This is a hobby of mine. I had to mull it and between pesky customers I had to delete prior mentions, like slow elk.
From west central Illinois originally, where there is a difference between a crick and a creek, I've picked up these from my adopted home:
A cut is a sharp, narrow saddle. A pass is a high saddle. A coulee is bigger than a gulch but smaller than a canyon. (I miss using "holler".)
Jack strawed = downed timber laying every which way and in multiple layers, hard to get through. "Man, Buttermilk Butte has some nice bucks, but it's so jack strawed it takes all day to go 10 yards."
Native = ruffed grouse. (Native pheasant)
Be-in's as = because or "seeing as though". As in "Bein's as it's colder'n a cat's ass, I'm heading for the barn."
Offn ... as in "'Course we're lost, bein's as we got offn the trail four hours ago."
Floor = bottom. The whitetails are on the floor and the muleys are on the shoulders.
Whistle pig = rock chuck = groundhog = marmot
Rank = thick & ornery in the rut, as in "That bull was sure rank."
Corn flakes (aka Wheaties) what you walk on when it's dry.
snow cone = rotten snow the consistency of snow cone ice.
Owly = looking around suspiciously "I wasn't busted, but that buck was really owly."
Fool's Hen = Franklin's grouse, NOT a spruce grouse, NOT a blue grouse. (The distinction could be colloquial. This usually causes arguments, kinda like "raghorn" which I'm not touchin')
Hooter = a big old lone male blue grouse that tastes like Pinesol and chews like saddle leather, best used in "scrapple"... how that recipe got clear out here I don't know, but here, it's yellow corn mush cooked slow with old grouse instead of pork then sliced & fried.
Skylighted = standing stuck out on the horizon, something not to do, whether you are man or beast.
Doughball = taken from fishing but used in hunting, the opposite of "pro from Dover" to put it politely. Replaces "roadhunter."
Staub = the broken branch that you drive through your tire when you're driving on a spur which is where you're not supposed to be if you crossed the ditch called a water bar, and definitely if you're driving up on a skid, where the staubs are fierce.
Snag = an upright dead broken off tree, usually a landmark. "The top of the skid leading down to the wallow is right below that big snag."
Then there is that whole "camp robber" "whiskey jack" "Steller's jay" "Canada jay" thing which I'm still scratching my chin over...
Topic: Hunting Colloquialism's (Read 981 times)
