The Old Days

[Swede]

As I age, I find myself reminiscing about hunts from long ago. There are many things about those hunts from the late 1950s and 1960s that I miss. The times were simpler. I never heard of scoring a buck or bull. I would have had no idea what a 300-class bull was and would not have cared. My first bull was a mature 6X6, but I have no idea about what happened to the antlers. There were no pictures as I had no camera. I have never scored the buck I posted for the August photo contest. A freezer full of meat that would last through a long winter was all that mattered.
We had no Mountain House meals, fancy threads or many of the gadgets we carry around today. What I lacked back then was experience. That took years and came slowly. One thing I like today is how much easier it is to learn good hunting skills and practices. I would just like to get the competitiveness out of all hunting.
These are just my rambling thoughts.

[Lefty]

Only the rich could hunt elk,,, That was the theory. living in Minnesota 55 years ago


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Minnesota deer season was the 2nd week in November until a couple days after Thanksgiving in the Minnesota Rife zone. At that time not many had scoped guns with a 1.5-4 the standard deer scope
Bacon, and eggs for breakfast, Maybe oatmeal with raisins or chocolate chips if dad wasnt cooking. For lunch oranges, apples, a baloney sandwich on Wonder bread with mustard on lion and Miracle Whip.

And we had real suppers at deer camp, If back at camp home made soups. Oh and the dumplings and kraut for supper, Or potatoes pancakes piled high with canned peaches.

Or deer heart with lard fried sliced potatoes.

Our lodge was a converted school bus with propane heat.
Pack boots, layers of wool pants and Thermal underwear.

Access in many areas is often easier. From ATV's 4x4 drive high tech clothing, mapping programs ,, on and on.

Now days its easy enough to jump the wall of learning to hunt most any game. TV Hunting shows , video , classes, webinars, forums, apps, web sites , on and on.
Even spendable income makes hunting easier. My dad didnt own a spotting scope, range finder , compound bow, rain gear ( that works)

As far as competitiveness s I think of what I do more as drive.
Do I want to shoot the biggest bull in the mountains,, you betcha. I use to be more willing to be in the woods before most were out of bed. I dont need that. I do prefer to not hunt near others, I dont like other people horning in on an area we are working,,, but I don't get bent out out shape either.
More importantly for me I like to just be out there Doing it.. The game will come, the freezer gets full .

[saddlesore]

Those early days made us tough. Our camp was a canvas tarp thrown on the grown and pulled up over our bed roll.Old quilts and no pad. Cooking over an open fire and kerosene lanterns for light. Later we thought we were in fat city when we bought an old military tent and second hand coleman stove.

I had bought my first center fire rifle in 64. A Winchester Model 88 for $126 , in .308, and I put a 4X $18 Bushnell scope on it. A friend loaded up some ammo for me. Military picked up brass, Speer bullets that the sporting good store sold from a barrel by the pound, H335 surplus powder at 32 cents a pound. I think the primers were 75-85 cents per pound. That was my high tech.

The only competitiveness to it all was if I didn't fill a tag it meant eating old dairy cows we bought for 3 cents a pound and had processed for 1&12/cents a pound,with $11 /100 pinto beans. If that happened,I sure hunted harder the following year.

My hunting rig was the 56 Chevy family car. What didn't get stuffed in the trunk went in the back seat. My wife complained about the deer and elk smell coming from the back and there were a lot of ews' and yucks from the kids.

Later I had a 58 Ford, Short box half ton with a stock rack on the back. I had bought horse,saddle, and 50 bales of hay for $125. We tied our bed rolls on the back and used two military paunchos that snapped together to make sort of pup tent. We camped wherever we were that night and cooked on one of those SVEA back pack stoves. When we tagged something it got tied onto the riding saddle and we walked back to the truck

I don't know if those were the good old days or not.

[Jhg]

I don't go back as far as some of you crust muffins, especially elk hunting, but I agree nobody really gave a whatever about scoring racks or of rack size in general. If you got a big racked animal, great. Most of the time it never even earned a photograph. I never photographed any of the animals I shot. In my early super earnest days that seemed (to me) an insult to the animal on top of needing a camera along to do it and then what? Getting some people together, pulling out the pictures and saying, how great I am? No thanks. That seemed too much. Now its easy to share without doing it in a way that is calculated.

Since then I recently have realized the fun in gloating about a nice bull elk, in the spirit of the elk hunters here, that share the passion and know what work is. So that last comment qualifies me as nostalgic, bringing up hard work. Only old folk do that.

[Swede]

I too remember the tarp, the army tent, kerosene lamp or white gas, army surplus sleeping bag, open fire and or white gas stove. I often had a new red shirt to hunt in, but everything else was just everyday clothes. I do not know it it was the "good Ol days, but they were simpler, and the mindset was to just fill our tags. I still remember that the buck killed and used for the August photo contes weighted 209# on the butcher scale. It was a warm October that year, so we hung it in the butcher shop. The year before I killed a larger buck, but it did not go to town, so I have to estimate it weighed 240# dressed out. I have only memories of that deer.

[Swede]

Jhg, I have no problem with taking pictures of your hunt or trophies. They just make for clearer memories. I just did not have a camera. The picture I have of my deer rack was taken after I returned home from my hunt and the family wanted a picture of me before leaving again. I got the photo from my folk's home after they passed away.

[Jhg]

Yeah, my perspective in my 20's was sometimes very black & white. Pun intended.

[saddlesore]

I do take photos, with my memory the way it is now, it is the only way, I can sit and reminisce about my hunts of past years. I also take photos of the camps, my horses or mules packing, scenery of area I hunted and hunting partners. With what I am going thru now, I am glad I did. I have typical wildlife mounted and hung in this little room I call a den the antlers of the first bull I killed back in about 1966.The last bull's antlers are in the rafters in the barn.

[saddlesore]

Speaking about good old days, about 65 years ago or so, my first deer hunt .It was in December in PA. About a foot of snow on the ground and plenty below cold. I was either 12 or 14, the legal age to start hunting. Dad had borrowed my uncle's 32-20 Remington pump. He was hunting with his Marlin 38-40 and my mother had her Winchester 94, 30-30 .
This Remington had the helix tubular magazine that the whole thing moved when you pumped a new cartridge in.

Dad took me this favorite spot and said he had shot several deer from it. His instructions were don't move, don't walk around, and don't make a sound. They left me there alone. It was under a big pine tree with a nice stump to set on. It was darn cold, well below freezing, but mid morning the sun peek out enough to let some of the snow on the pine tree drop off.

One of those clumps dropped on me and onto my rifle. It covered that helix tube and the barrel. Knowing that I would probably need another shot if a deer come by, I brushed it off as well as I could. Not all of it came of between the barrel and the tube, so I brought it up to my mouth and blew.

Bam, my upper lip stick to that cold metal like the little kid in that Christmas movie and the flag pole.The longer it stuck there, the more it froze. I got enough courage to pull it off and about an inch of my lip stayed with the rifle. Knowing how Dad would feel if I yelled and scared any deer away, I stifled a scream. It wasn't too long until blood was flowing pretty good and I had about as much hunting as I wanted. My mother was the first to show up about half hour later and panicked with all the blood. Dad came along shortly and had a good laugh when I told him what happened and that he had told me not to make a sound so I didn't call him.

I think I saw three does that week and never got a shot off at a buck. Yea,the good old days.

[Jhg]

OMG. Great story. The part about not screaming because dad said so is classic. I remember taking my dad literally all the time until I was about 20.

[ElkNut1]

Vince, LOL!!!

ElkNut

[WapitiTalk1]

Cripes! That’s awesome Vince. Gives me a new thread inspiration. I’ll get it rolling soon.