The Mighty Hunter

I have a cousin named Millie.  She writes me nice stuff and today she was on the subject of hunting and fishing.  So I just now wrote her back: 

Millie,

My dad used to take me hunting and fishing.  I enjoyed the time out in the hills, mostly just to be with him.  I shot a prize winning buck when I was 15.  We were in the mountains somewhere in eastern Oregon.  It came running very fast across our path about 100 feet front of my dad and me and I literally shot from my hip without aiming.  I hit him, probably by accident, and he stopped… then my dad finished the job.  I almost felt bad about it.  He was so beautiful. 

My dad’s hunting club gave out prizes for the biggest buck killed that year and it won the prize dressing out at 175 lbs as I recall.  So my dad had to make a speech.  He called me up in front of all these great hunters and told them that I had actually shot the buck first and I really deserved the prize.  For one powerful moment I was the “mighty hunter” at 15 years old… ha.  The prize was a nice air mattress for camping out.
 
But I never got hooked on hunting and fishing like my brother, Mel, was.  I did take my sons fishing now and then in Argentina.  I never took them hunting, but I did hunt some years when I could do it with friends during my deputation cycles in California.

I remember one vivid hunting experience.  The year was 1961, long before going to Argentina, when I was pastor of the little church in Colfax, in the Sierra Nevada mountains.  Our three boys were small.  We were very poor and needed meat.  I hunted all season that year on the 400 acres of hills belonging to my landlord and with his permission.  I saw lots of does, but it had to be a buck.  On the last day of season I had taken a stand where I could see about 200 yards or more in several directions.  A large coyote or maybe a wolf strolled out into the open and I was tempted to shoot it as it posed a possible danger to our little kids.  There were mountain lions, bears and coyotes in those hills and maybe wolves.  Anyway I resisted shooting it. 

The sun was about to set and in 30 minutes the hunting season would be over.  So I prayed a very specific prayer.  I whispered, “Lord, you know we don’t have money to buy meat for this winter and a nice buck would fill the freezer and we could even give meat to others.”  About 100 feet in front of me there was a single bush.  It was the only object blocking my 180 degree view.  I had no more than prayed when, out from behind that bush stepped a beautiful buck.  He dropped dead with one shot.  I was able to drive my car to the scene and pick him up.  We gave away a lot of meat and had a great supply for all winter… delicious venison. 

I always wondered how that buck got that close to me without me seeing him.  He had to have strolled almost 200 yards in open country staying all the time exactly behind that single bush or else… or else the Lord created him out of nothing on the spot just for me… ha.  Maybe I’ll check with Him about that sometime when we’re sittin’ together on the front porch of a mansion and have plenty of time for small talk.  Will there be small talk in heaven?  Maybe.

And I still have my .30 .30 Stevens bolt action hunting rifle that I bought new for $45 when I was a teenager.

Hey, Millie.  Now you know stuff about me that nobody else knows… Maybe I should publish this as a blog. 

And so I did.

Ralph