Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Hell, I'm Still Here!--by Jon Sundra

Dwayne,

In 1997 I was one of several writers who put together a book titled THE COMPLETE HUNTERS CATALOG, and among other things we solicited short essays from a few dozen well-known writers. One was a Canadian, the late Jerome Knap, who along with writing quite a bit became a well-known booking agent for hunting and fishing trips.
(I am sure Jon knew Jerry, who I also contacted, asking him to write a short essay on handloading. He did, and it's in the book as well, explaining why handloaders always spend more money than non-handloaders.)

Here's Jerry Knap's story:

When still a young fellow I served a stint as a forest ranger in some of northern Ontario’s best moose country. One fall afternoon I was driving down a logging road in my government pickup when a scarlet-clad hunter jumped out of the bushes and excitedly flailed his arms about.
“Boy, am I glad to see you!” he shouted excitedly. “I just got a great big moose over there!”
“Congratulations,” I answered,” but what’s the problem?”
“The problem is I don’t know what to do,” the hunter stammered. “I’ve shot deer before, but no one told me how big a moose was. Can you come and show me what to do? And maybe take a picture of me with the moose? I’d be glad to pay you.” The man’s hands shook like poplar leaves in an autumn breeze.
“Yeah, I guess I’d better show you what to do,” I replied, shaking my head. “Payment won’t be necessary.”
The first problem was finding the moose. The man couldn’t remember exactly where to look, but eventually found the young bull, not very big as moose go.
The second problem was finding the rifle. While trying to take a picture of his moose, the man had laid his rifle down and couldn’t remember where. I finally found it 30 feet from the moose in a pile of slash. After emptying the magazine, I posed the hunter and his .300 Weatherby with the moose and took a roll of photos with his camera.
Next I dressed the moose, while the hunter marched around saying, “This animal is bigger than a horse.” It turned out he was a farmer from Indiana who’d had a bumper corn crop, so had decided to go moose hunting. He’d heard northern Ontario was full of moose, so drove up.
“How are you going to get this moose home?” I asked.
“Oh, I have a car on a side road up a ways.”
“Once this moose is cut up and wrapped, you’ll be able to get him into your car,” I said.
“Are you kidding?” the farmer said. “I’m taking this moose back whole! I want everybody back home to see him.”
I suggested he rent a U-Haul trailer, and that a few $10 bills would probably get a tractor with a fork lift from a nearby logging camp to load the moose. With that I left to do my job.
Returning a couple hours later, I found the Indiana moose hunter on the logging road with a tractor and a couple of lumberjacks, just finishing a bottle of Old Moose Hunter. The moose was tied to the roof of a big, late-model Buick.
The animal hung over the roof on all sides, and there was no way it would stay on for the ride down the logging road, let alone the trip to Indiana. Even worse, the moose had completely flattened the Buick’s roof.
“Well, that was a stupid fool thing to do,” I said, in slightly more colorful language. “It’ll cost a lot to get that roof fixed.”
“Don’t worry about that, son,” said the farmer. “In Indiana we got lots of Buicks, but we ain’t got no moose!”