the way I do. I paid the state of Tennessee $1200 for a hunting license because I value it. Now the state of Tennessee has bought additional land finishing the Cumberland wildlife corridor. Money makes the world go around, we just need to value nature more than concrete.

Broke down

The radiator on my truck busted today leaving me with no transportation or money until after the holiday. This means no hunting this weekend most likely. I saw a flock of 20 plus turkey in a big cow pasture at the end of Farmall rd. in maynardville today but was unable to secure any hunting privileges. It reminds me of the success TWRA has had with wild turkey in Tennessee. I have disagreed with a lot of things that the agency has done but I cannot argue with the shear numbers of turkey roaming around East Tennessee now. It used to be a special thing to see some turkeys just 10 years ago, now I see them almost everyday. being outside all the time is something I love about doing environmental work. I left work early today because of the truck breaking down but don't worry I was able to make the best of it by raking leaves and playing in the pile with the kids. They Know how to have fun.

day dreaming

I have not gotton to go afield much recently. my wife has had to work evenings and weekends while I work during the day so that one of us are always with our children. I am not a big believer in daycare. I still day dream about hunting and hopefully over the holiday I will be able to steal a couple of hours to sit over my favorite trail in Jacksboro. It will take more than one deer to feed my family this year. I am still looking forward to the annual camping trip I take with the guys to big south fork usually at the end of January. We do a lot of hiking and hunting(usually hogs are in season plus what ever small game we can find)but mainly we camp. in the middle of nowhere as far away from civilization as possible. The group of guys I go with have been my friends most of my life. They are a rough bunch but some of the best woodsmen you will ever meet. We enjoy acting like pioneers. I can't wait to blog about whatever happens this year. In the past mother nature always has something for us from the wildlife to snow storms and of course there was the year that a drunken member of the party decided to chainsaw a tree down in the middle of the night. In the middle of camp of course. It should be exciting as ever and I can't wait.

Zoo Day

Today the kids and I went to the zoo. It was nice, Maybe a little cold but we had a good time. The odd thing was that the star of the day for my children was not an elephant or red panda. In the parking lot there was a gray squirrel on top of some trash cans. he sat nervously as my children made squirrel sounds at him (or at least what they believe are squirrel sounds). Then as quick as a shot he disappeared into the trash can and returned with a cracker which he preceded to eat. My kids talked about it for hours. I then took them to my meat processor (Crawford's Farm meats) which is the best in East Tennessee if you ask me. The amount of burger they got out of that little spike buck was amazing. I have already laid out some tenderloin for tomorrow night. I think it is important that children know where food comes from. That's right little johnny that hamburger is a cow or at my house a deer. As the family gets ready for bed all I can think about is going to the woods to find the next batch of meat to feed my family.

Backyard Safari

I took off work early to watch my kids (2 yr old girl and 4 year old boy) while my wife took care of other obligations. I decided to take time to clean my truck and let the kids play outside since outside is the best place for kids to be. It only took me about an hour or so to get the job done however that was plenty of time for my son to discover slugs hid under his miniature basketball goal (even though it is only 50 degrees today). They also discovered the scat of a large dog and being the trackers in training they are it took them no time to decide the origin of the animal that left it (my neighbors dog). I would like to take them to a state park or any forest or lake everyday but sadly I can't. This harsh truth of working for a living does not stop us from enjoying the outdoors on a cold November day even if we are in our back yard. Tomorrow We go to pick up a deer from the processor, can anyone say tenderloin. I'll Probably just get some squirrels out of the freezer tonight.