Doug Blough

OK, enough about cute, domesticated pets; let’s move on to dead, tasty animals commonly found in a crock pot. For many decades I’ve been the recipient of wild game meat others place into my greedy, non-judgmental hands. I don’t hunt — haven’t since high school in western Pa where white-tail hunting was all the rage.

I succumbed to the peer pressure one year and just to fit in, got a license and trekked into the woods behind our house. Getting chilly and nothing jumping out at me, I was back home in bed by noon. Still though, I’ve done more killin’ than I care to remember.

I’ll get back to that, but in a deft segue, kudos to great-nephew Sam Blough who at only 18 drew a moose tag and cashed it in. Sammy, or “Sparky” as I call him, his brother Noah, (“Rooster”) and their Pop, Rusty, (“Krusty the Clown”) took to the hills as the end of the season dreweth nigh.

I’m told the odds of drawing a moose tag are less than 1% — about the same as me ever seeing a sunrise. Obviously the boy has some incredible luck, also tracking down a trophy girlfriend Cierra. The odds of drawing her was even less, so he should frame her picture and mount it on the wall right next to the moose.

I’m not sure of the area of Sam’s prized draw; somewhere in the Crandall area I think. I wouldn’t know Dead Indian from Nipple Mesa, so let’s say north of Cody and considerably south of Hardin, Montana. The point is, Sammy brought down that hapless moose with two strategically-placed shots from his .270.

Hearing of this, I thought, “Mmmm; free meat.” I’ve been sent packing with deer and elk, compliments of friends and/family slaughters, but ain’t never tasted moose. I giddily anticipate moose burger, moose steaks and especially chocolate mousse I’ve heard great things about.

Returning to my own personal hunting experience and culinary aftermath, I can still taste the fried rabbit Mom served up once, most likely bagged by big brother Paul, the primary killer in the family. I recall it as the best-tasting meat ever, but I also painfully remember as a teen, a lovely rabbit hiding inside our backyard woodpile that I blew away with a 16-gauge. Ooh, big man — able to hit a rabbit 10 feet away huddled inside an 8-inch clearance. But the meat, greasy and delicious, presents a true dichotomy — an enigma trapped in a griddle if you will.

Likewise I can still see that big gray squirrel falling from the branch of a tree behind our house and landing with a sickening thud. At my hands this beautiful, fluffy animal tragically died, and who knows what happened to its significant, heartbroken other romping with it one second and fleeing across the branch the next. How I rue that “successful” shot.

But getting back to Sammy’s successful shot, I saw the picture of the divinely-tined corpse and it sure looked impressive. Then again, what do I know about what’s a trophy kill? I wouldn’t know a Boone and Cracker record rack from a hay rake.

Getting back to my kills, I’m also haunted by memories of me and Jack Keim killing robins with Daisy BB-guns as punk kids. “How could I be that heartless?” I ask myself. It’s not like I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die, but it was still cruelly heinous. I have zero good memories of a single kill. Death just doesn’t turn me on, yet the taste of wild game definitely does.

So I’ll go on mooching as much venison as they’re willing to part with. I mean, I’m not big on principles, and even though I couldn’t massacre a proud, majestic animal, I don’t look down my nose at anyone else. Let the blood be on their hands, but the meat in my freezer.

My apologies to Rocky the Squirrel and Bullwinkle the Moose though for what my family and I have done to your people. Lucky for you, gun-toting Elmer Fudd prowled a different cartoon.