Three pheasants that Roger and I shot in the McMillan Marsh wildlife area. (larger)

My first recollection of hunting was when I was about five and our dad, with his brand-new, shiny bright, beautifully etched stock and forestock Winchester 30-30 Model 64 rifle (not the more common, carbine) brought home a buck. It was 1946 or 47 and the woods, he said, sounded like a war with all of the veterans coming back with their M1s, Mausers and Enfields modified for hunting. There is a picture of him with the buck standing with rigor mortis and him next to it with his Winchester and hunting clothes on. I don't have that picture.

As we grew, Roger and I would make slingshots and makeshift bows to try out but I don't think we hit anything with them except each other. The old adage, "It'll put your eye out," applied, but we pretty much ignored, not aiming for anyone's face. The tops of bushel baskets made good, but flimsy shields.

When we were about eight or nine, we got serious about getting a BB gun. Of course there was a company that sent us elegant greeting cards to sell door-to-door with the prize being a Daisy pump rifle. We were lousy salesmen and Mom had to buy half of the cards. We cherished that gun and kept it in good condition a very long time. Probably passed it down to our younger brothers.

With the BB gun, I shot sparrows, mice, blackbirds and at an occasional, chipmunk. Never killed one. The greatest shot that I remember making was hitting a blackbird as it flew overhead. Saw the BB go all the way from when it left the barrel until it hit the bird and brought it down. We didn't shoot robins, squirrels or any other songbirds. Did a lot of target shooting in the basement, saving our BBs for reuse.

In Marshfield, we were about three blocks away from the City 40. Forty acres set aside for a school in every 640 acre section. It was a little wilderness where deer, and even bear, had been seen. We saw pheasants, but couldn't get close enough to shoot them with bows and arrows. Then, one day after a snowfall, we went with a neighbor to try to find any.

I remember we approached some sparse dried tall grass. Suddenly, two hen pheasants, perfectly camouflaged, burst from it. And then, we saw pheasant tracks leading up to a small, 3 foot high, spruce. Our neighbor walked up to it and saw a pheasant hiding under. He let loose with his slingshot and then ran in to grab the bird. His family got to eat it, we didn't.

When we were 15, we first went deer hunting with Dad. Roger had a borrowed shotgun and I had my grandfather's old hexagon barreled Winchester model 94 38-55. It was heavy and I didn't shoot it to feel the recoil saving rare ammunition. There weren't many deer, but our 17-year-old cousin got a buck. On the last day of that season, a deer came by quite close. Dad whispered in my ear, "Shoot." But I could clearly see that it was a doe and didn't. Telling him my concern after, he agreed with me.

When we were 16, on our birthday, we got a Stevens semi automatic 22 and a Mossberg 16gauge bolt action shotgun. I was fond of both guns and we could go out together hunting small game in season with them. However, when it came to shooting game birds and waterfowl, the guns we had were not right, so Dad took us to the local hardware store and bought Roger a well used 12gauge shotgun. The Mossberg became mine.

Railroad tracks left town near where we lived, north into the McMillan Marsh area where there was wildlife to be found. We rarely ventured that far though,  because there was good hunting to the City Limits Road along the tracks, far from any farm or houses. On my first outing along those tracks during small game season, a hen pheasant took off and I fired about seven shots with the Stevens 22, remarkably bringing it down. I didn't think at the time that my bullets were carrying over a mile and could have hit someone, although the direction I fired in was not populated at all except by a supper club on the corner of City Limits Road and Highway 13.

I don't remember what action Roger's 12gauge shotgun had, but one day as we walked along the tracks into the McMillan Marsh, Roger loaded a shell into the chamber while we were walking and the stock broke. As the barrel was falling downward, the shell in the chamber with birdshot in it fired directly into the gravel and railroad ties right in front of his feet. That accident really scared us. We took the gun back to the hardware store where Dad bought it and they traded it for a newer and better 12gauge that Roger continued to use.

We got word that the Necedah wildlife refuge was opening up for deer season for the first time in many years. I guess there was a need to reduce the deer population. We got up at 5 am and drove an hour to get there. But cars everywhere told us that we were already late.

As we entered the woods we met game wardens with coyotes and turkeys that were being illegally shot and the men arrested. And it wasn't even time for the season to begin yet at daybreak. We walked back in the woods some distance from the car and Dad set us out on stands about 100 yards apart. He told us to stay there and not move and let the deer come to us.

Unfortunately, it was 0°F that morning and as I stood up against a tree, gradually the cold seeped into my feet even though the sun came out bright and shone down through the trees. They started to get numb and I wished that I could walk to keep that from happening. Suddenly, in the opening in front of me, something crossed. I didn't see any deer, but someone started shooting from across the clearing and I got behind that tree because it seemed like they were firing right at me.

As soon as that was over, over my right shoulder I saw a man standing about 100 feet away. He hailed me and asked me to come on over. He said, "I'm a warden, I want to see your license. Did you see those two doe that those guys shot at?"

I told him I didn't see who was shooting and I didn't see any deer. I started digging for my billfold in my back pocket and found that underneath my hunting coat and my hunting pants it was buried in my jeans and quite difficult to get out. When I showed him, he asked where my father was and I told him, "Right over there," pointing the direction.

With all that noise, I figured that no deer would come through so I walked over to where my Dad was sitting up against a tree looking the other way. I called out to him, not too loudly and he didn't hear me until I came up and touched him on the shoulder. He jumped up, surprised that I was there. I knew that he was hard of hearing, had been all his life. In the woods, he couldn't hear deer coming. He had to rely on what he saw--movement--putting him at a disadvantage over other hunters, like me, who could hear them coming even in the snow.

We gathered up Roger and went back to the car where the coffee in the thermos was still boiling hot and the sandwiches for lunch were near frozen. We saw some really nice bucks being dragged out by hunters and more illegal coyotes and turkey that the wardens had. The turkey had just been restocked from the Appalachians and were starting to take hold in the oak scrub brush after being hunted out of existence after logging had reduced habitat like this by the 1920s. Without wolves, the deer population skyrocketed and then crashed when all of the prime grazing buds were gone and they starved to death. Why we were hunting to cull the population.

We didn't see anything the rest of that day. The second day we came back to a different place and I recall walking a lot, following deer trails in the snow. About three times, a large herd of doe came running through right by me and I looked for horns but didn't see any. One time, while I waited along the trail up against a tree, a small deer came down the trail and walked right up to me. I didn't move and he sensed that I was there, but apparently couldn't smell or see me. He ended up pawing the ground with his front hoof as I easily observed two half-inch bumps on his head, indicating that he was a yearling buck. Three inches of horn were required before a buck was legal.

Unfortunately, as I walked along those trails, I found the bodies of five or six doe that hunters had shot and left. Some probably from shots that I heard fired earlier. Two months later, during the late season, we again hunted at a different place. I walked alone a long way and almost got lost because it was very cold and the only way to keep warm was to walk. Unfortunately, I saw no deer except six or seven doe that had been shot during the early season. None of those carcasses had been scavenged even with coyotes and ravens present. I noticed that their white bellies were blue, indicating some decomposing before they froze. Actually, the meat might have been quite good, but taking one out, even like that, would make us subject to arrest.

In late winter, the only things that could be shot were varmints. But we still went hunting with friends. Farmers detested pigeons and would let us hunt them. We tried scaring them out of barns without shooting inside, causing roof leaks, but were unsuccessful in hitting them leaving the upper barn doors so fast.

So, we resorted to sneaking up on flocks feeding in the fields. One time, I shot about 20 and brought them home. There was one, pure white one, when I picked it up, covered with blood from birdshot, bothered me. It seemed much easier to shoot the brown and slate colored ones than the symbol of peace.

Pigeons are quite gamy, so I prepared only the breasts, 20 or so that one time. Mom wrapped the breasts in bacon and baked them. The bacon took the gamy taste away and we feasted on something similar to Cornish game hen served in banquets.

Whenever we went to visit our grandparents renting a farmhouse across from their old homestead, we drifted towards the Black River. Sometimes, our cousin, five years younger, whose father was an avid hunter, joined us. It was in the spring of the year and I think we were going fishing when we heard some eerie calls coming from near the river bank and found that there was a hole with kit foxes calling for their mother.

We went back to the farmhouse and got a shovel and grandpa's 22 pump action that had been used so much that the rifling was gone in the barrel. I still loved that gun and was a dead shot with it. After some digging, the young foxes appeared and we shot them. In those days foxes were considered as varmints detrimental to farmers' chicken coops and there was no season or limit on shooting them. I recall we skinned the half grown kits and kept the skins.

In the fall, we were back there one weekend and we decided to go hunting. Before we got to the river there was considerable brush and habitat for rabbits and birds. I had us fan out, but within sight of one another. I was closest to the fence line we followed, Roger was to my left where I could see him, and our cousin was on the other side of Roger where I couldn't see him.

We proceeded slowly and quietly because that was the best way to sneak up on unsuspecting game and flush it out. Our cousin had Grandpa's 22 and we had our shotguns. We were about halfway to the river when a partridge (ruffed grouse) took off from my right and flew downhill across in front of Roger to an opening where I took a shot, about 100 yards off.

Immediately we heard a loud, "Owwww!" and my cousin screaming, "You shot me! You shot me!" Over and over. Roger and I rushed down to see what had happened. Apparently, he had walked very fast and got way out ahead of us, something that good hunters don't do. He had reached a path along the river and was walking back when he said, "The bird flew right at me and then I got hit in the head with a baseball bat! You shot me!"

I had him raise his cap where he was rubbing his temple. It was red, but there was no shotgun BB mark and it wasn't swelling. I was glad the shot had pretty well spent itself out before it reached him.

As we walked along the bank a few minutes later, a duck took off and I shot it. The duck fell into the river beyond our reach in the middle. We followed it downstream to where there was a bridge. As we stood on the bridge watching the duck get closer, my cousin announced, "That's my duck," and took a shot at it with the 22. "I shot it, it's mine."

He proceeded to tell me that if I didn't let him have the duck, he would tell his dad that I had shot him. I didn't want that to happen and lose my hunting privileges, so I let him take the duck. When we got back to the farmhouse, my cousin got credit from our dad and uncle for the duck he shot. He was very happy. So was I, for not being punished.

I hunted with my uncle once. I knew he had good eyesight because one time when we rode in a truck of his some 60 miles in the dead of winter, we amused ourselves by spotting crows off in the distance in the trees and on the white snow. We got in a contest with our cousin over who would spot the most. But our uncle, driving that old truck, spotted the most. He probably had 20-10 eyesight like our mother.

When he was visiting, we went hunting out east of town at a wildlife area that had a large pond, attracting waterfowl migrating. As we approached the pond very carefully, my uncle was on my left. As we started through some tall brush that had thinned out considerably, he held his hand up to me and I stopped. I saw him take careful aim with the 22 that he was carrying. He shot a partridge right on the ground. I never spotted any birds like that on the ground. They always took off and startled me as I almost stepped on them. When we got to the pond, there were no ducks or geese.

When fall hunting season opened, a classmate, a year younger than us, offered to take us hunting south of town in his grandfather's Model T Pickup. We had a blast that Saturday afternoon putting along but didn't find anything to shoot. We never hunted with him again.

The next time we went hunting, before Thanksgiving, it had snowed heavily and we went with friends south of town again. The snow was nearly 2 foot deep and going was difficult sometimes. We didn't find any game on the north side of a creek, so we crossed the creek in nearly waist deep water that was freezing. After a short while on that side with no luck, we crossed back again, and then, returned to the car to warm up and pour the ice water out of our boots.

Two weeks later, we had a cross-country meet in the southern part of the state, a three-hour drive. Roger had developed a cold from that soaking and complained of chest pains that he thought were caused by getting hit by a medicine ball in gym. We ran on a golf course and Roger didn't run. There was a problem with the heater in the car so the coach turned the heater off and we had no heat the whole way. I remember the ground was frozen solid as concrete on that golf course. I ran through snow flurries to a slow time that day overheated from running on the inside and my skin freezing cold on the outside wearing my usual thin clads.

Worse, by the time we got home and arrived at our house that evening, Roger, when he got out of the car, doubled over in extreme pain. Dad, immediately took him to the nearby hospital. As it turned out, both of his lungs were filled with fluid and Roger almost lost his life that night. Later, in late December, he had to go back to the hospital and have surgery to remove scar tissue. He no longer hunted with me and lost a month of school but was able to finish high school and college right on time. With no lasting after affects except that he wasn't accepted into the Peace Corps and occasionally caught pneumonia that he had to watch out for.

The third year that Dad and I deer hunted, the crowds of hunters shooting does were gone. All I remember from those two days was sitting on an autumn leaf covered hillside with good view all around. Many, maybe 50, squirrels come out to play. Among the gray squirrels there was one that caught my eye, a rare black squirrel. So I removed the slug that I had in the chamber for deer and replaced with intranet a weekend with a birdshot shell. The squirrel was about 60 yards away, but a single shot got it. We saw no deer at all that weekend, but it was warm and there was no snow.

The next day at school, I asked a classmate who was an amateur taxidermist, "How much to mount my squirrel." He told me $50. I couldn't afford that so I gave him the squirrel. Sometime later, while at his house, I saw prominently displayed, a white birch log with a red fox squirrel on one end and the black squirrel on the other. I never asked him how much to buy it.

The fall of our first year in college we were home for the weekend, we heard that they had released pheasants into the McMillan Marsh as part of the DNR's means of promoting hunting. Roger and I were there the first day. As we moved across a field near the tree line, a pheasant took off right in front of me and I brought it down with one shot. But the birds, pen raised, were not prone to flying, rather ran along ahead of us where we couldn't see them. At some point, I don't remember, I shot another one. But Roger was having no luck at all. Finally, when we were about to head on home, I spotted one running through the woods and Roger got a shot over 100 yards away. I saw the bird's wings come up and I knew that he had hit him. So it was a very good day of hunting. I have found pheasant to be the best tasting of all the game I've ever shot. It is all dark meat and very rich tasting. Gourmet stuff. Mom was very pleased.

College occupied more of our time, I got paralyzed, and my hunting with a gun stopped. I didn't stop with the camera and took pictures of animals whenever I could, difficult with handling the cumbersome camera, film and advancing the film. I did go on a hunting weekend with other faculty one year and conducted drives in the deep woods of Northern Wisconsin. We got no deer but had a good time and did see two huge bucks that a nearby hunting party got.

And then, there was a time I brought my roommate from our summer rooming together at the University of Wisconsin in 1966 to my parents' home for the weekend. Dad told us that there was a fox den on a hillside behind our farmhouse. The next morning we drove up in the field to where the hole was and poured milk cans of water in the hole. Two fox kits, about the same size as the ones we had shot earlier, came out.

My friend, an engineer from Bombay, had never shot a gun, but Dad gave him the 22 and urged him to, "Shoot them!" So, my friend did, calling them "Jackals," in his vernacular. Years later, when it came up in our conversation, he regretted badly having shot them. I agreed, we shouldn't have.

One time, when I was cleaning my Mossberg upstairs in our bedroom alone, I made sure that the shells were all out of the gun and thought I checked the chamber as I absentmindedly worked the bolt down and heard the firing pin, "click." That bothered me and I opened the chamber again. A shell popped out to my surprise! I looked at the shell and discovered a small dent in the detonating cap. It was just by chance that the cartridge didn't go off and blow a hole in my bed. Another time that I escaped having my hunting privileges and gun taken away.

When we were kids, Dad had, for some reason, a sawed-off, double barrel shotgun that he kept in the closet. Perhaps because he needed it for protection from some rough characters for his young wife and kids, I don't know. I recall sometimes when cousins would come over we would get the gun out and look at it. I don't recall if there were ever any shells in the gun, and I never saw him shoot it (very dangerous with those 5 inch barrels).

Based on our access to guns in those, "Good old days," with no locks on anything most of the time, I would highly recommend that people not have guns for protection in their home. Especially if they have children. And hunters should keep their guns under lock and key and teach their children how to be careful with firearms at an early age. Accidents happen. As you can see from my experience. Any hunter can tell you about them. Most don't.

Copyright © Ronald W. Hull

1/27/20