A few days ago I shot my first buck and must admit I had very mixed emotions about the experience which for me really began several years ago. When I got diagnosed with SIBO and had to switch from a vegan/vegetarian to Paleo diet I made the decision to fully embrace the Paleo lifestyle and in March of 2015 part of that became taking up hunting again. It all started when I re-read The Paleo Manifesto and the chapter where John Durant decides to go deer hunting to supply his own food. I grew up hunting in Iowa and had indeed supplied my own food before so I knew I could do it. But, I grew up hunting birds, rabbits and squirrels and while Dad had gone deer hunting I had never been along. After my first bird hunt in 30+ years I began looking into big game hunting since the amount of freezer stocked is way higher than with small game. Within a month I had read several books on deer hunting and was contemplating hunting deer.
Category Archives: Hunting
Lira’s First Hunt
After five months of training I finally was able to get Lira out into the field today for her first controlled but real pheasant hunt. Chris and I loaded her up this morning and did the long drive to Ellensburg where we hunted at Cooke Canyon Hunt Club, a private reserve where we would have an entire area to ourselves. I ordered us up some hens figuring they would be easier for Lira to deal with than roosters on her first real outing, she got her first hen when she was only five months old on a training day.
Training Lira
Lira with a pigeon she flushed and caught
Two months ago Catherine and I headed to Portland to pick up our new pup, an Australian Labradoodle that we named Lira (Lira means River in aboriginal Australian). These last few months have been interesting as we have taken on training Lira not only to be a companion in the house but also a bird dog. She just turned 5 months old a few days ago and looking back we can really see how far she’s come in just a few months time. When we picked Lira up she basically knew NO and OFF and that was about it, she wasn’t totally crate trained or housebroken yet.
End of one season, getting ready for the next
It has been a grueling winter here in the PNW, the wettest on record and the rivers have been blown out not only locally but also on the Eastside where one can usually go fish by March and have great conditions. I had my last pheasant hunting trip at the end of February with friends Mike & Carolina and their dog Penny and we managed to get a few birds but even the pheasants were in a weird mood. I pulled off a cast & blast that day hitting the river after the hunt and managed to catch a couple of trout to go with the two roosters I got, one of them a 17″ rainbow and a decent cutthroat. This was the last day the Yak was in decent barely fishable condition.
2015 was way better than 2014
I was looking back on my 2014 year end summary and that was one rough year to say the least, 2015 turned out to be much better in every way. The amazing thing is that my prediction in my #1 goal of “Get Healthy” actually was pretty accurate. I expected to be over SIBO and healing my gut but didn’t expect to be feeling really good until 2016 but really I ended up feeling pretty good by mid-2015. I stopped taking anti-microbials in May and declared myself cured of SIBO in June and since then have been getting better and better each month with no relapse in almost eight months now. On top of eradicating my SIBO the last round of treatment I did got rid of my blastocystisis hominis too which was excellent news – SIBO and parasite free finally. I also got good news that I do not have the auto-immune condition that is a major cause of SIBO which is why I think I’ve avoided relapse for so long.
What I do when everything is flooding
The weather has gone to hell rapidly this fall and today we are on the third big storm and flood of the last few weeks, kind of crazy. Not much fishing opportunities around here at the moment so what is a fisherman to do? Well, over the last month I’ve managed to get in some great fishing off Catalina Island in SoCal and several good hunts to gather food as well as fly tying material.
Cooke Canyon Pheasant Hunting
In mid-October Chris and I went over to Cooke Canyon to go on the first bird hunting trip of the season. We had pretty much perfect conditions, sunny and calm in Ellensburg with short-sleeve weather. We started the morning doing a bit of trap shooting and I SUCKED to say the least, I think I hit 3 clays in about 30 shots, not a good percentage. Chris, on the other hand, was spot on hitting about 95% accuracy so between the two of us we stood a chance. We hit the field and did indeed find birds and get some, we ended up with five of the seven birds that day, not bad for a first trip out of the year. I vowed to hit the trap field.
The Zen of shooting
I know that seems like a weird title but today I found out how shooting really is an act of Zen. I went for another shotgun lesson at Seattle Trap & Skeet Club today with ClayBrakn shooting instructor Frank Neumayer since I knew I needed to become a better shot before fall rolls around and I’m back out in the field after birds. On our last outing in March I sucked at clays but ended up doing OK on birds because my instincts took over.
To dog or not to dog
This past few months we’ve been discussing whether or not to get a dog, specifically a bird dog. After my hunting excursion this spring I decided you kind of need a dog here, the terrain here is nothing like the marches through Iowa cornfields that I grew up hunting and a dog seems pretty essential. I also miss Isan and would like to have a dog companion around since I’m a bit more house bound than I’m used to being.
I decided to turn this into a whole research project so we began investigating breeds before settling in on a German Shorthair Pointer. This is a good bird dog, a good family dog and a very athletic dog perfect for hiking or trail running. Catherine ran into a client that has a GSP and absolutely loves the dog, it is their child. She gave us a bunch of resources and this began a search for breeders and trainers in the area plus a bunch of reading about dog training for a gun dog. Luckily the Pheasants Forever magazine this quarter was all about dogs so I got a bunch of resources from it. I located Sage Brush Gun Dogs in Ellensburg which raises and trains GSPs, I also know that our guide from Red’s just had pups too that are in the same line as Katie above. I just finished reading The Ultimate Guide to Bird Dog Training and Wing & Shot to get an idea of what would be involved with training one of these dogs, both excellent books that gives you a very sobering look at how much work and time is involved in developing a bird dog.
Hunting deer???
After I decided take up hunting again this year for birds the next thing that I had thought about was moving up to big mammals. I got quite a bit of venison and antelope from my friend Tom and it was excellent to say the least, made me want more. I also have to purchase a quarter beef and then some each year, a lamb and a whole pig to get me through the year in meat, it would be great to replace some of that with a deer, an antelope or even better an elk. Shooting birds, however, is much easier than shooting a large mammal and the prospect of taking a deer has forced me to do some reading and soul searching on the matter. The deadline is coming soon, if I want to try and hunt deer this fall I need to get my name in the draws next month in just a few weeks then I need to get myself geared up and ready to go.
Buddhism and Hunting
Thirty six years ago when I started practicing Zen Buddhism I gave up meat eating, hunting and fishing to become a “good Buddhist” vegetarian. I had an on and off thing with fishing, I stopped for years, picked it up again as exclusively a Catch & Release practice, stopped it again, then picked it back up again. I never picked up hunting or eating meat again until this last year. When forced out of my vegetarian diet by SIBO I decided that if I was going to eat meat then I was going to participate in the taking of that meat or fish so I began killing fish and recently, killing animals, for food.