Post by hunter480 on Oct 13, 2006 19:31:00 GMT -5
In the squirrel hunting bill thread, I mentioned an article by Bayou Bill Scifres, which was written in, approximately August of 1982, published in Indiana Fins and Feathers. I wonder how many of you remember this magazine. I loved it, and bought a lifetime subscription, even though I was dirt poor and trying to feed 2-year old twins at that time.
Thanks to Woody, I was able to e-mail Bayou Bill, and he responded immediately. He said putting the article on this forum was fine, but to give the magazine and he the credit.
So-I`m typing this directly from the yellowed page I`d torn from this particular issue of Indiana Fins and Feathers, and this is reproduced with permission from the author-Bayou Bill Scifres:
The Old Magic of the Squirrel Opener-
You don`t see it much anymore-not even if you live in small communities like my old hometown of Crothersville in Southern Indiana-but when I was growing up there was something festive, almost magical, about the opening of the squirrel season.
About dusk on the evening before the squirrel season opened, the men of the town-especially the hunters-started showing up on main street, and by the time darkness came they would be standing in little groups of four or five. And in almost every group the topic was squirrel hunting.
Now and then a stranger would amble up the street-a stranger to me, at least-but the older men would greet this man warmly: “Hello, Ed! (or Joe, or Dub, or Frank or any one of a number of other first names) it`s good to see you!”
Listening in on these conversations-it was all a kid could do, he didn`t have much to contribute-I would learn that Ed or Joe or Frank had grown up, as I was doing, at Crothersville, but had moved away to Louisville, Indianapolis, Dayton, or St. Louis to work and bring up his family.
And before long, I would almost always hear those Eds or Joes or Franks tell how they hadn`t thought they would make it back for the opening of the squirrel season, “but the closer it got the more I wanted to come so we loaded the kids in the car and here I am.”
Standing around those groups, listening, was a squirrel-hunting education that one would not gain anywhere else in the world. At one time or another I guess I have used just about all of the things I heard in those conversations and most of them worked to perfection.
The streets cleared early because each hunter knew he would not get much sleep even if he went to bed early.
With the opener coming on August 10-the hot part of summer-you could often hear your neighbor`s alarm clock explode because windows and doors were open to let in the cool night air. Soon after the alarm clocks started waking the troops, kitchen lights would start popping on and soon the whole town of Crothersville was engulfed in the pleasant aroma of jowl bacon or sausage and eggs sizzling in the pan. For an hour or more those kitchen lights would burn brightly, but just as mysteriously as the jangle of the alarm clocks had turned them on, the slamming of the screen doors would turn them off.
And as the hunters left home with the first hints of a new day starting to show in the eastern sky, the women folk went back to bed to finish a night`s sleep.
There probably weren`t more than a dozen Crothersville residents who owned automobiles in those days, so the hunters fanned out on foot in all directions. They spread throughout the bottom-land thickets and woods.
But one thing they could not escape was the dew left on the weeds by the night air. The hunters could follow roads and trails to stay fairly dry on their treks to the woodlands they would hunt, but in most cases there would be a big weed patch that had to be crossed to get into the woods and that meant a drenching to the waist in cold dew.
Eventually, though, those blurred objects became trees as the light came and the first rays of the sun eased the shivering and the hunter disappeared into the woods, each step being thought out carefully to eliminate any chance of cracking a twig.
Then, in the distance, a limb bends down under the weight of a squirrel and flips back up for all the world to see. The hunter fancies he can hear the leaves swishing through the air as the limb bounces and another limb-on yet another tree-shakes under the weight of the jumping squirrel.
He moves in the direction of the swaying limbs and as he gets closer, the shaggy bark of a hickory tree tells him precisely where he will find that squirrel. From there he starts a stalk-one step, maybe a half-step at a time-that will get him within shooting distance of the squirrel. And suddenly, the fact that he is cold and sleepy disappears.
Guys-that is as close to taking us back to a Rockwell-like time as I could ever imagine.
Bayou Bill-thank you for your permission to re-print this article here, and more than that, thank you for a lifetime of teaching us about the Hoosier outdoors, and for sharing yourself with all of us here.
God bless Bill.
Thanks to Woody, I was able to e-mail Bayou Bill, and he responded immediately. He said putting the article on this forum was fine, but to give the magazine and he the credit.
So-I`m typing this directly from the yellowed page I`d torn from this particular issue of Indiana Fins and Feathers, and this is reproduced with permission from the author-Bayou Bill Scifres:
The Old Magic of the Squirrel Opener-
You don`t see it much anymore-not even if you live in small communities like my old hometown of Crothersville in Southern Indiana-but when I was growing up there was something festive, almost magical, about the opening of the squirrel season.
About dusk on the evening before the squirrel season opened, the men of the town-especially the hunters-started showing up on main street, and by the time darkness came they would be standing in little groups of four or five. And in almost every group the topic was squirrel hunting.
Now and then a stranger would amble up the street-a stranger to me, at least-but the older men would greet this man warmly: “Hello, Ed! (or Joe, or Dub, or Frank or any one of a number of other first names) it`s good to see you!”
Listening in on these conversations-it was all a kid could do, he didn`t have much to contribute-I would learn that Ed or Joe or Frank had grown up, as I was doing, at Crothersville, but had moved away to Louisville, Indianapolis, Dayton, or St. Louis to work and bring up his family.
And before long, I would almost always hear those Eds or Joes or Franks tell how they hadn`t thought they would make it back for the opening of the squirrel season, “but the closer it got the more I wanted to come so we loaded the kids in the car and here I am.”
Standing around those groups, listening, was a squirrel-hunting education that one would not gain anywhere else in the world. At one time or another I guess I have used just about all of the things I heard in those conversations and most of them worked to perfection.
The streets cleared early because each hunter knew he would not get much sleep even if he went to bed early.
With the opener coming on August 10-the hot part of summer-you could often hear your neighbor`s alarm clock explode because windows and doors were open to let in the cool night air. Soon after the alarm clocks started waking the troops, kitchen lights would start popping on and soon the whole town of Crothersville was engulfed in the pleasant aroma of jowl bacon or sausage and eggs sizzling in the pan. For an hour or more those kitchen lights would burn brightly, but just as mysteriously as the jangle of the alarm clocks had turned them on, the slamming of the screen doors would turn them off.
And as the hunters left home with the first hints of a new day starting to show in the eastern sky, the women folk went back to bed to finish a night`s sleep.
There probably weren`t more than a dozen Crothersville residents who owned automobiles in those days, so the hunters fanned out on foot in all directions. They spread throughout the bottom-land thickets and woods.
But one thing they could not escape was the dew left on the weeds by the night air. The hunters could follow roads and trails to stay fairly dry on their treks to the woodlands they would hunt, but in most cases there would be a big weed patch that had to be crossed to get into the woods and that meant a drenching to the waist in cold dew.
Eventually, though, those blurred objects became trees as the light came and the first rays of the sun eased the shivering and the hunter disappeared into the woods, each step being thought out carefully to eliminate any chance of cracking a twig.
Then, in the distance, a limb bends down under the weight of a squirrel and flips back up for all the world to see. The hunter fancies he can hear the leaves swishing through the air as the limb bounces and another limb-on yet another tree-shakes under the weight of the jumping squirrel.
He moves in the direction of the swaying limbs and as he gets closer, the shaggy bark of a hickory tree tells him precisely where he will find that squirrel. From there he starts a stalk-one step, maybe a half-step at a time-that will get him within shooting distance of the squirrel. And suddenly, the fact that he is cold and sleepy disappears.
Guys-that is as close to taking us back to a Rockwell-like time as I could ever imagine.
Bayou Bill-thank you for your permission to re-print this article here, and more than that, thank you for a lifetime of teaching us about the Hoosier outdoors, and for sharing yourself with all of us here.
God bless Bill.
