A couple of weeks ago a few of my hunting buddies and I spent a few days out in Winner, South Dakota, hunting pheasants. I’ve been making my way to Winner at least once a year for the past 20 years.
Over the years a number of things have changed. We have always hunted the same land and have experienced the good years and the not-so-good years as far as bird count goes.
The last dozen or so years the guys I hunt with have been pretty much the same group of guys. When you hunt or fish with the same group of guys year after year, you get accustomed to who brings what along on the trip.
On this past fall hunting trip, I noticed that what and why we bring certain things has changed.
Among the four of us on this trip, we have one guy who has had a complete knee replacement on his right knee (twice I might add) and a partial on the left. Another guy has a blood clot in his lower leg. The third guy has some stomach issues. Me, I have two fake hips and a current bout with plantar fasciitis.
Our ages range between 58 and 61, but one would think, judging by the amount of pharmaceuticals we brought along, that we would be more in the 80-plus age group.
In years gone by, we would bring along ice to keep our refreshments cold. Now our coolers are filled with ice packs for our aching bodies.
The Ibuprofen and Advil in our duffle bags isn’t for the self-induced morning headaches anymore, if you know what I mean.
There was a day when none of us wanted to post at the end of the field — now we don’t have anyone willing to walk the field.
When you buy an out-of-state pheasant hunting license in South Dakota, you get two five-day seasons. This year, more than any other year, we realize that hunting five days in a row is clearly out of the question.
Only one of us medical misfits ended up in the emergency room this trip. Thankfully it wasn’t me this time, but it was the klutz with the bad knees who ended up with stitches in his hand. He came back from the emergency room with a doctor’s order saying he could only post the rest of the trip.
Now that I think about it, I wish I would have gotten stitches.