When I was a kid living way out on the shores of Lake Almanor in Northern California my Dad hung a sign out in front of our house advertising his second career. Being a School Teacher left the summers free to act as a guide on fishing and hunting trips with our various visiting friends and relatives. After a while word got out and there were too many requests to keep up with so he had to open a business of sorts to manage the schedules and take their money with a clear conscience. So Dad became an officially Licensed Guide and our house became a Sportsman’s destination specializing in Archery Hunting and Fly Fishing. After a while word of mouth spread through the medical community and the customer list was soon exclusively composed of well to do Doctors from the Bay Area.
As a 10 year old I was too young to get a hunting license unlike my older brothers who were 12 and 14 so they got to go out with the hunters while I was relegated to lesser duties. The best part was acting as the designated deer spotter on top of the jeep. Now it was well known in our family that I didn’t have the best vision on account of having two surgeries to improve my astigmatism, but I was an Eagle-Eye wizard compared to those city slickers and it always turned into a comedy as I would press the buzzer to stop the rig while pointing to the deer standing in the brush only a few yards away. The poor customers rarely saw the deer until they ran away and by then it was too late to get a good shot. Then we would drive around the next bend and find more deer standing there invisible to the good Doctors.
I was old enough for all the fishing assignments which included everything from fly fishing up and down the river to spending all day baiting hooks from the boat or lakeshore. It was all old hat to us kids but it was pure magic to those flat-landers and we almost felt bad for getting so much credit where none was due. One of our favorite fishing trips including overnight camping at Hidden Lakes high up near the tree line where the snow stays until late June. My greatest accomplishment was making it back down to the truck and back to camp in 45 minutes to arrive just at dark with the forgotten tent. I had a flashlight but was determined not to use it. I’m not saying I got scared but I ended up with enough adrenaline that day to make me remember the trip in detail to this very day.
Some people may find all that killing quite morbid especially the Taxidermy part but it was all in a days’ work back in the 1960’s.
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