I was sitting in my garage the other night with a couple of guys who had just finished up shooting on their trap league for the week.
They are both avid hunters and both have hunting dogs of differing ages. It seemed like only about an hour had passed when in fact more than four hours had turned off the clock.
Outdoor lifestyles and passions have always been my most vivid memories. As I recalled a few of my experiences and as I listened to theirs, I kind of turned into a fly on the wall for just a short moment.
I silently asked myself this question: “How many others hunters, in how many other garages, in how many other states were telling these virtually identical stories at exactly the same moment in time?”
I would have guessed that number would have been over 1,000. Almost all of these talks will center around a moderately short list of subject matter.
I thought I would run through that list to see how many of them would be on your list, too.
The shot. It really doesn’t matter if it was a really good shot or the worst one you ever attempted, everybody remembers those “I can’t believe I got that one” or vise versa. I guess it’s probably the same as golf. You can shoot the worst round of golf in current memory, but you never forget that one pro-like shot that keeps you coming back to the course for another year.
My dog. My dog did this thing or that thing and it was soooo good or bad you will never ever forget.
Many of these stories will start out with all of the things a dog will try to eat or roll in. … Dead fish, a dead mammal, manure, mud … and the list goes on and on. Skunks would fall under this category as well.
I used to drive a Chevy Suburban with two dog crates in the back. Try taking home a skunked dog in that rig and you will never forget it. I had one dog many years ago that got sprayed over a dozen times in one season.
I carried all the right stuff, but in the confined space of a truck cab none of those remedies was successful enough.
The truck and assorted problems. I lost the rear end in my ride on a hunting trip to Mitchell, South Dakota. It was not a pretty sound.
I doubled up with another guy, and in three days, about when the trip was over, they had driven in the parts from 100 miles away and I got to drive my new $3,500 rear end back to the house. Memorable.
Weather-related trials and tribulations would also fall under this category.
I was with a group that rented an Airbnb, and the day before we were to leave, the destination in Kansas got 4 inches of rain and then 10 inches of snow on top of that and the roads were impassable.
The no-refund on the lodging cost five guys who stayed home about $350 each. Another memorable outdoor experience.
And one last category in the always told all over North America garage stories is “when things just really came together.”
This slot in the story index is smaller than the others, because the others always happen frequently and the “it all came together perfect” section happens far, far less often.
The weather was great, the dogs behaved like pros, the shooting was unparalleled, equipment exceeded expectation and, oh were the bird numbers amazing.
Add in the amazing scenery of a new place or a new state and the memories of telling all of the trip stories over a few beers in a local watering hole make for great garage hunting stories.
Just because a story in any category has been told before, that is no reason not to repeat that same story over and over.
All you need is one new member to attend the garage storytelling get-together who has not heard that story before and it makes telling everyone else who has heard it at least 10 times another opportunity to hear it yet one more time.
Over a 40-year history of spending time with guns and dogs, I have actually heard the same story change over time. We can call that a slight memory lapse … or as the memory becomes more vivid, you tend to embellish just a little bit more.
All of the activities behind the stories are certainly the cause of the storytelling, but as we all age and physically we cannot do as much in the field as we used to, we can live out our golden years with the memories of hundreds, if not thousands of days in the field and share those with anyone willing to stop into your or my garage and hear them.
Scott Rall, Worthington, is a habitat conservationist, avid hunting and fishing enthusiast and is president of Nobles County Pheasants Forever. He can be reached at scottarall@gmail.com. or on Twitter @habitat champion.