PART I. FIELD SHOOTING AND BASIC HUNTING

Chapter 2. Basic Hunting

When Art   Richardson   rolled   that  jack rabbit with a running shot at seventy-five yards, it wasn't just happenstance that he and I were easing around that small basin where the first spring warmth had touched off the grass and clover, the tender bitterbrush sprouts. It was sign reading-relating expected game to available forage.

All types of hunting have many things in common, other than actual shooting.

Game from squirrel to elk have identical primary concerns— warmth, food, shelter and security. They go about getting these essentials in an almost endless number of ways. But basically they have so many things in common you cannot know success­ful small game requirements without increasing your big game hunting skills.

Maybe your woodchuck territory will not produce any whitetail deer, due to the lack of suitable cover. But you may be sure that if woodchuck find it attractive, the only reason there are not big game there is the lack of one of the other essentials, shelter or security. Know something of woodchuck hunting from the standpoint of suitable habitat and it is only a short step to knowing intimately the requirements of whitetail deer or elk. Know cottontail rabbit preference in regard to suitable foraging, and you will not be far off in food preference for any browsing big game animal. The tangle of rich food in overgrown, abandoned farm fields and fence rows, coming lush to briars, round maple, clover and other forage crops are repeated endlessly in big game cover.

Favorable game territory is easily pin-pointed, too, just from a study of land contours. In my big game book, Advanced Hunting, a very careful evaluation was made of big game cover preferences in relation to warmth, food and shelter. It had been found that certain requirements touched off a lush growth, not only of big game browse, but a rich harvest of cones, nuts and berries made these "hot spots" boss for small game as well: squirrel, rabbit, grouse.

Primary requirement, of course, is warmth during the en­tire growing season. Warmth touches off a chain reaction which just naturally spells good hunting coverts. Territory receiving the longest period of sunshine, all during the growing season, is southern exposure—ridges, slopes and swales. These, which are high enough to receive proper "air drainage" always have a greater concentration of all wildlife.

Early spring sunshine pours on these southern exposures when snow is still clinging to the northern slopes. It carries through the golden months of autumn when maples are aflame along the hardwood ridges. There is not only a more abundant harvest of cones, nuts, wild grapes, berries and browse, but the food is also more favored by game because it is more nutritious.

A study of these natural concentrations is especially produc­tive in connection with squirrel, rabbit or ruffed grouse hunting. It is a basic bit of sign reading which will take any hunting out of the luck category and place it on the more substantial basis of intelligent sign reading.

Just as surely as sign reading placed much of our shooting in front of us that day Art Richardson and I hunted ground squirrel and jacks, our stalking also made its contribution. A shot, be it at big game or small, is on the make from the time a hunter takes his first step until the game is in front of his rifle. Whether it will be an easy shot, or a difficult target to tag will depend in great part on the stalking which has gone before. Skillful stalking means easy, short range shooting. Un­skillful stalking means poor, hurried chances for shots, difficult even for the most experienced and skilled rifle shot. Careful stalking is a basic technique of all good hunting from ground squirrel to deer or elk.

When I think of stalking and still hunting for either small game or large, I mentally see such splendid hunters as those seasoned woodsmen: Grant Hartwell, Elzie Randolph, Art Rich­ardson, "Buck" Buoy easing through the cover, each step con­tributing something to that all important shot which they know is constantly on the make. Each of these hunters, trained to a fine point in the big and small game coverts by years of ex­perience, move slowly. There is never a hasty, ill planned move in a day's hunt when they are afield. Slowness is basic. It is the very cornerstone on which successful hunting is built.

A predator stalking its quarry is methodically slow in its approach. It moves with stealth, getting within range. It takes every advantage the cover affords. Once, while hunting deer in a beautifully wooded south slope of a maple and hardwood forest, I was fortunate enough to witness the technique of a raccoon trying for a luscious, young ruffed grouse in a hazel thicket. It was late afternoon and I was easing along a deer trail, stopping to conn the cover ahead, my eyes were attracted by movement in the low growing hazel. I eased down on one knee to get a better view below heavy foliage and I saw this raccoon.

He was intent on something which I couldn't see from my position, so I eased forward on the trail a few feet and lay down flat, thus gaining a ringside seat to a bit of woodland drama.

The ruffed grouse walked back and forth, clucking and mak­ing small talk, but not unduly alarmed. It paused at times for a bit of leaf turning, though not entirely satisfied that all was on the up and up.

The raccoon moved belly low to the ground, slowly, care­fully—always keeping a bush or clump of brush between it and its quarry. Not once did it make an unplanned move. Each time it eased forward some advantage accrued to this 'coon. He was certainly laying it on the line.

For minutes at a time he would remain perfectly motionless, his slender black fingers spread and gripping the ground, tensed for a spring if the agitated ruffed grouse quieted down and fed sufficiently close to make the pounce successful.

Here was a hunter who knew instinctively the importance of taking it slowly, or waiting it out, of keeping his hunt carefully in hand, ruling out everything except stealth.

I could hear my wrist watch ticking loudly. A maple leaf drifting down through the trees sounded dreadfully noisy. Time, however, apparently stood still for that black masked bandit. He was not hurrying his hunt, even though he must have tasted that  tender    young   ruffed    grouse   while   waiting  a    favorable opportunity to make the kill.

After fifteen minutes of careful stalking, in which he had moved twenty feet, he was directly behind a clump of hazel, with the ruffed grouse clucking and perting on the otherside— alerted, but not greatly alarmed. Then there was a flurry, a frantic beating of wings, feathers in the air—action so quick it could scarcely be followed, and the raccoon had his quarry.

It had been my intention to break it up before the climax of a kill, but I was so completely absorbed in the consummate job of stalking that the black hooded bandit was doing, I com­pletely forgot. I moved along the trail again, intent on my own hunting, yet marveling at this nocturnal prowler who had gotten up early enough in the evening to get those nimble black fingers of his on a luscious supper. He certainly did not depend on luck.

Inexperienced hunters starting a day afield with ruffed grouse in mind, hunt haphazardly. They put their dogs down without knowing anything of cover preferences, of anything of the weather's effect on their hunting. Are those things only learned after years and years afield?

No! They are basic hunting requirements common to all game. Each time a hunter goes afield, regardless of his quarry, there is a dividend of basic hunting knowledge which has appli­cation when he changes from say squirrel to rabbit, from rabbit to ruffed grouse. The skill is transferable. Knowing that all hunting has basic requirements, and that each species hunted contributes something to over-all skill is sometimes harder to learn than the actual basic woodcraft envolved.

Al Wyman, a hunting partner, has a lazy old setter which he uses each autumn on ruffed grouse. The two make a splen­did hunting combination. In twenty years of friendship I have never known Al to make an unnecessary move, either in or out of the game coverts. When he takes afield some warm October day with Indian summer touching the maples with a mid-season warmth, he has all the time there is. Old abandoned apple orchards, with their crops of wormy apples will receive a slow, methodical visit from Al and his lazy old setter. So will the sun-warmed south slopes where the sugar ripe grapes still cling to the vines and the ridges where huckleberry bushes are covered with black shiny fruit.

Check off these ruffed grouse food preferences. They defi­nitely add up to whitetail deer range.  They add up to good squirrel hunting, too. You wouldn't go far wrong in such cover if you were out after cotton tail rabbit with a couple of beagles, or just still hunting bunnies with a .22 rifle. All would be hunt­ing based on careful, fundamental evaluation—the sum total of all the tangibles which a hunter knows underlies all hunting.

Al Wyman, like all good hunters, regardless of quarry, breaks through the hard crust of luck to base his hunting on the more substantial foundation of good hunting technique. Even his slow, lazy old setter exemplified good hunting attitude by his slow methodical work.

Outstanding grouse dogs, of which there are very few, are slow and careful in their field work. They have a light touch which keeps game from flushing. And behind each ruffed grouse dog there is a truly great hunter—owner—a man fully con­versant with basic hunting requirements.

All hunting, from small game to large, properly paced, is synchronized to the pulse of the game territory.

There are certain times of day when the woods and fields are active. Game is on the move, feeding, leaf turning, nut cutting on those warm slopes and draws where the rich wild harvest of food is produced each season. There are also periods when the coverts are quiet. Woodchucks are sunning them­selves at the mouth of their dens. Ruffed grouse are dust bath­ing along the old tote roads. Squirrels are inactive, or at best doing little nut cutting or cornfield raiding. Deer have retired to sheltering thickets. It were as if nature slept away the drowsiness of midday, resting, waiting.

This inactive period starts late in the morning. It will last through until mid-afternoon for small game. It is a time when it is essential to match hunting technique to the mood of the quarry.

During an inactive period, any movement is much more attention getting and alarming. It will send a woodchuck scur­rying for his hole, a ground squirrel to his burrow. The in­active period is a time of waiting out the hunt, of very careful stalking. You must be slow, slower yet, and alert beyond any casualness. For now you must see game at rest, a much more difficult undertaking than when there is movement to attract you.

Hurry and tenseness has no place in hunting in any event. Hunting is a time when all the senses must be alert and receptive. There must be a constant evaluation of cover, game habit, food preferences—a putting together of the jig-saw puz­zle of the coverts.

Ever watch an experienced woodchuck hunter developing his hunt? Notice how he approaches the problem of making each segment fall in place, making it contribute some advantage to the over-all problem of stalking? There is no hurrying hap­hazardly across fields, hoping against hope that such hunting will turn up a few targets. He is constantly taking advantage of his cover, just as a still hunting deer hunter takes advantage of the deer coverts. An old stone fence leads the woodchuck hunter unobserved into a shooting position which will cover a clover field. A slight depression there gets him within range of a hillside pock-marked with woodchuck dens. Each bit of the hunt unfolds some advantage he can use in stalking. Basical­ly it has much in common with a squirrel hunter in the hard­woods. There are elements of ruffed grouse hunting in it—the caution, the slowness, the constant evaluation of the cover. What a beautiful training ground it is for a hunter seriously using his small game hunting as a laboratory in which to de­velop big game hunting techniques!

No segment of a hunt stands out unrelated to the rest. The game you see, the ranges at which you must take your shots, are conditioned by the amount of skill you use in stalking—your hunting attitude. Hunting skill is not something primarily as­sociated with wilderness, either. It is just as essential, and is as often found in a farm field or woodlot.

A soft stepping still hunter I know acquired his enviable deer stalking ability in a three acre woodlot hunting squirrel. Best snapshooting elk hunter I know acquired his rifle skill, and his careful stalking while hunting ground squirrel. I know a ruffed grouse hunter who has made six, one-shot kills on deer in heavy cover.

There has been a constant effort in the past to develop the "all-around rifle” one which would be suitable for game from woodchuck to elk. Preoccupation with this ideal has beclouded the issue of good hunting, placing the emphasis on the rifle, and not on the hunter where it belongs. It is much more to the point for a hunter to strive, not for the all around rifle, but instead for all around hunting ability. And that starts with basic hunting in the small game fields.