Pennsylvania Game News - July 2019 - 20

his grazing.
It suddenly occurs to you what you
came here to do. You ever so slowly draw
up your left knee. The chuck jumps up
again, but you haven't spooked him. He
is just looking around for trouble as they
do every 15 seconds or so. He is up for
maybe five seconds, then down again.
You take advantage of the seconds he
will be feeding to bring your rifle up
level and plant your elbow against the
thigh right below your knee of the drawn
up leg.
You draw a bead on the feeding chuck,
but you know now is not the time to pull
the trigger. Not when he is a target only
a couple of inches thick. Also, you can't
see his head. That's the only place to hit a
chuck, not only because they are a tough
little animal and hard to stop with a body
hit. But, also, that is just the way it's done.
It's headshots or nothing, either an instant
kill or a clean miss.
Then he is upright in your sights. But,
again, you hold off. He's a little too close
to the den. If something were to go wrong,
you would hate to have him escape to
suffer. So, you relax.
This time, as he comes up you follow
him with the sights and as he stands there
the sights are imprinted against the base of
his ear. Your finger tightens on the trigger.
In an instant it will be over. The hunt will
have been a success.
But, is the hunt the killing of an
animal? Sure that's the logical purpose for
it. But, the hunt is really being with your
own mind, body and skills. It is watching
the sunset and smelling the fragrances.
It is being united with the earth, and in
a way, pitting yourself against a particular
animal's senses and cunning, or, in the
extreme, its fangs, claws or horns and
then making that animal part of your life
20

by taking its life, the pact between you
and the natural world that the Creator
intended is sealed.
You let up on the trigger, stand and
walk away. It has been a good hunt.
There will be other chucks, perhaps
the same one, and more importantly, there
will be days to enjoy life while pursuing
them.
Les
After a long illness, Les died shortly
before the 1989 hunting season.
Les had wanted part of his ashes
spread at the spot near our Clearfield
hunting camp where he had killed his first
buck, a four point, in 1976.
On the Sunday afternoon before buck
season, we gathered on that distant hill.
From the old, worn camp Bible, I
struggled to read from Ecclesiastes 3,
"To everything there is a season, a time
for every purpose under heaven: a time
to be born, and a time to die... "
I stole a glance at Les's own mentors
gathered with me; my father; my Uncle
Doug; and close elder companions. These
men were the wisest, strongest, toughest
men I knew, each of whom I admired
greatly and each of them, like me, sobbing
like babies.
Les was gone. But, his legacy remained
in his letters, the memories and in the
many he affected and inspired.
The woodchuck hunting letter had
come first, but, there were many more
hunts to share through his letters.
In the end, rereading Les's letters
hadn't been the painful reminder of buried
pain and emotions that I feared.
Instead, it was a gift of many pleasant
hours spent with my brother and best
friend.
Pennsylvania Game News - July 2019

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