A Grouse Hunter’s Almanac: The Other Kind of Hunting

Costumes

78 Costumes Iwas heading west on the snowmobile trail toward our cabin; she was riding a mountain bike east toward me. We met where the snowmobile trail intersected the middle of the ski trail the woman was riding. Somewhere in the cover behind me, the dog was still hopeful about finding a bird. “What are you doing?” the woman asked me, staring first at my shotgun, then back at me. She wore Lycra shorts, a cycling jersey, and biking shoes and had a Camelbak hydration pack strapped to her back, the costume of a mountain biker. She rode a carbon fiber, dualsuspended mountain bike with twenty-seven speeds. She wasn’t anyone I knew from the area. If I had to guess, I would say that she was from down south, possibly the Twin Cities, maybe Milwaukee or Chicago. The area we were hunting is a popular mountain biking and cross-country skiing destination, yearly drawing thousands of silent sports enthusiasts. I was about to state the obvious when the dog jumped out on the trail and trotted up to us. When he saw or smelled the woman, he bolted up to her, woofing. She nudged him away with her knee, but 79 Costumes he wouldn’t be denied and continued to pester her. She nudged him again, but her repulse didn’t deter him at all. He thought she was playing with him. I grabbed him by the collar, yanked him away from her and started down the trail. The dog had no business in her face, and she didn’t seem like the kind of person who liked dogs. It seemed best to avoid a confrontation and leave. “Are you sure you can hunt here?” she yelled at my back. That was the last thing I heard her say. A friend of mine always referred to his cycling kit as his costume. He had a closet full of European pro team jerseys and shorts. He even had matching gloves and socks for some of his outfits. At first when he said this, costume seemed an odd word choice, but then Chris was forever joking. He never took anyone seriously, not even himself or the sports in which he indulged. But now I’m not so sure the joke wasn’t on most of the rest of us since we can take our costumes very seriously. That morning I had on my hunting costume, including the blood on my hunting vest. Ironically, the day before I had worn a bicycling costume and had ridden over the same ground as the woman who was so incensed over my hunting. Had I met her on my bicycle all decked out in a cycling costume, our exchange would have no doubt been pleasant, but as it was she could not get past both my outfit and what I was doing. To be fair, I, too, had on my hunting hat and my hunting attitude, my costume changing my perspective. A few times each season, I cross the costume boundary and use a mountain bike to save time in hunting isolated covers that require long walks both there and back. I ride with a temporary sling on my shotgun, while the dog runs alongside, and he loves it, loping down the trail no longer hampered by my slow two-legged pace. We might 80 look odd cruising down the trail, me in heavy hunting boots, the dog clanking along with his bell, but we can cover ground quickly and ef- ficiently. For sure this sort of cross-dressing confuses both mountain bikers and hunters. Since we don’t fit neatly into either category, people we meet in the woods usually don’t know how to classify us, and that often inhibits any sort of dialogue between us since we have a difficult time getting past superficial matters like clothing. Once while mountain bike hunting in a section of county forest where both pursuits are allowed, I rolled up on a young couple out mountain biking. The dog was thirty yards ahead, leading me down the trail. When I rounded a corner, the couple was petting him, and he was working the free massage for all it was worth. “Is this a Weimerheimer?” the man asked. I said he was a Weimaraner. When he spotted my gun and the tail feathers poking out the front of my...