Hide, Horn, Fish, and Fowl: Texas Hunting and Fishing Lore

PRANKS IN HUNTING CAMP; OR, THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF ANCIENT RITES PRACTICED IN BUCOLIC AND FRATERNAL SETTINGS

Robert Flynn at the 2011 TFS meeting 7978-ch05.pdf 10/6/11 8:17 AM Page 296 PRANKS IN HUNTING CAMP; OR, THE PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF ANCIENT RITES PRACTICED IN BUCOLIC AND FRATERNAL SETTINGS by Robert Flynn  For reasons yet to be explained, God and the Supreme Court placed hunting season during the shortest days of the year. For those who venture into nature to collect something edible rather than to escape TV, that means a lot of non-hunting time in hunting camp. Some hunters fill those hours with eating, drinking, arguing hunting strategies, conjuring visions of the next hunt, playing cards, eating, cooking, tinkering with mechanical devices such as hunting vehicles, cleaning hunting gear (including selected game), cleaning the cabin, and/or cleaning oneself. While those are meaningful, productive and necessary, the serious hunter also requires creative activities. The two fundamental exercises of the imagination are: One, the preparation, polishing , and delivery of the day’s hunting story that includes in detail every animal seen, and the description of the width, breadth, length and points of the bucks’ horns with poetic license; and also the enumeration of the number of turkeys, feral hogs, and other game with manly exaggeration. Two, the preparation of the “prank.” BENEFITS OF HUNTING PRANKS Nonbelievers and other ignorant folks pretend that hunting pranks are sophomoric tricks played by born-again adolescents. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Prank benefits include: • Rejuvenation of the spirit—brings bounce to legs weary after long hikes looking for game and uplift to the spirits of the disappointed. 297 7978-ch05.pdf 10/6/11 8:17 AM Page 297 • Subjects for conversation—contrary to popular opinion, campfires are not occasion for idle conversations but rather for discourse on the philosophy of hunting, the psychology of rifle calibers, and the chemistry of beer versus bourbon . When the hunting stories grow thin, the prank stories begin. • Bonding—friends who laugh together are less likely to mistake each other for a turkey behind a cedar bush. • Heart stimulation—not as great as seeing a Boone and Crockett buck but better than after a stressful day at work coming home to a tired housewife and three cross children. • Exercise—sometimes for both the pranker, hereafter referred to as the jokester, and the butt of the joke, hereafter referred to as the butt. • Stimulation of Imaginations—at times when sleep does not come easily, such as when deciding whether to get out of a warm sleeping bag to relieve oneself in hope of getting warm again or trying to doze until the alarm goes off, the jokester can dream of new pranks; the butt can imagine what pranks he/she will face before breakfast. BEST TIMES FOR PRANKS Pranks can be played at almost any time, but the experienced jokester knows that jokes are not always appropriate. For example, when a fellow hunter has in his sights the buck he has stalked for days, several pranks will come to the jokester’s mind. Leave them there. BEST PRANKS FOR THE RIGHT TIME The accomplished jokester knows the pranks most appropriate for specific times. 298 The One That Got Away (or Should Have) 7978-ch05.pdf 10/6/11 8:17 AM Page 298 First cup of coffee: Sleepers are rousing, some have coffee in their hands, some have cigarettes in one hand and coffee in the other, some are out of bed and fully clothed with a cup of coffee in hand. Some are on the move. The first hunter on the move is the butt of the joke. Appropriate prank: “Can-gun Attack.” Requirements: Cration cans, duct tape, tennis balls, lighter fluid, lighter or matches, second jokester. Directions: With a church key cut holes around the top of a can; with an ice pick punch two small holes opposite each other near the rim at the bottom of the can to make the firing device. Cut out the tops and bottoms of additional cans and tape them to the firing device to form the barrel. Note: For accuracy, make the barrel long. For rapid fire, tape several canguns together. Place the projectile, a new tennis ball, in the open end of the barrel until it lodges snugly against the receiver. Jokester One holds the can-gun horizontally; Jokester Two squirts lighter fluid into the firing device. Jokester One rotates the cangun to spread the fluid...