Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Call of the wild

Julie Carter

There is something about the cool fall air that brings out the plaid jackets, crock pot recipes and the smell of cedar burning in a wood stove. It is also Mother Nature's call of the wild to the world of hunters.

The primal instinct to hunt and kill "a little winter meat" rises up like sap in a maple tree. It brings out in men the same stalk, kill and drag-it-home instinct as it did in the days of the cave men.

Die-hard hunters look offended if you should ask them, "You going hunting this year?" In their minds it is a national holiday and they really do believe that. Ask any crew boss with a few hunters in his employment.

Hunting season is marked on the calendar before anything else for the year. Vacation time is scheduled around the season's dates.

I've known men that actually would quit a job in order to be able to go hunting. And another who would injure himself just enough to qualify for some paid time off, which of course, he used to go hunting. Neanderthal instincts are alive and well.

I know. There was a time when hunting kept food on the table, whether the table was a rock in a cave or a crudely built slab table in a log cabin. Don't dare mention that the cost of the sport far outweighs any justification said hunter can ever give for the possibility of the meat he is promising for the freezer.

The sport remains a huge business in many states and is very big business in the mountain counties of New Mexico. I've never been able to put a solid dollar value on the business statewide or what it pours into the economy in Lincoln County alone, but it's huge.

Between the hunters who come on their own and the guides and outfitters who import a good number from faraway points on the map, hunting brings income to the coffers of the businesses in town. Just try elbowing your way through the camouflaged shoppers at Walmart prior to or during a hunt.

Signs announcing the sale of licenses, food and beer flash up and down the streets and often free meals are offered to the hunters by grateful merchants. One fella said he spent $200 in gas driving from burg to burg to take part in the meals. He wasn't a hunter, just an eater.

The motels and restaurants are a sea of camouflage with parking lots filled with pickups and trailers loaded to the brim with coolers, 4-wheelers and camping paraphernalia.

As one local commented when he went into the grocery store to get a loaf of bread, only to find an endless checkout line, "I decided it was faster to go home and make biscuits."

I grew up in a family of hunters. We lived in the mountains, so the hunters hunted early in the mornings, did a day's work, squeezed in some hunting before sundown, and slept in their own beds each night. Camping was for the out-of-staters.

For us, hunting was a generational skill passed on from the days of truly needing winter meat.

My grandmother would laugh at the hunters when they arrived home empty-handed and telling tales of the big tracks they saw, but never spotted an game animal. "Well. I guess we'll just cook up some track soup," she would say.

One of the best things that has evolved over the years in this hunting deal is that now, the women can and do say "you killed it, you clean it." No Wilma Flintstone dresses hanging around this outfit. But I do have some of her jewelry!