Just today, someone asked me if I had any luck during the current hunting season. This one happened to be spring gobbler season and my answer was that I had experienced plenty of good luck but hadn’t bagged a turkey yet. Folks innocently ask about a dead animal, bird or fish, believing that the main purpose for hunting or fishing is to bring home the critter whose name is the title of the open season; completely understandable, especially if the inquirer is not an angler or hunter.

    Those of us who hunt and fish because of who we are understand that the pursuit is more important than the kill especially as we get a bit long in the tooth.

    This truth was manifested to me last fall when my friend, Lew Keenan, and I made yet another elk hunt together in northwest Colorado. My friend’s love of the outdoors is enormous. He was raised in semi-arid ranching country in extreme southern California, and the gorgeous Rockies opened his eyes to another kind of natural beauty.

    Lew didn’t draw an elk license for the same time as I so he just went along with me (at no small expense) to add to our store of adventures together. Does that say anything about what is important on a hunt? And it was one of the finest hunts of my life. By the way, I didn’t even get a shot at an elk. We hunted mostly territory in the old Hole in the Wall gang country that I was very familiar with and learned late in the week from a bear hunter that a big bear was busy “working” that area and most of the elk had vamoosed. Once we moved to other covers we found elk.

                                                            Real Story

 

    But the story of our hunt was the shared enjoyment of being in some of God’s finest country and relishing our friendship and common propensities. Lew prepared great meals in his camper that we enjoyed in rain and shine. I slept alone in a tent to be closer to night stuff like yodeling coyotes and bugling elk. But breakfasts in the camper were to die for.

    Lew would hike long ridges with hopes of jumping an elk and pushing it to me as I took stands at likely crossings. He would suggest places to hunt which almost always led us to some new interesting sight or adventure. We photographed huge bull elk rubs and distant rain storms and sunrises and tiny plants on rocks and on and on. Lew even photographed me glassing a beautiful burn and its cover of cured western ryegrass.

    Lew and I were flanking each other one day on a large bench on the side of Douglas Mountain. I was trekking along the mountain side of the bench when I encountered a series of small caves. As the low growing juniper trees pinched me in uncomfortably tight to the caves where mountain lions and bears dwell, I suddenly got a nose full of cat scent. I backed out of that tight place quickly and kept my distance from the caves henceforth. A rifle is almost useless against a hungry cougar in close quarters. A pistol or sheath knife would be better and I had neither.

    The first written expression of our memorable time together was a letter from Lew that came just a few weeks ago when we were both “hunkered down by a fire” as he noted.

                                    A Gift

 

    I noticed him gathering several kinds of wood from dead trees during our hunt. He surprised me with a gift I will always cherish. Woodworking was a skill I didn’t know he had, and he made me a game caller from … well, here are words from his letter.

    “The wildlife call I made especially for you is made from two kinds of wood off Douglas Mountain. The barrel is made from a cedar branch I selected from close to where you are sitting in the first picture on the enclosed CD… The stopper is made from a small piece of mountain mahogany I gathered on top of Douglas Mountain where we spent the night in your pickup.

    “I hope you enjoy the call half as much as I did making it…Calls are not always just about their looks and the unique sounds they produce. This is a case in point, only you and I hold beyond that, the fond memory and appreciation of where and how your homemade wildlife call actually came to be.”

    Lew knew how much I, for over 25 years, have loved Douglas Mountain, where Butch and Sundance spent a lot of time. Now I have a keepsake from there that couldn’t be more heartwarming and which will rest in my trophy case when I am not using it; an outdoor art piece born of a cherished friendship.