John Keltgen
Hunting With Dad
By John Keltgen
Mar 30, 2005, 09:59
 

John Keltgen started this way. We all started this way. Nothing means more than the first time...

“Okay John, you walk around the grove and get up high on that old truck. You remember where that is?”

I shake my head in the affirmative, having hunted this grove with my father countless times. 

He points with his finger and says, “Okay, I’ll go to this end of the grove and those rabbits should just come hopping through really slow, just keep quiet and don’t move.”

I nodded, again, having heard this litany about as many times as I’ve hunted the grove.  On my 150 yard walk around the grove, cradling “Nellie”, my brother’s shotgun, I thought to myself, “Jeez, he still talks to me like I’m 12 years old or something.” 

Taking my place on top of an old, rusted out pick-up that was probably there long before I was born, I shivered in the cold of the deep Minnesota winter. 

I watched my Dad, resplendent in blaze orange, enter the far end of the 20 yard wide grove.  I checked my pockets.  Yep, I had around a box and a half of shells… should be just about enough for this grove.  I watched the progress of my father, crunching through the grove and stomping on brush piles.  There, a rabbit, about 20 yards in front of him (around a hundred from me). 

I caught motion to my left, a cottontail was sitting right in the open.  I leveled the bead on his head and pulled the trigger.  BOOM!  One rabbit down… then the grove erupted!  Little gray cottontails were running everywhere!  I was shooting as fast as I could get shells into the gun.  Rabbits were zooming past me as I frantically reached into my pockets for more shells.  It was fast-paced shooting, most times the firing pin fell on an empty chamber since I was shooting too fast to count shots. 

My dad was about 50 yards from me by then, also shooting at rabbits that saw me and doubled back.  I reached in my pocket… uh oh, nothing!  I yelled, “Dad, I’m out!”  He leveled his gun at another rabbit and pulled the trigger, “FINE!  Just stand there and wave your arms!  Send ‘em back my way!”  The air was filled with smoke, the smell of gun powder, and rabbit hair…

Whew!  When all was said and done, around thirty rabbits lay in the deep snow.  We gathered them into a big furry heap.  Dad pulled out his pocket knife, which was so old the blade was maybe a quarter inch thick from years of sharpening, and pointed to the pile. 

“Well, what are ya waiting for?  Start skinning.” 

I smiled as I grabbed the first rabbit.  Yep, just like when I was 12, I started in on the well remembered job.  Dad was all business when it came to cleaning so talking wasn’t an option, getting out of the snow and cold was the number one priority here.  Pulling the hide off the first rabbit, I passed it to my dad and slipped into memories.

I was probably ten years old as my dad pulled that old ’70 Chevy into the driveway.  It was his second day off the annual two weeks he took off work for trapping.  I raced out to the truck to see what he had caught trapping.  He dropped the tailgate and my eyes got as big as dinner plates (like they always did).  Piled in the truck bed were more muskrats, mink, coons, and fox than I could count at that age. 

The first thing Dad did was strip off the chest waders he had been wearing all day.  Then he smiled at me (the rare smile that one saw on his usually serious face) and said, 

“Got a few animals here Johnny, wanna help me get them into the basement?” 

Oh yeah I did!  This was the year I got to help him skin and I was anxious to get started.  It took nearly an hour to get the truck bed emptied and all the animals into the basement.  By the time we got the last of the coon into the basement, the first muskrat was dry.  Dad pulled out two five-gallon buckets, known to him as “Hunter’s Chairs”, and motioned for me to sit down. 

He then proceeded to show me how to make the first two cuts on a ‘rat.  He put his foot on the tail and pulled tight on one of the back legs.  One cut along the back leg, starting at the foot and running to the base of the tail and repeat.  Once I had that done I could pass the ‘rat to him and he would finish cleaning it.  He had the first one completely skinned just before I passed him the second one.  He took it from me, saw my frown at how slow I was going, and grinned once more. 

“Don’t worry,” he said, “you’re gonna get plenty fast at this before too long.”

 Boy was he right!  Thinking back, if I had a nickel for every muskrat I skinned for my dad over the years, I’d be a rich man!  That was back when trapping was worth something.  I recall that he got around $40 for a large coon back in the day.  Now you’re lucky to get a plug nickel for one. 

The mists of time began to fade away as the wet snow melted on my fingers.  Dad was still busy, there were still around five or six rabbits to finish up.  I asked him if he needed help with those last few.  He just grunted and said in a preoccupied voice, 

“Naw, I just got a couple more to clean, don’t want you cutting yourself.” 

As I thought, Johnny is still a little boy in his dad’s eyes.  I don’t know how I can still look like a boy when I stand 6’4” and weigh in at around 250 pounds, but, my dad’s vision isn’t all that good anymore.  He finished the last rabbits with the same efficiency as he did when he was a young man and we moved on to the next spot.  Time for more memories later, there was hunting to do!

Over the years, just the time spent cleaning game with my father amounted to more time than a lot of kids spend with their parents, though I didn’t know that I was actually working.  All that time, to me, was just plain old quality time with Dad.  I can’t even begin to calculate the time spent hunting and fishing. 

The hours he’d spend with me in the bowstand, trapping, fishing, hiking, and camping all melt into one big memory.  But sometimes, something happens that triggers a memory or two in particular.  I was watching one of the hunting shows, I forget which, and I saw that they were pheasant hunting in Iowa, near the Missouri border.  That triggered a memory as well. 

I was in fourth grade and it was my first “Big Hunt”, where I took a trip outside the borders of Minnesota.  I took a week off of school and my father and I were to meet my Uncle Ed down in the south-western corner of Iowa for a mixed bag hunt consisting of pheasant, waterfowl, and Bobwhite quail. 

In preparation for my hunt, I was allowed to buy my first ever hunting cap. My dad stopped at the local hardware store and I picked out a cheap Jones Cap. 

Of course, I didn’t recognize cheap at the time.  To me, that hat was the most expensive and important thing in the world!  I don’t recall the drive down, but I recall pulling into a field approach next to my Uncle’s old pickup.  We knew it as my Uncle’s as he was probably the only person in the state of Iowa with those yellow Alaska plates. 

We unloaded the bed of dad’s little Ford Ranger (which we were going to be sleeping in), let the dog out (who was also going to be sharing the truck bed), and uncased the guns for a quick hunt along a fence line.  We shot two roosters and came back to the truck at the same time my uncle came strolling down the road.  In one hand he held his .22-250 and slung over his shoulder was an animal I hadn’t ever seen before: A coyote (they were scarce in Minnesota at the time). 

We had a great time, to make a long story short.  We shot numerous pheasants, quail, ducks, and snow geese.  What really sticks out is the first hunt we went on though.  That was when my dad made a strange comment to my uncle. 

“Hey Ed, did you see John’s new hat?  It’s pretty nice ain’t it?  You know, it hasn’t even been broken in yet.”

My uncle just nodded and we all piled out of the truck.  Without a word, my uncle loaded a shell into the chamber and my dad grabbed my hat off my head.  I only heard one word: 

“Pull”

My dad whipped my hat into the air and Uncle Ed cracked off a shot.  I could do nothing but stare as my prize possession was blown into the top of a nearby poplar.  I went and sat in the truck as my dad climbed the tree and retrieved my now broken in hat.  There was a jagged hole right in front and there were still pellets stuck under the fabric in the brim as it was placed back on my head. 

It was then that I learned from my dad, the art of the practical joke.  Funny though, they never could figure out who put the hot sauce in their corn-beef hash.

As I sit here writing this, I am rocking my nine-month old son in his chair.  I can’t help but wonder if, when he is 27, he’ll be rocking his own son, writing about me, his father. 

I’m still dreaming of the first time I can take my son into the bow stand with me.  Dreaming of the look on his face when he sees his first deer up close, walking beneath our stand.  Dreaming, of giving him memories that are as good as the ones my father gave me. 

Thanks dad. 

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