My dad often said, “When you get to be my age, everything reminds you of a story.” Seeing a photo with a wool crusher hat did it for me recently.
In the mid-70s, I had two customers who always seemed to have a wool crusher hat on in their trophy photos. They were both named Kenny, both were Italian-American, and both were in their early thirties.
One Kenny was a construction worker that was building many of the office buildings that are still in Boston’s business district today. He was a great light tackle, saltwater fisherman, and he was instrumental in my becoming a Martha’s Vineyard fisherman.
The other Kenny was a great hunter. He shot several 200-pound Maine bucks, and he did it the old fashioned way. He had on more than one occasion set off in his canoe, by himself, prepared to sleep under the stars and came home with a monster Maine buck. This from a guy who was shorter and most likely lighter than me.
In 1975, I had just got out of the hospital and was looking forward to doing some bowhunting in Vermont. For some reason I could only hunt the Sunday of the middle of the three weekends of the season. I don’t remember why, but I invited Kenny the hunter to go with me on a one-day hunt to Athens, VT. I rarely invited customers to join me on outings like this, but I had immense admiration for this guy. He was not a bragger but a doer.
This was an afternoon hunt. We drove up early that morning, and I put him in the second best tree that I had. There were no portable stands then.
Because it was a half-day hunt, I made some errors in my gear by simply not thinking about the “what ifs.” I was just grateful to be out in the woods.
We were in the second day of a three-day Nor’easter. It was raining, but not hard. I was confident that the deer would be moving, especially during any break in the rain.
I was right. It was midafternoon, maybe 3 o’clock when I heard two does coming down the very steep trail that I was overlooking. They were coming from behind my left shoulder. Perfect. They were virtually twins so I let the first one pass and let the second one get into my window, 20 feet broadside to me and slightly quartering away.
I was using a brand new Jennings compound bow that I grabbed off the shelf at work. I had never hunted with a compound bow before, but I had shot this bow a few times at the store. No sights. The only accessory was a quiver. I grabbed this bow because I had neither the time to practice nor the strength to pull my recurve bow.
I released the arrow. In a flash the two does were gone so quickly that I hardly can recall, but I was confident that it was a good hit. Then the rains picked up so I made a decision not to track her that afternoon (no coyotes back then) but wait until tomorrow.
I met Kenny back at my vehicle, a big Ford Galaxie, and headed home.
The next day, I picked up my friend Jim, who took the day off to help, and headed back to Vermont. It rained the whole way. When we got to the mile-long dirt road, we found it washed out. So we hiked in, and thankfully we found the deer not 40 yards from my tree.
Looking back at it, if I had been there by myself, I’m sure that I would have slept in my car, and then I would not have been able to drive out. The bad news is that it is very steep there, which is one of the major reasons that I chose not to push her that night.
So by dead reckoning, we took off in the direction of the road as it climbed the mountain. It would have been a miserable, very steep uphill drag to back track. We nailed it. About an hour later, we came out 30 yards from the car.
All this because of the sight of that crusher hat! Don’t laugh. As my dad used to say, “Someday when you are my age…”
WLAGS
WLAGS 