Back in the Day

[WapitiTalk1]

Back before we knew any better, or, we were just making the best of what we had, we used to improvise and/or use what we had to go hunting, fishing, trapping, etc. Thought this would be a fun, nostalgic look at our "back in the day" adventures. Let's format them like this.

"Back in the day, I used to/had to/used, etc." Here's a couple to start

Back in the day, any game pack with a "sack" attached was a luxury, most packing was done with packboards with nylon shoulder straps.

Back in the day, I used to drive an old Honda Trail 70 ten miles round trip on the backroads in MT, after school, in freezing temps, on icy roads, and in snowstorms to check my traps.

I'm sure we'll get some good "back in the day" adventures from this croud

[Swede]

The GPS is one of the greatest assets I carry with me on my hunts. Back in the day, I remember heading out in a snow storm, and after a day of hunting miles from camp, I would look down at my map and compass and say "camp is that way". and pray I was right. I could not see more than 50 yards, but it was amazing how that little compass would put me back on the road just above camp. Yes that little compass was worth its weight in gold, but the GPS makes me feel more than double secure.

[MTLongdraw]

Back in the day (last season) I hunted in a lot of cotton Here's to hoping my new Core4 stuff does me good.

[buglmin]

I remember my dad, Judd Cooney, Donny Volger using rolled up copper gas pipe to "whistle" bulls in...then my dad started making a call out of 5/8" PVC pipe. plugging one end, cutting a 45 degree notch bout three inches from the open end, and then whittling a reed and sliding it into the PVC pipe. Looked just like a lil flute. It was louder then the gas pipes, and the bulls answered it at farther distances. Back in the day, they didnt use cow calls, and I can still close my eyes and see those bulls come screaming down a hillside...

[cnelk]

Back in Minnesota, I remember the the ice getting so thick on Lake of the Woods we put a
3 ft extension on the 4ft ice auger, stand on the tailgate of the pickup to drill holes to fish

And I remember staying home from school in the spring when the fish started to run up the creek.
Do you know that northern pike 'glow' when you shine them with a spotlight?
So do walleye's eyes...

Oooooppps - I also remember dad telling me not saying anything about that....
But we just were doing fish counts

[WapitiTalk1]

Back in Minnesota, I remember the the ice getting so thick on Lake of the Woods we put a
3 ft extension on the 4ft ice auger, stand on the tailgate of the pickup to drill holes to fish

I remember my grandparents talking about where they came from, before they moved to MT... Roseau, MN. They talked a lot about Lake of the Woods... Said it was truly God's country. Seven foot of ice, on the back of a pickup, with an "extension" on the auger.. Now that's a "back in the day" story..

[cnelk]

Ah Roseau, MN
That was about 50 miles west of where I lived.

Back in the day I dated a girl from Roseau...

[Lefty]

Ah Roseau, MN That was about 50 miles west of where I lived.)

I use to run traplines each year in Kittson and parts of Marshall and Roseau counties.
I should have trapped longer slept less, and forgot about going to school fall quarter ,..and some spring quarters
Or just moved to SD,..

[Indian Summer]

Back in the day when there was no internet, and not even an Elk Foundation, 0utdoor Life & Field & Stream were the only glimpses of elk hunting and any other incredible worldly adventures. We looked at those elk hunts the same as any story about say cape buffalo or leopard in Africa. Just legends from rich or famous people that were read simply for entertainment. The only wildlife on tv was Lorne Greene's Wild Kingdom.

These days I tell people back east... just fill the tank and hang a left on 80 or 90. But back in the day we thought planning an elk hunt was like planning a bigfoot hunt.

[bnsafe]

back in the day i remember my first set of camo, jungle tiger camo, and a net for a facemask
i remember setting in school and a turkey running across our bball field, first turkey any of us had ever seen in missouri if you can believe that
i remember when turkeys actually gobbled in the tree and answered your turkey calls in mo
i remember drawing for a doe tag in mo and praying i got one, now they are as many as you wanna pay for
i remember when there was quail in mo, now there are none
i remember dreaming of our yearly vacation out west
I REMEMBER PARTY LINE PHONES AND NO CABLES
AND
I REMEMBER WHEN YOU COULD ASK A LANDOWNER PERMISSION TO HUNT AND MAKE A LIFELONG FRIEND

[cnelk]

Back in the day, I used my sister's old dried out, almost empty mascara for face paint.
Add some water and rub it on.

Man. That stuff was hard to get off

[Swede]

cnelk, that is low. But not to fret, my wife still wonders what happened to some of her mascara. She never thought to look in my day pack. She would have suspected our daughters, but they were married and gone. I think I still have some in a tool box I use to carry stuff to camp. lol

[>>>---WW---->]

I remember my first firearm. It was a fork from a peach tree with red rubber inner tube straps and the leather tongue from an old pair of plow shoes. I used rocks for ammo. Now days they call them sling shots. But growing up in southern Illinois, we had another name for them that I can't use on the internet. LOL! Seems like everything these days has to be either political or racially correct.

We did alot of coon hunt'n. (raccoon)! And we used a carbide lamp. We wore those yellow fuzzy work gloves. Hmm! You can still buy those gloves. Anyhow, when our hands got cold, we would start the gloves on fire with the carbide light. As the fuzz burned off of them, it would warm your hands. We always carried our extra carbide in an old Prince Albert tobacco can.

[Indian Summer]

Hey Swede.... remember when we could remember?

[Swede]

Indian Summer, the answer depends on when you ask my wife and what the chore she asked me to do was. I call it "Some timers disease". It is related to Alzheimer's, but It kicks in bad only on occasion. The good news is, I still have never missed dinner. lol

[easeup]

hey IS,
I remember Wild Kingdom as Mutual of Omaha show with a guy named Marlin Perkins doing the story telling.

[easeup]

back in the day......you guys ought to love this one...

when I finally got a drivers license, I drove to school everday with a loaded 30-30 hanging from the rear window of a 65 model chevy pu.
I left the windows down and unlocked. all the other guys did likewise. there were no shootings in school nor any trouble. no thefts. just good kids growing up honest in TX. I would get up early and run traps and hope I didnt catch a skunk. then make a 10 mile loop shooting coyotes from the road. then go to class.
nowdays I would be a criminal for such behavior.

[Indian Summer]

Ease... you expect us to believe that! I saw that movie. You lived in Mayberry?

0ne time my brother was late for school. His homeroom teacher had had enough so he sent him to the principals office. When the principal asked where he had been Doug told him he had a hell of a time finishing off a raccoon in one of his traps. He checked his line every morning before school. The principal said really... how has the trapping been which led to a half hour of trapping stories right into 1st period complete with laughs and he told him to get started sooner from now on & good luck.

Back in the day we had had good clean fun. We played in the woods & creeks mostly.

Judd Cooney... there's a blast from the past.

[cnelk]

Oh yeah...
Fall Bear hunting on the way to school was the best times!

Then, we would get a spring bear tag in Ontario and drive across the bridge to hunt bear over there. Rifle included

[WapitiTalk1]

Back in the day, bread sacks over my wool socks in my old sorrel boots were required gear to walk to school in the snow.

Back in the day, my dad told me I didn't need to take the .22 back to the place I had a skunk in my beaver drown set.. He told my brother and I to cut the longest lodgepole pine we could lift between us and drop it on that skunks's back. He said it would break it's back and it couldn't spray. As we came home from dispatching the skunk with said lodgepole, my brother and I could hear my pop and his loggin buddies laughing as we pulled back to the house on on old Honda. A wash basin and tomato juice awaited our arrival. Another humorous lesson from my pop in MT. RJ

[>>>---WW---->]

Ahhhhhhh those trapline stories.

I always ran my line before school. One morning I caught a jumbo boar mink. But instead of him wrapping around the drowning stake, he crawled up under some tree roots at the waters edge. When I reached down for the trap chain to pull him out, he switched ends on me and sprayed me real good. By the time I got back to town, it was getting late so I headed straight to school. The principal was standing at the front door when I walked in. He grabbed me off to the side and sent me home for a good bath and a change of clothes.

I never did get in trouble over it. But I can still see the look on his face. I'll bet he burst out laughing as soon as I was out of sight!

[easeup]

being young and innocent I guess I thought the whole world was just like small town Texas.

maybe it was Mayberry.

[ironhead22]

Remember back in the day when climbing treestands weighed 500 pounds and had plywood platforms. I had no hand climber and had to bear hug the tree and very seldom didn't slide 10 ft back down the tree and didnt think twice about not being strapped in. Oh to be 15 and dumb again!

[cnelk]

Remember back in the day when climbing treestands weighed 500 pounds and had plywood platforms. I had no hand climber and had to bear hug the tree and very seldom didn't slide 10 ft back down the tree and didnt think twice about not being strapped in. Oh to be 15 and dumb again!

Ah yes...
The old Baker climbing stands. Fell out of more than one tree using them

[>>>---WW---->]

Tree stand? What tree stand? We always just picked a big old white oak tree and sat on a limb. Tree stands hadn't been invented back in the early 60s unless you call nailing 2x4s to a tree a treestand.

[cnelk]

Oh yeah.

The true meaning of 'crotch'....

[Indian Summer]

Ironhead... yeah, wooden stands. Nothing like getting to your treestand and finding out a porcupine ate half of it for lunch the day before!