Hunting (Part 2)

  
The infamous “Geno,” my cousin.

In keeping with the tradition of the season – hunting season, that is – I’ve decided to pull a few “Boing” articles out of the dusty archives.

So, here is part two of the series (part 1 should be just below this post). Coming up next will be the third sports column I wrote about the adventures of Geno and myself, and don’t be surprised if I throw up a “Best of” post featuring my favorite hunting photos from years past.

Enjoy!

BOING: THEY CALL ME TNT, DYN-O-MITE
By Jake Donahue | The Sentinel
Originally published Nov. 21, 2005

Breaking up the monotony of my newly-dawned 21-year-old life may seem challenging until you realize that my life is far from that.

Amidst the madness that makes up me, lies the most important aspect that I feel I truly represent: Surrounding myself with those who match my maturity level – thus explaining why I love coaching third grade basketball for Coeur d’Alene Park and Rec.

Indeed, this age group is solely playing for the sheer enjoyment of the game. Or, at least, that’s what I tell myself after respective losing scores of 17-3, 16-4 and 20-0. And true, while all is fun, I must gloat about our sole W on the score sheet: a 4-2 romping we barely held on to in the final minutes.

For, to say the least, that’s all I can hold on to. Until my cousin Geno calls me up, of course.

That’s when I set aside my copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball,” which I really do own, and absorb all that Geno has to offer.

(By the way, this is the same dude who got me hooked on North Idaho’s claim to fame: That redneck’s national pastime of the ever-amazing sport known as road hunting. He taught me that few things rival the feeling an exploding grouse leaves you with. Especially when you shot with one hand from a moving truck, while not spilling your beer in the other.)

But today, he just got done watching Rob Zombie’s movie “Devil’s Rejecets,” and enlightened me with some of his self-proclaimed wisdom he boisterously dubs ‘Geneglish.’

“Even though Rob Zombie’s wife kills people in the movie, I think I’d still date her,” he said. “She’s so freaking hot; I guess I’m just a sucker for danger!”

And this is the guy I’m supposed to hunt big game with the next morning. The same guy who asked me to hunt with him that night (illegal) from his truck (illegal) on private property (also illegal).

“Didn’t you know that a full moon is God’s natural spot light?”

May God have mercy on my virgin-hunting soul.

True, I once vowed to kill Bambi, and while I didn’t share Geno’s gut-wrenching, mind-bending, twisted enthusiasm, I was going to get a deer in my first season, that much is certain.

So before leaving the house last Wednesday morning, I grabbed my boots, Carhartts, hand warmers and camo jacket – no safe hunter’s orange for us, apparently that stuff’s for “pansies.”

“Those deer are just frolicking down there and eating their morning grub,” Geno said. “Little do they know, there is gonna be bloodshed in theat peaceful little village.”

Once in the truck, I felt it necessary to call a friend back in Oregon about my upcoming experience, and share with him my love for deer hunting (lackluster at this point, to say the least). After cussing me out for waking him up at 5 a.m., I was belittled once more: “You’re hunting!?” he blasted. “Since when do they sell Carhartts at the Gap, you preppy little mountain-man wannabe.”

Screw him, I had deer on the mind, and deer piss on my clothes. Welcome to Idaho, where the men are men and the deer are scared, where buttering yourself up in deer urine and huddling around other men in the woods is considered bonding – not bondage!

However, one major problem surfaced during our first legal outing: We both re-learned how big of a klutz I am.

“From now on, Jake, I’m going to call you TNT,” he said. “Because when you walk through the woods it sounds like a bomb is going off.”

That meant only thing, we were back in the old Toyota and headed further into the wilderness, where I couldn’t scare the deer away and Gene could stun them with the brights. Why use deer decoys when the front headlights of a pickup will stop any deer in its tracks.

Illegal? I thought so, too.

“If we go down,” he says, “we go down hard.”

Long story short, day one was filled everything but deer. So the next morning after we camped atop a local mountain, we barreled through the snow-encrusted hills with a ferocious fervor – the first legitimately legal outing we had experienced together.

We used a deer decoy, with no luck. We tried deer urine all over the place, with nothing to show but a God-awful-smelling tent, and then we even tried deer calls.

You guessed it, nadda.

“I think I use the deer call too much,” Geno said. “Just like with women, I call so much I scare them away."

Two more days went the exact same. Sure, I heard deer in the brush, but I’m sure they were bouncing around back there making fun of me, saying to other deer how funny I smelled.

I know I wouldn’t go anywhere near a deer covered in human piss.

The experience as a whole turned bittersweet. While hunting, legally, leaves a morally clean slate, I think I may stick to the warmer climates offered by an elementary school gym. Indeed, there is no greater joy than coaching youth sports, but I’ve still got a vengeance for venison.

Bambi is still numero uno on my list, but we’ll see if I tag him.

As we left the camp, I came to the conclusion I may never hunt with Geno again, for the sole reason he mentioned this demented musing after, noticeably, much thought: “I wonder how bad a deer’s butt stinks when it’s in heat.”

Mother of God.