Someone once wrote that “rain is the oldest sound to reach the porches of man’s ear.” I like the sentence and I like the sentiment. And I like rain.
I like to hunt in it, fish in it and just walk around in it. I like the sound of rain, the feel of it and the soft silver look of it. I like the sudden stillness and the change of air with the approach of rain. And the clean-as-a-whistle taste of things just after the rain has stopped.
Like the cold, sleeting rain that laughs at the word waterproof (at least as far as anything I own is concerned). This is the kind of rain that makes wildfowlers as eager as puppies. The kind of rain that makes the seat next to the fireplace as good as a throne. The kind of rain that’s as good to come in from as it is to go out in. The kind of rain that rattles the shingles to where they sound like a lullaby, if you’re a duck hunter, or like the fingernails of a thousand ghosts tapping the windows, if you’re not.
Rain makes men sort of huddle together in spirit. I can’t remember a hunt in the rain that I didn’t enjoy. Especially the soft wetting of the upland woods on the tag end of Indian summer. That’s the kind of day to gun partridge! The woods are as silent as wet wool, the birds lie good and tight, and once you’re soaked and get warm again you can understand where they got the phrase “happy as a clam.”
One of the best shooting days I ever had was with the Coykendalls in a near-flood. We were out after woodcock in early fall, and it rained so hard we were soaked to the skin between the front door and the car. Everything was watered down but the whiskey. We changed clothes three times before noon and then said the hell with it and stayed wet.
I do remember that we shot a passel of woodcock, our limit of ducks, and came dangerously close to running out of Angostura bitters. As usual the Labradors loved it and spent the evening steaming themselves in front of the fire, languidly stretched out on the piles of wet socks, wet hunting britches, wet sweaters and wet game coats: all in all giving the room an atmosphere that must have been the olfactory equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits.
We’ve hunted together before and we’ve hunted together since, but the talk always takes on a softer, special tone whenever one of us starts a sentence with “Remember that day in the rain…”
Another of the sporting aspects to rain is the struggle to keep dry. I consider myself the average sportsman when it comes to wet-weather gear and the like. But I have never found anything that goes much higher than my hip boots that really sheds water except a real rubber parka which I have but don’t like, because I sweat so much I might as well get wet from the rain. I’m a great fan of hip boots, and I might as well admit that I used to go out of my way to look for excuses to wear them— especially in the days when four-pound boots only weighed two pounds—but now that four-pound boots weigh in at eight to ten, I tend to give the issue some second thinking.
I grew up with a hunting friend of my father’s who settled on the other extreme. Whenever it was wet or snowy, he wore sneakers—no socks, just high-top sneakers. His theory was that you got wet feet anyway so why postpone the inevitable. He scorned gloves under the same principle, and yet I swear I never heard him once complain about being cold or wet.
At the other extreme, I once saw a friend of mine put on nine layers of clothes—all he had and half of mine— in an effort to fend off a North Carolina sleet storm. He was so bulky the guide and I had to lay him in the back seat of the car like a fence post. By the time we’d walked the mile or so to the goose blind, he was wringing wet with sweat from the inside and rain from the outside. It took about an hour for all this to freeze together as we predicted. As he collected more and more water, he got heavier and heavier until we thought he’d just fall through the bottom of the blind, from where nothing less than a tractor could have budged him.
On the way back he walked like a mechanical monster. I was so surprised he could move at all, I said nothing but encouraging words among cautions about where to put his feet. We were scared to death he might stumble and fall. I could picture him lying helpless on the ground like some mired mastodon in camouflage, threshing about in the mud. The only way we could have moved him was to have each grabbed an arm and dragged him along like a huge log. We finally made it back, slung him in the car like a dressed beef and started off. As he lay there gasping, all he could do was list the stuff he planned to buy to wear for next time—in addition to what he had on right now!
You’ll have to admit that one of the nicest things about getting wet is getting dry. How about the feeling of sticking your feet into some nice warm, dry sheepskin slippers! A fresh, clean shirt and britches and snuggle your backside up to the fire—if you can move the dogs out of your way.
Then you warm a quart of milk, add a pint or so of bourbon whiskey, a few teaspoons of sugar, a couple of drops of vanilla, a clove or two, a sprinkle of nutmeg. Divide this equally amongst those tossed by the storms.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go dig out my old tweed hat, my ducking coat and rubber boots. I’m going to get one of the dogs for an excuse to go for a little evening walk. I might even have to turn my pipe upside down—it seems as if it’s starting to rain.
Editor’s Note: “The Rain” is a selection from Gene Hill’s A Hunter’s Fireside Book.
