You Know You Are A Novice Hunter When…

Your husband asks you if you wouldlike to go hunting today to check out a new site and you say sure…anytime after  10 am works for me!

Your husband carefully and tenderly gives you all his best hunting gear to wear, including his $250 hunting underwear and you have to add your signature pink “gator” around your neck.

The only hunting boots you have to wear are rain boots with pink, yellow and green flowers on them.

You get all your gear ready and head to your Volvo SUV and don’t realize until your sweet hunting husband laughingly says, “Baby, I think it’s best we take the truck…what do you think?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There you go…I am a novice hunter, wife to a very successful Big Game Hunter….I mean Cinnamon Black Bear, European mounted Elk, Turkey fan and beard, 8.5 Lbs Largemouth Bass, 10 and 12 point deer on our office wall hunting- husband.

 

 

And yet, he was very tenderly patient and kind as we traipsed at least 1,000 miles in the zero degree weather up MOUNTAINS, down ravines, through rivers  and in what seemed circles for no less than 12 hours today.  Okay, so it was only 3.5 hours, but all the rest I write is the truth…True Gut (which in our home is cause for penalty of death if you are lying….literally, you lying, you dying if you say True Gut and it ain't true).

There are Ten (10) Rules I learned today.  I am told there are hundreds more….Jeeezzzz

Rule Number 1:  The first thing you pack is toilet paper

Rule Number 2:   Never hunt without a current, valid license…NEVER

Rule Number 3:   Take water, a compass, your weapon and ammunition in that order

Rule Number 4:   Always consider that your weapon may have some recoil a/k/a “kick” for we novices.  I learned the hard way today, but that’s okay.  I am now a certified, true Huntswoman and have the fat lip to prove it

Rule Number 5:  Eat and go potty BEFORE you start out on a cold day…trust me on this one

Rule Number 6:  The best spots to hunt deer typically are where you find fresh “buck rub” and the more “deer trails” you find in one area, generally the better chance you have of finding deer (we saw ten)

Rule Number 7:   You MAY take photos only on non-serious day hunts a/k/a the first time you go out with your hunting husband

Rule Number 8:   You are only allowed to ask “How far to the truck?” one time per hunt

Rule Number 9:   You are allowed to make your husband proud when you hit the walnut target he sets out for you with his 357 Magnum and then hit it again with his 22 Rifle

Rule Number 10:  You must remember that your husband is never lost, he is only scouting a new area

So, it has to be obvious to even the very skilled hunter, I am officially no longer a “novice’ hunter….I have graduated to “novice once-removed” and I am told that to be any good at all (me being a girl and all of that) that I will have to go many, many, many more times and to many other states and even into other countries.  I am also told that until I drop at least $1,000 at Cabelas and another $500 at Bass Pro Shop (during one hunting season), that I have not even begun the journey to Huntress.

And, finally, my husband, on the way home,  said, “Baby, they’ll be no pink camo for you until all the above are met and until you field dress your first deer.”

THAT was the best news I had heard all day…..”dressing” a deer I am sure to be good at.  I know Macy’s and Kohls and Sacks will be as excited as I am.

That is what “dressing a deer means, isn’t it?” I ask my husband, who very wickedly laughs at me and says, “Sure baby, that is exactly what it means”.

Stay tuned for Huntress Lessons Numbered 11 through 20.

Blessings and Happy Hunting,

 

Lesa and Ian, Hunted (I mean huntress) and Hunter