Early Morning PoacherA poacher was not something I was thinking about. It was a Friday afternoon in October, and I was quickly gathering my bow, camping gear, food... making sure I had everything on the camping list before leaving for the farm. I planned to stay the night; which I seldom do. I got there with little daylight left to hunt. My short hunt was uneventful. Using the sun's last rays I could just make out my pickup as I returned to it. I raised the pickup cap/camper door and opened the self-inflating pad and sleeping bag first thing. I planned to get a good night's rest and to be up before the sun. The old farm is several miles from nowhere, even the nearest farm house is a couple of miles away. I ate a simple camp supper and listened to the radio till about nine. In the bag I tossed and turned a while before crashing.
My eyes popped open, I looked at my watch, it was 3:05 a.m. As I was trying to gather my thoughts... Boom!, Boom!, and this time I was awake... Shooting at this time of the morning... Instantly I thought... I judged the shots to be on a wheat field about a half mile east of me... I wondered what I should do. I knew I didn't want to go out after a criminal at three in the morning. I didn't want to call the game warden at that time. So I did nothing. Probably most of an hour passed and I was still awake. Again and again I opened my eyes to look out at the stars. It was a beautiful clear night, but only about half a moon. There was a star moving across the sky... no an airplane... no it's a reflection of a small light. Oh!... I realized it was the poacher's headlight reflecting in the camper window. I raised up an looked out the other side of the camper. I first grabbed my little pump .22 I had lying beside me. Then I purposely threw open the pickup tail-gate knowing it would make a huge noise on such a quiet night. His headlight made a quick turn to see. I stood up on tailgate so I could see over some small cedar trees. He was making tracks. I'll bet the little .22 pump sounded bigger when I shucked it hard once - just to emphasize that he was going in the right direction. He may have set a new record for the 200 yard rough-field-in-the-dark-dash. It wasn't more than a couple of minutes before a car was picking him up on the road. Probably had a 2-way radio with him I thought. What I did was effective, but in the middle of nowhere, alone, I didn't sleep the rest of that morning. I kept thinking about all the ways it could have ended differently. I kept wondering if I was smart, or dumb. My in-laws, who own the property, repeated my story to the game warden. We have many more pages of information. Poacher to True Stories
|
