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Show vowmest mest” "AE OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Page 9 July 15, 2005 Deer Hunting Note: The following history is part of a series The OGDEN VALLEY NEWS will be printing in the next several issues. It was written by Scott D. Allen, who was born in 1928. He was the son of Abner Allen and Elmina Peterson of Huntsville. Here he helped with the farm and the family’s land and homestead until he went off to college in 1946. Scott died in 1996 at the age of 68. His wife Betty lives in SLC. In 1984 Scott spent some of his spare time writing his personal memories of growing up in Huntsville. His account is a rich portrait of life in the Valley within the memory of many still living here. Betty has also graciously allowed the paper to reprint, as a part of this series, a small collection of his poetry pertaining to the Valley. A copy of Scotts book can be found in the Ogden Valley Library. DEER HUNTING Deer hunting was not a sport for Dad; it was an obsession. Perhaps in his early life the necessity of obtaining meat for the table added intensity to this yearly ritual. By the time I was old enough to join the hunts, the meat, though desired, was not crucial. Nonetheless, in the fall the deer hunt totally occupied Dad’s attention and became the focal point of our activities at that time of year. For a full month during deer and elk season, Dad would drop anything if someone suggested hunting. It was understood among the deer hunting bunch that there would be a hunt. The only question was how long it would last and how the terrain would be hunted this time The participants in the early hunts changed over the years ars but the roe charact ters id when it remained the same. They ae Uncle Dan (Dad’s brother some years his senior), sitting proudly on his pampered stallion; cousin Wilson (Dan’s son), always precise, effective with the well organized tack and gear of a sheriff, which he was; Uncle Loke (Dad’s brother just older than he), amenable and enthused about the whole thing; Ott Fuller, careful about his gear and regarded as the best shot of the bunch; Dad; and the novice hunters—Bill, myself, cousin Lewis (Loke’s son), Ross, and in later years, still younger cousins and brothers. The group was large. Size was a good thing when it came to driving the large canyons, but bad when it came time to allocate the horses and saddles. It seems like I was always given the worst horse when I was young. For many years this meant I rode old Chuck and used the oldest —— I never cared, but I often came back stoved up. Our group always camped at ts Sheepherd cabin. The horses were fed by tying them to the haystack north of the cabin in the field, and we hunted on horseback. Three or four other organized groups of hunters hunted on horseback in earlier years and a few hunters moved along the ridges on foot. Strategy for the hunt centered around trying to guess where the deer were and how the other hunters would organize their hunt. We slept longer and never were the first ones on the hills. The deer hunting season opened on a Saturday in most years. In order to be ready to go as early Saturday morning as our custom of sleeping in would permit, we took the horses, rifles, and food to the cabin Friday afternoon. Sometimes Uncle Dan and Wilson came up early Saturday morning, but for most of the hunting party, Friday evening was a time to tell hunting stories and plan the next day’s hunt. Without exception, the planning for the hunt was never concluded Friday night. Dad and the others sat around talking a lot about where to go first and how to systematically work the hillsides, but we went to bed with nothing more than tentative plans. The final conversations Saturday morning never varied over ars. Dad and the others would, each in turn, say it didn’t matter to them what strategy we used on the hunt. We could either fan out in a line and work up the south side of Sheepherd (actually the north side of the Sheepherd flat but referred to as the “‘south side” because these fingerlike draws come into Sheepherd from the dividing ridge between Bennett and Sheepherd in a way to give them a southern exposure) arriving around noon at Tinner’ . pin. After lunch, we would swing over through the big oak hollow ending the day ee close to the cabin. Another alternative was to send a hunter to “station” at the Cart Hollow close to Tinner’s Pitch while the others rode directly up Hardy Canyon to the top of the Homestead. From there the hunters would fan out and drive northward through the head of Six (Section six). Ifa deer were jumped during the drive through Six, a hunter spotting the deer tried to shoot it, but the main objective was to drive the big bucks into the hunter stationed at the Cart Hollow. Quite often, as a part of this plan, a hunter also rode hard to be stationed at the head of Wilson Hollow to take advantage of the good shooting at the deer moving up and out the top of the hollows as the drive through Six and the Big Pine Hollow proessed. Eventually during these Saturday morning iscussions, someone proposed a plan. Such an act placed at risk the hunter’s ego because almost no one else ever agreed with the first plan. During the ensuing debate, Dad, who always started by saying it didn’t matter to him how we hunted, explained why each suggestion should be discarded. The deer were hanging low, the deer were hanging high, or the Wangsgard bunch would be there or no one would be there and the deer would hide, and on and on. One by one he dispensed with the ideas proposed by the rest of us. After enough time had been wasted to pay homage to the “democratic” process, he then proceeded to tell us how he wanted the hunt to go. It didn’t take us long to figure out that we could not argue him out of his plan. But I don’t think any of us ever remembered for the next year the futility of sug- gesting a ad’s If we had tostation plan in the first place. deer hunting plans were predictable. a group of five or more, he preferred a man at the Cart Hollow while the 1 of Six and the Big Pine Hollow. This done, the hunt would continue up through Wilson Hollow or it could swing down through the south side if it was getting late in the day, or rit some of the horses were by then carrying dee: For the hunters who drove through the Big Pine Hollow, it was important to keep one’s bearings in relation to the other hunters as well the terrain. A well executed drive moves a lot of deer out. If the drive is irregular, with gaping DEER HUNTING cont. on page 12 Historical Photo Eden Band Back row left to right: Unknown, Alf Prichett, Dick Wilson, June Carver, Antone Andreason, Orbie (OK) Wilbur, and Tom Clarke. (standing) Seated: Joe Ririe, Ren Colvin, Jesse Wilbur, Dave Burnett, Hyrum Ririe, Verge Stallings, Dick Froerer, and Pat Burnett. Photo courtesy of Karen Wilbur Hansen of Eden. PINEVIEW REAL ESTATE AIDVAINCEDYECH MASSAGE: TO e-AUTO Shirley 3933 Tanglewood Court 5088 E. 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