Remembering the days of old

[hrd2fnd]

Sitting here today remembering the days of old with the old man as today would've been his 83rd birthday. Was going through the den and came across my Buck 110.

I started to remember how I had lost my 1st 110. It was the last time the old man was able to hunt. We were hunting the mountain loop between Granite Falls and Darrington.

He was so excited, I had dropped him off overlooking a nice clear cut while I continued for the other end. I hadn't been there more than 10 minutes when BANG!! Classing over I see him waving. I get up to him and say you get it? Yeah he says shaking like a leaf. We take a seat and he begins to calm himself. He begins to relive the moment step by step you would swear he had a photographic memory.

Knowing that this would be his 1st ever I began the trek of locating. To this day I still remember the laugh he and I shared for years about the deer stump.  He had shot to low. Lost my first buck 110 during that trek.


What knife is it that means something to you? 

[RadSav]

I have a Shrade folder (125OT I think).  Was handed down to me when my grandfather passed away.  It goes on nearly every hunt.  I'm careful to use it only for skinning as I'm too fearful I will break it as I try to break a joint or need to get in around bone.  I remember watching my grandfather butcher a moose with it and a thin bladed Camillus (maybe Western Knives) hatchet.  It seemed like he had the knife in one hand the hatchet in the other.  I was amazed at how fast and flawless he was with them both.  I was near suicidal when I realized I had left his hatchet on top of the truck one day.  Drove back and forth for days trying to find it, but someone must have picked it up.  One of my lifes biggest regrets!!

I'm not one who believes that a knife can be good luck.  But, I think there is something about having a little piece of grandpa with me on every hunt that makes me a better hunter.  It also seems to possess that quiet whisper of his that rings in my head and makes me a better person too.

[Little Dave]

Grandpa had carried the knife for a while out on emergency calls in the Northern Manitoba wilderness.  When my dad set out on his first season as a fishing guide on Great Slave Lake, he passed it on to dad.  Dad passed it on to me and I carried it for years, used it to skin my first two elk.  My oldest son used it when we skinned his first buck.

[NOCK NOCK]

I was 16 and "attempting " to trap coyote's. A guy who lived in the general area pointed the F&G in my direction because someone had their dog caught in a trap and he knew I was in that area a lot.  When F&G showed up at my house insinuating that I had trapped a dog, I repeatedly tried to tell them it was not my traps, but if it was, the dog was running deer cause my traps are several miles away from anywhere that a dog should be that time of year. They wanted me to take them to see my traps.....OK.

The next morning I met 2 officers at the point where our hike would begin. Being it was a cold winter day & knowing it was a long steep hike in, I stripped down to jeans and a flannel and off we went, both F&G guys decked out in heavy coats.  Being young, I could hike like the dickens, and kept getting requests from the F&G guys to hold up for them  They were peeling clothes off going up the hill like a couple of strippers

At the halfway point in, they were just catching up again while I was finishing a cool drink(they did not bring any liquids) At this time I asked them, Do you still think I am the one who trapped a dog?  They just gave me a funny kinda smile and said NO, but we still want to see your traps. As we started up again I looked down at the ground to find a brand new Kershaw folding knife laying there. Hey cool look what I just found I told them, pretty nice knife. They didn't seem to impressed, more concerned about their own sweating, wet clothing, and heavy breathing.

Well we got to the traps, no yotes as usual, and they were satisfied it was not my trap that caught a dog. Turned out they told me on the way down that the incident had happened very close to town. Not sure why they put themselves through that misery, but I enjoyed the heck out of it and will cherish that knife forever.

[HUNTINCOUPLE]

Lots of good memories and times of the Darington/Suattle area. My old man and his cousins pioneered many a trail up there. Many a big buck they hauled out of that steep nasty country. I to follow there footsteps to gods country! And to the knifes which have been handed down from generation to generation.......