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Show Community ljA Comments . . . The first few years we were married, Sam spent much of his free time the last of September and the first part of October in intense preparation for the annual deer hunt, obviously one of the highlights of his year. He hunted with a large party of men, some who traveled down from Northern Utah to join the party. We had several small children in those days, and I spent the last part of September and the first part of October wondering what I was going to do while he was gone, and fussing if the hunt opener fell on my birthday, October 15. Naturally the Big Hunt took top priority. I was involved only on the fringes of the hunt. That is, I always made a huge chocolate cake to send along, and was expected to make sure the strange automobiles parked in the front yard remained unharmed (I had several oblique questions asked about the presence of those strange cars in the absence of my husband). And. yes, I got to hold the flashlight for the skinning ceremony upon the return of the mighty hunters. The years went by, and our children got bigger; some of Sam's fellow hunters moved away, some quit . hunting, some we lost touch with. At any rate, it was ', decided one year we would have a family hunt instead ' of the all-men affair. It was a cold October on Fisher Mesa, one of those years when the ice cubes you poured out on the ground the night before were still there at noon the next day, when you returned from the morning drive. I was the bird dog and didn't have a gun, and Sam didn't see the big buck I saw ghosting through the trees just at daylight, but he shot a smaller buck a little later and we enjoyed liver and bacon for breakfast a ; passion our children do not share. : That was the first of a lot of good years hunting together. Now the children come along too, and we ' have many "remember the time when..." stories. Sam purchased a 30-06 for himself some years back, and I , inherited his old 30-30 and began shooting, cleaning : and skinning my own deer. Last year's birthday ; brought me a new 270, and I gave Tom the 30-30 as it was the first year he could hunt for deer. But now there aren't any. Adrien Taylor But we'll go out anyway. The weather's great and the scenery can't be matched. And best of all, our big campsite has always been more famous for an abundance of firewood than deer, and there's still plenty left. It'll be steaks the first night, stories later and stew the next day. And maybe, just maybe, with a lot of patience and less intensive game management, there may come a time when the big ones are back- and in numbers worth looking for. It just wouldn't be an October without a deer hunt deer or no deer. Sam Taylor |