The Hunt
Medium: Kristen Gould Case
Art: Bryan Haynes
Whether you’re for it or against it, hunting is very much a part of traditional culture in the Park City area. Many locals still pursue the sport/hobby/ passion they were weaned on. Each year, “thousand Utah residents hunt deer, elk, birds, moose, fowl” and even “once-in-a-lifetime draw” game such as Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep or cougar. For some, it’s simply an excuse to enjoy being in the outdoors. For others, it’s pure sustenance” — putting food on the table. For yet others, it’s about spending time with family at camp or hiking together in the mountains. One common thread unites these enthusiasts from all walks of life. They all turn into poets the moment you ask them to describe their hunting lives.
The Smell
“Hunting’s about cockleburs all over you. And the smell of spent cartridges. It’s about fall smells — earthy smells — when the leaves are on the ground — the start of decay. It’s just a manly thing. I think there’s almost a genetic memory for men to go on the hunt. Every August there will be a day when the light is suddenly at a different angle, and my scrotum gets tight and I start sniffing and scratching around my yard. It’s time to go gather something.”
“You pile into an old ’52 Plymouth — and as a little boy you’re wedged in there between old guys in the back seat and it’s like an old couch, with the foam padding and the springs — and there’s a smell, mixed with old man farts (flatulence is a big part of hunting — have you ever scared ducks off a decoy that way?) — and even the old Declo radio — there’s a certain smell to lighting up that radio — as those tubes warmed up — so all of these guys are in there with all of these smells and all of these supplies and you’re headed out.”
“If the older men ever shot their guns, you grabbed the casings. Have you ever smelled a shell that’s just been fired? You live for that as a kid. There’s something so manly about gunpowder. You’d walk around with it in your pocket, and then every once in a while you’d take a sniff. It made you feel like you were part of the hunt. And then you’d put it on your finger and sniff that. And as the day wore on — you were young and you were getting worn out, see — you’d take the cartridge out and smell it again and it gave you the wherewithal to keep going, walking down the next ditch.”
“When I’m bird hunting, I notice and love the smell of the soil. I love the smell of desert — cheat grass, mountain mahogany, sagebrush — especially early in the morning or late at night when you get the moisture.”
Anticipation
“The only time I didn’t sleep at all when I was a kid was when I was going hunting the next day. You finally come of age where you might be included. You don’t know whether it’s going to happen or not. The higher council of Indians says, ‘maybe we shouldn’t be taking kids this time …’ so when you know you’re on the bubble of being able to go or not, the last thing you want to do is oversleep. Any little excuse, they’re going to pile in without you.”
The Guns
“I bought my first gun with paper route money — my model 870 Remington shot gun. I named it ‘Old Thunder.’”
“I only named one gun. It was called ‘the beast.’
The Womenfolk
“So you wake before dawn and there’s all this great stuff going on in the darkness — lots of rustling in the house. The sound of men getting guns, and dogs whining with anticipation. There’s lots of activity, but it’s hush hush — you don’t want to make up the womenfolk. Every part of hunting is anti-house — the dirty dogs, the bloody feathers — there’s going to be some violation when you return — so the last thing you want to do is piss her off just going out the door. The only reason you get to come back in later is because she’s had the whole day to herself.”
“The women don’t understand it. But they’re resigned to the whole thing. You know what the standard reproach is going to be, though. You’ll be joyously recounting your hunting story — any kind of success, maybe even not having to do with the animal — like there was a flat tire or you fell in the ditch — and there will be nothing but a hand on the hip. You’re stunned every time that the women aren’t going to get wrapped up in your story. And the only comment you get is, ‘you’re not going to drag that in here.’”
The Sights
“My favorite memories are of sitting in a blind, the way the light hits the edges of things. Or laying on the tall grass — a mattress of rye — on a cold day. The wind is above you and you’re warm, listening to the different water fowl coming in over the top of you like crazy. They all have different wing sounds. The depth of their sound is proportional to their bodies. Teals swoop, for instance. Geese are like 747’s and other birds are like little fighter crafts.”
“Just being out there, you’re always in a good spot anyway where there’s water and plenty of growth so all of the smells are there. Before dusk is a great time. That’s when the birds move around and the light is in the trees and everything. You’re out there to look at the scenery.”
The Dogs
“I hunt mostly grouse in Kamas or in the Uintas. I grew up in Utah Valley and always hunted pheasants. Utah’s not much of a pheasant country anymore. My hunting dog is a vizla/wirehair cross. His name is ‘Ruff.’ Like a ruffed grouse. I guess it’s just you and your dog — that’s mostly what hunting is. You watch your dog. You can tell from the first instant what he smells. If he smells a rabbit, you can call him off. If he smells a squirrel or chipmunk, he looks different than when he smells a bird. You can tell right off the bat when he points, you know, when he’s getting birdy. He settles right down and you know he’s on the trail of a bird —“that’s what raises your heart rate. You’re always ready from that point on. The dogs are so proud when they get the bird up. When you train them, you use the reward system of a piece of jerky or something, but even more, you pet them and praise them when they bring the bird back to you. That’s what the hunt is all about.”
The Space
“What I love about out there is the vastness of it all. You feel so small. We’re talking about miles of country — and you can walk and walk and walk.”
“People look at desert country and say oh my god how boring and how can you think that’s beautiful, like the Great Basin. But when you get down to it, the life in that place is amazing — and the absence of human life is so appealing to me. It takes away from the experience for me when I see other people out there. What I enjoy the most is when I go by myself or with a brother and you don’t say anything hardly the whole time. You’re walking with the dogs, you listen to the wind, you see the ravens hovering, maybe see a bobcat or coyote, you’re not intruding that much. I think some of the ravens have seen me out there so much, they know me. When I’m out there, I think about the solitude of those experiences — the solace. It stays simple. You take the dogs, you take the gun, you go for a walk.”
The Kill
“When people say I could walk all day and never shoot anything and that’s fine, that’s a bunch of b.s. The spirit of it all is cool until you go a couple of days without finding any birds!”
Around the Table
“I have really fond memories of the elk wrapping around our kitchen table. Dad would cut — and my brother and I would wrap it and label it and have it in this neat little package and put it in the freezer. We had this cold storage — and you had your key — and you’d walk in and it smelled like dried-up blood and cold. It just smelled like meat. It’s the smell I remember.”
“Serving meat that I’ve harvested is about the satisfaction of knowing the personal effort that went into it. The experiences that led up to putting it on the table. In a way I’m sharing that with my friends and family, whether they know it or not. Knowing exactly where the meat came from and how it was taken care of and having a role in all of that, that’s important to me. There’s a definite period of time when it changes from being an animal into being meat. It’s a definite transition, and it starts out fairly sad, and then it’s fairly satisfying. It is sad to actually kill the animal, but then it becomes meat. And it’s very satisfying to know that I’m going to feed it to my family and friends and eat it myself.”
“The treat is supper. I usually bread my birds in whatever I’ve got around and fry them. If you have a bunch of grouse breasts, you can have a real feast.”
The Memories
“Some of the strongest, most pleasant memories of time with my father were times hunting. I remember vividly to this day him carrying me on his back while we waded across deep water in the duck swamp, the smell of his cigar and his gun and his hair, my arms wrapped around his neck.”
Writer Kristen Gould Case loves nothing better than sitting around the kitchen table after a beautiful elk roast or stuffed pheasant dinner, listening to people talk.
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