Last week I received a request from a couple of frustrated stalkers who wondered if I remembered one of my old columns that took a few swings at the rules surrounding moose hunting.
I did a quick search and came up with the following, although I’m sure the regulations must be much simpler by now.
Notes from long ago:
It was a hellacious night when my band of buds pounded on the door.
Turk, Rusty, and Willie were standing on the deck blanketed by a fog all decked out in their hunting camos like true guerillas in the mist and shaking like griz-caught fish.
They had arrived for our annual pre-hunt meeting armed with piles of hunting regulations, permit applications, maps, and long-range weather predictions.
I requested that they head around to the basement door lest their $400 “Silent Stalker Sneaker Boots” leave tracks on the front room carpet transforming them into the hunted when the lady of the realm awoke and discovered muddy imprints on her new rug.
After the traditional backslapping, and arm punching ceremony concluded, we swiftly laid out the guidelines and charts to plan a grand strategy for bagging a bull or two.
Turk oversaw interpreting the morass of regs while Willie lined out the hunting units and sundry boundaries. Rusty was the logistics man and I was there to make up plausible excuses for getting skunked again.
“OK, let’s get started.” Turk mumbled. “What unit looks the easiest to get to Willie?”
“Unit 75/106-bfa75.” Willie replied.
“Let’s see,” Turk mumbled as he perused the directives pertaining to the zone. “Nope, that’s just a few miles from here. Only hunters from Hoonah or Skagway riding Clydesdales can hunt there.”
“How about Unit 17.7/:99000AF?”
“Maybe, but that would be a tough go.”
“Howz that?”
“It says here you can only take a bull which’ll dress out between 600 and 603 pounds or has over a 110-inch rack spread, anything else?”
“There’s this huge gray zone but it’s owned by a corporation. You gotta purchase a $1,500 permit and are limited to only taking dwarf, albino, double paddle, yearlings Hmmm… they have added a one-time-only berry picking option for $75 for this year. Half the price of 2010.”
“Can we get into 111.888o/b?”
“Only if you have relatives in Barrow, Nome, Sitka and Downtown Spenard plus you must validate your hunting prowess by showing proof that you have surreptitiously harvested a moose within the city limits of Kodiak for the last seven years.”
“Unit B-13-4rg3?”
“That hunt is over, remember? It was last Tuesday between 2 and 2:15 p.m. on the west side of the Salty Dawg Saloon.”
“&*^%$#!” Turk groused. “The next thing they’ll do is restrict us to moderately disturbed male yearlings with unicorn spikes and undescended testicles swimming west in the Cook Inlet.”
“That’s already included in next year’s rules according to one outdoor mag.” Rusty quipped. “Hey, did you hear what old Skeeter did to that Cheechak who blasted one of his Holsteins into jerky strips then showed him his cow permit? The doc had to add an extension to his proctoscope to retrieve the paperwork.”
“Yeah, it’s getting tough out there.” Willie grumped. Let’s say I spot a bull in full profile just a couple of hundred yards away in Unit D-17hwtf. First, I need to confirm he has the proper horn configuration, is left hoofed, cross-eyed, and missing two bicuspids. If that adds up, then I must figure out if he’s on state, federal, or shareholder land.
With my luck he’ll be straddling two of the three and will collapse face first making him only half legal on one side and me out major coin for an additional user’s permit on the other.”
“Look men, we digress.” I replied. “Due to the myriads of growing bureaucratic speed-bumps we are encountering from the state, feds, and corporations, we need to be extra cautious this year.
It looks like we can get into some serious scat if we’re in the wrong place at the right time, or don’t shoot on an odd numbered day, at an even numbered hour, during the partial eclipse of the planet Ork.
What say you that we go with last year’s game plan?”
They looked at each other for a moment and then rumbled, “Let’s do it!” while manly ramming their skinning knifes into my defenseless card table.
“It’s settled then,” Turk growled, “Rusty will order four sides of local beef, cut, wrapped and delivered then look into getting us on the bumper-moose roadkill list.”
We high-fived each other satisfied that we had, once again, successfully fulfilled another hunter-gatherer obligation for the year then stormed for the steps to catch the morning’s pre-game show before the Seahawks took on the Cowboys.
Unfortunately, our testosterone level took an unexpected dip when we were temporarily stymied in our quest for chips, brew, and further male bonding as a razor-edged voice sliced down from the loft.
“That thundering herd stampeding toward the den best hit the top of the stairs in their stocking feet!”
Even in a semi-man cave world there are rules.
Nick can be reached at ncvarney@gmail.com if he isn’t busy tracking down a primo hind quarter of local beef and a hefty porker.
