# Hoppes # 9 triggered memorys of dad.



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I remember a sunny fall day being afield with dad and an uncle chaseing rabbits. Once back at the house they broke out the Hoppes to clean their shot guns. That smell sure does trigger memorys of dad.

My dad wasn&#8217;t big into hunting and fishing. It was mom that took us boys fishing most of the time and she enjoyed fishing herself. But dad would go sometimes even when we could only bank fish but mostly he worked. I bought a boat in 1968 and dad started going fishing a lot more with Mom and I on weekends. Loved when dad would land a bull head and start yelling cut the line cut the line He just didn&#8217;t like bull heads except to eat. Later after he retired we (brother and I )bought him and mom a 12 foot boat with 4.5 HP mercury motor. They spent a lot of summer time fishing from that boat and would go their own way in Canada when we were fishing several of the bigger lakes up there. 
Dad started deer hunting when I became old enough to deer hunt. I myself cannot ever remember him shooting a buck of his own LOL, Once seeing a buck Rob had just shot trying to get up dad shot it. Rob and I should have dogged dad where ever he hunted as he roamed all over the woods as he got cold easy. We should have dogged him though because he would meet up with us he would tell us he seen a buck but didn&#8217;t shoot it because he didn&#8217;t know where we boys were, every day we hunted deer and every season. Of course we knew he was fibbing, but it made him happy so why rain on his parade. We had planned a moose hunt in 1970 if certain things panned out. Dad and I both had a Winchester 94&#8217;s in 30-30&#8217;s so we bought rifles we felt more suited for moose hunting. Dad bought a Winchester 88 in 284, Rob and I later reloaded for it trying to get the mule kick out of it. I used to sight it in and check it every year before deer season so dad would only get scope cut once for the one shot he took to make sure he and I shot the same.
I finally bought him a nice Rugar 77-243 that he liked and was is a nice rifle. Since dad got cold so easy we built him a small box to sit in and pull a tarp over his lap. Thinking back I cannot for the life of me understand why we didn&#8217;t just build him a nice blind to set in with heat. He and Rob(my brother) built one later after I started hunting in the UPPER.
I am not sure when dad started small game hunting with us. I am not even sure what gun he used Maybe a old breat up Ivers Johnson 410. I bought him a Itchia model 37 feather weight in 20 ga. He hunted with that a lot after wards. I think it was Robs dog skunk that got him to going with us.
Rob and I bought dad a mercury Hurricane electric start snow mobile and he would go with us. He took great pride in being the one who towed someone home that broke down or ran out of gas. Everyone got to calling it Fred&#8217;s tow service.
Later in life dads favorite winter past time was heating the house. Everyone would walk in the back door and die from the heat wave that hit them. There would sit dad in his easy chair in long johns flannel insulated shirt insulated jeans and pack boot on next the wood stove he had roaring.
I sure miss those few short years we hunted and fished together. Dad did a lot of other thing for us. He would get the camper packed and the truck full of fuel for the trip to Canada and drove a lot of the miles his self.
He was always ready to take the tractor and loader in to a place in the woods to retrieve a deer for us.
Kind of wish I wouldn&#8217;t have gotten after him so much about all the bucks he would see and not shoot because he didn&#8217;t know where we boys were. You could always count on him coming around several times a day during deer season and take a empty thermos and bring back a full one of hot coffee, or fetch a sandwich if you asked.
In March 2003 dad was going to turn 88 and wasn't going to hunt or fish any more. He gave away all his hunting stuff, clothing to a shinny son of My sister, Iticha Model 37 feather lite I had bought for him on his 50th birthday he gave back to me along with the Ruger 77 243. Rob got his Winchester 94, Model 88, Ruger 10-22 and that old beat up Ivers Johnson. sister got his old Winchester pump 22 he had since I was old enough to remember.

I took that Ruger 77- 243 to the UPPER deer camp that fall. I shot a nice buck with it the second to the last day of the season. I wrote a story about that rifle and day That got published in Michigan Out Of doors Magizine in Nov 2005. Dad had passed away in June so I never did get to read that story to him.

 Al


----------



## Badger (Jun 11, 2010)

Thank You for that. I like Hoppes #9 too. It smells sweet


----------



## driftwood (Jun 29, 2013)

thanks for sharing................
as a teenager, i would have my dads boots,gun hunting clothes ready when he
he came home at noon on saturdays,,i would rush him through a samwich
and off we would go rabbit hunting...best rabbit dogs ever his was ruff and mine was reddy. once while he was caught in a briar patch he killed two rabbits and a grouse.....dogs would often run doubles.....


----------



## RonM (Jan 6, 2008)

Thanks, that was a great read.......


----------



## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

my Grandpa on my dads side probably hunted less than 2 handfuls of days in his 84 years , he wasn't much of one for guns he said he shot a bit in Navy basic , well on the flip side my dads mothers side has been hunting the same area since the 1860s so when my dad was 14 and ready to hunt Uncle Bill took him under his Wing and showed him how , dad had 1 gun till I was 11 a 870 with a slug barrel he had borrowed great granpa Roy's rifle for a few years before bought his first 12ga when he was 16 or 17 cause the zone had gone shotgun only and traded up for the 870 wing master with a weaver 1.5 power scope in about the time he and my mother got married at 19 ,14 years later I was 11 and he bought a 22 took hunters safety with me and we were started he bought a 1100LT 20 ga that year for me to use , great gun to learn on very little recoil in 44 years i think he missed deer camp twice do to work , our deer camp is more like a family reunion with guns where only deer get shot , and maybe some bull and a few squirrel from the front yard, we eat very well , they have been watching more and more foot ball on Sunday afternoon as the years go on sitting by the wood stove but you bet were out at sun up saturday and sunday morning , my cousin and I will stay out during the football while the rest hold up buy the TV , we did shoot a buck this last year they saw it pass through the side yard while they were watching the game , my cousin , my brother and I were in for a sandwich we were right back out the door gun outside the door left loaded and we had the buck a short time later. I get sad thinking about it but they are all getting older my great aunt who hosts camp every year she lives in the house my great great grandfather built form I swear every knot holed board he found , he was a boat builder , and houses don't sink with knot holed boards but boats do , but the house is actually holding up very well it was built in 1888 , any way she turned 80 this summer we had a big party in the yard danced under the stars and had a great time she danced till the last song not to bad for 80 she did 2 drives with us this year she stopped carrying a gun about 18 years ago said she never shot any way but she would do drive after drive all day long but she has been slowing down understandably in the past few years , every one is getting older my son will be coming with soon he will only be 11 this season so maybe he will do a year as a DD (designated driver) my uncle Dave didn't make a hunting season till he was between jobs and my dad talked him into it , he won't carry a gun but likes the company and has been almost every year since , he is our inbedded photo journalist he walks around with his Iphone and posts pictures of all our deer to facebook so that our wives know how many deer we have technology has changed also used to be you wore a wrist watch you would get dropped off and told what time to start the drive If a deer was shot you walked to where you heard the shot come from then finished the drive and came back to the closes road for who ever had shot the deer on a drive , now they call when the standers are in place , we get cell coverage almost everywhere since they put a cell tower on the mountain It isn't really a mountain but it is a big hill that gets called the mountain cause some one named it that a long time a go. now you call and tell some one when you shoot a deer and we (those of us under 60 without bad knees) come drag it out 
the drives all have names usually a first or last name or the nick name of the guy or family who owned or lived on it 50+ years ago 
I get sad when I realize hey are all getting older and things are bound to change some time probably not to far off , My Cousin the one that hunts with me while the rest are watching football bought the house from my Aunt really my great aunt and he is her son in law an really my first cousin once removed but really that's so formal and we just aren't and way he did well in business and when her retirement savings fell short he and his wife My great aunts daughter who grew up in the house said how about we buy it one payment a month you have the money to live on we keep it up and you live there till you decide otherwise one way or another and we will finish paying off the payments to her estate (her other kids) they even drew up paper sit is a real reverse mortgage but the best kind with no bank. so at least i know the place is staying in the family but I don't know how things will change when my grandpa on my mothers side retired he started hunting with us , his shoulders are so shot form laying brick and stone all his life he can't get a gun to his shoulder any more so he carried a pistol for a while he is also in his 80s now and slowing down.

It all makes me sad when i think about it, so many years of happiness and fond memories, good times , Makes me sure hope there is a happy hunting ground in the great beyond where every ones knees and joints work fine and you never get too cold on the deer stand. hey I wouldn't even mind sleeping on the floor at that deer camp.


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

I called my dad one year when my last living hunting partner could not hunt the 2 full weeks of fire arm deer season at out UPPER deer camp. I say dad want to come up and hunt a few days with me in the UPPER, no fancy deer blind but the cook isnât to bad and sleeping at night is dry and warm. We have our hard woods, and cedar swamp and some cranberry bogs if you want to try to shoot a couple hundred yards, Then there is about 6000 Federal acres we can hunt too.
He tells me he will come up right after the family dinner Thanksgiving day. 
My partner leaves Sunday afternoon with his one buck so I am alone till Thursday night when dad will arrive. We are on the bay so it is warmer than most places inland by about 10F so we still had now snow. I went back to a blind we had thru together a few years before with a tin roof so we could stay out all day even in rain if it wasnât blowing real hard. I piled up more brush and some cedar limbs I cut down in the swamp to make the blind a bit more air tight for dad to hunt in. It is a real good location on the first rise out of the cedar swamp in the mostly oak hard woods. The cedar swamp at that location is narrower than the rest and a bit thinner also. Deer travel along the edge to go cross the road to eat the tender grasses along the beach during the night. They also come up out of the cedars to eat the acorns in the hard woods. Since we spent well over a week one year drilling holes and filling them with fertilizer we seem to always have a good acorn crop too.
Dad arrived later Thursday evening than I had expected but He didnât leave when I had expected him to. The dinner I had cook and ready for him would wait for another time. Dad had brought my little brother and my nephew along too. Next morning even though breakfast isnât my normal meal to cook I get them set down at the table and pile bacon and eggs on the stove top and mix up some batter for buttermilk flap jacks Like Rick had taught me to make. Got My brother rob to slicing the home made bread brought from home. As we ate breakfast I told dad about the tin roof blind and how easy it was to get there even in the dark. I told my brother to follow the trail till it split and take the north fork where he would come to the Indian cemetery and another trail, keep going north up the hill to the top where the huge hemlocks are. I told him that he could drop his son off some place along the way and suggested that once at the cemetery to back track up the little hill and find a nice tree to snuggle with.
We stepped out the door to go to the shed I built to change into hunting cloths and a place to dry wet clothing to discover we had gotten about 6 inches of snow during the night.
I told then that lunch was sandwiches and to come in when hunger or at 12:30 PM.
They all came in at 12:30, all dad could talk about was a deer had walked into that blind before he had got there. He said that deer must have wanted to eat some of the cedar limbs I had place there. Every one had seen deer but that was expected seeing as where I sent my brother was on a travel route to and from the cemetery and the big cedar swamp down the hill from where he was. Same set up for my nephew also.
Dad came back one other year to hunt with me and my partner after we had built the cabin and moved out of the travel trailer. He seemed to always have a good time but Rick used to spoil him rotten too

 Al


----------



## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

Al , we can't be very far from each other but with a bunch of water between when you say the bay do you mean green bay but on the Michigan side like escanaba we watch escanaba tv at deer camp well we did till she got satellite tv we are over off the Door peninsula


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

Our deer camp address is Rapid River on Little Bay DeNoc. We are about 10 miles east of there on the shores of Big Bay DeNoc. Never knew there was a TV station In Escanaba about 28 miles west of our place. Don't allow any TV watching at deer camp. Radio in the evening for the weather reports and again in the morning till after the weather then is shut off. deer camp is a place we catch up on a year of living as that is the only time we see each other pretty much & to relive old memorys and tell stories.
We did go to Ricks Daughters wedding one year and his sons another year.
My daughter got married in Minnesota and we found out our son had gotten married a couple months afterwards.
I am the last one left of the bunch. I did take 3 guys up one year in 2005 after Ricks death in May 2004.
Such a bunch of slugs Who had to be told to bring in water, put fire wood in the stove and one of them seemed to want to lay in bed all day.
I just go alone now, wife has all the locations I hunt there so she can send the search party to look for the remains if I am not home by December 5th at the latest.
Of course with the cell phones I can call her from the cabin or a blind or middle of the cedar swamp at any time.

 Al


----------



## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

Al we are South Southeast of you then about 6 miles into Wisconsin


----------



## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

Glad you enjoyed your dad. You are a good writer. Deer hunting sometimes get's in the way of deer camp. There is always something fun to do. I can't imagine sleeping the day away even I didn't get in a blind or tree stand. 

"What's that smell? Oh, that's just a lasagna and garlic bread heating up in the oven. Do you think the deer will smell that on us in the morning?"

"It's daylight in the swamp"


----------



## alleyyooper (Apr 22, 2005)

GCP. You had better look at a map of Michigan and Wisconsin. If you are south and south east of me you would either be in Lake Michigan (south) or maybe the LOWER depending on how far south east you are. 
Marrientte off 35 is west of us and a tiny bit south. Florance is on US 2 also west of us and a scoch north.

My daughter used to live in Minnesota, we went thru the UPPER to visit her. Crossed into Wisconsin at Marrientte took 67 west to Mountian Wi. then got to where the express way goes to Wasaw to 29 west to Mound where we got on 94. Now she lives in Eau Clair. 

I look across the bay form one of my deer blinds and can see the cars and trucks 6 miles across on the Garden.

 Al


----------



## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

yup in lake Michigan , come out of little bay De noc turn south south east , were the big rock 2 miles into Wisconsin from the line in the water that is really hard to see from the boat but shows up fine on the map


----------

