Operation Eastbound. 7/31 3:15 p.m.
An accident on Interstate 20 has us delayed by about three hours, and that might have been fortuitous because it meant we entered Mississippi during the day and one of the first things I smelled was fresh cut grass. This was not some fine fescue on a manicured golf course, but common roadside grass being cut by a government worker with a bush hog. The smell was comforting and reminded me of “home.”
Our olfactory recall is amazing.
Fresh cut grass reminds me of warm summer days as a boy mowing my father‘s lawn and how it turned our white sneakers hopelessly green. The smell also makes me remember, as a grown man, riding the lawnmower while my wife watched over our children splashing in an above-ground pool.
Morning glory on a still, foggy morning always reminds me of waking up and looking out the open window at my uncle’s farm in Big Stone Gap, Virginia where, as a preteen, I made pocket money hoeing tobacco and pitching bales of hay.
A whiff of Joppa cologne reminds me of my father.
As I head back East, I look forward to all the once familiar smells and the memories they might trigger.
Will the smell of morning dew on tall grass cause me to remember the many rabbit hunts my former neighbors and I had on his farm? How about the smell of fresh fallen leaves or the musty-sweet smell of them decomposing into woodland detritus later during the hunting season? What might I recall when my first spring gobbler season in seven years comes around and I find myself ensconced in all of the plants just coming into bloom?
As we rack up the miles I point out all of the natural things to my kids. “Look, an armadillo!” They’ve never seen one. “Hey, a magnolia tree!” Another first for them. “Those are crêpe myrtle. They are red, pink, purple or white.”
“Dad, I feel better about you being on your own out here for a while,” my daughter says.
“How’s that?” I ask.
“How much you like the scenery and how much it makes you happy,” she said.
And so it is. I’m already feeling at “home.”
Operation Eastbound. 7/30 4:51 p.m.
We’re entering Louisiana and for some reason that made me think of fishing and how much I’m looking forward to it again. When the kids were little, we lived only a few miles from the banks of the Shenandoah River. Each learned to kayak before they learned to ride a bike. We were fishing or kayaking either on the river or at the local Izaak Walton lake every spring and summer evening it seems.
With the exception of one fishing trip to the Madison River last year, I haven’t been fishing since we moved to Arizona. There was a small community “lake” by our house there made up from the effluent of the sewage treatment plant that the county stocked, but they didn’t seem to stock it enough to handle the pressure and we rarely saw or heard of someone catching a fish.
My son has fished only twice in the same seven years. When helping me pack for the move to South Carolina and Sporting Classics, he got out all of our old fishing gear and put together a fresh tackle box for me. We also bought new rods and reels.
He’ll be with me a few days after I first get to South Carolina to help me move in, and we’ve budgeted a couple of days just for fishing.
When he was little, I would often take him and the girls to the lake after work and, if the crappie were spawning, we’d use cane poles and worms from the garden to catch fish all evening. It was really a ploy to give my wife a break and so I could have quality time with the kids, but we all loved it.
I do my own taxidermy, so before we moved to Arizona we went fishing one last time at Izaak Walton. The kids caught crappie, bluegill and yellow perch. The move was eminent so I carefully skinned the fish and stored the skins in a jar of denatured alcohol before we left. Only last year did I get around to mounting those fish. I still haven’t painted them so they don’t look so good, but they’re one more memory of their youth and Virginia that we have to hang onto.
Now that I’m reestablishing us back East, I hope there are many more days of fishing ahead. In fact, I’m using this fishing trip with my son as bait to try and entice him into moving to South Carolina shortly after I get there and establish residency.
Operation Eastbound. 7/30 10:50 a.m.
We’re passing through a windmill farm in Colorado City, Texas, right after having passed through the oil fields in Odessa and that prompted a discussion with my children about renewable energy.
No doubt oil and gas are with us for the foreseeable future. I have to say I’m not fond of the windmill farms; they’re just ugly, take up a lot of space and I’m not sure when it’s all said and done that it’s affordable energy.
Being raised in Arizona, specifically “The Sunshine Factory” of Tucson, the children mentioned solar. My son is OK with solar panels on roofs and I agree with him on that. My daughter is OK with solar panels on barren desert land. Then I asked her, “What about the wildlife?” She replied that she would have to research how the solar panels covering sometimes hundreds and hundreds of acres would affect the wildlife, be it plants or animals, rainfall, sun exposure, etc., and I think that’s the right answer.
We’re getting ready to pass through Abilene where I had a great hunt on the Nail Ranch with my friend, Sheriff Jim Wilson. We were the first using the Steyr Scout rifles chambered for the then-new 376 Steyr cartridge.
Jim, being ever the gentleman he is, let me have first shot. Our guide, Calvin, had been seeing a decent size buck on the ranch so we headed in that direction.
It didn’t take long until we found the buck on the edge of an arroyo facing away from us presenting the classic “Texas heart shot.” “Shoot him up the butt,” Jim said. Him being an experienced Texan, the range being only about 50 yards and seeing that the 376 with a 270-grain Hornady Interlock bullet was sufficient to go stem to stern, or in this case stern to stem, through a deer, I took the shot. The deer dropped in its tracks.
We went over to the buck. It was a nice 150-inch whitetail with a unique little fishhook sticker on one of the main beams. We positioned it for photos and, as I was raising its head to point toward the camera, the buck stood up and I jumped back. Wilson, ever quick on the draw, pulled a Colt Single Action from his waistband and let the buck have a 45 caliber slug behind the right ear.
We positioned the book again for photos, but it tried to get up again.
I threw his head toward the ground as I jumped back, pointed behind the shoulder and told Wilson to shoot it right there. He did and the “Terminator” buck was dead.
We had been using an early-production prototype bullet that failed to penetrate after shattering the buck’s pelvis, though the hydrostatic shock disabled the deer and knocked it out cold. Wilson’s cast bullet handload was a low-powered target load, and merely stuck into the meaty part behind the ear, again knocking the deer out cold. His final shot, however, pierced the heart and killed the deer. Thankfully, the whole ordeal did not take very long, but it reinforced why they teach in hunter ed to approach a downed animal cautiously and poke it in the eye from a distance with a stick to see if it blinks before laying your hands on it.
Operation Eastbound. 7/29 11:59 p.m.
Earlier, we entered New Mexico “The Land of Enchantment.” This state holds a special place in my heart as it represents a lot of career firsts for me: My first professional industry hunt, my first antelope, my first mule deer, my first elk. Curiously, on all of those firsts I carried a Knight muzzleloading rifle and was with the man himself, Tony Knight. Tony was an interesting man — very innovative, very intelligent and very funny. You never knew what was going to come out of his mouth.
The antelope hunt was my first industry hunt. We were using the first Knight Disc Rifles. I still have the one I used. The serial number is PT03 for “Prototype No. 3.”
I was on the NRA Technical Staff and these rifles were using charges unheard of in muzzleloading. Pyrodex Pellets were also new on the market at the same time. We had a new Oehler Model 43 chronograph with pressure testing set up and I was the first person outside of Knight to pressure test and report on the Disc rifle using three Pyrodex Pellets. The article got people’s’ attention and brought me my first bit of name recognition in the industry.
New Mexico did not allow scopes for muzzleloading hunting at the time, so I used a Williams peep sight. Early in the first morning I saw my buck and dropped it in its tracks at 130 yards.
The mule deer I got in Corona, New Mexico. Tony and I were hunting with country music singer John Anderson. It had rained a lot there prior to us arriving so water was abundant. That, combined with the full moon had the bucks almost completely nocturnal. Hunting was tough.
John Anderson shot a good size buck, but in the antler department, it was a forked horn. That evening, the game warden came by and asked if he was John Anderson. In John’s booming voice he replied, “Yes sir, I am.” The game warden said they had a report of him shooting and undersize buck.
The antlers were laying on the ground next to John as we were sitting outside of his motel room. John looked down at the antlers and looked up at the game warden, then he looked down at the antlers again and up at the game warden and said, “Sir, do you think I’d drive all the way from Tennessee to shoot that little thing?”
We all had a good laugh because there was no such thing as an undersized buck. It was a completely legal deer; the game warden just heard that John Anderson was in the area and wanted to meet him. Later that evening we went to a private residence and John put on a private acoustic performance for all of us. It was a great time even though the big bucks did not cooperate.
The elk came from Cloudcroft in the Lincoln National Forest. The elk were bugling hard and my guide put us within 400 yards of a bull that that was easily 400 inches and a chip shot for a centerfire rifle. But I thought that it was too for a shot even for the scoped 52 caliber muzzleloader I using. Tony thought I should’ve taken the shot, but I didn’t and it all worked out because later in the trip I connected on a 300+ inch bull that I was very happy with. A funny thing is the only rental car I could arrange was a Toyota Corolla. I’m here to tell you that 300-inch elk antlers positively do not fit a Toyota Corolla at all. I had the antlers hanging partially out the rear passenger door and had to tie the door shut.
We are overnighting in Midland, Texas. The trailer has given us no trouble and we’ve already put almost 700 miles behind us. It has been several years since I’ve seen this part of Texas in the light and I look forward to morning.
Operation Eastbound. 7/28
The 1,734-mile Operation Eastbound begins.
It’s with great relief and not a little trepidation that I embark on my journey back East. In many ways, returning to the East Coast should be like coming home, but in this instance, there are circumstances that make it both sweet and uncertain.
Seven years ago, my family and I were uprooted from our home state of Virginia, headed West to Tucson, Arizona. After nearly a decade with the various media channels of Guns & Ammo magazine, I found myself a victim of the Great Recession, laid off from work. We were headed to Tucson where I had secured work with SAFARI Magazine.
At that time, it was quite the adventure. My wife, our three children and I packed up our house along with my elderly, widowed mother and her belongings to start a new life. A few weeks before we left, we unexpectedly became custodians of my sister’s two daughters. With three families to blend and 2,000 miles of driving, we got to know each other on the trip. Everyone started in the new home on equal footing and relying on each other for support and comfort. It worked out as well as could be expected.
It’s a dry heat, but so is a blast furnace. Relentless 100+-degree days are something Mayer is glad to leave behind.
Now I find myself again laid off, but have found redemption with Sporting Classics magazine in South Carolina and am headed on a new adventure. This time, however, instead of one where families are blended, this one is breaking us up for a while. Circumstances require that my wife and children remain in Tucson for a few years while I set up “spike camp” and establish a new life for us on my own.
On the one hand, I am thankful and relieved at my age to continue working in the outdoor industry; it’s not just what I do, it’s who I am. On the other hand, despite all of the modern methods of communication, leaving my family and seeing them only occasionally for what could be years is unsettling. I remind myself that servicemen and women do it all the time. College students go off to school every year. I think of my great, great grandfather Adolphus who left his family behind in Europe to make a new home for them in America.
The 1,734-mile Operation Eastbound begins.
While my return to the East is clearly not on the magnitude of changing continents and nationalities, it’s none the less daunting. I had not been happy at SAFARI Magazine for several years and had only halfheartedly been looking for another job. I can only think it’s God’s will that he made me start looking seriously for another job, and that I find myself now joining Sporting Classics and returning “home” to the East.
We load the trailer Sunday morning, and begin the 1,734-mile drive Monday. I pray that it goes smoothly and that my two adult children who are riding with me enjoy their compulsory time in the car with me as much as I will with them.