Brad had a nifty little
Browning .22 that broke down in the middle (a rifle I've always thought would be nice to have for
combination camping/hunting trips). We could hear the squirrels ("tree rats") from our
vantage point out in the vacant pasture. Brad handed me the Browning and said, "Go get them!"
I stalked my way into the woods and tried to sneak up on a series of squirrels. I got in some shooting,
even though I didn't actually hit one. Brad said later, "It sounded like a war."
Anyway, I was hooked. I enjoyed the spotting and sneaking, and trying to use strategy to get good positioning.
Actually seeing the game was the most fun, which is why I don't enjoy fishing as much as I do hunting. That's
also why, if fishing, I prefer doing it on the topwater, like using the Hula Popper on a Black River Float
with my buddy Bob Becker. At left is the Arbogast Hula Popper, which has caught fish for me from Southeast
Missouri to Canada.I like to hunt, but don't get to go as often as I would like. I seldom bird hunt, because I don't have a dog and because my only hunting buddy with a hunting dog lives about three hours away. Back in the late Seventies and early Eighties,
though, I
took part in some memorable pheasant hunts in north Missouri, where my long-time hunting
buddy Brent Campbell and I served as each other's dogs. Actually, Brent and I were taken on
our first pheasant hunt together by a friend from the
Baptist Student Union, Dave Broyles, who grew up in Milan, Missouri. One weekend, he invited us
to his family home to hunt those north-Missouri pheasants. It was cold that weekend, and I remember
sleeping under a feather comforter in the basically unheated attic bedroom in the Broyles'
farmhouse. (Is it only the inaccuracy of a memory from twenty-five years ago, or do
I remember frost on the blankets in the morning when we went down to thaw out by the
woodstove?) 
Dave drove us around to the farms of several people he knew where we could hunt. We actually got
some birds, and I enjoyed the excitement of the flush, the challenge of differentiating a legal
cock from a protected hen, and the great taste of pheasant roasted over a bed of rice.I also like to hunt ducks and geese, but it's hard to bring together all of the necessary elements: time away from my job, access to a hunting area, a companion to hunt with, and most of all, birds present in the area. I can't remember what decade it was when I shot my last goose--the Eighties, I guess. Had some pretty good duck hunting during the Nineties, especially during 1993, when I was on a sabbatical in Columbia.
I have hunted deer at the family farm since the mid-Seventies. I hunted for seven
years before even seeing a buck, so when I did see and take one in 1981, I had it mounted.
I was in what was supposed to be my last year at Southeast Missouri state, and I
thought I might end up some place where I wouldn't be able to hunt deer again. The
little buck I paid the taxidermist about $150 to have mounted, today hangs in the basement
stairwell of the Allendale house, and looks like this:I have since taken larger bucks, the "best" of which was a large 10-pointer. However, I don't plan to take any more. I am not into trophies as much as I am the outdoor experience and the meat. The meat from that old, stringy buck was not nearly as good as what I was used to from the does or very young bucks I had taken in previous years. I decided to swear off shooting any more bucks, at least when I am hunting in Missouri, where I have a choice.