To an outdoorsman and an outdoor writer, even the most common and mundane happenings that occur in the great outdoors are, as a rule, noteworthy. Observing a kid catch his first fish comes to mind. The blast-off at a major bass tournament still never fails to get my attention. I love to watch a good wingshot flawlessly down flying teal or wild bobwhites. Despite my finding all “outdoorsy” things entertaining, however, there are some that rank forever in my memory as unique and special, events not to be forgotten and likely never to be witnessed again.

Take, for instance, the day my son harvested his first wild hog.

Kyle was in high school, 10th or 11th grade, I think. We were deer hunting on a Jackson County, Fla. property that contained a sizable population of feral swine. We were in separate stands, a little more than a half-mile apart. A couple hours into our hunt, I heard the sharp report of the boy’s Browning .270 and, knowing we were following qualitybuck only rules, became excited in the belief that he had likely downed a bragging-size whitetail. I waited maybe 20 minutes, and then called him on the two-way radio.

“Get him?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” came the reply.

“Great,” I said. “Let me hunt another hour or so and I’ll be there.”

“Okay, Daddy. I’ll keep hunting, too.”

Naturally, time dragged a bit, and it was with some impatience that I at last climbed out of my stand and trekked down the firebreak toward Kyle’s shooting site. As I neared, I made certain he knew of my presence before making myself visible. I needn’t have worried. The boy was not in his stand. He was sitting, unarmed, maybe 60 yards away, beside a quite-dead bristly young feral boar, obviously the end-product of the shot I earlier heard.

“Hmm,” I said, walking up to the young hunter, who had a rather exasperated look on his face, “That’s not a bad meat hog. He’ll cook up really tender. But, I gotta ask you, what are you doing sitting with him instead of waiting in the stand?”

Kyle chuckled.

“Well, I was going to sit up there and hunt a little longer like I told you. But you know me; I sat there awhile and got sleepy. Nodded off for maybe 15 minutes, I guess. When I woke up, there was a buzzard sitting out here, right on top of my hog. Looked like one of those National Geographic videos about the dry season in Africa. I had to get out of the stand, walk out here, and shoo it away. Went back to the stand, sat down, and the buzzard came back. Ran it off again, and it returned as soon as I was out of sight. After about six times, I just gave up and came out here and stayed.”

To this day, the imagined vision of a fit-to-be-tied adolescent dedicatedly fighting a buzzard off a dead hog strikes me as hilarious. And the thought that he would stop hunting and hog-sit the carcass for the better part of an hour makes me not only amused, but quite proud of the boy as well. It is one of my favorite true stories.

Another involved my buddy Jim, a big-city outdoor writer, who, when looking for fodder for his newspaper column, decided to try his luck fishing in a small lake in the middle of a metropolitan municipal park. The park was a well-known gathering place for people of every possible alternative lifestyle, from run-of-the mill same-sex prostitutes to the flamboyant femaleimpersonator/ trans-gender crowd. In short, not a locale frequented by goodold boy fishermen of any bent.

“I could’ve walked through there completely naked leading an alligator on a leash, and no one would’ve paid me the slightest attention,” Jim told me later. “Instead, I walk across the grounds wearing a fishing vest and carrying a fly rod and get stared at like I was from another planet. Matter of fact, nearly every one of those folks gathered round to watch me fish. Downright distracting, I tell you.”

“Well, you know I have to ask,” I said, “did you catch any fish?”

“Not a one. Didn’t get the first bite.”

“No story, then, I guess?”

“Well,” he replied, “I wouldn’t say that. I did get asked out four times in 20 minutes. That one dressed like Cher didn’t look half bad, either.”

Sometimes, my friends, this business is really entertaining. Y’all oughta try it.

(Email Bob Kornegay at cletus@windstream.net)