Bob Carlson, his son John
and their dog Cole joined my son Isaac, our dog Victor and I on a pheasant
hunting trip to the Four Winds Pheasant Club in San Jacinto to kick off this
years upland bird club season.
The weather was seasonally appropriate - with temperatures
just below freezing to start off the sunrise, followed by the beginning of a
Santa Ana wind that brought clear skies and a warming breeze by mid-day.
It was Cole's first hunting excursion. He is a tall, one year old black lab pup
that displayed all of the youthful enthusiasm and easy distraction one expects
from a learning dog. He followed Victor
around as Victor did a good job of tracking, stalking and holding point on
lively birds that didn't want to stay put.
Victor's stamina was noticeably better than last year, when he was
benched as a result of inhaling a foxtail early into the hunt. This time, we
took frequent breaks so that he could recharge his nose and his enthusiasm.
We also fared better as shooters on this occasion. We were able to get all 12 birds that
flushed for us, which was a significant improvement over the birds that escaped
our hail of gunfire on the last hunt we were on.
This was Isaacs second time shooting at live targets and he is
getting much steadier. He is now over
100 pounds and is long enough to handle the full size Berretta 12 gauge auto I
brought our for him to try. He mostly
stuck with his 20 gauge Remington auto in the field, since it is a really quick
swing.
After we got our birds, we were able to relax and shoot some
trap
with the club's clay thrower
while our charming hostess Melanie cleaned our birds. She did a great job and
was as friendly and helpful as ever, stopping in to check on us while we took
tailgate breaks back at the truck in between walks.
When we got home, we gave Victor and our car a much needed
bath, before I set into a frantic "iron chef" cooking assault to
prepare the six pheasant we took home for the neighbors and my folks. I prepared the birds a few different ways. I
even got my mom, who professes to hate the idea of hunting, to wolf down a few
platefuls and then take home some more in a foil doggy pouch.
We were too tired to clean the guns, which I left out so the
three year old boys would have something with which to distract themselves
while the adults enjoyed after-dinner beverages in the warm Santa Ana
night. This turned out to be
fortuitous, because the hill behind our house began to give off some eerie
noises. The little boys got quite
scared, because they recognized the sounds as the peculiar yip of coyotes,
which they fear as a neighborhood animal that is perfectly willing to eat them.
They began crying for me to get the guns out of the cases and
shoot the coyotes. We were knocking
back our fifth bottle of excellent cabernet, but the boys' pleas were so urgent
that I found it hard to resist, especially when they dragged my double
Weatherby out to the table on the porch where all of the adults were gathered
around our portable Mexican fireplace.
It was so cute - it took both of them to carry it out to us.
Although I was beat, I didn't want to let the young ones
down. Even Wendy wanted me to do
something about those annoying predators, although they have done some good in
terms of harvesting our neighbors small and less desirable pets.
I went back to the garage, where I have a commercial
freezer. I took out a couple of vacuum
sealed freeze-dried dead monkeys from the supply that we always keep around to
bait predators. They are an excellent
universal bait – equally effective on land and sea - especially the ones we
marinate in garlic cheese sauce.
Everyone knows that dogs love cheese, so cheese flavored monkeys are
a natural.
I hydrated and thawed
them out a bit over the chimney of our portable fireplace, which seemed to turn
off some of the wives who previously had been acting kind of frisky, since
"Desperate Housewives" was on later that evening. I hopped the fence
and hung
the primates by their tails
(these were new world monkeys) from a wooden cross bar we have mounted about 40
yards up the slope past our back fence.
I duct-taped a flashlight to the gun barrels and waited, with
my two fascinated three year-olds laying in the dirt by my side, whispering
their inquiries so as not to spoil our chances amidst the darkness of this
ambush.
The coyotes came skulking in, but then scattered before they
were in range. We heard a low, moaning sound and saw a much bigger shadow
heading at a peculiar gait toward the bait monkeys.
I hit the flashlight, even though it was out of effective
range. Just as I did so, a frightened
Chupacabra let out a weird bark and retreated from his advance on the bait.
I turned to scream back down to our group to get them to look
up at the creature I had momentarily frozen in the lights. It had dark, coarse fur and looked like a
large, ugly dog with bad teeth.
No one was on the
patio. One of the women shouted through
the screen door that "Desperate Housewives" had started and I should
come down and watch. I looked back up
the slope and the creature was gone.
There was nothing to do except come back down the hill with the
little ones, who were chattering about the strange creature they had just
seen. They wanted to look it up in
their animal picture book.
I left the monkeys on the post, since once you rehydrate and
thaw them out, they really won’t last.
I sat down and watched the rest of the show as the boys went to
bed. We were the only ones that saw the
creature. It's good to know that there
are still a few of them around. It's probably just as
well that we didn't get a
shot off.
These are the days.
