“2020 is looking pretty good,” I said out loud.
It was a fair remark. Here it was February, not even two months into the year, and my wife and I were already big game hunting. I made the gleeful, though not exactly prescient, remark as I was clearing tall grass to get a proper portrait of the fine aoudad my wife, Viola, had just downed with the help of Bubba Glosson of Southwest Trophy Hunts. Bubba and Vi had just completed a two and a half hour stalk on this wary 10-year-old beast, but the wind was right, Vi’s stalking was stealthy enough, and her shooting was true. We spent the evening on an emotional high celebrating the successful adventure with Bubba and our assistant guide and wondrous cook, Jeff.
The next day was my turn. As we meandered through the valley dotted with innumerable yucca, cholla, and prickly pear cactus, we spotted a herd of at least 50 aoudad feeding away from us maybe a mile away. We were getting into shooting range when they busted us. The herd started running for about 30 seconds and then inexplicably stopped to look back at us in unison. I was already out of the Jeep with my gun and my pack when Bubba said, “Shoot that big one standing between the boulder and the big cactus!” In a split second, my scope was on him. I pulled the trigger of my .30-378 Weatherby, sailing the 180 Nosler Accubond 365 yards. He went right down a three-foot vertical track. It was a guide’s delight with another 10-year-old ram!
We spent the next day hiking up some of highest mountains in Texas. However, our hike was interrupted by a call from a client Bubba was supposed to hunt with the week after we left. Apparently, the poor fellow from Spain wanted to reschedule because a close friend and coworker had suddenly become ill and passed away. Little did I know that this was a harbinger of the rest of 2020.
Within two weeks, everything in the world had changed. Well, almost everything. There were still draws for hunting out west in the fall. Despite working double shifts as an ER doctor, I plodded along with my late winter ritual of applying for hunts out west. I did not have high hopes of getting drawn. After all, my wife, who is also a physician, had successfully drawn Idaho moose in 2019. What was the chance that two New York doctors would draw two years in a row? Also, there was the little issue of the COVID pandemic to complicate matters.
Not long after getting all my information in order and analyzing the charts from Huntin’ Fool, I received an email from Idaho Fish and Game. The way I interpreted it, Idaho was not going to accept any non-resident applications because of COVID. I guess I wasn’t going to Idaho this year.
A couple weeks passed, and I opened another email from Idaho. It seemed they had changed their minds, and now they were going to accept applications from non-residents. I guess someone in Fish and Game noticed they were losing a boatload of money. With not a lot of time left in the application period, I applied for the moose hunt and hoped for the best.
I can only say I was shocked when I saw the draw results and saw I was successful. I can only imagine that the early emails and the pandemic had cut down tremendously on the number of people applying. Viola and I were heading back to Idaho! Once again, I had Dan Wyant of Dan Wyant Adventures arrange a hunt with Kyle Hawkins of H & S Outfitters.
Idaho has a super long season that starts in August and ends in November. We decided to hunt the peak of the rut October 1-7. We arranged to fly into Jackson, Wyoming and took a fantastic two-day tour of Yellowstone with Stacey Noland of Obsidian Cliff Tours to see some of best scenery on the planet. Stacey is funny, informative, and hospitable and is a great tour guide.
We made arrangements to meet Kyle in Montpelier, Idaho on September 30th. After settling into the hotel in town and getting some lunch, we met Kyle at his home. He told me we were going to head over to the range just outside of town to sight in my rifle. We were making small talk when I saw him loading his ATV on the flat bed of his truck.
“We need an ATV to get to the range?” I asked.
Kyle said, “No, but we’re going hunting after you sight in.”
I didn’t realize that was the plan. I was wearing travel clothes and hikers, and I did not have my pack or my hunting license. I told Kyle I had to go back to the hotel. He told me to hurry because there was not a lot of light left. Vi and I made a mad dash back to the hotel. I stuffed my license and a mid-layer into the pack. I didn’t even change into hunting clothes. A few minutes went by, and Kyle was pulling up to our hotel room. We hopped in, and it was “a hunting we will go!”
After 45 minutes of driving through the back roads of the west side of the Teton Range, we were on the top of a hill glassing for moose. The late day October sun had set the patches of juniper and stands of aspen into a glowing tapestry. Kyle had scouted up a decent moose in the area about a week ago. However, he was concerned about some cowboys running some sheep through the area two days earlier. He was worried all the commotion would have driven the moose away. About 20 minutes later, Kyle softly whistled to me and pointed to his spotting scope.
I took a look and said, “Nice moose. I guess we’ll come back in the morning and see if we can find him again.”
Kyle said, “Why tomorrow? We still have some light.”
I said, “Let’s go!”
Here it was, day zero of my moose hunt and we were stalking a moose. We drove down the hill, got out of the truck, and ran a little razzle-dazzle play among the quakies. After playing the wind and the terrain, we hiked down from a small knob and could make out the moose feeding in a stand of willows. Kyle handed me the shooting sticks and made a nice cow call. After 10 seconds, the moose stepped out, looking for love in all the wrong places. He took one look at me and made a face like I was the ugliest girl he had ever seen. He took off running, but the Weatherby was already up. One shot and he was on the ground immediately. My moose hunt took about two hours. It was a moose guide’s dream come true. A seven-day hunt was over in two hours, and with a little work, we could drive the truck fairly close to the moose.
We field dressed the moose, and then the four of us hauled him onto the back of the pickup. We iced him down and got him to the meat cutters the next day. You might imagine how happy Viola and I were when we received a delivery from the organic butcher shop three weeks after arriving home. There were nine 50-pound coolers on our porch!
2020 was a challenging year for everyone, and it was particularly challenging if you were a healthcare worker, especially one in an NYC emergency department early in the pandemic. Our patients, some friends and neighbors, were dying, and at times, there was little more we could do except try to make it less terrifying for them. We wore N95s for 12 hours straight until our faces burned. Our community needed us, so we had no choice but to keep up the fight. The only thing that kept us going day to day was faith. Faith in our profession, faith in our family and friends, and faith in our country. However, early in the pandemic, when every day seemed a little worse than the day before, we needed a distraction. We needed to look forward to something. For me, this was hunting. For months, I looked forward to walking in the pure mountain air without a mask on my face. The dream of traveling to the West, hiking the hills, stalking the moose, finding it in my scope, and pulling the trigger kept me going. My hunting trip recharged me, and I returned home strong and ready for whatever COVID would throw my way.
It was just what the doctor ordered.
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