The Bullet Proof Ptarmigan: Hunting with a young daughter

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“Where are my gloves?” I asked the universe as I dug through our hat box in the hallway.

            “I don’t know,” the universe answered in the voice of my older (at that time only) daughter, age 9.

            “I put them in here just yesterday when I was done with them,” I called back.

            “I borrowed them,” she answered again and anticipating my next question she continued, “because I couldn’t find mine.”

            And so, I began to look for two pairs of gloves when I shouldn’t have had to look for one.  Getting ready to go trapping with a nine-year-old Romay was a lot like what I picture Odysseus went through in getting his men on board the ship after each stop.

            That being said, Romay was by far the most reliable trapping partner I could have.  The wind could be blowing a -30 wind chill, but she was always ready to go.  Perhaps the better way to explain it is that she was always willing.  Getting ready took a great deal of effort on my part.

            The wind was on the calmer side this day as we warmed up the snow machine and loaded clean traps and bait into the cargo rack.  The little Ruger 10/22 would ride across Romay’s lap as I drove with her behind me. 

            “Ready?” I asked as I took my seat.

            “Mmmphph,” she replied as she buried her hooded head into the back of my oversized hunting parka to shelter her face from the cold that would come as we accelerated out of the yard.

            “Good,” I said as I hit the throttle.  I was pretty sure that her response had been in the affirmative.

            We made brief stops at each set to assure the traps were still operable and to freshen bait, but none were holding animals.  Fox were plentiful to the point of being a nuisance and Romay knew better than to play around the sets.  Scent was both our friend and enemy as the fox could pick up the stink of the attractant we left behind, but could also easily pick up the smell of a dirty trap, some stray manmade smell stuck to our boots, or a piece of gum carelessly spit out at the site. 

            Romay was careful to the point of lecturing her friends that we sometimes took with us.  She would almost scold if one of her contemporaries even looked like they were going to sneeze or spit near one of our sets.

            Our trapline trail took us up over a hill just outside of town before dropping into the shelter of the trees and then back toward frozen wetland bordering Norton Bay.  Passing through some willows, I spotted a ptarmigan about ten feet from the trail standing in the open.

            I got off of the machine, took the rifle from Romay, racked a cartridge into the chamber, made sure it was on safety and handed it back to the little huntress.

            “Go ahead and shoot it,” I prompted.

            “Shoot what?” she asked.

            “The bird right there,” I pointed at the bird that looked like a little white chicken standing on top of the snow.

            In Romay’s defense, ptarmigan are tough for the untrained eye to see.  When I first started hunting them, I could be about right on top of one before ever knowing it was there.  God made them white for a reason.  I still remember the first day I started seeing them.  It was like finally seeing the hidden picture in one of those dumb 3D picture books from the 1990s.  One minute there was nothing there, and then the next minute I couldn’t un-see the half dozen birds who were convinced that they were still invisible, clucking and scratching like domestic chickens waddling through the snow.

            “You see that willow about ten feet away that is bent over?” I pointed.

            “Yeah.”

            “Well, the bird is right next to it,” I said as it bobbed its head to one side.

            “Where?” Romay frustratingly asked.

            “You want me to shoot it?” I offered.

            “No!” she angrily whispered. 

            I was raising an independent, self-sufficient woman even at the age of nine.

            Something in Romay’s answer caused the bird to flick its tail, and that is when it revealed itself.

            “Hey, I see it,” she said crouching and drawing the rifle up.

            Ptchew! The rifle reported, an empty shell ejected out to the side, and a tuft of snow puffed up directly behind the ptarmigan.  The bird clucked and picked at the snow in front of it.

            “Just behind it,” I coached.

            Ptchew and a tuft of snow puffed just in front of the bird.  It turned its head to the side, its little bird brain studying this bizarre event.

            “Just in front of it,” I quietly called out.

            Ptchew and a willow just past the bird snapped off and fell to the snow.  The ptarmigan picked at the freshly clipped willow.

            Romay continued to take shots with me pointing out where each one was going until the ten round clip was empty.  She handed me the rifle and I took out the empty and replaced it with the full clip I had riding in my coat pocket.

            She burned through another ten rounds and I started digging for the loose shells that had been rattling around in my coat all week.  Gloves off, I reloaded the clip, while watching the bird who had not moved but a foot from where it originally was when we first saw it.  It was cold, but the wind was light, and we were sheltered in a little natural pocket.

            Ten rounds went into the clip, the clip went back into the rifle, the rifle went back into the hands of the girl, and ten rounds passed through the muzzle.  The bird looked up at the sky to see where the strange breeze was coming from.

            Another ten loose shells came out of my pocket and into the clip.  I put the full clip in and started loading the other empty clip as Romay continued punching holes in the defenseless snow surrounding what must have been a very bullet proof ptarmigan.

            With seven .22 catridges left, I loaded six.

            I pulled the empty clip from the gun again and replaced it with the partially full one, “I am keeping this one back in case we have a fox in our last trap,” I explained while holding up one bullet for her to see.

            Six shots later, and the ptarmigan had turned around and was examining the torn-up snow behind him.

            Disappointment and frustration were replaced by hope as I loaded the last reserve shell through the breech and handed the rifle back to Romay one last time.

            “This is it,” I explained, “there are no more after this one.”

            The little girl took careful aim, steadied herself, calmed her breathing, and gently squeezed the trigger.

            Ptchew!

            “You have to have one more in your pockets someplace,” Romay pleaded as we climbed back onto the snow machine.

            “We can’t get them all,” I comforted.  “Some of them have to get away,” I pointed out while watching the ptarmigan standing still only ten feet away from us.  It was definitely not trying to escape at that moment.

            Our last trap didn’t hold anything, and we didn’t see any more ptarmigan that day.  We rode home empty handed.

            “I should have hit that bird,” Romay commented as she slid off of the snow machine seat and began dragging her feet through the snow on the way to our door.

            “Don’t suppose you’ll want to go tomorrow now,” I said sounding sad.

            “We can go tomorrow?” she exclaimed her mood immediately changing, and she ran through the door and into the building.

             There would always be tomorrow.

Romay standing with her brother Ethan after a successful ptarmigan hunt