Hunting, timing, and coincidences?

Shannon Bohrer

(3/2021) The pandemic isolated many of us from our family and friends. However, living on a farm and as an avid outdoorsman and hunter, I had more time to enjoy this past hunting season. As usual, the hunting was nice. When I say nice, that means I was outside, not in the rain, and enjoying nature. When the hunting is good, I see the game that I am hunting. When hunting is great, the game I see is within shooting range. That still does not mean that I had a shot, but the quarry was close. This year the hunting was good, because I saw a lot of game, but it also felt a little different. I thought my hunting timing was off.

Sitting in my deer stand, I could observe the hay field where I have goose decoys set out, about 200 yards from my stand. While observing this, I saw geese landing in the decoys. There were also times when the geese flew right over my deer stand. Was this just bad timing, or maybe an intentional attempt by the geese to humiliate me? When I told my wife about this, she mumbled something about being smarter than a migratory bird; I think that is what she said. I believed it was just a coincidence, or maybe just bad timing.

A week later, when I was hunting from the goose blind, there were several times when I observed deer in the vicinity of my deer stand. Thinking about this I came to several conclusions. The first being that the deer and geese are smarter than I believed. The second is that they communicate with each other and together, they hatched a plan to humiliate me. Another thought I had was this was just poor timing on my part, just a coincidence. I did not entertain the metaphysical possibilities, not having a calculator in the goose blind.

At 74 years old, I have been hunting for a long time and while sitting in the goose blind, I thought of other hunting experiences that included poor timing or just bad coincidences. One being my first hunting experience when I was just 8 years old. I was with my Uncle George, along the C&O canal. The canal was private property back then, and my uncle had a cabin between the canal and the river. We were hunting raccoons, with his dogs, at night. While I remember being excited about going hunting, when I realized that we would be in the woods in the dark, my eagerness turned to a little apprehension. I had been to the cabin before and remembered that you could not see anything when it was dark. I asked Uncle George if we would have flashlights, he said no, but there would be a campfire to keep us warm. The campfire greatly relieved my apprehension.

Uncle George, a friend of my uncles, and I sat around a small campfire, listening for the dogs. When the dogs barked in a language that Uncle George understood, that meant they had a raccoon treed. Uncle George and the other hunter would jump us and run through the woods in the direction of the barking. I followed but could not keep, and after losing sight of anything in front of me, I would stop. At first this felt like a traumatic experience, being eight years old, and not knowing where I was. After a minute or two, that seemed like hours; I would hear a shot. After which, the dogs would stop barking, and Uncle George would eventually return, finding me in the woods. He had a unique ability to locate me in the dark. The sequence was repeated numerous times, with me always meeting the hunters returning to the campfire. Did I mention that it was dark? Oh, and Uncle George liked telling me bear stories, which I thought about each time he approached me in the woods, with no light.

You may think that my first hunting experience was poor at best, but that was not true. The following day, my uncle George gave me a real raccoon skin that had been stretched, salted, and dried, well almost dried. I intended to finish the curing process and make myself a real coon-skin hat, just like Davey Crockett's. At that time, every eight-year boy had no idea who the president was, but we all knew Davey Crockett. Davy Crockett was everyone’s hero; he always stood up for what was right.

When I got home, I had a feeling that my mother might disapprove of my plans, so I hid the skin in the bottom drawer of my dresser. Several days later, my mother found my project before it was finished. She seemed upset, saying something about Uncle George and great bodily harm as if she had a premonition. She also said something about an unusual odor coming from my room. I think she had an overly sensitive sense of smell. I never thought my dog smelled bad, but maybe I was used to him.

After that unfortunate loss of my opportunity to make a real coon-skin cap, I was prohibited from associating with Uncle George without prior permission. I still fished and accompanied him hunting other small game. But the only thing I brought home was fish, cleaned of course.

After I turned 10, my father taught me how to shoot, and we hunted for small game. We were not always successful, but they were great memories. I remember my mother sometimes questioning my father when we returned. I do not remember exactly was she was asking, but while questioning him, she would also check my backpack and bedroll, even smelling everything. I think she was worried about me having clean clothing. Another behavior she often displayed after our hunting trips was that she opened the only window in my bedroom and closed the door.

Hunting gives one time to reminisce, think about the meaning of life, the opportunities, the disappointments, and even the metaphysical science of bad timing. While this past season was nice, we did end up with four geese. After goose hunting one day, I found four harvested geese next to the barn when I returned to the house. My wife informed me that a neighbor who was also hunting geese had dropped them off. Apparently, the neighbor knew I was also hunting, and he heard some strange goose calls, possibly sick geese, coming from the direction of our field. I had been using my goose call, and I never heard the strange calls. When I see him again, I might suggest that he should have his hearing checked. Hearing issues can sneak up on you, at least that is what my wife tells me. I think that is what she said.

With four geese, my poor timing was finally changing.