Hunting Adventures
My husband Dale liked to hunt and fish and I will tell you about some of his adventures. We married on Sept 5 1948 and soon after that duck season started. Dale and his friend would go duck hunting and then bring the ducks home to me. They would skin the ducks and I would cook them. Bear in mind I was a new bride and had never cooked a duck before. We had cooked domestic ducks on the farm so I fixed them. I stuffed them with apple dressing and baked them and they turned out fine.
Then he would go out squirrel hunting but I refused to cook and eat them. The first time we went down to see his folks they had fried squirrel for the evening meal and there was no way I would eat them.
Then Dale liked to fish and we would go trout line fishing on the Salt Fork River. We had friends that would go with us and the men would put out the trout lines and then we would all enjoy a picnic meal on the banks of the river. Hugh was small and he and his friend Mike would get out in the river and splash around. Had great fun doing that. The men would run the trout lines and usually caught some catfish which are good eating. You have to nail them up on a board and skin them and then filet them. One time they ran the trout lines at night and Dale came in at two in the morning. He didn’t wake me up and the next morning I got up to go to work and take a shower. Well, there were 2 big catfish in the bathtub. No shower that morning. Gail would go trout lining with her Dad when she was between 8 and 12 years old during the summer months.
Gail and I used to go out to our cabin and catch little perch to be used on the trout lines. We also went down to Red Rock creek to dig those great big worms to be used as bait. I never was good at fishing except for the perch. I had a fly rod and tackle box and I remember using a no 12 hook and I would take out lunch meat and let it dry and use it for bait. The little perch really liked that.
Dale also liked to go quail hunting and we always had good bird dogs. He and his buddies rented some ground out in western Oklahoma and they would go hunting almost every Saturday in season. He would bring the birds home and skin them and remove as many pellets as he could find. One time he and his friend had a drink or two and they went to his friends' house and were fixing the birds. They had a new food disposer and they put the feathers in it and they just flew up to the ceiling. He would go hunting around here on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At that time he worked nights on the railroad and so could do that. He hunted in the Osage County with a friend and there was a ranch over there that had cowboys with guns patrolling the ranch so no one tried to hunt there,
One time Dale was up at my folks when they lived on a farm near Willow River Minn. He went out and brought home about 4 partridges. My Mother fixed them and they were really good eating.
We always had bird dogs and one time during wheat harvest the two male dogs got into a fight. The younger dog wanted to be top dog and Dale was sleeping and Gail came into the house and said the dogs were fighting. Dale separated them with a water hose but they would not stop fighting so we gave one of them away. We had a dog one time that learned how to climb out of the pen. We had to put an electric wire on the top of the fence to keep him in. But when we turned it off he would get out again. The dog's name was Boomer and we gave him to a friend. Boomer got out one day and he caught a neighbors little kitten and killed it. The child came to our friends' house and said boomer got my kitty cat. Our friend denied it as he had already put the kitty in the trash. Boomer was death on cats if they found one out hunting.
We had 2 bird dogs one time and Gail had a cat. The dogs thought they were going to have fun with the cat. She was at the back door and the dogs came rushing up and she reached up and put her claws in his nose. They backed off and never messed with her again.
This is about all the stories I can remember about hunting.
