The Frustrating Life of a Bowhunters Wife
by Gary Olsen
They say love is blind. Well I guess they're right. I had ample warning. Before we got married my husband Gary said, "Before we get too serious, I want to let you know what you're getting into. I'm a bowhunter and I'll always be a bowhunter. Neither you nor anyone else can ever change me. I go bowhunting at least six weeks every year. Every spring I go to Canada bear hunting. In September I go out west to hunt elk, mule deer, antelope or whatever. In October and November, I take a couple weeks off to hunt whitetails here in Michigan. The rest of the year I'm yours. Now, do you still want to get married?" I said "I do."
He bought me a wedding ring, but when the ring was ready to be picked up from the jewelers, I had to go get it because he was gone on a hunting trip. How romantic.
He said we couldn't get married in May or June because of the spring bear season. We couldn't wait until fall because the hunting seasons start in September and run all the way through December. It had to be July or August. He said we had to get married in the off season because he didn't want to take a bunch of flak from me every year because he's gone bowhunting on our anniversary. We tied the knot in August.
Being a little bit misinformed I thought bowhunting was a fairly inexpensive sport, so I didn't say too much when he wanted to get a few things for hunting. After all, what could you need besides a bow and a few arrows, and you can use the arrows over and over. Boy was I wrong!
He's got a trail bike he uses to carry and check baits when he's bear hunting, and an all terrain bicycle that he uses for scouting and staying in shape. He's got two binoculars and a spotting scope for judging heads at long range. You don't want to spend hours of valuable hunting time stalking an animal and then find out he didn't meet your minimum standards. He's got bows and bow cases, arrows and arrow cases, cameras and camera cases, tons of boots and clothing, and all kinds of archery accessories. He has a large dome tent, a backpack tent, camp stoves and lanterns, bota bags and water jugs and gas cans. He's got backpacks and fanny packs, duffel bags, sleeping bags, cots, air mattresses and anything you'd ever need to live and hunt under any conditions you could ever encounter.
He had to have a four wheel drive truck to get up those rough mountain roads. It just sits in the garage until hunting season, while I'm driving the old Buick, with one door that won't open and another that flys open every time you go around a corner. When I pull up to the drive up window at the bank, I have to open the door because the window won't roll down, then I can't get the door to close. The door handle broke off from slamming the door all the time and the window crank broke off from using it as a door handle. I have to get out and push the door closed from the outside and then walk around to the other side of the car to get in. I would drive his truck but I can't drive with a stick shift. He thinks that's real funny.
After living with this bowhunter for awhile, I realized that they speak a whole different language. After listening to him talk about bowhunting I became confused by some of the terms he used. He talked about looking for "book" heads. "What's a book head?" "You know, a Pope and Younger, a record booker." "A what?" "A trophy sized animal, for example a deer with antlers meeting the minimum size requirements to be listed in the Pope and Young record book for trophy game taken with a bow and arrow." "Oh."
Oh, there's lots more. What's a recurve, compound, stick bow, double-x-75's, two wheeler, four wheeler, fletching, scrape, rub, rut, self climber, camo? These and many more have different meanings than you'd think. There's lots of points. He uses field points, nocking points, antler points, Pope and Young points, reference points, and compass points. Don't ask me which ones are which. When he told me he had a hip quiver, I felt sorry for him. I thought it was a medical condition. When he said he needed flipper rest, all I could think of was sleeping dolphins.
I've learned the language pretty well over the years but I'm still a little confused about some things.
My bowhunter seems to have two different standards of behavior. He'll come in from hunting and track mud all over my clean kitchen floor, but when he's approaching his tree stand, he'll tip toe in so quiet and carefully from just the right direction so he doesn't leave his scent trail where an approaching deer might encounter it and spook.
He never reads a newspaper but he'll sit for hours reading a Bowhunter magazine or any book that tells how to hunt, call, skin, judge, measure or immitate some animal.
He built a 16' X 18' room with a 14' cathedral ceiling onto the house just so he could have a wall high enough to hang his Pope and Young elk head, but he just can't seem to find the time to build me a closet I've been asking for for years.
Our walls are covered with deer, antelope, and elk heads and antlers, bear and coyote rugs, pictures of animals, hunting pictures, Pope and Young certificates, bows, arrows, etc. One entire wall is covered with a mural of three deer in the woods. We even have two lights hanging from the ceiling that he made from shed mule deer antlers. But when I wanted to hang up a picture of my mother, he said, "What for? You know what she looks like."
He gives me all kinds of static when I buy myself a new dress, but if you look in his closet you'll see green camo for the early season, brown camo for the late season, gray camo for out west, white camo for when it snows, camo rain gear for when it rains, camo t-shirts for when it's hot and lots and lots of insulated clothing for when it's cold. I think he has more hunting clothes than regular clothes.
He says he can't understand why I need fifteen jillion pairs of shoes since I've only got two feet, but he's got gortex lined, thinsulate insulated, leather hunting boots for general purpose hunting, tennis shoes for summer scouting, running shoes for when he runs to get in shape for hunting, light weight hiking shoes for hunting out west, warm, heavy duty hiking boots for hunting in the mountains, rubber knee boots for hunting wet areas, camo hip boots for hunting in swamps, and heavy felt packs for hunting when it's cold, and an extra pair of felt packs in case the first pair gets wet.
He'll let me drive the car around for months without a spare tire, but when he goes on a hunting trip he takes spare clothes, spare boots, spare arrows, broadheads, blades, knife, bowstrings, flipper rest, etc. He takes a backup bow in case something happens to his regular bow and a backup backup bow in case something happens to his backup bow, and a spare anything that could ever break or falter and, (Heaven forbid!) cause him to miss any huntin' time.
He'll walk ten miles a day up and down the mountains looking for elk, but at home sitting in front of the TV watching football, he's too tired to walk out to the kitchen for a glass of milk.
When sitting at the dinner table he'll whine and complain about a little speck on his plate or fork, but while on a hunting trip it's a different story. One time I sent a full bottle of dish soap with him on a two week hunting trip. When he returned, I found the bottle unopened. I asked him if they ever wash dishes. He said, "Sure. We just go down to the creek and scour 'em out with a little sand and creek water. Gets 'em clean as a whistle." While eating Sunday dinner he'll say something like, "Gee Kath. The chicken's a little dry ain't it?" Or, "These aren't the same kind of muffins we usually have." But, when He's on a hunting trip, they eat things like muskrat, porcupine, raccoon, cattail roots and all kinds of stomach turning glop. Yuk! He says, "Hey, that's how you live off the land. You should try it sometime. " No thanks!
He goes on these hunting trips all the time, but when the kids and I want to take a family trip, he says, "I know what we can do. We'll go camping!" Then he calls his hunting buddy Mike Misch to arrange the details. We end up camping by some lake in the north woods conveniently close to a good deer area. He and Mike spend the whole time out scouting for new hunting spots and leave Mike's wife Bobbie Jo and me in camp with the kids. We get some revenge though because while they take the truck and spend their time scouting, we take the car and spend their money shopping in the nearest town to the campground.
While I'm on the subject of camping I can tell you that his idea of a camping trip differs greatly from mine. He once suggested that Bobbie Jo and I might like to go with them bear hunting. They stay in a tent for two weeks. They've got rotten meat and fish and other disgusting things they use for bear bait, lying all over the campsite. A bear could just walk into camp at any time. They have no bathroom facilities. He says you just go squat behind the bushes and observe the wonders of nature. I don't know about anyone else, but I am not going to squat behind the bushes! I prefer to answer the call of nature indoors. I won't sleep in a tent for two weeks with bears wandering around either. Sometimes I think the stories he tells about their hunting trips are just to scare me out of going along. So far it's worked. I almost feel like going along once just to find out, but I'm afraid to take the chance just in case he's telling the truth.
"A bowhunter has to plan everything very carefully so it doesn't mess up his hunting." These famous words from my husband blew up in his face when I found out that I was pregnant for our second daughter. The due date was November first. "No! It can't be!" He screamed. "That's the start of the rut! That's when I take my two weeks off. You can't do this to me!" I said, "I'm sorry, but it's as much your fault as it is mine." He said, "You did this on purpose didn't you? Just to get back at me for going huntin' all the time."
When November first rolled around he took his two weeks off for hunting. He hunted up north for a few days but had to spend the rest of the time hunting around home so he'd be close by when the time came. After the first week went by, he said, "You'll probably wait until my two weeks are over and then have the baby on the first day that I go back to work." He was right. At ten o'clock on Monday night, right in the middle of Monday Night Football, I informed him that it was time to go to the hospital. "I can't believe it!" He said. "First I miss my hunting, now I have to miss the football game. It's gotta be a girl. Only a female could cause me this much trouble before she's even born." That was the only year since 1974 that he didn't get his buck, and he says it's all my fault.
Once he designed a new headnet and had me sew it for him. His hunting buddies all liked it so much that they wanted one too. I used Gary's as a pattern. Somehow I lost it, but since the bow season was over I didn't worry too much about it. A couple of weeks before the following season he asked for his headnet. When I told him that I lost it he said I had better find it if I wanted to stay healthy. I looked everywhere but couldn't find it. I told him I would make a new one from scratch. He said okay, and reminded me that the season opens in two weeks. I said no problem and promptly forgot all about it until four days before opening day when he asked me about it. I told him I was going to do it today but I had to get groceries since there was nothing to put in the kids lunches. He said, "You let a trivial little thing like feeding our kids get in the way of my headnet?" I told him I'd do it tomorrow for sure. The next day when he got home from work he asked about his headnet. I told him that I just got so busy knitting that I forgot about it. He asked me if I ever had a ball of yarn stuffed up my nose before. Boy, some people are so touchy.
One time we were getting a new gas furnace installed. Gary put in all the pipes and wires for it. This friend of his who installs furnaces delivered the furnace and got it all hooked up except for one special piece of duct, which he had to get custom made. He was supposed to bring it over on Friday. Gary was leaving for Montana on Saturday so we needed to get the furnace finished so I would have heat while he was gone. The guy never showed up. Gary called his house and found out that he had just left for Canada to hunt bear. Gary told me that we shouldn't get any cold weather before he got back since it was early September. Besides, I could always use the wood stove if it got a little chilly.
Well, to make a long story short, while he was hunting in 90 degree heat in Montana, we were freezing back in Michigan. We had cold wet weather for the whole two weeks that he was gone and I had to go out and chop fire wood. As I was chopping, I pictured his neck stretched across every log I split. When he returned I told him I had to chop wood to stay warm. He just laughed and said he wished he would've been here to see that! I was about ready to give him a log's eye view of it, but then I realized if he was in the hospital I'd still have to chop wood.
One other little point I'd like to touch on is laundry. Now I know you bowhunters don't think too much about laundry and I don't mind doing a few loads every week. But when he dumps his pile of camo clothes to be washed its enough to turn your stomach. They wreak of fox urine, skunk scent, bucklure, or who knows what. They're covered with mud, pine pitch and all kinds of slime and grime from climbing up and down trees and wading through swamps. The pockets are full of dirt, bark, pine needles and candy that has been mashed and pressed into the fabric from hugging trees. If the hunt was successful there's also blood, tallow and animal hair sprinkled generously throughout. It's enough to make you want to dig a hole in the backyard and push the whole pile into it with a long stick.
All in all its no picnic being a bowhunters wife. I suppose it could be worse, but I don't really see how. I still love him though and when he returns from a hunting trip I'm so glad to see him that I give him a big hug and kiss as soon as he gets out of the shower.
THE END
written by Gary Olsen 12-17-88 - from Kathy's point of view.
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