Field Trials

It’s opening weekend and at 4:00 we’ll be hitting the road with every red neck, weekend warrior in Houston. Nothing like a convoy of pumped up hunters in their pick up trucks pulling four wheelers. It is a weekend we dread if we know we will be on the road. I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. Before anyone goes responding with statistics on over population, culling the sick and diseased, I said I can’t stand the thought of killing a deer. I did not say that I disagree with hunting or that I don’t enjoy a nice venison medallion now and again. It is just the thought of me doing it that gives me the creeps.

I have gone hunting with my father. Once. Not for anything with fur, but birds down in South Texas and just across the Mexican border. In preparation my father bought me a brand new gun, a green vest and boots. We loaded up the motor home and took off. I shot my gun exactly one time before he realized his mistake by bringing me and banned me from shooting the rest of the trip. It is apparently very serious to shoot a bird other than the species one is actually hunting. In my defense, unless you have done this before they all look similar when flying overhead.

With my gun now resting safely out of reach my father went to Plan B. He would shoot the birds and I would retrieve them. Okay, I agreed. After his next shot I ran in the general direction I thought the bird went down. I found it, took one look and, yep you got it, turned right around. There was NO WAY I was touching a bird that had been shot.

Plan C. My father would go with me and actually touch the birds which he would put in the large back pocket of my vest. I had wondered what the big pocket was for but never did I imagine. Plan C failed also and I ended up spending the rest of the trip pretty much hanging around the motor home. I wonder if there are any other men taking their daughters hunting for the first time this weekend that will have quite the trouble.