HUNTING WITH HENRY
Chris and Betty Lindseth gave me Henry when he was three and I think
he already knew what deer were. He jumped a spike buck and yipped
when he jumped it, the first time I took him out. Where we live there
are lots of Columbia Blacktail deer, but its not legal to hunt them with
dogs. After a few chases, and me not shooting him one, Henry lost
his exuberance to jump deer around home. He would jump one occasionally,
but he concentrated on the other game he was out there to hunt. Pheasants,
coon, nutria, feral cats, and digger squirrels were his usual quarry.
He learned to avoid skunks after getting badly stunk up two or three times.
Once he got used to the rank smell of ducks, he was great on retrieving
them.
| We started taking float trips on wilderness rivers and Henry loved
that. We would go for deer season and also fish, hunt chukar partridge,
quail, ducks, and an occasional pheasant. Henry loved all this, especially
chukars. He would sit and wait for any scrap left over when getting
chukars ready to cook. He seemed to relish the smell and taste of
chukar above everything.
Without being told, he seemed to understand that deer were the big prize,
although he even tried to help land bass and catfish. While rafting
quietly on these floats, we would watch Henry. When he perked up
and started sifting the wind with his nose, we knew deer were not too far
ahead. One trip a buck was hit poorly and kegged up in a big brush
patch beside the river. After trying, in vain, to find the buck,
I sicked Henry into the brush patch. Soon, the buck hit the
river with Henry swimming in pursuit. Across and out of sight, we
heard Henry ki-yi and knew the buck had hit him. We hurried on down stream
until we could see that Henry had the three point mule deer bayed in a
little opening and a careful shot finished the job. What a relief
that Henry was not badly hurt. |
|
The next year, on that same river, one raft had got ahead
nearly 100 yards. Ellis (then about 10), Big Dan, and I were in the
trailing raft when we heard a shot from just ahead. Upon rounding
the bend, we saw that Ernie and Tony had a nice buck down about 150 feet
up from the river edge. Something didn't look quite right to me,
so I looked at the buck with my 10 power binoculars. Although he
was down, his eyes were fluttering. I yelled at those guys, "Hey,
that bucks not dead". They laughed, hollering back, "You can't fool
us this time", and proceeded up the bank, without a rifle. I hollered
again, that I wasn't kidding, and again they continued up the hill.
About that time, the buck jumped up and took off in high gear. The
guys on the bank had Henry with them and released him at this point in
time. I asked Big Dan to kill the buck. He had shot all his
shells that were immediately available, at a couple of coyotes earlier
in the afternoon, so he was no help. I beached our raft on the opposite
shore from the other raft, grabbed my 270 and got one hurried shot at the
flying buck at about 200 yards. Somehow, I took off a hind leg as
he disappeared into a big patch of tall, blue-green reeds. Henry
caught him and the fight was on. We could hear the brawl and catch
glimpses of one or the other as they fought back and forth. I was
running down the opposite bank and firing whenever I saw an opening.
Finally I must have nicked the buck again, because he jumped in the river,
with Henry about 20 feet behind. Across, to my side and nearly obscured
by the river bank, I continued to load and shoot. Back into the river
went the buck. In desperation, I tried to steady a shot, and finished
the buck in mid river. He hung up on a rock and we retrieved
him by floating him downstream about a hundred yards. Only one antler
was on him. The other was a heavy stump with a bullet hole through
it. We guessed that Ernie's first shot had stunned the deer with
that antler shot. Ernie said it was my buck, but I convinced him
it was really Henry's buck----a very nice one, at that. Anyway,
we all shared the meat. Milton
The buck on the right is the one horned buck from the story above
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