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Murphy's Law - Alive and Well.
By John Keltgen
May 27, 2005, 00:36
A Hunter’s Constant Companion, by John P. Keltgen
He’s always there, though you may not be able to see him. He awakens when you do and he never sleeps. He’s at work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He is known far and wide by every hunter whether they be male or female, young or old, experienced or new to the sport. He hinders you in every way he possibly can and he is very good at his job. No one knows his last name, but they curse his laws, of which he has many. His name… Murphy.
Most people meet Murphy at a young and innocent age. Murphy has no qualms about enforcing his laws on the young, he is the equal opportunity type. Myself, I met him at the tender age of five, when my father first took me into the bow stand. I remember it like it was yesterday…
There she was, walking toward the bow stand along a hard-packed trail. My father whispered in my ear, “Johnny, don’t move and keep quiet.”
I tried my best to keep still, but this is the first time I had seen a deer up close and personal. I shivered with excitement, my heart pounding so hard I’m surprised she didn’t see it pounding against my coat. My breath caught in my throat as my father slowly drew his bow.
This was it! The moment of truth. My father came to full draw and… BANG!!!!! The bow exploded in his hands! All I remember was seeing her flag in the air and hearing her hooves beating against the earth.
Then a sound came to my young ears that I never heard before. My father had started speaking in what sounded like a different language. Short and sharply spoken four lettered words came spewing forth from his mouth in a steady stream.
I caught only one word in ten (I was young, they didn’t have words like that on television just yet). That one word was a name that I would, unknowingly, repeat over and over again in my years of hunting. That name… Murphy.
I asked my dad on the drive home what that one word meant. Since I was young, I hadn’t specified and he told me only two things.
The first: “I shouldn’t have said those words. They were naughty words and I don’t ever want to hear you repeat them.” The second: “Do NOT tell your mother.”
But I was persistent and asked him directly, “Who is Murphy?” He seemed to let out a huge breath and said in an almost thankful tone,
“Murphy is a guy who made some laws… he follows every hunter wherever he goes. Murphy’s Law states, son, that ‘anything that can go wrong, will, at the worst possible time.”
Apparently satisfied with his explanation, he changed the subject (rather quickly now that I think about it), asking me how I felt to see that doe up close. I excitedly told him what was going through my head and Murphy, along with those other odd words, were forgotten for the time being.
That was the last I thought about Murphy until I went on my first pheasant hunt. The details of that hunt are long and involved. Let me just say that my first brush with Murphy involved my having to go to the bathroom and an electric fence hidden in the weeds.
We have all had brushes with Murphy while hunting and the closer one gets to an animal, the closer he seems to watch. In bowhunting, we sometimes get so close to an animal that we can see their veins pulsating.
The most effective weapon is preparedness… and a good sense of humor. Double-check all your gear, double-check your vehicle, double-check everything you want and it still may not matter. Somehow he can worm his way into your pack and unscrew the lid of a fresh bottle of doe-in-heat. I have found that doe-in-heat scent tends to get rather rancid and leaves a horrible stain when left in the sun baked back seat of your wife’s brand new car. Somehow, my sense of humor didn’t kick in with that episode. The score: Murphy- 1, Me- 0.
I’m sure Murphy was there when man first used a tool to kill his dinner. I can see a cave man, his lips tightened in fear, standing on a cliff behind a huge boulder. The mammoth lumbering underneath, unaware that death was only a few moments away. The cave mean pushes on the boulder and… nothing happens. Something had firmly wedged itself under the boulder. The mammoth moves on, the hunter goes home empty-handed and hungry.
As much as Murphy tries, he doesn’t always win. There will always be hunters who thwart him and take their game with minimal disruption. After all, he cannot be everywhere at once and somewhere a bow string is spared, or a flashlight’s battery.
NEXT: How a checklist can help you avoid a tussle by Murphy.
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