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Choose Your Partner
Ken Howell

One young hunter walked a few steps ahead of the other, who laughed, aimed, and shot him in the back. The bullet injured a nerve and kept one arm from developing as fully as the other, but the injured hunter eventually regained enough use of that arm to serve a hitch in the Marine Corps. It could have been a lot worse, obviously � but the other fellow is without doubt or rival the worst choice of a hunting partner that I can think of. And I've had some of the worst.

The other fellow? Got off scot-free, as I recall. I've always thought that the law should've at least tipped his head back, pulled his chin down, and stuffed his head down his throat. But since nobody is totally useless if he can serve as a bad example, here I find myself nominating him perennial poster boy for Sorry Hunting Partners. He's good for at least two good lessons for the rest of us.

First lesson � be mighty careful whom you go shooting or hunting with.

As I signed the aircraft in after a long flight one afternoon thirty-five years ago, I overheard another pilot make a remark that I'll never forget. "Ever notice how people who wouldn't let their kids go anywhere in a stranger's car will turn 'em over to anybody who claims to be a pilot, for �an airplane ride,' without a second's hesitation?" Too easily, too often, many of us accept someone � friend or stranger � as a shooting or hunting partner just that readily, without first considering a few things that should concern us.

In my early hunting years, one unchallenged wisdom of the time was that nothing could show you what your buddy's true nature was like quicker or clearer than having him go along on a hunting trip. A modern corollary to this old rule of human nature is that the rottenest partner on a hunt is likely to be a great guy at the office � maybe a lot of fun at a party, too.

"Little" traits and quirks that you can easily overlook or don't even notice at the office or at a party can become scarily dangerous on a hunt or a varmint shoot. The fellow who's your best buddy when you're both wearing white shirts, suits, and ties can be a peril to your life and limb when you're wearing denim and flannel and carrying rifles.

How do I know?

I've been there, my friend, more than once � and I'm several times lucky to be here now, so I can tell you about some close calls and can fling your way a few tips on how to avoid the dangers and embarrassments (and other unpleasant experiences) that can go along on a shooting trip with you and your friend.

Since no single characteristic of a person is the totality of that person, the worst of all shooting partners can easily be an irreproachably fine person in any other situation. So I'm not going to tell these horror stories as if they happened to me (most did, some didn't). Instead, I'll tell them in third-person, to protect a bunch of otherwise good fellows (some innocent, some guilty) from the inevitable embarrassment of being clearly identified here.

So now let's imagine a fellow named Guy Goode, who has the Midas touch in reverse when he picks his shooting and hunting buddies. Forgive me this one wee fiction and a few lightly disguised but factually sound details, and I guarantee you that they'll be the only "loose truths" in this essay.

After several close calls, Guy finally realized that hidden dangers could lie in the simple act of going along with just any nice fellow who invites himself onto a hunt or a shoot with you. Clyde was one of his first object lessons.

When Guy moved from Montana to Alaska, Clyde introduced himself as a fellow Montanan, and the two became friends. When Guy found a good area for hunting caribou, Clyde invited himself and a friend (Foxx) onto Guy's hunting trip.

Just before sundown their first day out, Guy spotted a herd of migrating caribou passing an opening in a far string of screening spruces. Clyde couldn't see them, so he didn't believe Guy's eyes. Guy and Foxx began a long stalk across several hundred yards of open tundra, while Clyde turned toward supper and the cabin. Guy and Foxx had walked about halfway to the intervening string of spruces � still had several hundred yards to go � when a 180-grain .30-06 bullet crackled by their ears. They went flat, quick, in the tundra snow. Guy looked back. From two or three hundred yards behind them, Clyde was shooting, running, shooting, reloading, running � toward the caribou herd that he'd finally seen but were still too far away for Guy or Foxx to consider shooting.

Guy and Foxx were directly between Clyde and the clear opening in the string of spruces. Clyde was not shooting to either side of them, and certainly not over them, so his first bullet passed between them � and the rest of two magazines' worth passed over them � at about eye level. Clyde lumbered past them, panting, "I got one! I got one!" He had wounded a cow, which he then had to trail for a couple of miles before she went down and couldn't get up.

Guy's friend Don in Massachusetts loved shooting eastern groundhogs and hankered to try shooting jackrabbits. So he invited himself out to Guy's home in Wyoming to shoot jackrabbits. Guy got permission for the two to shoot on a huge ranch with a good "crop" of jackrabbits. As they walked forward, a hundred yards or so apart, Guy was startled by an unusually loud shot and the whine of a ricochet whipping by just a few inches in front of his face. Startled, he looked quickly toward his partner. Don, now staring, pale and shaky, had seen a jackrabbit hiding behind a clump of sage directly between the two shooters. With tunnel vision and equally narrow thought, he had whipped-up his varmint rifle and shot the jack. Then he realized that Guy was directly behind the jack.

Old and trusted friends can easily make the same mistake. Guy's wealthy neighbor Gene had booked a guided antelope hunt and didn't want to go alone, so he invited Guy along as his guest. Gene, usually an exceptionally good game shot, wounded an antelope, which disappeared over a ridge at full speed. Both hunters and their guides spread-out to find the wounded antelope. A couple of hours later, Guy and his guide walked onto a rise and saw the antelope lying head-up straight ahead of them. Then they saw Gene and the other guide directly beyond the antelope. Before Guy or his guide could yell or drop flat, Clyde whipped his rifle up and fired � and missed. Again, the crackle of a bullet passing close by his nose reminded Guy how dangerous a good friend could be on a hunt.

Safety and danger aren't the only considerations in the worth of a shooting partner. A lack or ignorance of hunters' ethics can quickly and totally ruin an otherwise delightful trip. On a group prairie-dog shoot in Montana, Guy and the other shooters in his van followed a rancher to a remote prairie-dog town that hadn't heard rifle shots in years. Once all the vehicles had come through the gate, all vehicles stopped while the rancher waited to close the gate behind the last vehicle. Two of Guy's friends in a pick-up broke out of line, drove around the two vehicles ahead of them, and sped on ahead to set up their shooting bench on a hill overlooking the larger section of the 'dog town. The others shrugged off their friends' lack of ethics and drove past the line-jumpers, parallel to the long 'dog town � which lay in the shape of a "lazy" or horizontal figure eight � to the end opposite the larger first section.

Guy likes to sit in one spot, watch a section of 'dog town, and shoot casually over a period of time rather than shoot a lot, fast, for a short time. He volunteered to take the narrow and more thinly populated "waist" area between the two larger bulges of the town, to let the rest of the group enjoy the faster shooting from the next hill overlooking the other (smaller) bulge of 'dog town. Not many 'dogs were up where he was setting up to shoot, but there were enough to satisfy slow-shooting Guy. He sat down, laid his pack on the ground, set-up his cross-sticks, and starting glassing the thin stretch of 'dog town in front of him.

From the hill where they'd set-up to monopolize the larger section of the town, the two line-jumpers roared down near Guy, whipped the pick-up around, and rapidly shot all the 'dogs that were then showing in Guy's thin area � then got back in their pick-up, drove back to their bench, and resumed shooting 'dogs in the largest section of the town. Disgusted, Guy unloaded his rifle and laid it aside to put away his ammo. He lay back, arms crossed behind his head, looked at the sky, and turned his mind to thoughts more pleasant than the "ethics" of his friends.

Hunters and shooters who haven't grown-up with the game, without fathers or other mentors to guide them when they were young, generally know or care little about the ethics, the little courtesies and "rules," that make real hunters genuine gentlemen. The gross behavior of his 'dog-shooting friends brought alive once again Guy's old memories of his friend Jim, a transplanted Canadian, who had invited himself onto several of Guy's elk hunts. Jim stayed several nights at Guy's house, where of course Guy's wife fed him well, and rode to Guy's best hunting areas in Guy's pick-up.

By a rare stroke of luck, Jim had drawn a moose permit � a once-in-your-life affair � his first year as a legal resident of Montana. In hospitality and welcome to this unusually lucky new hunter, Guy and his other partners concentrated their efforts toward putting Jim within shooting range of a good moose. For all but the last few days of the season, their one goal was �get Jim his moose.� With only three or four days of hunting left after weeks of open season, Jim shot a good moose. The other hunters helped him field-dress his bull, drag it up the mountain to a logging road, and load it into Guy's pick-up. Back in town, they hoisted the moose onto the meat rack outside Guy's home for the night. The next morning, Jim hauled his moose to his home in another town and left the others to get their elk without his help � and without even so much as a small steak from his moose.

Worse than stone-deafness to ethics, of course, is a partner's continued regular abuse of game laws. Two of Jim's legal offenses finally convinced Guy not to hunt with him any more.

Partnered for another elk hunt, Guy and Jim went in opposite directions from where they began hunting. When they met again at dusk, Jim had shot and field-dressed a nice bull that darkness had forced him to leave behind, to be packed-out the next day. Late that night, he phoned Guy � a former game biologist. "I just discovered that where I shot that bull, the season ended last week. What should I do?" He meant but didn't have to add "� to stay out of trouble?"

Guy told him to call the local warden and without identifying himself, tell the warden exactly where the bull was, and let the warden decide how to recover it before it could spoil. (Strange, he thought, that Jim hadn't put his elk tag on the bull.) Days later, he found that Jim had gone back to the illegal bull and hauled it out to the butcher � after he'd listed another area, still open, as where he'd shot it.

Guy never hunted with Jim after Jim shot a couple of deer at a local airport. Returning home from a successful hunt for deer and antelope, Jim and Guy stopped at an airport where Jim used to base his flying, to visit the airport manager. As the sun set, the airport manager drove Jim out near the end of one runway, where a small herd of white-tails had come up out of a coulee and were browsing. Waiting in the airport lobby, Guy saw Jim shoot a doe from inside the pick-up. Guy saw hair fly from her rib area, then heard the shot and the familiar sodden thud of solid impact. The doe humped her back and ran down into the coulee. Jim and his other friend then went to the far end of another runway, where Jim dropped and tagged another deer and loaded it into his own pick-up.

Jim's only comment as they resumed their homeward journey was to vow disgustedly that he wasn't ever going to use his .270 on deer again. "I hit that doe squarely through the lungs from no more than twenty yards away, and she ran off."

Guy also learned the hard way that not every self-proclaimed expert hunting guide is what he claims to be. His friend Cameron showed hundreds of alluring slides and photos of hunting successes to illustrate equally encouraging stories of his great hunts. Guy mentioned that he'd like to get a good bear. Cam of course knew exactly where to go � a little-hunted area just outside a large National Wilderness Area with bear running around like squirrels � and he could put Guy in place for a good bear the first morning.

The day-long drive to base camp was the first of many disappointments. Cam ridiculed Guy for stopping at a restaurant for breakfast, then again at midday for lunch. Cam's huge pack turned out to be a mass of chips, cookies, and candy that Cam chain-ate all day. In camp, Guy set up his small field "kitchen" and prepared a balanced meal around a gourmet beef stew. Cam and his other buddies, after chain-eating junk food all day, barely touched it � threw platefuls of left-overs into the brush and left all the clean-up to Guy.

Opening day and the next couple of days, Cam's bottomless pack continued to disgorge the familiar unbroken chain of sweets and munchy goodies while Cam "guided" Guy from logging road to logging road � never stopping for more than a few minutes � in the hope of spotting a bear within acceptable shooting range. No bear ever appeared, of course, and Guy in disgust aborted his hunt.

It's awfully easy for a basically, reasonably good guy to be a poor hunting partner occasionally. I should know � I've been one myself, once or twice, without thinking. That's the reason, right there � without thinking. So I like to think that not every poor partner is beyond development into a good or even great partner � and may be worth the trouble.

I�d like another opportunity to show my friend Howard that I'm not always or usually as thoughtless as I was once, the only time when I ever hunted with him. Hunting along the banks of a wild mountain river, we came to a stretch where a ridge ended in a cliff that dropped nearly plumb into the river. As I'd done before, I headed up the ridge to cross it and drop down to the bank of the river again. Howard, a city man but a well experienced hunter, put his trust in me � and without thinking, I let him down.

I let him down by leading him up, high into rough "goat rocks" that terrified him. I could tell that he was apprehensive but underestimated his fear. Those "terrifying" rocks were almost as regular, almost as easy as flights of stairs. The worst spot was a pair of "steps" about three feet high, on our way down the other side of the ridge � both covered with thick green foliage and an obviously thick, moist pad of earth. A couple of decades earlier � leaner, lighter, stronger, and above all limber � I would've simply jumped lightly and easily from one rock to the next. Older and by now stiffer, I asked Howard to hold both guns while I let myself down the first step by way of several smaller, closer niches in the rocks.

"OK. Hand me the guns, one at a time, then I'll guide you down the way I came."

Howard hesitated, then shook his head � obviously too scared to "risk" what was clearly a simple, easy, safe couple of steps.

"No," he finally said. "I'm going back the way we came."

I took my gun and went on down to the river while Howard went back, a much longer hike than mine. I later heard that he'd told the others in our hunting party "That Howell is one hell of a mountain goat." He meant it as a compliment. But I'll always remember that episode as my thoughtlessness toward a good friend and a good partner.

If there's any single, simple secret to being a good partner, I guess it would be just plain old country-style, neighborly thoughtfulness for the other fellow � undiluted, uninterrupted, yet not necessarily openly expressed thoughtfulness. A smidgen of thoughtfulness would've made a world of difference in a couple of instances that'll always disgust me. My old friend the late Elmer Keith was the victim of one thoughtless (or maybe crooked) hunter whom he guided many years ago.

The western novelist Zane Grey booked a long hunt with Elmer, who was known far and wide (when I was a kid) as "The Dean of American Guides." Grey booked for a large party of kin and guests � more than Elmer could handle with his equipment, horses, and mules. So Elmer really had to stretch to add enough gear, pack and saddle stock, and food for the Grey party. After an especially successful trip � during which Elmer showed Grey a few secrets of long-range sixgunnery and thus supplied Grey with new material for a later Zane Grey novel � Grey neglected to pay Elmer. That experience almost wiped Elmer out financially. Many years later, my son (who loved to read westerns) refused to crack open a Zane Grey book because of what Grey had done to my friend Elmer.

Guy had a similar experience with a close friend and colleague. Albert knew Guy mainly as a fellow university professor but was also aware that he was an experienced and well equipped wilderness guide. He proposed a trip � in his Piper Family Cruiser, he would fly Guy, himself, and their wives out to a nearby string of wilderness lakes noted for their fishing and hunting, where Guy would pitch their camp and where the two couples could enjoy several days of good pike-fishing and quiet wilderness camping. Guy provided all the camp gear, canoe, fishing gear, grub, and guiding for the party, and Albert provided the air transportation out and back.

Back home after an outstanding Alaskan fishing trip, Albert billed Guy for half the cost of flying his Piper a couple of hundred miles. Guy didn't want to offend or lose "a good friend," so he paid without comment.

So � how (you must be wondering) do you avoid letting yourself in for merely unpleasant to outright life-threatening disappointments in your partner? If you're lucky and observant, you may already know a few "little" things about your friend that can forebode or be a cause of a bad experience. Once you begin thinking that someone may be or want to be your partner on a hunting or shooting trip, look for personality quirks and traits, both faint and flagrant, that "could be worse." Believe me, if they can be worse, they're almost certain to get worse on a trip. (Hmmm. Murphy must not've been a hunter, or he would've told us this already.)

Look for any sign of slight to dangerous disregard for the rights, interests, feelings, or tastes of others. Bad partners usually don't think that they're anything less than the best partners whom you could have along. If they ignore the broadest hints and tips that their behavior is less than pleasant for others, you can bet that they'll be disastrous field partners.

Any flavor of boorishness is a warning unless you're equally boorish or worse.

My friend Howard was a gentleman, so his fear didn't make him misbehave. But sometimes, nearly paralyzing fear can make a fine fellow momentarily become a threat to everyone and everything within range of his wildly swinging muzzle. I don't remember enough details to tell the story now, but some years ago a prankish hunter startled his partner and was promptly gut-shot in unthinking reflex action triggered by his partner's blind, stark fear of bears. Both men were in different ways poor choices for dependable partners.

Ignorance of (and contempt for) the basics that guide the behavior of responsible hunters and shooters are obviously, loudly ticking dangers. Lax and rebellious attitudes toward office rules, tax regulations, speed limits, the privacy of others' conversations and desk drawers � think about these a minute, and you can add more than these few to the "faint" flickers of warning that tell you not to trust that fellow near you with a loaded gun.

A cavalier attitude toward dangers, risks, and the broad range of inevitable or probable consequences is a loud warning bell. Wonderful times afield with live ammunition are already subject to enough unforeseeable consequences to make it just simple good sense to avoid increasing the odds that something unpleasant is likely to ruin the best of good times.

Innocent excitement that amuses others in an innocuous situation can foretell an extreme flow of thought-blocking adrenalin in someone who hasn't learned and developed the disciplined control that lets a good shooter get excited without becoming dangerous.

You can take warning from several other usually obvious hints of probable problems afield. Some of these otherwise tolerable or even "admirable" character flaws are unmistakable
� egoism � the unwillingness or refusal to share duties and responsibilities � laziness � competitiveness � ambition � temper � spitefulness � vindictiveness � impatience � moodiness � and perhaps worst of all, blood-thirst or the "kill" craze.

All of these can easily be exaggerated by alien surroundings and situations. Anybody who deals regularly with tourists can give you many specific examples of how horribly nice people behave when they're away from home and surrounded by strangers. If a fellow at the office habitually lets others handle his duties or responsibilities, you can be sure he'll be an unappreciative burden afield. Laziness won't get better afield.

Competitiveness (especially if it's obsessive) can devastate any otherwise enjoyable experience for anyone who doesn't enjoy constant competition afield. Many of us take to the hills and woods and fields � waters, too, for that matter � specifically for calm respite from constant competition. Guy's friend Mike has trouble finding willing partners for prairie-dog shoots, because of his obsessive drive to shoot every 'dog you aim at, before you can get-off a shot. He thinks that it�s only natural to bump Guy aside to block or ruin his shot, to take the shot first � as if, it seems, there were only a handful of 'dogs to shoot and the shooter with the most blood behind him is somehow better than any of his partners. Someone once aptly said that the winner of the rat race proves only that he's the fastest rat. Some distinction, wouldn�t you say?

An oversupply of ego, obsessive competitiveness, and blatant blood-thirst combine in Guy's friend Mike, who seems merely kill-crazy. To preserve their warm and admiring friendship for Mike, Guy and most of Mike's other friends limit their fellowship with him to other shared interests � a living shame for all, since Mike is a delightful fellow when he isn't a boor. Too often, they've had to apologize to their hosts and others for his behavior.

If you're confident that despite some of the above character flaws, your friend can be � can be � a good partner, get your partnership off to a good start before you go anywhere together. Get the ground rules laid-out first, clear and unmistakable � all of them. Don't assume that you should start with something like "Mike, you're a boor. Let's get you straightened out before we go." Simple discussions of safety, ethics, regulations, field conditions to expect as normal, camp life and duties, procedures and protocols, hidden dangers and risks, precautions � every last little thing that you can think about that you're not certain that he knows � will reveal some hint of how much education and development he needs or doesn't need, to be a top-of-the-stack partner.

You might just be getting off onto your first steps with the best partner whom you've ever had.

The second lesson? Oh, yes � thanks for reminding me.

Run for partner. As if you were campaigning to be the next governor or the new class president, campaign to be the hunting-partner candidate whom no one will ever hesitate to choose.

My "trophy room" no longer houses even one mounted head. I�ve given them all away or left them in the woods. My most cherished "merit badges" from bygone hunting trips aren't little embroidered discs sewn to a khaki sash � they're cherished memories of the outstanding partners whose company I've enjoyed and special words almost casually spoken but in no way forgettable.

My all-time favorite field partner was the late Bill Jordan. On our prairie-dog shoots, spotting for Bill was as much fun as shooting � frequently more. Neither of us had to be shooting to be "doin' well." Any conversation could be rich with deep, utter confidences one minute, rib-aching laughter the next. Bill was one of those rarest of witty men, one who enjoyed a laugh at his own expense as easily and readily as a laugh on a buddy. He was one of the most imaginatively, creatively witty partners I've ever known. I've already written in these pages, I think, about the time my reticle went whirling all over the landscape just as I was taking the slack out of my trigger on a very long shot at a 'dog � because Bill's huge forefinger was pressing the heel of my rifle butt gently and rhythmically. When I got him back � I forget how, now � he laughed as hard as anybody else in the crowd.

Ever in my "album" of silver memories is Spanish peon Rufo, my guide on a hunt for Spanish stag. He had no English, and I had no Spanish to speak of, yet we had a wonderful stag hunt that ended with a definite sense of let-down when I shot a nice stag. We shared a delightful high-country lunch of home-made bread, cheese, and wine while we "conversed" with gestures and facial expressions and even managed a little "joking." Getting the stag is an aftermemory. Its antlers and bleached foreskull on my wall used to remind me of Rufo, that lunch, and sharing a tip of Spain's high country with him. He was a gentleman.

Hunters' hearts transcend language.

My friend and mentor the late Chuck Keim was another apparently perfect partner. The first week of June in Alaska, we pulled his nineteen-foot Grumman canoe up a glacial river for one long and strenuous day, sometimes chopping our way along the bank, sometimes shoving the break-up's last floes aside with our paddles, stopping occasionally to get warm and nearly dry at fires on river bars. We hunted grizzly � hard � the rest of the week. Never saw one, of course, where there'd been a small army of them the fall before. But no matter, that � we had a memorable hunt and went home well fed, with all the just-ended university year's soot and cobwebs blown out by "insignificant little" experiences like catching grayling (Chuck), scaling and cleaning them while they were still too cold to handle comfortably and frying them brown and hot (me), and eating them (both of us, naturally) before they'd been out of the thirty-five-degree water more than a mere fraction of an hour.

The best of human kings never deserved or ate a better meal. The grayling, great as they were, would've been next to nothing without a prince for a partner. Equally memorable was our white-water trip back down the river, going as far in an hour or so as we'd fought our way up-stream for an entire day just a week earlier. No grizzly necessary for success, there. Not even a shot fired or a rifle aimed. An especially good partner and a few little "routine" wilderness experiences high up in the Alaska Range were quite enough, thank you, to be eternally unforgettable.

That's not only the kind of partner you want � it's the kind of partner whom you ought to want to be. Even if you just try hard and don't ever quite become such a great partner, you'll still bring home your share of "merit badges" just like several that I cherish. Better, if you're both good and lucky to have especially good partners.

You'll know you're at least not a bad partner when you can look back to the repeated flatteries of friends who've taken you along at their expense because they consider you a good and worthy partner. You've deserved your inner surge of pride when you arrange a good hunt for a group of hunters, then hear them insist unanimously, "I don't want to go if you're not going, too." Count it not all luck when a party of distinguished, eminent hunters invite you along repeatedly, instead of several others who�re "better qualified," because � as the most distinguished and prominent member of the group explains � "You'll notice there's no bleep-bleep prima donnas in this bunch." You can be sure that you're a good bit better than the average good partner when you ask whether a famous member of last year's group will be along this year, and the same "main member" simply but pointedly says, "He wasn't invited back this year."

You're a senior nearing graduation when outfitters invite you to "Come back any time!" but won't let you pay when you do. You've just been judged worthy of the highest honors when one of these outfitters invites you back, then adds (referring to the fellow whom you brought with you) "but don't bring him with you next time."

In years near and far ahead � if you turn out to be a fairly good partner � you'll run into old friends, again and again, who still say "What I remember most � " and "I'll never forget � " about those little personal highlights of your fellowship on hunts that by then are years and decades in the distant past. They won't be talking about their best game heads or the most impressive shots that they've made or the easiest ones that they've missed. They'll mention, most often, joke sessions, comical accidents and boo-boos, quiet moments (often when not a word passed anyone's lips), sharp thoughts and realizations that suddenly became clear and important. Without saying your name or "you," they'll be talking about what a dad-burned good partner they think that you are.

My fervent, sincere wish for you is that you're already earning even more and better "trophies" and "merit badges" than I have. It's worth everything you can give it, to campaign for someone's best-ever partner.

You'll never regret trying.

� 30 �

Copyright � 1999, revised version copyright � 2010 Dr Kenneth E Howell. All rights reserved.