hunting

Posted by admin | November 13, 2018

I was given my first BB gun when I was around ten. I loved that gun. It was accurate and well built. It didn’t have a scope, but that didn’t bother me. I could hit a can at twenty-five yards well enough.

Besides shooting cans, I would shoot birds with it (mainly barn swallows and other nuisances). It got to be that when I went hunting, a trail of farm cats followed me as they knew they were about to get an easy meal.

I remember one particular day where I was going after a larger bird of some kind. I think I hit the thing square in the chest at least three times. The bird just sat there like, “is that the best you can do?” I wasn’t deterred in the slightest. I decided to aim a little higher my next shot, though. I nailed it in the eye and down it came. The cats all swarmed the bird and I had to shoo them away so that I could get a look at my kill (that was how I found out I got it in the eye). Once done, I let the cats have at it and continued my hunt. A fight ensued behind me.

Hunting has made it into my writing. In Gun Smuggler’s Tale, I describe a true pheasant hunt of my own that I pawn off as my main character’s. In Dark Matter, I have a short story centered around a pheasant hunter and his dog. Flaming Curse has more than a few shot rabbits and such. There aren’t any pheasants because the book takes place in 1870 and pheasants weren’t introduced to Kansas until 1906. In talking with another member of my hunting and fishing club, I’ve now been roped into doing a presentation on writing. This will give me a chance to talk about my passions: hunting and writing.

I’ve always heard that you should write what you know. I know a lot about hunting pheasants and am learning about turkeys and geese. I’m sure more and more will show up in my writing as I get more stories to tell. Maybe even the cats following me on the farm will show up somewhere someday.