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1J c llol. 14
(August, 1942
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It’s Fun to Miss! By Dawson Feathers
All right! I’m going to do it! Erie Stanley Gardner asked for this—or perhaps something better. Anyway he asked for more stories of that cer tain type of hunt — you know, the bloodless but memorable kind. So I’m going to tell about a glorious miss, a miss that to me was more of a thrill than any hit I have ever made. And, I may add, I have made a few, so this should not be considered just a case of “sour grapes.” As Gardner so ably pointed out in his “Come on in, the Water’s Fine” (Ye Sylvan Archer, January, 1942), there is often more to be gained from a venture with the bow that is unpro ductive of game, than from the sure fire, meat-in-the-pot variety. If you will carefully analyze the motives we all must have for being bow and arrow hunters, I think you will not find among them the desire for concrete, tangible reward. I think you will find that you love the game for itself alone and not because you expect to be paid off in so many pounds of flesh. In stalking big, or wary game, you realize to the full the benefits to be derived from our form of sport. The anticipation, suspense and muscular tension which always ac company a difficult, but successful stalk, combine to induce an exhileration, a sense of having lived so fully, so completely in those few moments, that you seem to have experienced the highlights of months of ordinary existence. And if the shot fails of the mark, and the game escapes, the subsequent slightly exhausted, trem bly feeling you have, with its bit of chagrin and disappointment, soon
gives way to the glad thought that he got away—got away free, into his wild, protective haven, there to be hunted again one fine day. As you re-live the events that have just transpired, there is the just, honest sensation of having earned a credit— the feeling that you have, as some one has said, “Put God in your debt.” You have done your part. You are self-satisfied. It is now up to the Fates to pro duce your reward, at some good and proper time. Well, further philosophical efforts to the more capable, and on to the story. It was early Fall in northern Men docino County, California, and the night we drove in among the yellow pines and Douglas firs of the moun tain ranch where we were to hunt, it commenced to rain. We sought shel ter in an old barn, had a good night’s sleep, and the next morning exper ienced the loveliness of the dripping woods steaming in the morning sun. Soon I caught up two buckets and headed off down the trail to the spring. It was all overgrown. The tall grasses and flowers unloaded their dewy burdens, as I brushed by, soaking my legs thoroughly. I didn’t mind. The sun was warm. I kneeled down by the pool to dip my water, and there at its edge were fresh deer tracks — big ones — that gave me that back-tingling thrill of expectancy. I cast sharp glances here and there through the trees. On my way back along the trail, the jays followed my progress, screech ing their familiar defiance, as they raced back and forth through the
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