Door County Style

The Quasi Mensa Man

Posted on 13. Jan, 2009 by Tom Bridenhagen in Literature

I’d never pretend to be a genius but, hey, I did graduate from Sturgeon Bay High School, so… there you go. I even graduated from the U.W. – Madison, but when I think of some of the people I know who graduated from the You-Mad, well…

Generally speaking, in my long lifetime I’ve made of number of decisions that I think would border on Mensa ability. Randy, my good fishing buddy, said that he’s never seen a person with judgment like mine. When he made that comment, he had what resembled a smirk on his face. I think, though, it was probably just gas because Randy’d eaten several bowls of hot chili an hour before he said it. Randy’s mind borders on Mensa ability as well.

Yes, I’ve made many good decisions and only on a very few occasions could my judgment have been considered questionable by anyone. But as unlikely as it may seem, one such rare occasion did occur just about one year ago.

You see, at that time, my son Stan asked me if I wanted to meet him at our cabin for a Saturday of late season doe hunting. I, of course, readily agreed. Anxiously agreed, in fact. I needed to atone for a bit of bad luck that I experienced during bow season. I’d drawn back on a nice doe and an ant bit me at precisely the wrong instant and I lost my concentration and my fingers slipped and my arrow fell off the bow string. The doe merely stood there for a while, watching me. Then she snorted, tossed her head and went bounding away, big white flag waving farewell. I know deer biologists will tell you that deer aren’t capable of laughing, but I swear I heard that doe make a noise that sound a whole lot like a giggle as she disappeared behind some scrub oaks and pines.

An unseasonably warm December Friday afternoon, the day after Stan called, found me packing my tan Town and Country minivan with a day’s worth of deer hunting equipment and clothing.

Now understand that there are certain things that I feel a deer hunter absolutely must have or he/she simply cannot hunt deer effectively. If you don’t believe that, you may want to refer to a Cabelas or a Bass Pro Shop catalog or read the ads in any hunting magazine or watch some deer hunting programs on cable. Heaven knows, ads always speak the truth!

For example, besides his rifle and shells, a deer hunter must also have an extra gun in case the preferred firearm doesn’t work.

So, into my van went two guns, along with two boxes of shells.

With the outside temperature hovering around 40 degrees F, the sky bright blue and cloudless and just a smidgen of snow on the ground, what should I take along to wear? Hmmmm. It’d be colder in the early morning tomorrow so I’d need to pack my 40-below, Arctic Sorrel boots. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so cold so I’d need my 0-degree La Crosse boots too. But, if it did get really cold I’d need my sooper dooper heavyweight woolie socks. Though if it wasn’t so cold I’d maybe need some lightweight nylon ones. So I packed them all.

And I needed to bring jersey gloves in case it was warm out. And thinsulate gloves in case it wasn’t. And mittens over gloves in case it was even colder. And mittens with built-in pockets for inserting heating packs in case it got really cold. And a pair of waterproof gloves in case of rain. I also had to have three sets of jackets and pants, one for very cold, one for moderate and one for warm, and a blaze orange poncho in case it rained. I needed blaze orange caps in three different weights. Then another set of non-hunting clothing in case I decided to go out to eat that Friday night instead of munching on microwave popcorn and shelled peanuts for supper in our cabin.

And so into the van went the clothing.

For other equipment: let’s see…besides rifle and spare gun and ammo. I’d need a hunting knife and knife sharpener. And a compass. Then another compass in case the first one couldn’t be trusted. Then a third compass, because what if the other two didn’t agree with each other? Best to go two out of three. Just to be on the safe side, I should also take a GPS in case none of the compasses seemed to be getting it right. Unfortunately I hadn’t figured out how to use the GPS but that’s beside the point. If I got lost and somebody accidentally found me, we could maybe figure it out together.

Of course, no deer hunt would be possible without a spray bottle of human-scent killer, and a squeeze bottle of talcum powder to test the wind direction, and a glass bottle of doe-in-estrous liquid. And some felt pads to apply the liquid to and hang on a tree branch.

As the reader can obviously see, to hunt deer properly… I mean really properly… you must have an IQ at least within shooting distance of the 98th percentile!

Not only would I absolutely need that equipment, I’d also need a drag rope for the deer I expected to get. And a small, scrunchable roll of TP for special occasions. A small tupperware container for water. Some power bars for munchies. A pair of 10 x 42 binoculars. Three different deer calls because at least two of the three would more than likely malfunction due to the cold weather and make noises resembling either a very sick cat, a hungry human baby or an angry billy goat, sounds not exactly conducive to luring an intelligent, suspicious whitetail into shooting range.

I’d need my canvas folding stool for sitting on the ground and my strap-on-a-tree stool in case I didn’t want to sit on the ground. And my climbing tree stand in case I couldn’t use the folding one or the strap-on one. And a strap-on-a-tree umbrella to put above my head if I was sitting on my strap-on-a-tree stool and it started to rain. And, of course, a very large backpack to carry much of that equipment in.

As for the cabin, a big Coleman cooler, just in case I might find a use for one (no deer hunting excursion is complete without a big Coleman cooler), and a water jug would do.

What if it got really chilly that Friday night and the cabin furnace didn’t work? I’d need to have a cold weather sleeping bag along, maybe two sleeping bags. And several sweatshirts and caps of various weights to wear so I wouldn’t freeze to death while asleep. And I should also pack my cell phone and cell phone battery charger. And a digital camera and camera battery charger. I mean, after all, this trip was going to involve one entire day of deer hunting!

But three things I would never bring along when I went deer hunting. I would never bring a bar of soap, a wash cloth and a bath towel. In fact, I once heard of a deer hunter who brought those things to camp with him. Now, even years later, when old timers are sitting around a campfire at night, killing a couple of six packs and telling hilarious hunting stories about the good old days, they still tell the funny tale about when the foolish young hunter brought soap, a wash cloth and a bath towel to deer hunting camp. So I vowed I’d never to do it again.

With these thoughts in mind, I went outside to ponder the available storage space in the van. Upon further review, I decided I’d best remove all the van seats, except for the front ones, and temporarily store the removed ones in the basement. And so I did.

* * *

I braked to a stop on the unpaved driveway, just 20 feet off of the gravel road that led to our cabin. Van still running, I stepped out, unlocked the aluminum pole gate across the driveway entrance, swung it open, got back into the van and drove the remaining 75 yards through the woods to the cabin. I was to meet Stan here an hour before sunrise tomorrow. He had to work ’til nearly 7:00 tonight so he’d be driving up to meet me in the morning.

I stopped the van by the cabin door and got out. I was already anticipating a nice quiet evening in the cabin, getting everything organized, planning tomorrow’s hunt. A hot, microwaved meal, a good book, a nice cabin. Then into the sack I’d go, my dreams to be filled with pleasant memories of past hunts and eager anticipation of tomorrow’s.

A few short strides and I was at the cabin door. I reached into the pocket of my jacket for the cabin keys.

“What? Where’s the keys? Must be in my pants pocket.” I tried the front pockets; no keys. The back pockets; no keys. My stomach and throat began to tighten. “Maybe the keys’re in the van?” Back to the van. Look in the console. “Oh crap! No keys.”

My heart sank. I could feel sweat begin to form under my arms, on my brow. The keys must be somewhere in the back of the van, under all that stuff. A half an hour later, minivan emptied, every piece of equipment and clothing examined and re-examined and re-examined again, the truth hit me like a sledgehammer. I’d left the cabin keys at home.

In a near panic I reached into my duffel bag for my cell phone. Maybe my wife Babs could tell me, for sure, if I’d left the keys at home. Then I wouldn’t have to keep looking. “Oh NOOOOO! Where the heck….? OMG, I bet the cell phone’s still sitting on the kitchen table at home, too.”

I plopped down on the cabin porch. What to do? Don’t panic. Think. What would my friend Randy do?

“Well, I suppose I could drive to the nearby town and call from a pay phone. But come to think of it, I don’t think that town even HAS a pay phone. I could drive home and get the key, but that would mean two hours home, another two hours back. *groannnnnnnnnn*

“I guess there’s only one thing I can do. Write a note to Stan and tack it to the cabin door, then go to a motel and rent a room for the night.”

“Stan … I forgot my cabin keys. I’m going to stay overnight in a motel. In case I’m not here when you get here in the morning, I’ll meet you here about 6. Dad”

I needed to write the note. And so I did.

* * *

The motel room was cheap and the bed was lumpy and the room was drafty and cold and I hoped that given enough time it would warm up some. But it sure beat the heck out of driving an extra four hours last night.

I parked the minivan right outside the room door and prepared to spend the night.

5:00 a.m. After a fitful night’s sleep with my stomach all tied up in knots, I finally gave in, rolled out of bed, went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. It was still quite dark outside and I could hear a strong wind, gusting and ebbing. I went to the bay window and opened the blind. Bare oak tree branches, black jagged skeletal fingers against a dimly lit sky, were moving in the strong breeze. I, sighed, took a deep breath, set Mr. Coffee to perking to calm my nerves, and decided to head to the cabin now instead of waiting ’til 6.

Last night I hadn’t bothered to bring all my equipment into the motel room, but I did bring a few things inside…my guns and ammo, my Patrick McManus book, “A Fine and Pleasant Misery” and a few other odds and ends. So I decided to pack my few items back in the van and head to the cabin to wait for Stan to arrive.

I opened the motel door and started up the van. Figured I may as well let it warm up while I packed. When I got to the cabin, I could probably sit in the van and stay at least a little bit warm until Stan arrived. I brought “Misery” and my other items out first and, with my back to the motel door, I put them in the van. Then I turned to go inside and get my guns and ammo.

SLAM! A sudden gust of wind slammed the room door shut.

My room keys were still in the room. And the door was locked.

“Oh my god, now what? What would Randy do?”

I took several deep breaths. Then it came to me. “I know. Simple. Go to the motel office. Get another key. Open the door. I’m saved.”
The sign on the motel office door read: “Office opens at 8 a.m. If you want to check out earlier, just leave the room key in your room and lock the door.”

* * *

New sign tacked to our cabin door: “Stan, don’t wait for me at the cabin. I’ll be at the place where we hunt about 8:15. Will explain later. Dad”

Old sign, now a piece of crumpled paper residing in my jacket pocket.

* * *

8:15 found me arriving at our hunting area. Stan was already there, waiting, a questioning look on his face.

“What?” he said.

“Don’t ask.”

Having been around me for nearly 40 years, Stan didn’t ask.

We got out of our vehicles and uncased our weapons. Stan had a 12 gauge, Remington 870 pump action shotgun. I had my .308 Remington 7600 pump. We started to load our guns. Stan put one slug in the chamber of the 870 and fed three more into the magazine. I reached into my jacket pocket for the four-shot clip for my .308. Empty pocket. I tried my other pocket. Empty. Tried both my hand warmer pockets. Nothing. It wasn’t there.

“Oh geez,” I thought. I wonder if I left that on the table at home too.”

I took a single shell out of my pocket, fed it directly into the chamber of my rifle and snapped the action of the rifle shut. I breathed a sigh of relief. Stan didn’t appear to notice. Phewwww.

The two of us headed down the logging road where we were parked to the top of a ridge overlooking the Peshtigo River. We’d hunted this general area before but we never hunted at the bottom of the ridge, in the flat between the river and the ridge.

I was wearing my ultra cold weather clothes. Blaze orange, sheepskin lined jacket. Heavy mittens with hot packs inside. Arctic Sorrel boots. It was about 20 degrees out though the sun was shining brightly now and felt a bit warmer than I’d expected. The wind had died down considerably since 5:00 a.m. But still, it was 20 degrees and I had intended to sit in one spot for a long day and I hadn’t wanted to get cold. I had my folding stool tucked under my arm and my rifle slung over my shoulder.

“Steep ridge,” Stan said.

“Yep.”

“Long, too. Must be 125 yards from top to bottom.”

“Must be.”

He gave me a knowing look. I gave him a knowing look in return, though I wasn’t quite sure what I was knowing. He nodded in agreement as though he knew what I was knowing. Which put him two steps ahead of me.

“I’m going to head west from here,” Stan said. “I’ll follow the top of the ridge for maybe a quarter of a mile. Then I’ll swing south through the pine plantation and make a big circle back to here. Maybe I can push something out to you.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “I’ll hang around this area somewhere. Maybe go east for a bit,” I added. “I’ll see you in maybe a couple of hours or so?”

He nodded, shrugged, then turned and walked west down the oak ridge, his 12 gauge cradled over his left arm. When he was about 30 yards away he stopped and looked back at me. I was still standing in the same place. He walked another 30 yards or so, stopped and looked back again. I hadn’t moved. He stared for a few more seconds, shrugged again, then continued in a westerly direction until I saw the back of his blaze orange jacket and rectangular chartreuse-colored backtag disappear into the thick grove of 15′ white pines.

I turned in the opposite direction, along the ridgetop. Crisp fallen oak leaves crunched under my feet. A light skiff of snow partially covered the ground, enough to whiten things up just a little but not enough to make for good tracking. The wind had died to a light whisper. An occasional rifle ka-POW! sent echoes reverberating through the woods. A lone raven glided over the oak tops, its strange sounding “awwk” cry every few seconds marking the raven’s progress over the woods.

Hadn’t walked far when I came to a logging road that ran from down near the river, across the flat and up the ridge past where I was standing. Someone had driven on it sometime in the past day or so, as witnessed by a lone set of tire tracks in the leaves and snow.

The crisp potato chip leaves made the woods too noisy for pussy-footing along. I was starting to get a bit warm. Maybe I shouldn’t have put my arctic clothing on after all. A white breasted nuthatch landed on the trunk of a nearby oak and began its strange headfirst creeping toward the ground in search of insects or seeds. I admired its black cap, white face and blue/gray wings and back.

I decided to stop and watch the bird’s antics for a minute ’til it gave a soft chirp and flitted away, taking its food search farther down the ridge. The kids used to have a nickname for nuthatches. They called them “assup birds.” I grinned at the thought. Those kids of mine have their mother’s sense of humor!

Then a thought struck me. “Maybe that nuthatch was a good luck omen! Hmmmmm.”

I pondered that for a few seconds. Then I unfolded the steel frame canvas stool, set it on the ground next to the oak the nuthatch had been on, sat down and leaned back against the trunk. My omen stand overlooked the logging road and that single set of tire tracks in the snow. I felt like a giant blaze orange toad sitting there but, truth be told, I did feel a lot more comfortable than if I was trying to walk and was sweating up a storm. A whole lot quieter too.

Two hours on a deer stand can be a long time when no deer are sighted. A lone gray squirrel came scampering from tree to tree ’til it scrambled its way up a big white pine a few yards downhill from where I sat. The critter saw me, sensed that something was wrong, scuttled to the other side of the pine trunk and peeked its head out from behind the tree. One big, dark liquid eye in an upside down head looked me over thoroughly for a couple of minutes. Then the gray, deciding I wasn’t a man to trifle with, leaped to an adjacent tree and disappeared near the top in a clump of pine boughs.

A bald eagle soared overhead, searching for carrion to feed on. A red squirrel appeared, dug in the dead oak leaf understory ’til it found a pine cone. The squirrel held the cone in its teeth, jumped onto an old stump, sat up, held the cone in its front paws and proceeded to vigorously attack it for seeds, leaving a small pile of pine cone detritus on the stump before discarding the cone remnants and resuming its search for more food.

In the next two hours I discovered that one white pine branch, about a foot long, contained 635 individual pine needles. If I took my time with a fern frond and separated each individual part, it took about five minutes to completely disassemble it. Two square feet of forest floor under my oak tree omen stand contained an astounding number of dead twigs. Incredibly, at least one species of moth seemed to be immune to winter. A small, beige colored critter with transparent wings fluttered around atop the snow. And so my Mensa-like mind attempted to occupy itself with facts and observations.

And then the doe appeared – at the foot of the ridge below me. How she managed to cross 50 yards of relatively open timber to get to where I saw her was a mystery. And with me concentrating so hard and all! But luckily for me, all I needed was that one lone bullet in order to gather delicious, low cholesterol venison for the winter dining table.

I had just finished doing what needs to be done once a deer is on the ground when Stan appeared at the top of the ridge, 125 yards above me. I just happened to glance up and I saw him standing there. I thought he’d be happy about my success. Instead, he appeared to be frowning. His shoulders sagged. He just stood still for several minutes, watching me.

“Hey Stan, look what I got!” I yelled happily. “She’s a real big one! I’m guessing she’ll go 200 or better. Come on down and see,” and he reluctantly trudged down to see.

“Dad, did you ever wonder how we’d be able to get a big deer UP that ridge if we shot one at the bottom of it?” he frowned.

“Nah, shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not that far.”

“It’s more than a hundred yards. That has to be a 55 degree slope!”

For the first time I took a good look uphill. Ok, well I agreed that it was pretty steep but I’d be willing to bet it wasn’t a degree over 45 and I said so.

Stan sighed. Here I thought he’d be proud of his dad but all it seemed to do was make him upset. Kids these days!

“Well I guess we better give it a go,” he said resignedly. He took a tow rope out of his backpack. “Do you have your rope?”

I gave him mine and he put both ropes over the deer’s head. “Here, you grab your rope. I’ll take mine.”

So we grabbed our ropes and started uphill. Or at least, we tried to start uphill. Thirty feet and five minutes later we were both on our knees, breathing heavily, faces wet and bodies soaked with perspiration. We took off our gloves, took off our caps, unzipped and took off our jackets. We unslung our guns from our shoulders and set them on the ground. We needed to strip for some serious work action.

Ten minutes more and another 25 feet we stopped again. Then 20 feet, then 15. Then we couldn’t go any farther. That 500 pound doe just plain wore us out… not more than a quarter of the way up the ridge and we still had another 90 yards to go! We did consider quartering her and taking her up in pieces but we didn’t think you could legally register a deer if it was in pieces and lord knows I didn’t want to get arrested.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Oh Dad, what now?”

“Well, you see those tire tracks on the road? Somebody musta driven down here. If somebody else can do it, why can’t we?”

Stan grimaced but he was too tired to object.

Up the hill I went. Got my van. Through the woods, creating my own road to the logging road, down the hill. We loaded the doe into the back of the van, put our guns and the clothes we’d taken off into the van, closed the back and up the hill we went… sort of. About halfway up I could feel it and hear it.

“Zszszszszs.” The tires began slipping on the logging road. Leaves wet with snow. Little traction. We stopped.

“Guess we need a running start maybe?” I said. Stan was silent but it wasn’t hard to read his face expression.

I backed down to the bottom of the hill, then back another 20 yards. I floored it. Away we went, with a good head of steam this time. Slightly more than half way up the hill. “Zszszszszs.” And we stopped again.

We tried one more run and we understood. It was no use. We just wouldn’t be able to get up the hill.

Back to the bottom again. Now what? I didn’t have my cell phone so I couldn’t phone for help.

“If you want to babysit the van and the deer, I saw a farm up above there, a mile or so from where we parked. Maybe I can walk over there and get the farmer to give us a tow?” Stan was silent, sullen. I took that as meaning “yes.”

Wordlessly I began my trek. The next half an hour was a walk of pure misery. I was dressed in ultra cold weather clothing. My arctic boots weighed about five pounds each, but by the time I finally got to the farm they seemed to weigh ten times that much. I was wringing wet. Sweat ran down my face into my eyes, down my neck. I’m sure I could have taken my undershirt and almost wrung the moisture out of it.

I crossed the black top road and headed toward the farmhouse. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded. Teeth, big nasty looking teeth. Snapping teeth. Furry bodies in black, and black and white and brown, and white and brown. BIG, noisy, nasty furry bodies. Farm dogs. Guard dogs.

I was paralyzed with fright. One of the frothing beasts edged its way up to me, its growling, snarling muzzle no more than a foot from my crotch. The other two moved in closer, circling from behind. Then just as suddenly as they appeared they were gone. A diminutive little lady was coming down the lane from the farmhouse to the road, smiling as she came.

“Don’t worry. They’re just big noisy babies. They wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she laughed.

“I’m not a fly,” I managed to gurgle out between gasps and sobs.

We made the arrangement. For $100 her hubby would come with his tractor and pull us up the ridge. “Happens all the time,” she smiled. “It’s how we get make our vacation money. Why just yesterday some darned fool in a van…”

* * *

So, as I said at the beginning, I’d never pretend to be a genius, but in my long lifetime I’ve made of number of decisions that I think would border on Mensa ability.

Even though my one day doe hunt did cost me $75 extra for a motel room and $100 for the tow up the hill, and just a smidgen of unnecessary trouble, I still managed to end up with a full year’s supply of venison. Of course that’s minus a hind quarter I had to give the farmer’s wife in return for her calling off the dogs and another hind quarter and one tenderloin backstrap I gave Stan, just to let him know his dad really cared and, incidentally, to help him relax just a little bit.

But, and this is the topper, when I got home I found the price of gasoline was 5 cents per gallon more up north than it was at home. Instead of filling my gas tank up there, I’d waited ’til I got home to fill up and I actually saved $1.25! Now THAT, my friends, is what I call real good thinking. My good fishing buddy Randy is proud of me.

Tags: deer hunting, Tom Bridenhagen