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Life in North Idaho ... |
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Just in case |
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October 8, 2017 |
By Mike Ashby
The primary source of meat in the Ashby home in
the 1950s and 60s was that which my dad would
hunt and fish for. That included, but was not
limited to, venison, duck, geese and, of course,
fish. He was a consummate hunter, killing or
catching every known species that lived or swam
in Boundary County.
As a consequence of his hunting and fishing, we
ate a lot of wild meat.
On rare occasion we would go out for a meal to a
place called Park Tavern out on Deep Creek. Park
Tavern had a good menu of food, but it was
famous for serving all kinds of booze. The folks
would drink dinner while I got to enjoy my
choice of a hamburger or a hot roast beef
sandwich, along with a milkshake.
After I finished my meal, I would generally get
out to the creek and kill a couple days waiting
for dad to take us home. Once at home, it was
back to duck that had been cooked until
petrified and venison that was flavored like
shoe leather.
I learned early on that beef was preferable to
most wild game. That is until dad shot his first
and second bear.
It was the second bear that caused such a stir.
On a cold November morning we launched dad's new
boat and motored a few miles down the Kootenai.
We were supposed to be duck hunting, but dad had
brought along his old 30-40 Krag rifle, “just in
case.”
Rounding a curve in the river, we spotted a raft
of ducks about a mile ahead of us. Dad turned
back and beached the boat. With an admonition to
me to stay put, he grabbed his shot gun and
headed off on the back side of the levee to try
and sneak up on the ducks.
With nothing better to do, I simply fell asleep.
I was awoken to a horrible amount of shooting,
cursing and shouting for me to get my back side
down to him with the rifle.
I am attempting to spare the reader’s
sensibilities here; he used a slightly different
term for my backside.
Anyhow, grabbing the Krag, I headed for all the
commotion. I found my father at the base of a
huge cottonwood. He was plinking away at an
extremely large black bear that he had treed
with that shot gun and double-ought buck.
The bear was not happy with all this, growling
and snapping at limbs and leaves.
Reaching him with the rifle, dad threw down the
shotgun, grasped the Krag and aimed up the tree.
It was at this point the bear decided to come
back down. Dad fired one round at the thing and
stepped back. The bear fell with a resound thud
where he had been standing. I learned later that
dad had fired about four rounds of double ought
buck at that bear, with most of the rounds
impacting the bear's head and simply bouncing
off his skull.
There was some discussion as to why I had taken
so long to arrive with the rifle, but that’s
another story.
We finally got that bear home and hanging in
dad’s garage. My mom was not one bit pleased
with the idea that we had to eat “that nasty
dang old bear’ for the next months. She made it
clear that we did not ever need another bear to
eat. When hunting season rolled around the next
year, I recalled those words.
Once again, we were heading down the river to
harvest whatever critter dared to cross out
path. We had a few ducks and a goose or two by
mid morning. I thought we were done for the day,
but dad decided we would motor on down to
Copeland.
It’s a lengthy ride from Copeland to Bonners
Ferry, but he thought we had plenty of day light
to make the trip and get home before dark.
We had just about made it to Copeland when dad
spotted what he thought to be a large dog with a
bird in its mouth swimming across the river in
front of us. Getting closer, he determined that
the dog was a very big black bear with a red
tinge to his fur.
Once again, we had brought the Krag, “just in
case.”
Dad opened up on that bear from about 100 yards
out. I had thought the previous year's shooting
was wild, but this shooting was way better.
Since the bear was in motion and the boat was in
motion, most of dad’s rounds just whacked the
water around the bear.
Yelling at me to steer the dang boat straight
(dang was not the word used), we got closer to
that poor old bear where he was finally able to
slay the thing. It was instantly obvious that we
had killed a very big bear.
In fact, days later Paul Flinn, Boundary
County’s resident game warden, would declare it
was the biggest black bear ever taken in
Boundary County.
We tied an anchor rope on the thing and headed
for shore. When we got there, we found that the
two of us could not get the bear up onto the
beach. Dad headed off down a nearby county road
to ask a friend of his to come help us. In a few
minutes the friend and his son came back with
dad. Between the four of us, we managed to get
the bear up on the beach and gut it out.
Now the issue was how to get the carcass into
the boat.
I was sent off to obtain two stout cottonwood
limbs to use as a sort of ramp to roll the bear
up on and into the boat. That worked all right,
but when the bear fell into the boat we were
left with three inches of freeboard.
We now had a 12 or 13 mile ride back upriver and
it was growing dark.
Once again, providential care was given us. We
made it back to the launch, but it was full dark
when we got the boat, bear and us to home.
My mother pretty near had apoplexy when she saw
that bear.
My dad was reminded that we still were eating
the first dang bear and what in heck would we do
with this one? Dang and heck were not the words
she used.
Dad finally had to grind that entire nasty bear
into sausage. The first time Mom tried to cook a
bear steak the whole house stunk for a week.
That bear, finally, was the last one we would
kill. But we still always took the Krag with us,
“just in case.” |
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