Over thirty years ago, I started jotting down weather conditions, animals sighted and other small facts of each hunt. It was useful for my woods-education and planning and anticipating for future trips to the field.
After a number of seasons, I decided to take these notes and compose a post-season write up. This turned into a book of sorts that I put together for Schlaggerman and myself. We each now have an accumulation of thirty years of hunting together. It's priceless.
The first part of the book is comprised of some of the magazine articles that we've had published. These bring a "story-telling" aspect to the reader. I think most of us enjoy a good tale from the hunt.
The middle of the book is where the field notes come in. Rather than just post the notes themselves, I've turned them into an explanation of the highlights from each season. Here's a cut from the first season we hunted together, which was 1981.
"That August I received an invitation to chase deer in the swamps of famed Langlade county. "Bring hipboots", the guy says. The alarm bells should have been going off right there. Baker treestand, backpack with warm clothes, bow, warm boots. Now carry this stuff in while wading through knee-deep swamp muck by flashlight. Some invitation. As so often happens, half way through the first morning, the "guide" fills his tag. "No problem, we'll just tie the buck to a pole and carry him out",says the happy hunter. By the time the deer is weakly flopped into the back of the truck, the hunters were more "dead" than the three- pointer that had been on the pole. No "hero pictures" were taken because, while the deer wasn't a problem, we couldn't keep the successful hunter's tongue from hanging out. A real male bonding experience if there ever was one. It was worth all the work though, just for the sight of Dale balancing on one leg like a camo flamingo, wondering how he was going to get his other hipboot out from under the half-submerged buck."
The final third of the book is color hero pics re-printed on paper. I get three photos per page. It's a nice end to the book, though it does show just how much we've aged!
The covers are 8x10 laminated pics. This is all bound together by the plastic ring binding that can be re-opened every five years for an update.
Start your own journal now. It's really worth the effort.
Topic: Hunting journal (Read 303 times)
