The grass is always greener under someone else’s stand
By Dave Bates
For the Observer-Reporter
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
This week I’ve chosen to dispense wisdom. I know, this should be a real laugher.
There is an old hunting adage that goes something like this: The grass is always greener under someone else’s stand.
OK, there is no such adage. I just made it up. But the axiom still holds true regardless of who thought of it.
Try to keep up, it gets pretty quick-paced from here on out.
Question: When is the best time to buy a new shotgun? Answer: Right after you try out your buddy’s new purchase.
Think about it. You’re out on the skeet range and your best friend is showing off with his new Binford 5000 model skeet gun. He’s shooting scores of 23 and 24 right out of the box. You hate him for it. You feign happiness just to appear magnanimous. Then, being the great guy he is, he insists that you “try a couple rounds.” This is a generally stupid thing to do because: 1. He now loves the gun and will never sell it to you or anyone else. 2. He knows you are broke and will never be able to afford such a magnificent piece in a million years. 3. Because of Murphy’s Law, he knows you will love it and shoot it well. 4. Your jealousy over this new “have to have shotgun” will probably end with you attempting to break into his safe while offering to water his plants while he is on vacation. 5. The only chance you will ever have at owning this shotgun legally (notice I didn’t say morally or ethically because they don’t count when it comes to great shotguns) is when his wife divorces him for spending too much time with you at the skeet range and she sells you his $3,500 Binford for $500 just to get even with him for ruining their marriage. You jump on it knowing that this is a real steal. You will offer to lend it to him for the club shoot in the fall figuring he’ll forget by next fall. He will not. Did I mention this is a really nice shotgun? You are surprised that the heel won’t lend you the $500 for the purchase since you are a little strapped for cash until next pay. Some friend he turns out to be.
Now that the stage has been set with the proper irony or some other appropriate literary device, I’d like to tell you about my buddy’s deer stand. I’ll call my buddy “Mark” in order to protect the innocent as they used to say on Dragnet. Mark has a bunch of stands. All of Mark’s stands are better than my best stand. Mark kills a nice deer from one of his 17-18 stands every year. Because I have helped Mark track a couple of deer over the years, Mark insists that I sit on one of his stands later in the season. Mark compliments me on the second-rate deer that I take from his neighboring stands.
The worst part about Mark is that he is so genuinely nice. After killing yet another wall-hanger year after year, he tells me to feel free to hunt from one of his stands. I certainly don’t need Mark’s charity nor his condescending goodwill. The only reason that I am in his stand an hour and a half before sunup the day after he harvests his latest record-book deer is because I care about our friendship so deeply. I would never take a chance on damaging our relationship, so as a courtesy to Mark, I hunt his platform as a sort of a goodwill gesture, if you know what I mean.
Our arrangement has some self-imposed rules that I have chosen to adhere to for sporting sake. First, I never hunt out of the stand while Mark is actually in it. Oh, sure, it happens to be a one-man stand but a guy has to have standards. Second, I never shoot a buck any larger than the one Mark previously killed. His ego could never handle it. I don’t want to appear ungrateful so I usually harvest something a bit thinner and smaller in the name of keeping up friendly relations. Thirdly, when Mark shoots a deer so large that he has difficulty dragging it out of the woods (which is fairly often), being the great friend that I am, I offer to haul it out with my four-wheeler. I pretend that I am concerned that he may keel over from a heart attack while dragging out something so large and heavy but Mark hasn’t figured out that I’m only reconnoitering his area for the next great stand to hunt, after he kills the state record.
Lastly, Mark always brings me deer bologna from his butcher shop back east. Even his summer sausage tastes better than mine. I eat it anyway. The things we do in the name of friendship. I wonder if he makes any hot pepper relish from his garden? Captain’s wafers are nice, too.
Dave Bates writes a weekly outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.