The second rifle season began on Saturday. Ben Beall drew an
anterless resident deer tag as part of the Colorado Division of
Wildlife's annual big game license drawing.
Ben could not hunt on Saturday due to prior engagements such as sawing
logs with a blade that he gave up on, cursing Precision Sharpening for
not being faster in sharpening blades, only to find that they had left
a message an untold number of days prior notifying of the blade being
ready. One of the roommates had listened to the message and it was
lost in the saved messages recording which Ben did not hear. He also
coached soccer that day, watching his team blow a 2-0 lead with only 8
minutes left to play. Ben was left with the solace that his boys had
never gone through such a late game brain fart and Ben noted that this
experience was probably great for their mental development. After the
big game Ben walked from door to door in the hilly mountain base area
neighborhood to knock on doors for the Obama, Udall, Brenner,
Hagenbuch save the world ticket, only to find that no one is home on a
beautiful Saturday afternoon. Ben reasoned that maybe the world
doesn't need saving if people know to get out of their damned homes on
a beautiful Saturday afternoon. One moment caused Ben great joy.
While walking by one apartment, he heard a shout come from an open
window "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!!!" Obviously, a college
quarterback had just made a terrible error or Microsoft Word was not
user friendly enough to write the damn letter for the poor faceless
soul stuck in the I'm-inside-on-a-beautiful-
hole.
Ben has rambled so long, that he no longer remembers what he did with
the rest of his saturday afternoon. He does remember saturday night
because he ate a shit load of food that silas cooked - fresh trout
from stagecoach, pork chops, corn, pizza, chips and queso, 'boo'
cookies (its halloween), and a bottle of wine - while watching silas'
for-some-reason beloved red sox stave off elimination.
Sunday came with big expectations but little fanfare. With thoughts
of driving north of Hayden and setting up hunting camp. Ben instead
squandered the day away and did little but stare vacantly at his
computer screen tracking his two fantasy football teams accumulate
points, watching online video clips of Meet the Press, The Daily Show,
The Colbert Report, financial advice from Erin Burnett, and random tid
bits from The Youtube. Of substantive progress however, Ben did pick
up his room a bit and strip the sheets from his bed (which he did not
take the time to replace and later ended up using only the mattress
pad at bedtime). Around 3pm, Ben, exasperated with his own laziness,
counted his losses, emptied the hunting clothes onto his floor, threw
on some orange and crossed RCR 36 to tresspass on private property.
It didn't take him long to find the most deer he had ever seen on
Copper Ridge.
The problem with second season hunting is that the weather is far too
nice and the leaves far to dry and obstructing. With every step Ben
created a cacophony of noise that warned every deer from Steamboat to
Maybell of his approach. After he had heard 15 deer bound off in
front of him, the night descended and left Ben frustrated yet excited
for the next day.
As is always the case, a day of hunting action is always followed by a
day of hunting inaction. Ben spent Monday sitting, waiting, drinking
far too much coffee from a thermos, and growing progressively more
sweaty and less patient. On a good note, due to the coffee, Ben was
able to leave a mark of his territory at every turn. The only
opportunity for the day was at a watering hole where Ben jumped two
does who, as dumbass deer will do, sat and looked at him for 5 minutes
out in the open. The only problem was that they stopped in a position
so that one doe was lined up immediately in front of the doe to the
rear. If only Ben had drawn two doe tags in the Colorado Division of
Wildlife's annual big game license drawing, he may have taken the shot
and told the story later of killing two does with one shot. No such
luck!
Happy for the day and the walk, yet disappointed in what seemed to be
a sure thing, Ben returned home for lunch, a trip to the office, and
then a sunset hunt in the original destination north of Hayden.
Little did he know, Ben's plans were not meant to be.
Upon returning home, Ben found a message from Aztec Drilling regarding
the repair of the well hydrant and the possible methods or
complications for its repair. Knowing the poor service provided by
the service industry in Steamboat, Ben jumped on the offer for Aztec
to come out right away to look at the well. In order to move the
truck and show the well drillers where the switch was to turn off the
pump, Ben stayed at home cleaning the garage and doing other minor
things that he had been putting off for months. After Aztec had
repaired the hydrant. Ben was feeling rushed to get to Sleeping Giant
- he had since modified his original plans because there was no way in
hell he would be able to make it to Hayden unless all he wanted to do
was sit down at the Highway Bar for a beer - and he ran down the back
trail to the garage carrying a small CD player to place in the ever
more cluttered garage addition. Half way to the garage Ben noticed
two things out of the outside corner of both his right and left eye.
Out of his left he saw that Beth Boyd had just returned home and was
grabbing a few things from her car. Out of his right eye, Ben noticed
the scurrying of about 8 mule deer about 20 feet from the trail. Not
knowing what to do with all this, Ben first set down the CD player to
clear one of the three things from his mind. Having placed his gun
and hunting articles in the truck in front of the garage, he decided
to try to get to the gun without spooking the deer. But then there
was Beth, would the deer spook by her movements. Seeing as Ben had
already cut down all the brush on the entire hillside, he was not
impeded by brush and leaves as he had been "out in the wild". He
stealthily made it down the trail, got Beth's attention to take cover,
snuck through the garage, retrieved the gun, rested the gun on the bed
of the truck, checked to make sure that the truck metal rack was not
in the line of his shot, picked what he thought was the biggest doe
out of all the little things, and fired a single shot. The doe fell
40 feet uphill from the garage, rolled down the hill, jumped once when
it hit the driveway, and landed in the back of the truck. The doe
even gave Ben and Beth a snickers bar too!
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