It was many years ago and walkie talkies were just coming to the market.  We figured they were a must for deer hunting in Skinner—and they are. Trouble was that the first ones were the size of shoe boxes and had little range.  But in deer hunting you should be near your partners. A deer is not going to get jumped and run a mile in front of you. I went over with him how the walkie talkies should be used.

    “If you see a deer and don’t get it, call me and let me know which way it is going so I can try to get ahead of it, and I will do the same for you.”  He was not listening and I knew it. Still, it is so basic, that I assumed he would figure it out. A few days later, on bare ground Francis jumped a buck and I heard him fire four shots, one second apart.  I knew that deer was healthy, as firing a rifle that fast is a sure sign of panic. The shots were close to me. I just had to know which direction the deer was going. Remember the radio instructions I had given him.  I waited but no call came in.

    Finally, I whispered in the radio, “Which way is it going?”  Nothing—no response. Now the guy who did not shoot should not bother the shooter as he may still have a deer around and be stalking, but I doubted that.  Francis was not known for his shooting ability and got buck fever more than anyone I had ever seen.

    Finally, he came on the radio. “I just saw a big buck.”

    “Which way is he going?” I pleaded.

     “He is going that way.”  No one could be that stupid, I thought.  What does that way mean?

     “Which way is he going?”  Again, he came back, “He’s going that way.”  Later that night he admitted that in the excitement he was pointing with his finger which way the buck was running.  He was 400 yards from me, and I obviously could not see which way he was pointing. Time was running out.

     “Give me a direction by compass.  I don’t know what that way means.”

     “He’s running toward the sun.”  That I could get and I was very much in the hunt.  I just could not see anything where I was. I ran blindly, knowing the buck was coming toward me.  I got to a hill and got to the top of it. I could see down the slope to a beaver pond and a little way into the other side of the beaver pond.  It was as good as it gets in Skinner. From where I was standing to across the beaver pond was 110 yards and my gun won’t do much better than that.  What I liked was the lack of brush and trees. Firing through a maze of trees is a challenge, and even brush can deflect a rifle bullet. I did not have long to wait.  He appeared on the other side of the bog running but not bounding. He was broadside to me. That is not a hard shot and I did not miss. It had worked! Despite the “over there” brain cramp, we had overcome it and used a radio to fix positions.  Now hear this. That was over forty years ago, and it never worked again. It took amazing luck because I did not know that the beaver pond was there, and it exposed the buck and short or long of it would have kept it in dense forests. Years later I would shoot another buck along that pond that had been jumped by Francis.  Bang. Bang. Bang. I needed no radio call and did not even try. In ten minutes, I saw the buck running toward me. I had a 12-gauge shotgun and I needed that buck to come close. I let him disappear in valleys and he always reappeared coming toward me. When he got twenty yards from me, I fired and took an antler clean off.  The shock knocked him down but he was not hurt. Now he was running away from me and I did not want to hit him in the rear. I took the head shot and cleaned half of his other horn off. He stopped giving me a clear shot at his head. I never believed in hunting clear cuts or open swale. Deer move along the edge. Put yourself in the woods, always making sure you can see back to the opening.  I would find such a spot in Skinner—the only place I ever found where it was possible to move deer in a two-man drive. It was called Second Pond and one day I put Francis in the shooter’s position. Big Mistake.

     Second Pond is actually the old pond that had been created by the Skinner dam.   The pond was gone but in its place was about twenty acres of flooded swale that deer do not like.  They like to be near it though as predators were not going across that swale either. A hunter had to go up the river and hit the swale.  He then walked along the swale toward the other hunter. Although I preach being in the woods and keeping some distance to the opening—not in this case.  The moving hunter is not going to get those deer. He moves them and they always ran along the swale and crossed a tote road. The deer would move away from me toward the waiting hunter.  Of course the deer were not always in there, but the shooter had to be diligent. Francis and I had synchronized watches so that we could call each other on the half hour. I was creeping along the swale and ran into deer beds and trails.  We had old snow. Some tracks were fresh, so I was certain they were just ahead of me. Francis was 250 yards from me. It was five minutes to radio call, so I did not move. I called to alert him and the idiot did not come on the radio. I waited another half hour and again he did not come on the radio.  I was so mad at him and I knew he was going to miss. I have alerted other hunters since then who were smart enough to come on the radio and they got deer. Unless you believe and concentrate as the shooter, it is not easy shooting. You don’t hear the deer coming and you see them at twenty yards and there is brush and trees and they are flying.  Knowing they are coming is a great help.

     I finally moved and in ten seconds I jumped about five deer.  I waited for the shots. Bang, Bang, Bang and so on. I knew. Lord I knew.  I came upon him he was looking for blood or hair. I saw two of his bullets had raked the trees twenty feet over our heads.  

     “Were there any giraffes in the group?” I asked.  

      “What does that mean?”  he replied.

       “Look at where your bullets hit the trees.  If it was at a giraffe, we’ll look for blood.  Otherwise we will chalk it up to another Francis screw up.”

       “I wasn’t ready,” he moaned.  “I had the butt of the gun on the ground and was holding the barrel.”

       “Did you get on the radio, like we were supposed to?  Did you? I knew those deer were coming and waited an hour to tell you.”

       “Jees. I forgot.”

        “One thing is certain.  I will never rob a bank with you.”

         Once his incompetence worked in his favor.  We had had fresh snow the night before and the deer conditions were perfect.  Even though I did everything like cook breakfast and do the dishes and lug wood and water, I was ready to go at dawn and he never was.  I said to Hell with him and jumped across the river. It was not long before I cut a buck track. I took it. An hour later I heard Francis start the truck and head out.  He was an hour late. Or was he? I heard the truck cross the bridge and the slamming of a door. I then heard two shots. He had driven right up to a buck which stood for him to shoot it.  An hour later I tracked my buck to its grave. Life is not always fair deer hunting. He could not fish either. He would always set too hard. Once he took the lips off a small trout by nearly jumping out of the boat when he yanked his rod.

      And he spoke two languages but English was iffy.  He could not pronounce his th’s so it was a trill rather than a thrill.  I had a secretary named Giselle and he would say to me, “that Gazelle is some pretty.”  I corrected him countless times. It was no use, but I found myself saying trill.

      His last laugh was the best one and it was on me.  The general manager of the Holiday inn and I went to Sebago fishing. He brought twenty pounds of shrimp.   It was marked “cooked and tail off.’” They were huge—like small lobsters! Jerry and I ate them the first night like it was our last meal.  Remember this—cooked and tail off. Is there something missing here? The next night we served the rest. Francis had just arrived and had missed the previous days feed. Jerry and I had eaten at least twelve pounds the night before.  Francis looked at the shrimp and said:

     “Do you have a deveiner?” Jerry and I looked at each other.  God I wanted this to be a Giselle gazelle story. “I’ll use my knife.”  He proceeded to peel the back of the shrimp revealing the dark waste or excrement or fecal matter that Jerry and I had ingested unknowingly the night before.

     I have no idea why I did not know that about shrimp—but I never forgot it.  Shrimp to this day are not the same.

MARKET REPORT

      Donald Trump is doing a high wire act with China and tariffs.  Market went wild with volatility. As I write this, nothing is resolved.  One thing certain is that the officials who disqualified the Kentucky Derby winner were correct.  It doesn’t matter why the horse drifted to the left blocking four other horses. I don’t care if the horse did it or the jockey—it is illegal and grounds for DQ.  The bad part of it is that the four horses that were impeded, had no chance and the declared winner was not in any way impeded by the foul. But that’s why they call it “racing”.