Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304180014
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
NO MATTER HOW BADLY YOU WANT THAT BIRD, PLAY IT SAFE
John McDaniel is a turkey hunter with 35 years experience, the author of two fine books on the subject; yet, the approach of a gobbler in the spring woods still causes his hands to shake, his heart to pound and his breath to come in gulps."The level of excitement never ceases to impress me," he wrote in a recent issue of the Rockbridge Advocate. "You can argue the kill is not important - you will not persuade your nervous system."
That kind of involvement can cause sportsmen to roll out of bed hours before daylight - as was the case for many Saturday, when the gobbler season opened - and climb ridges made for billy goats. It also can get them killed.
The longer McDaniel hunts, the more care he takes in choosing his field companions, the more unlikely he will be in the woods on a busy Saturday, the more he feels compelled to preach safety to anyone willing to listen.
"Today, the most difficult game has become the most dangerous. All hunters must reflect on how they can reduce the risks," said McDaniel, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Washington and Lee University.
"After I wrote a book on turkey hunting, people asked me to take them," he said. "In my first spring of carrying people, I looked down a number of 12-gauge muzzles. Now, I just say no. In a few cases, which were very difficult, I stopped hunting with friends."
Danger lurks in the form of hunters who are newly drawn to this rapidly growing sport and who have little experience and no exposure to hunter-safety education. But, as many highly skilled and experienced hunters have learned - and this is the scary part - it isn't always the novice, the kid, the incompetent who can do harm. You can do that nicely on your own.
In McDaniel's case, there was the occasion he climbed a familiar ridge on the final Friday of the spring season. He was not worried about human interference. Most hunters had given up on the season, and those who hadn't weren't likely to make the hard, 55-minute climb he had endured.
Once in place, he worked a turkey call, and in about 30 minutes there was the rhythmic sounds you associated with the approach of a tom - the two-legged pace, the occasional pause, the cautious approach. It was hand-trembling, heart-pounding, breath-gulping time.
"I tried desperately to stay calm so that I could act quickly and efficiently when the gobbler crested the ridge. As always, the sounds of the footsteps soon were so loud it seemed impossible that he was not visible. Suddenly, there was a flash of black on the edge of the ridge."
McDaniel was convinced that what he heard and now what he saw was a gobbler. But somewhere in that split-second time it takes to pull a trigger, a terrifying instant in this case, his brain was telling him that what he wanted to see wasn't what he really was seeing.
That "flash of black" was the top of a camouflaged cap on a human head. The realization left McDaniel too weak to stand or speak.
"For some time I tried to tell myself it was my need to achieve an absolute identification of the `bird' that allowed me to avoid the accident," he said. "That sounded good, but I know I was lucky."
As a new season opens, McDaniel is urging hunters to keep the importance of killing game in perspective. Don't be so desperate to succeed that your powers of judgment are impaired. Each time you load your gun, make safety your primary consideration.