Hunting with the ‘Holiday’ Hustler

Wayne ‘Holiday’ Isbell with his 2008 9-pointer. The hustle was just beginning.

The first time the new guy goes hunting with you he will kill the biggest buck. Trust me on this, it’s a given. The first time is a given, the second time is a coincidence, and the third time, well, that’s just downright disgusting. Call it beginner’s luck, call it fate, call it whatever you like, but it will happen. Even though you have hunted in that same spot for years, when you direct the new guy to that old hunting crossing a big buck will be waiting for him. Just count on it. He will then commandeer the crossing as his own and it will become a big buck superhighway. Trust me on this one too.

Enter by brother-in-law and good friend, Wayne Isbell. Wayne is from St. Louis. Wayne loves to deer hunt. Wayne has a good sense of humor (thank goodness for him). Wayne doesn’t like to camp. He will visit with us at camp, eat with us at camp, tell lies with us at camp, play practical jokes with us at camp, and hunt with us, but he won’t camp with us. From my hunting partner of many years, Ellis Floyd, those traits earned Wayne the nickname, ‘Holiday’ because he camps at the Holiday Inn during season. Also those traits made ‘Holiday’ the easy target for many of our ‘city’ jokes. However, those jokes all started to fade in 2008.

‘Holiday’ was part of the family and in 2008 he started hunting with us on Uncle Boone’s Farm. We sent him up on the Cemetery Ridge in an open timber crossing between the old field and the deep woods. It was a good spot where we had all hunted in the past. A good spot for the ‘city guy’ we figured. Of course ‘Holiday’ killed the biggest deer of the season on the farm the first day he sat on the ridge. I heard two shots fired so fast that I thought someone with a semiautomatic rifle was up on the ridge but it was just Wayne firing his lever action so fast that John Wayne would’ve been proud. And he had good reason to be firing fast because he took a great 9 pointer on the run that would’ve made any of us proud. We all chalked it up to the luck of a new guy and didn’t realize at the time we were being hustled. To make the performance even more convincing ‘Holiday’ played the humble new guy part to the hilt acting embarrassed that he had taken the biggest deer. With a sheepish grin he asked if it was alright that he had killed such a big buck. We all said, “Of course it’s ok, congratulations!” That was 2008.

The next year Holiday showed up at camp and humbly accepted all the city, new guy, and beginner’s luck jabs we all dished out to justify his taking the biggest buck the previous year. This year we were going to show him. This year the hunting clan wasn’t going to settle for anything less than the 30 pointer. We’d put this new guy in his place. Opening day Wayne again went up on the ridge (his new spot), but this time a 9 pointer wasn’t good enough. He killed a 10 pointer and again, the biggest deer of the year on the farm. After much grumbling and talk under the breath, it was chalked up to coincidence. Again, the humble, embarrassed new guy act was in full display as he acted concerned about once again killing the biggest deer. My hillbilly spidy senses began to tingle as I started suspecting a hustle. That was 2009.

The One-Eyed Hillbilly with Holiday and his 2010 buck. Next year the gloves are coming off!

Once again, this year Holiday showed up at camp. We laughed, lied, ate, and he didn’t camp again. We went to the farm and he went up on the Cemetery Ridge but this year he didn’t kill the biggest buck of the year up there. Finally, deer hunting justice! No, instead, he was walking back to the farmhouse for lunch and saw a doe jump the creek. He pursued the spot where she had jumped and a 10 pointer, along with several does, stood up 60 yards away. Holiday unloaded again with John Wayne speed and the biggest buck of the year was once again his claim. Now, I know a good hustle when I see one and this was the perfect deer hunting trifecta. I wasn’t buying the humble act any more. I don’t watch TV but I’ve heard of the new show called ‘Survivor’ where they all get together and vote off a player in each episode. I think next year we’re going to have to vote! This is getting ridiculous!

The city jokes are all over. The new guy act is in the can. Next year the gloves are coming off. I just hope Holiday doesn’t take up fishing and trapping. It could get embarrassing! Congratulations Wayne for once again giving us a lesson. The third time is a charm!...and I hope somebody bends your gun barrel before next year. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.

Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.

Feasting at Deer Camp Mountain Man Style

My favorite book of all time is “Mountain Man” by Vardis Fisher. It was the inspiration for one of my favorite movies of all time, “Jeremiah Johnson”. The book is a historically correct, fictional account of a mountain man free trapper in the Rocky Mountains in the mid 1840’s. One thing in particular that jumps out at the reader is the great joy the mountain men took in their opportunities to feast. Most of the time they did not have the luxury of a hot prepared meal but when they did it was quite the occasion. Wild meat, biscuits, gravy, berries, and hot coffee was the menu for a fine-right feast. Following in the footsteps of the free trappers, at our deer camp the Friday night before opening day, eating is the objective and this year was not different. Four deer shoulders, one deer ham, and coffee, all cooked over the open fire, was the menu and it fed us for the whole weekend.

At deer camp simplicity is the order of the day. Preparing the deer shoulder and ham roasts simply entails covering the whole roast in garlic powder, spices, bacon, potatoes and peppers. You wrap it all up in about 8 layers of aluminum foil and put it on a grate above the fire for about 4 hours, turning it every 30 minutes. After the cooking time is up you cut the aluminum foil lengthwise and peel back the layers like opening a book. Then everybody takes out their pocket knives and helps themselves with their fingers. As I mentioned, simplicity is the rule so no pots and pans, no utensils, and no plates. Rather, we use aluminum foil, pocketknives, and fingers! It’s a little unrefined by some standards, but hey, its deer camp and we’re hillbillies so what do you expect! It is also a delicacy like you’ve never tasted and it is especially good in the woods. It’s so good, in fact, we even occasionally cook deer shoulder for Thanksgiving.

This year the crew ate 3 shoulders on the first night and we held back the 4th shoulder and a small ham for the next few days. Even as several stragglers filtered in throughout the weekend the 4th shoulder and the ham managed to feed us all through Sunday afternoon. When it comes time to eat you simply throw the previously cooked roast, still encased in the aluminum foil, on the grate above the fire for about 20 minutes on each side and it’s as good as it was after just being cooked. Sitting around the campfire laughing, telling stories, and peeling off chunks a tender deer roast with your pocket knife as the smoke swirls up all around you gives one a sense of feasting with friends at a mountain man rendezvous 170 years ago. The spirit of the free trappers is still alive and well in the Ozark Hills.

In the book another aspect of the mountain man’s personality that jumps out at the reader was their versatility and the ability to cope with any situation. This trait also played out this year in our camp feasting. You see, the last time we camped this past summer my wife had used my camp coffee pot as a bacon grease receptacle and it goes without saying that we forgot to empty the grease. So, after cooking the meat and preparing for some coffee, I discovered the bacon grease in the pot. Even though I heated up the grease and poured it out and then boiled water in it, the first two pots of coffee were definitely bacon flavored! Before each sip everybody looked into the cups of coffee and couldn’t help but notice the oil-like sheen on top of the surface. With a half smirk and a cocked head we all commented how it tasted just like breakfast…literally! After drinking the coffee and hunting that afternoon, my friend Steve Bryson showed true Ozark mountain man spirit when, tongue in cheek, he commented that when he got hungry in the woods that afternoon he simply ran his tongue over the front of his teethe and tasted the bacon! Now that’s truly showing the resourcefulness of a mountain man and being able to find a silver lining for every dark cloud!

Good food, good friends, and camping, there is really nothing to equal the experience. Add in a little trapping, hunting, or fishing and there’s an experience to develop a life around. If you get a chance check out “Mountain Man” by Vardis Fisher. It’s a great read for any mountain man from the Ozark Hills. As for bacon flavored coffee, after some reflection I cannot recommend it. It’s tolerable but the waxy bacon taste just isn’t complementary, contrary to my friend Steve Bryson’s opinion! So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.

Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.

Traditions, Stories, and Deer Season

Still coming to deer camp even after the assault in the Green Palace – Jim McDaniels (right) with Ellis Floyd (left) and Jason Bass (center). Hunters in the Ozark Hills making stories and carrying on traditions.

Deer hunters have a different internal clock than most folks. Growing up most kids live from Christmas to Christmas, however, for outdoors types we keep time according to hunting, trapping, and fishing seasons. Case in point, as a grade school student I lived from deer season to deer season. Camping out at Ft. Leonard Wood and deer hunting on the post was the highlight of my year. It was a tradition that my grandfather, and then my father, and now I carry on. With chili, soup, and deer shoulder roast on the menu the fare is a little better now than 20 years ago. Today with many of the old-timers now gone the practical jokes have calmed down some…thank goodness. But all the stories of camp antics, hunting stories, and other outdoor related shenanigans of years gone by are still played over and over again each year around the campfire. The stories and fun on the night before Missouri deer season opening weekend has kept the past 30 years of hunting seasons alive and well for me and the whole clan. This year promises to be no different.

We’ll tell the story and laugh about Uncle Bob and his bird dog. When I was a kid during the 70’s we all gathered on Wednesday nights at Grandma Stephens’ house for family dinner. Apparently one evening Uncle Bob showed up for dinner and was bragging on how he had out-smarted Mother Nature. His bird dog was in heat and, according to Bob, all the communication between the neighborhood male dogs and a female in heat was done through smell. So, he had picked up some cheap perfume and dowsed the poor dog with it. There was no way a neighborhood dog would be able to smell anything through the offensively strong perfume.

Now, my Great Uncle and Aunt, Norman and Ola Grogan always came over for dinner and they had a male Chihuahua named Cookie. When Cookie came over to the table and jumped up in Ola’s lap she exclaimed, “Cookie, what in the world have you got into? You smell like you’ve been in a perfume factory!” I guess there was a pause and then all the adults (except Bob) burst out in uproarious laughter. They all k
new what Cookie had been into and I guess the look of disgusted and astonished disbelief on Bob’s face was one for the ages! I don’t remember much about those Irish Setter-Chihuahua hunting dogs but I’ll bet they had good nose for smelling out the birds if they took after their father, Cookie! Uncle Bob learned, as the old saying goes, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature!”

Then we’ll tell about the firecrackers in the Green Palace. One year when I was about 12 years old at deer camp the night before opening day I was astounded to watch grown men acting just like a bunch of kids! The Green Palace was a tent that Jim McDaniels brought to deer camp that was big enough to pull in a pickup. That evening Jim had turned in early. As all the other men in camp stood around the campfire I noticed Benny Bryson moving toward the Palace after giving Jim just enough time to get in his sleeping bag. Without saying a word and with a solemn and matter-of-fact expression on his face Benny pulled out a string of firecrackers from his coat. Now this wasn’t just any string of firecrackers, it was a string of Black Cats so long it reminded me of folded-over bandoliers of machine gun cartridges. Benny unzipped the Palace front door, lit the fuse, threw them in, and zipped the door back closed! He then just strolled back to the fire.

As I sat there waiting for the devil to come to breakfast I was completely dumbfounded. You see Jim is a big man at 6’4” and about 300 pounds and I figured Benny was going to die soon. I also figured that Dad and I were going to have a hard time explaining to mom why we were at the police station all night the night before deer season. Anyway, the firecrackers tore in with a defining machine gun cadence. From the outside of the tent with each loud report you could see a corresponding flash of light through the fabric. There were so many flashes it looked like Jim had a disco ball spinning inside the Palace! And the light show seemed like it went on forever!

After the onslaught was finally winding down, like popcorn, there were a few late poppers in the string. I was waiting for Jim to tear through the flap and come out with a look of rage on his face and blood on his mind! Instead, after about a 30 second lull, without a word, from inside the tent the zipper opened up about 12 inches and smoke boiled out from the inside, but no Jim. All the men at the campfire were laughing in amazement except Benny. He looked around and shrugged his shoulders with the same matter-of-fact look on his face. I think smoke poured out of the tent for hours. I don’t know how Jim kept from suffocating!

These are what makes up the treasure of hunting seasons past for young’uns from the Ozark Hills. It is who we are and what we do. I’m proud to say I’ve been a part of it. I hope that some day 30 years from now my children are able to remember back on many fond memories of hunting, trapping, and fishing season past and smile. It’s a heritage worth devoting a lifetime of effort. Take a kid deer hunting this fall. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.




Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.

Mountain Goats, One of the Hardest Earned Trophies in North America

This was supposed to be an easy day - NOT! Glassing for mountain goats, Alaskan hunter Steve Neff, scanning the mountain ridges.

It was supposed to be a day to take it easy. Two weeks ago my Alaskan hunting partner, Steve Neff, and I had just backpacked a total of 12 miles through the Ayakulik River Valley with camp and a caribou on our backs. From base camp on Grant's Lagoon we were supposed to take it easy the following day and glass the Kodiak foothills for black-tail deer. Steve had two deer tags and we had seen several decent bucks while pursuing caribou the previous 2 days. After rolling out of our sleeping bags at first light we suited up and cooked breakfast. Freeze-dried breakfast again, just add hot water and - mmm, mmm, good! When you are over 85 miles from the nearest store, road, or any semblance of civilization, you would be surprised how tasty freeze-dried food actually is! After breakfast we prepared our backpacks with food and water necessary for the day of hunting - brunch peanuts, lunch peanuts, snack peanuts, dinner peanuts, dessert peanuts, and granola bars. Until you hunt with Steve you really have no idea all the variety of peanuts that exist! I am now a connoisseur of hunting peanuts and their mysterious nutritional value while in the bush. And it's a good thing they have all that nutritional value because a quarter mile out of camp we spotted 2 mountain goats sunning and feeding on the east side of a distant mountain and black-tail deer hunting went out the door! So much for an easy day in the foothills.

Taking a break 1/2 way up the south ridge, the One-Eyed Hillbilly, Greg Stephens, with Grant's Lagoon and the Pacific Ocean in the background.

Steve looked at me and asked, "Are you up for it?" It was 2000 feet to the ridge above the critters. There was no guarantee that they would still be there when we got there. But hey, I didn't travel all the way from Missouri to miss a chance at witnessing the harvest of one of the most coveted hunting trophies in North America. "Let's go," I said. And away, and up, we went.

Mountain goats are a truly magnificent game animal. They have beautiful, thick white fur for enduring the brutal weather at the top of the world. They climb to staggering heights and stand and nap on shear cliffs thousands of feet high. Compared to deer they have larger and more powerful front shoulders for climbing. Similar to deer they have a nose that warns them of approaching danger in the shifting mountain winds. Due to the extreme heights that they inhabit the animal has a tendency to look horizontally and down from their perches on mountain cliffs but, unless traveling up, they seldom look up. So, the trick is to get above them and that is usually easier said than done. But we had a game plan - as fast as possible get to the top of the mountain ridge to the south of where the goats were feeding and hopefully round the summit just above their location. It sounded good in theory anyway.

Finally on top of the Ridge! Steve prepares to skirt the summit and peek over the top from above the goats last known position.

Now 2000 feet isn't all that high when it comes to mountains in Alaska. But after a mile hike up the foothills through alder thickets, salmon berry brier patches, and marshy creek drainages, only to be hit with a mountain so steep you have to sidetrack to climb, 2000 feet is more than you want. I've scaled some pretty formidable ridges in these Ozark Hills but this was ridiculous! The entire ascent up the mountain was so steep you could stand upright and reach out with your inside arm and hold the ground in front of you! With a 25 pound backpack and a 7 pound gun the task was even more challenging. If you made a wrong step you would literally roll a 1000 feet with no way to stop. Needless to say, we watched every step. It took us approximately an hour to scale the 2000 foot mountain. After a brief rest we hustled around the back side of the summit and cautiously peeked over the ridge and...no goats! They had bugged out while we were scaling the mountain.

Hung on a wing and a prayer in the last alder patch, Steve Neff with his trophy mountain goat above the cliff dropping to the Pacific.

As we scanned the horizon and all escape routes from the mountain top trying to decipher the goats escape path and trying to decide if we could continue the pursuit, we caught a glimpse of a goat just walking over the crest of a peak 2 mountains further up the ridge. It was another mile further and now daylight and the gathering mist was our main concern. In order to avoid the extreme danger of being caught on the mountain and trying to descend after dark we would have to race the clock and weather. Again, we decided we hadn't come all this way for nothing. The pursuit was on!

Bugging out for the 2nd time, after Steve's shot the lone remaining Billy heads over the cliff to safer hiding places.

Another hour of climbing put us on the break in the ridge where we had seen the goat disappear earlier. As we cautiously crested the ridge there was a hump in the mountain 70 yards in front of us. At 30 yards from the hump, 2 pairs of black horns and white fur-covered ears popped up from just on the other side of the hump. The game was up! Steve quickly raised the Squaw Mountain customized Model 700 Remington .308, took aim, and fired. Much to our initial joy and subsequent concern, a direct hit through the chest cavity sent our quarry tumbling down the mountain toward a sheer bluff that fell 1000 feet to the Pacific Ocean below. The same alders that we had cursed on the way up the mountain we were now placing all our hopes on as our trophy headed for the last alder patch before going over the cliff. In the end the hunting Gods were watching over us because the alders stopped our goat.

Greg posing with the prize. The culmination of a hunting trip of a lifetime.

After an hour of racing nightfall and the impending weather and fighting the extremely steep conditions while processing and deboning the carcass, our backpacks were filled to capacity and we were headed 2½ miles down the mountain ridge to the beach line and back to camp. Now this sounds incredible but I’m here to tell you that going up a mountain with a 25 pound load is as easy as or easier than coming down a mountain with a 65 pound load. You’ll have to trust me on this or try it yourself. Coming down a mountain employs a whole different set of muscles that you hadn’t used going up. We finally made it back to camp just after dark. We were exhausted under the weight of our packs and were ready for bed. I’ve never slept so soundly on a patch of beach rocks in my life. It was a fitting culmination to a hunting trip of a lifetime. Earning hunting trophies in Alaska is rite of passage in the Great Outdoors. I hope you get to experience it yourself one day. So says the One-Eyed Hillbilly.

Greg Stephens is a 35-year veteran & life-time student of the great outdoors. His column appears weekly in print & online publications. You can email him at gregstephens@one-eyedhillbilly.com. For more columns go to www.one-eyedhillbilly.blogspot.com.