I've known some hunters who were notable killers of game and some who were more notable for their affinity with the game. Some were fellow gun loonies while others barely knew which end to load.
One fellow who had to be a pretty good hunter was a rancher/hunter/trapper who lived up the North Thompson river. Now, Lude wasn't just a skilled hunter and trapper, he was, in the old mountain man tradition, also a great storyteller and one could help but wonder if some stories didn't gain a little in the telling. One such story recounted the time he had put a rope on a grizzly and the extreme difficulty of trying to get the rope back. It was a great story and well told but I couldn't help but think it was less than credible. It was maybe five or six years later that I was working on an old Savage for an old cowboy and talking with him while I worked. He asked where I lived and I told him.
"Say", he said, "Do you know a guy up there; name of Lude Proulx?" I said yes, I knew him very well.
"We rode together back in the thirties. By Jesus. I'll never forget the time he rode down and roped a grizzly bear! You want to see a rodeo? You want to see a guy trying to shake that rope off a mad bear!"
Another story involved the shooting of a deer on a bench across a creek. Lude was shooting his Model 64 25/35 and shot this three point buck on the other side of the little valley. I was well acquainted with the spot since I hunted it often. The shot he took was a good 350 yards. Anyway, he said the deer dropped right there, into the foot of snow on the ground, and he set off to retrieve it. The 350 yards, as the bullet flies, was closer to a mile once he had made his way down to the creek (probably six hundred feet or so) and climbed up the other side. The foot of fluffy snow made the going almost silent and Lude said he was going slow, looking for the buck, when he saw him, curled up, and just a bit closer than he expected.
"I slid up close and reached down to grab an antler", he said. "when I grbbed on and pulled his head back to cut his throat, that buck just exploded up and the fight was on! We went 'round and 'round. I was stabbing at him with my knife and he was stbbing at me with his horns. At one point, we broke apart and that buck and I both sat back on our haunches just glarin' at each other. Then we jumped back into it! Finally, I managed to get the upper hand a got his throat cut. I was pretty beat up and a little stiff and sore whilst gutting that deer. When I got the job done, I stood up and took a little walk around just to loosen up a bit. I stepped over a log and looked up ahead and there was a deer! Just layin' their with his feet stickin' right up in the air. It was the buck I had shot!"
Quite a story. I spent a fair bit of time with Lude and he had a wealth of knowledge of the country and the wildlife it held.
Another guy was a dedicated cougar hunter who was also a serious muledeer hunter. He confessed to occasionally killing an extra cat or two. He said that made up for the extra mule deer. He was a tough guy who seemed impervious to the weather and could walk forever. He once chased a cat too far and got caught out when an arctic front rolled in. He spent the night in a hole in the snow; cuddled up with his hound and the dead cougar. He was wearing jeans and a quilted flannel shirt. He said he didn't know who was shivering harder, he or the hound. He could go into an area which was new to him and instinctivly know where to find the big buck or bull.
I've gotten to know a lot of real hunters in my work as a gunsmith. I also gotten to know some very accomplished outdoorsmen whose hunting was just part of their experience. All could teach me a lot. GD