MyEagleNews.com // Grant County Hunting Journal 2020 // 23
SHOOTING THE BREEZE
THE BLISSFULLY IGNORANT
“IT ISN’T THAT CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY MEANS NOTHING; IT’S THAT IT DOESN’T MEAN EVERYTHING.”
—Dale Valade
By Dale Valade
For the Blue Mountain Eagle
S
ome years ago, I was elk hunting in
Umatilla National Forest up above
Spray, and near the end of my stalk,
I came upon an old skid road and
decided to walk it out to the main road
where I could wait to be picked up by some-
one in our party.
Nobody had cell phones
back then, not sure they
would’ve worked up there
even if we did. Not long
after I had started down this
road, I saw another hunter
exiting a thicket with the
Dale
same idea. No matter, I
Valade
wasn’t seeing anything to
shoot at anyways. As I
neared the fella, I waved to make sure he’d
seen me, and he smiled and waved back in
acknowledgment.
I could see he stood about 5-feet,
7-inches tall in his Army surplus “Mickey
Mouse” boots, was wearing wool pants
and a red flannel jacket and a felt hat with
a shorter brim. It probably was a fedora at
some point, but it sure wasn’t anymore. He
was girded about with a wide leather belt
that had only a few old cartridges in loops
and a Ka-Bar knife dangling off of it.
Like everything else the old boy car-
ried with him, his rifle had seen more than
a few miles. I could tell it was a Winchester
Model 94 but couldn’t tell which caliber. We
passed the short time with small talk in sort
of a half-whisper, betraying the fact that we
both somehow still held out hope that we
might walk up on an elk. He was quite a
friendly chap. We will call him Harry. As
we neared the main road, we came across a
downed log and had a seat. It was there that
the real conversation took place.
I was about to inquire about Harry’s rifle
when he beat me to the punch and asked
about mine. That day I was carrying a Rem-
ington 700 in 8mm Remington Magnum
loaded with Sierra 220-grain Gameking
handloads. As he looked it over, I spewed
ballistics and numbers like some guy read-
ing the disclaimer at the end of an infomer-
cial on TV. But despite my best efforts, it
was no sale. Harry handed back my rifle,
Contributed photo
Dale Valade shot this buck on the last day of the season in 2018.
largely unimpressed, saying, “When I was one of Harry’s folks wandered up on us in
in the service, anything that big came on an old Dodge Ram pickup. Harry collected
his prized punkin-chunker from
wheels!”
my youthfully ignorant
After an awkward
hands and waved as
silence, he asked if
he climbed into the
I would like to
cab, wishing me
see his rifle.
luck.
Once I quickly
All these
wiped
the
years
later,
drool from
I’ve come to
my
chin,
realize
just
I
grasped
how smart and
the
rifle
how lucky old
from Harry’s
Harry and others
extended hands
like him really are.
to give it a look
He had probably hap-
see. He warned me that
pily hunted all of his
it was loaded, and after
Contributed photo life with that old Win-
I had completed a short
inspection, he asked me Columnist Dale Valade sights in his chester. Maybe it was
what I thought. Although rebuilt .30-06 rifle in the spring of even a well-used hand-
me-down when he got
old guns have always 2016.
it. Possibly it was his
interested me, I couldn’t
believe that anybody would willingly take one and only rifle, unlike most of us with a
a .32 Winchester Special to go elk hunting. library of guns to choose from. He bought
What if he had to take a longer shot? Did his ammo at Wal-Mart, only when it was on
he even know his muzzle velocity? It didn’t sale, and darned his socks when they wore
thin. Unlike me, he didn’t stew over laser
even have a scope, just buckhorn sights.
Tragically, before I could inform him rangefinders, high-dollar optics with cus-
of the many flaws in his choice of weapon, tom dials and mounts or spend countless
hours stewing over ballistics charts, test-
ing every new “wonder bullet” that came
along in his meticulously prepared hand-
loads. He didn’t burn up boxes of ammo in
several agonizing hours shooting a veritable
howitzer off of a bench rest to prepare him-
self for that proverbial “last day at sundown
‘sniper’ shot.” He spent no time reading
Kuiu, Danner or Havalon product reviews
and took no part in Black Friday sales nor
social media feuds.
Harry was in the woods not just to kill
something but to enjoy some freedom from
the hustle and bustle of the world — yes,
even from the hunting world. Harry refused
to exchange the simple pleasures of hunt-
ing for any sort of edge (real or implied)
afforded him by all the modern gear and
gadgets. I see now that he really was on to
something there.
By that time in my life, I had already
read several grocery sacks — paper not
plastic — full of the various hunting and
shooting magazines. My young mind was
filled with charts, numbers, muzzle veloc-
ities, sectional densities and ballistic coef-
ficients. Not old Harry. He wasn’t bur-
dened with such information, or if he was,
he didn’t let it bother him too badly. Nope,
what he knew was there were elk in those
hills and his old ‘94 would fill his freezer if
he got lucky and did his part. It must truly be
blissful to just “go hunting.”
It isn’t that cutting edge technology means
nothing; it’s that it doesn’t mean everything. I
think we hunters and shooters of today get so
caught up in the minutiae that we sometimes
miss the big things. We literally can’t see the for-
est for the trees, it would seem. We sometimes
get to thinking that the more money we invest
will not only make us more successful in the
field but more happy in the heart. Harry under-
stood that it’s the little things about hunting, and
life in general, that are of the most worth.
I never saw old Harry again, but I think
about him every so often. He’d be 100 years
old at least if he’s still around, lugging that old
.32 Winchester Special looking for elk in his
Mickey Mouse boots and enjoying every bliss-
ful minute of it.
Dale Valade, a local country gent with a
love for the outdoors, handloading, hunting
and shooting, writes a regular column
for the Blue Mountain Eagle.