Outdoors: When Dad finally let me go hunting, it was safety first

In the late 1940s, I often watched my dad and grandpa go hunting.

“When am I going to be able to go hunting, Dad?” I asked.

“Soon,” Dad assured me, “I will start to take you with me.”

After that, I started to go with him squirrel hunting. I would retrieve the squirrels he shot while checking each one out while I carried them.

“I need a gun to help you, Dad. When can I have a gun?”

“Soon, son,” he said, but it took a long time before I got one.

You see, my dad was shot in the leg while hunting with a companion when he was 16 years old. Two duck hunters picked him up and took him to the old Ryburn King Hospital. The only thing left of the leg was the large muscle in his calf. Several doctors wanted to take Dad’s leg off, but old Doctor Edgcomb said, “Let’s try to save it first.”

With the help of several doctors, they repaired his leg. Despite missing a year of school, the leg healed completely. Now you know why my dad was a little hesitant to get me a gun. In fact, he would only hunt with me after that. He carried buckshot in that leg the rest of his life.

Even after all that trauma, Dad started hunting again. He bought me a Model-37 410 shotgun, and I got my first squirrel with it. I carried that gun for many years, well into my 20s, and it finally wore out. I bought my own shotgun: a Stevens 20-gauge double-barrel side-by-side. I took a lot of pheasants, ducks and squirrels with that gun.

I thought about my dad every time I took that gun to the woods. I learned a lot about safety because I was trained by Dad after he was shot. Believe me, he was a good trainer.

I finally became a fair hunter and could sit at the dinner table and tell hunting stories with the rest of the men. Back then, it was quite an honor to have your own shotgun. One could walk from our house on Lincoln St. to the Steve Capra Property and hunt rabbits. I finally obtained a beagle, and that only added more pleasure to the hunt.

Mom always used to tell us while cooking that this was the rabbit that Fred got. Hunting put a lot of pride in my life.

Hunting report

It is almost time to scout around for spring mushrooms. The first ones are the pheasants, then the morels. There are two types of morels. The early are very dark and small. The later ones are light tan, but a lot larger. Can’t hardly wait.

Fishing report

River fishing remains very slow for whatever reason. I observed boats last Sunday on the river near Allen Park. I never saw anyone catch a fish. Finally, I traveled east to Heritage Harbor. A few boats traveled to that area and began to fish. Again, I never saw any fish caught.

I did have a companion from Coal City last Wednesday. Knowing river conditions, I took him to La Salle Lake, which recently opened. We traveled all over that lake and ended up fishing on the warm side of the lake near the east levee. There we started to take a lot of channel catfish and one large blue catfish.

Overall, even the cooling lake was slow going.

• Fred Krause is a Shaw Media correspondent.