Dropping the Deuce

 

The general gun season for big game ended last weekend here in Montana and for a lot of us, the elk won. I spent roughly twenty-five days hunting the high country in six different mountain ranges, put at least 3,000 miles on the truck and a couple hundred on the boots and have a whitetail doe and a buck that had to have been hit by a car to show for it. Yeah, the buck I shot in Malta was looking a little worse for wear, so I took it into to get checked out for CWD. The agent wanted to age it and, in the process, found some significant damage to the jaw and head. I also found some green tissue in a couple of the joints, which would indicate a previous injury. Its jaw was so busted up that the agent couldn't even age it because he couldn't compare the teeth to the models they use. 

The bottom line for the elk was that the weather just didn't come and there wasn't enough snow to push them down into accessible areas. I did have one really good opportunity on a bull in the timber but couldn't tell if he was legal until he turned to head out. I thought I put a good shot on him but tracked him for a while and no dice. There was enough snow where I was hunting that had I hit him, I'd know. I didn't and wound up cutting his tracks again a week later. Unfortunately, the little bit of snow we had, melted and then froze so sneaking up on them in their beds was impossible. Crunching around, post-holing through timber isn't a winning strategy and once they get a little pressure, they don't move out into the openings until well after dark. 

Not everyone got skunked though. My buddy shot his cow on the last day of the season. Thank God, someone gave me the chance to try out the new hoist in the garage. 

Speaking of my buddy, I feel the need to address some important camp hygiene as it pertains to pooping. Now I told him I was going to write about this and of course, he strongly opposed the idea. But content is content, and you can't make up poop stories. In fact, the real poop scoop tends to be the best. However, in order to protect the fella, I'm not going to use his real name. We'll just call him Rick.

Before we get to Rick, I have to share this other poop story that was shared by another buddy. His hunting partner was walking through the woods one day still-hunting for deer, when nature called in a manner that could not be ignored. In fact, it was so persistent that he decided to pop a squat right there and in such a haste, that he may have not been as scrupulous as he no doubt, had eventually wished he had. He whipped down his hooded coveralls, leaned up against a tree, and grunted one out. Upon finishing the deed, he pulled up his coveralls and continued on his path noticing the stench of what he had left behind seemingly following him.

"Man," he thought, "that really stinks."

He couldn't get away from it. He kept thinking that something must have died up there and it was just that pungent that it lingered until a couple hundred yards further he realized the problem. In his haste to rid himself of whatever it was that was pleading to get out, he didn't clear his hood on the back of his coveralls and now, he was carrying the load with him. When he got back to camp, the other guys started noticing he had cut off his hoody and started asking questions. He would eventually share the truth behind the hood and now you get to enjoy the story too. You're welcome. 

Rick and I met up in Ennis and then headed to his campsite at a fishing access site on the Madison River. He had a camper already set up and I had my tent. I don't do well with sharing small spaces with dudes, especially when that dude is a restless sleeper and every time he adjusts, the camper shakes. If I was going to get any sleep, it would be better in the tent, even though it would get down into the twenties at night. 

We were running out of daylight, so we did a short evening hunt before setting up camp. When we got to the site, it was after dark. Rick pointed out a spot behind the camper and suggested I set up my tent there. Using a headlamp, I put it up, set up a cot and got settled in. Another gentleman, Kevin, had already joined the party, setting up his slide-in camper right next to Rick's camper. I produced some homemade chilly we ate in the comfort of Kevin's camper and waited for more hunters to show up. While eating and waiting for the others, we crushed a few craft beers. Ok, let's be fair, more than a few. 

Rick is notorious for his "Irish goodbyes," so at around 10 o'clock, he quietly disappeared. He actually slept in the back of his Suburban as he had offered the camper to a couple other buddies. I headed to the tent and to be honest, it wasn't that bad. I had the gear to stay warm and although I have a hard time sleeping on a new bed for the first couple nights, I was pretty comfortable. 

The next morning, I woke up to Kevin making breakfast outside his camper and figured it was time to get going. That was 5:15am. Kevin and I waited until six before rapping on the windows of the Suburban to get Rick out of bed. Time was wasting. We needed to go. Rick was a little hung over.  

He grabbed his coffee and jumped in my truck and we headed to an area where we thought we'd have a good chance to find some traveling elk. We parked the truck along the forest service road, that cut up through a wide open sage flat. The sun was coming up and the edge of the timber was already well lit a couple hundred yards uphill. 

"Got any TP?" Rick asked. 

"Yeah, but we gotta get moving," I replied. 

I grabbed a fresh roll of shit-tickets from a bin out of the back of the truck and tossed it to Rick. He proceeded to rip off about ten feet of paper from the roll, wrapping it around his hand. He set the paper on the back bumper and duplicated the process. Two huge bundles of paper, rest on the back bumper of my F-150 and then Rick disappeared around the front of the truck. 

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Taking a shit," he responded. 

I looked at the pile of paper on the back bumper of the truck and started doing the math. My truck is about 21 feet long. I know this because I designed my garage around that fact. Rick was taking care of business just in front of the truck, which is not only incredibly inconvenient, but just gross. 

"Shit," he says and then I watch him do the duck walk around the truck to where he left the paper.

He grabs the two piles of paper he had prepared and hobbles back to the front of the truck with his drawers around his knees. 

"Jesus, dude. What is wrong with you?" I ask.

The two mounds of paper weren't enough to get the job done so he duck walks back to the back bumper, grabs the roll and rips off another 10 feet, only this time, he finishes wiping his ass right in front of me.  

"Are you f'n kidding me?" I ask. 

"What? You don't have to watch." 

"Let's go!" I half whisper, half shout. 

We grab our gear and head out into the timber. We took a pretty good hike, not seeing anything and head back. The first thing I noticed heading back through the sage flat, is white toilet paper hanging from the sage brush in front of the truck. It looks like some kids TP'ing the asshole neighbor's yard with stained paper.

"Look at all this paper, Rick. Are you going to leave it there?" I ask. 

"It will disintegrate," he shrugs. 

We drive back to the campground and meet up with the others. Nobody saw anything so we decided to grab some lunch before heading out again. I set some homemade sausage on the table Kevin had set up at the back of his camper. His camper is only about eight feet to the side of Rick's camper, orientated in the same direction so that the back of both campers are pretty well lined up. My tent is about eight feet off the back of Rick's camper. 

As we are getting lunch out, Kevin yells to Rick, "Hey dude! Your dog is mowing on something. You sure you want her eating that stuff?"

Rick's dog has its nose buried in the grass, right off the back bumper of the camper, just a few feet from the flap on my tent. She is going to town on something she obviously finds irresistible. 

"What's she got?" I ask not really wanting to know but feeling I should. 

"Oh," Rick responds nonchalantly, "must be my shit from the other day." 

"What the f..., Rick?" I had enough. 

"What? I had to go..."

"There's a f'n outhouse right f'n there! It's not even a hundred f'n feet away!" I'm in no way holding back.

"I didn't think I could make it." He explains. 

"You've got to be f'n kidding me." 

"Jesus, dude. Why do you have get on me like that?" He asks like a child who seems to have been blamed his entire life for everything wrong with the world. 

"Because it's f'n disgusting, dude. Your dog is eating it! People walk through there! It's five feet from my f'n tent!"

"There's horse crap all over," he defends, "What's the difference?"

I have zero patience for this and at that time, didn't have the energy to explain the difference so I just shook my head, grabbed some summer sausage, and walked away. 

Rick does have plenty of redeeming qualities although sanitary etiquette is not one of them. I guess you have to ask yourself, "why would Russ write about pooping?' To this I have to say, I don't know. Maybe as a public service announcement?  Maybe because poop stories are funny? Maybe to publicly humiliate a buddy in the hopes he never engages in the behavior again? Regardless, I will most likely write about more distasteful things in the future so enjoy!

Keep 'em where they live...