Spiro Agnew/Fred Bear/Bob Dylan

[TonyW]

What do they have in common? In the November 14,1969 issue of Time magazine, with a cartoon of Spiro Agnew on the cover, "Big Game Hunter Fred Bear" was featured in a nice article about bow hunting.

Got it to match my vintage bow and gear during the hunting season. I will post excerpts when the magazine arrives.

[TonyW]

Of Bear, Bow & Buck

by Associate Editor Ray Kennedy

Big Game Hunter Fred Bear remembers the moment clearly. It was 1933, the first day of the Michigan deer hunting season, and he was deep in the wilds of the Porcupine Mountains. "I crept out unto a creek bank," he recalls, "and about 100 yards upstream stood a deer. I raised my rifle and shot it. That was it: the season was just an hour old, and I already had my limit. Right there I decided to give up my gun hunting. It was too darned easy."

"The bow hunter is accurate at only 30 yards or less," explains Bear. "Getting that close to a wild animal is like trying to sneak into Fort Knox. And that's the fun of it. It's not the kill; that's always anticlimatic. It's the tracking, the learning of the way of the woods' creatures." ...

Now 67, Bear is the Natty Bumppo of the bow to 7,500,000 U.S. archers. In his home town of Grayling, Michigan, the chief industry is the Bear Archery Company. ... Though Bear has stopped a four-ton bull elephant with a single arrow, shot polar bear in the Arctic and Bengal tiger in the jungles of India, he claims that the "wariest, craftiest and hardest game of all to hunt is the white-tailed deer of North America."

The story continues with a day by day account of his seven day hunt on St. Martin Island, "an uninhabited, densely wooded patch in Lake Huron that stands as a kind of moated fortress of the white-tail."

A picture of Bear on the hunt, reminiscent of the cover of the original Archer's Bible, has this caption: "It's not the kill, it's the creatures.

[TonyW]

FIRST DAY. As dawn streaked across the amber and gold foliage on a heroic fall day, Fred was already prowling the beach, studying the heart-shaped tracks. "They're here," he whispered. A rangy, rawboned man with the weathered look of a backwoods sage, he was wearing his favorite old camouflage jacket and a battered gray fedora. As he explored the island, half a dozen deer bolted from distant thickets, their upturned tails waving like white flags. Later, sipping black coffee out of a tin can, he smiled: "Looks like this is going to be too easy for the bow. Maybe I should have brought my spear."

[TonyW]

SECOND DAY. Bow cradled under his arm like a violin, Fred moved through the bush like the prey he was pursuing - three steps, pause, slowly look around. Stepping in slow motion, he somehow worked his size 14 hunting boots through the tangle of twigs without a sound. Coming upon a clearing, he pointed to deep ruts in the black soil and whispered: "That's as big a buck track as I've ever seen." As he stood statue-still behind a big uprooted maple, a woodpecker's tattoo shattered the intense quiet like small arms fire. Overhead, squadrons of Canada geese flew south like dark arrows in the sky. They were the only signs of life the entire day.

[Mike Shaw]

That was very cool reading...Thanks Tony

[Blackhawk]

That is great reading.    

Ray Kennedy (the writer?)is now a favorite of mine. (so are you Tony)

OK...DAY THREE, si vous plais.    

[yellow bow]

[TonyW]

THIRD DAY. A chill, gusty rain whipped through the trees. "This is good," said Fred. "The deer's vision will be dimmed by raindrops on their eyelashes." Toward nightfall, as the downpour subsided into a fine mist, Fred spied a big buck munching on ground hemlock 80 yards away. Slowly, silently, Fred positioned his razorhead arrow and watched for five, ten, 20 excruciating minutes as the buck worked his way toward the clearing. But suddenly, he jerked his head, wriggled his nose, and was off into the bush. "Damn!" exclaimed Fred as he huddled over the camp stove. "With this island's tricky wind, it's hard to beat a deer's nose"

[TonyW]

FOURTH DAY. After bracing himself with a shot of frozen peppermint schnapps, Fred peeped out of his tent flap to find four inches of snow on the ground. Then at 4:30 a.m. he slipped on an extra suit of thermal underwear and set out in the dark. In the near-zero temperature, the inlet rimming the camp was layered with ice, and the sand was frozen hard as concrete. Bending like a bloodhound over the maze of snow tracks in the clearing, Fred whispered: "They're moving out that shintangle [thicket] over there just after sundown." At dusk, as he watched a deer 100 yards off through his binoculars, a red squirrel barked behind him. Turning, Fred looked straight into the eyes of the big buck standing 20 yards away. Startled, the deer quickly thumped off into thick cover before Fred had a chance to react.

[d. ward]

and then and then and then.............bowdoc

[TonyW]

FIFTH DAY. After an uneventful day's hunt, Fred went to the mainland for supplies. At the Ponderosa on Interstate 75, he bought some smoked fish, and the proprietress, Mrs. Melina Hills, invited him in for some homemade dandelion wine. She showed him a 20-lb. coho salmon she had "pulled outa the crick this mornin'" as well as photographs of the half-grown pet bobcat she had "potty-trained." Then, handing Fred a sponge soaked in anise oil, she confided: "Don't breeze it around, but that's the best buck lure there is. Just hang it on a tree near your blind." "How long will it last?" Fred asked. "For three rains," she replied.

[d. ward]

Hey I almost forgot to mention this Ton,you know what makes our little group in the collecters corner so cool? It's stuff like this right here dude shareing with friends.....Tony I just wanta say hell ya man thank you again........bowdoc

[TonyW]

SIXTH DAY. Fred was awakened by the violent flapping of the tent. Outside, an icy, 45-m.p.h. wind was screaming off the lake. In the clearing, the trees were bending in the wind like drawn bows as Fred hung Melina's sponge in a spruce and sprinkled the trunk with a liquid lure made from the sex glands of a doe. Nothing worked. "The only thing left to do," said Fred, blackening his face with soot, "is hunt by moonlight and shoot by shape." Shortly after dusk, his eye caught the reflection of antlers in the moonlight. Again it was the big buck, and again he was moving enticingly close - 70 yards, 65, 60. Then the wind shifted, the buck snorted and disappeared into the night.

[TonyW]

SEVENTH DAY. The hunt was over. Deer spotted: 17. Arrows shot: 0.
"Boy, those white-tails are really something," said Fred as he headed home. "They're just smarter than hell. Reminds me of the time I was hunting mountain goat in Alberta with Bud Gray, the chairman of Whirlpool. After about five hours of panting up those icy mountains, he rested on his bow and said: 'Tell me we're having fun, will ya?'"

[TonyW]

This was in the intro to the article:

Last week (November 7, 1969) the Michigan bow-hunting season was in full swing, and Bear was among the 60,000 bowmen stalking the wily white-tail. The deer were in little danger; while one in four gun hunters bags a white-tail each season, only one in 20 bow hunters is successful. Reducing the odds further, Bear chose to hunt on St. Martin's Island ...

[TonyW]

It was nice to bring Fred back - got to hunt out some more old magazines.

[TonyW]

ttt

[Bjorn]

Tony that was a great read............somehow I missed the reference to Bob Dylan in your post. Is it there? Dylan just happens to be my favorite singer/songwriter.

[TonyW]

This slice of life was recorded in Time magazine in 1969. A cartoon of Spiro Agnew was on the cover, and Bob Dylan was featured inside.
Lost in the sauce was the poetic saga of then 67 year old Fred Bear.

[rick7]

excellent reading