Zoning Out

I played golf once in college, and that was about the third time I'd ever been on a course other than to float tiny "boats" down streams and generally stomp around in winter.  I don't remember the circumstances that lead to me suddenly finding myself, squinting slightly dazed and out of place, on a driving range with my buddies Ace and Dean, but there I was giving it a shot.

I had an excellent teacher in the Aceman.  He was a single-digit handicapper at the time with the long, flowing swing employed successfully only by those of athletic grace unknown to most of us.  (An athletic prowess, by the way, that also allowed him to almost casually throw at extremely snappy velocities.  I can easily recall that distinctive rocketing hssssss of an Ace-thrown baseball -- the hiss you only hear when a ball has been fired from a serious arm cannon.  And the startling mitt POP! that would make people stop and look while we threw the ball around in the green space now occupied by the Kohl Center.)

There we stood on the recently rain-soaked range with a bucket of balls and a teacher whose very moniker had been earned through achieving a hole in one not once, but twice.  Ace is a good friend, so with undying patience he instructed me from the ground up.  Tips and pointers I don't remember about hips and elbows.  How this should feel and that should look.  Keep my hands here, pause there, and remember to breath.

I was headed for the PGA, and I hadn't even hit a ball yet.  After absorbing all the instruction I could hold, I stepped up to the tee for my first colossal hack, and unceremoniously buried the face of the club deep in the mud about a foot behind the ball.  A ball that remained frustratingly inert on the tee, completely unmoved by my ungainly thrashing.  It was then that I further considered dedicating my free time to becoming a mediocre fly fisherman rather than an awful golfer.

Somewhere in the midst of our later 9-hole round a wholly unexpected thing happened.  I'd hit a decent drive (one that didn't fly off on some oblique trajectory, actually landed in the fairway to the amazement of all),  and under Ace's instruction, I lined up my iron shot.  In that mystifying and elusive moment that happens only so rarely, I swung easily and made a fine shot.  More importantly here, I felt it almost immediately on the strike.

It landed pin high, on the left edge where he had told me to aim, and followed the natural slope of the green down so near the cup even I could make the putt.  I walked up, read the break correctly, and put it in the hole.  The remainder of my round was an ongoing and unmitigated catastrophe the likes of which they should've written brooding Norse sagas about, but for the briefest of instances, I'd known what it felt like to be "in the zone" on a golf course.

I don't think we really know what "the zone" is.  The fact that it may be different for everyone or may come in varying degrees of intensity for the same person make defining it even more difficult.  For me it involves a full immersion in the activity at hand.  Complete focus and control in that time span also play roles.  And the infamous time distortion people mention.  It felt like everything was happening in slow motion -- we hear and say that a lot when we talk about the zone.



It's a rare and beautiful thing to find oneself in the zone.  Even rarer to suddenly blip into existence there right out of the gate.

I took a walk in the woods behind the house this past weekend, armed with my much-loved bolt action .22 and thoughts of fried squirrel.  Hunting seasons had just opened that morning in Wisconsin, and I was primed and pumped to gather some protein.  A shotgun is often a more logical choice for early season squirrels, often obscured from the shooter with all the green still up, but my first tree rat hunt of the year will be with that nimble little Savage rimfire until one of us is in the ground.

I grew up shooting that peep sight, and had a bit of a tough time adjusting to scoped rifles when it became clear I was going to get more shooting opportunities using them in the low light conditions when bucks often appear.  I got comfortable enough eventually, but there still exists a smidge of hesitation and adjustment when I put my eye behind a scope that isn't there behind the Lyman.

It's to the point now, using that .22 with the peep on shots that test the limits of both gun and marksman, that it becomes nothing more than a matter of feel.  Meat conserving head shots are paramount to me on small game such as squirrels.  When Mr. Fluffy Tail appears before me at such a trying range that he is almost completely obscured by the front sight post and I lean the barrel against a tree for support, I hold on the center of his body, and give the slightest nudge with my cheek or left thumb as I take out the last bit of trigger creep. (I actually clench my teeth when I need to push left, making that little knot pop out on the corner of my jaw, and that does the trick).  I settle there, and with the lightest, almost inadvertent addition of pressure to the trigger, when I'm in the zone, the lead is well on past my dinner's far ear before he even begins his tumble to the forest floor.

I gave up, and contented myself with stealing his dinner.

It doesn't always happen that way, but it did twice on Saturday morning.  A welcome and surprisingly abrupt return to the sweet spot in a breeze barely hinting at the cold to come.  Monday morning I missed a much closer squirrel twice with a scatter gun.  Though, as if to present a convenient excuse for me which I'll gladly employ here, he was bounding along up in the thick green tops.


Comfort, and even a little time in the zone, did eventually come with the scoped rifles.  I remember the first buck I shot when I used to hunt over by the rifle range years ago.

I had a tree stand parked on a thickly poppled knob overlooking a beaver pond and the game trail that encircled its perimeter, supported by an aspen roughly the diameter and tensile strength of overcooked rigatoni.  It was a nice spot, but there was plenty of pucker factor in that little tree on windy days.

I'd grown comfortable enough with the scope by that point, but by some happenstance unknown to me, I found myself running through the process of the shot in my mind all through the season that year.  Even on the drive up, I concentrated obsessively on sight picture, trigger pull, and follow through.  While hunting, I ran the imagery through my mind on a near-constant loop like an athlete would do before a contest, as a way to remain alert on the stand.

Quit making me laugh, ya bastards. This is serious.

When that massive northwoods buck (OK, it was just a little forky) stepped into view, I was prepared.  For the first time in my brief career as wielder of a scoped centerfire, there was no need for pause or adjustment.  It was about the only time I've ever set the crosshairs immediately and precisely where I wanted them on an animal.  One of the very few times I pulled smoothly and saw the impact happen through the scope, saw the insides explosively become the outsides on the other side of his rib cage as clearly as if it had happened five feet away.  I guess sometimes you can pick the locks, and force your way into the zone.  I don't know why I don't more often.  I miss often enough that I certainly should.


That sweet spot of perfect execution is not limited to shooting, of course.  I most often encounter it at the fly vice and sometimes in the kitchen or sitting here spewing forth these tales of outdoor triumph and failure.

The doing of repetitious small tasks often leads me there.  Anything from spinning repeated gobs of deer hair on a hook to peeling a pile of spuds, the activity in question doesn't matter.  If I'm in the right mindset I'll make it a game, imagining myself in a contest to become the fastest and cleanest tater peeler this side of the ol' Mississip.  Soon I'm on autopilot, hands functioning with almost no thought given to their actions.

We used to talk quite a bit about that state of "rigorous autopilot" in drum & bugle corps (insert collective moan from the DSO fellas, I know.  Bear with me, gentlemen).  At that activity's highest levels, the search for perfection leads up a path that eventually comes to extremely small degrees of differentiation at the apex of a huge scale.  Minutiae and exacting detail rule your every performing thought at those tiny spans of separation.  Fractions of pitches and inches and seconds.   After hundreds of hours of rehearsal on a single piece of music and movement, so much information concerning technique and execution has been wedged into the soul of the player that he or she cannnot hope to perform at an acceptable level outside that near-mystical level of precision autopilot.  You just line up and twelve minutes later, panting hard and dripping sweat, they're screaming in the stands.  Deep in the zone.

The place I often find the autopilot zone most fleeting and frustratingly elusory also happens to be one of my favorite pastimes -- fly fishing.  More specifically, the glorious and terrible art of casting.  Much like the golf swing, fly casting is all about rhythm, timing, and feel.  And much like the golf swing, you can learn the basics in a short time, then spend decades working out the kinks to perfect it.  It's all long flowing loops and the poetry of physics in motion until it isn't.  Then it's tripping on line, strained epithets, and ugly coiled heaps on the water.



I have dipped a toe in the cryptic pool of flycasting zone on occasion, and a particular cast and fish stands out in the recalling of rare moments basking in that gentle glow.

A couple years ago I was invited to take part in a shakedown smallmouth trip on a Michigan river with my buddy Flockshot and his guide friend Aaron.  Even though we caught fish numbering somewhere on the north side of sixty that day, Flock may remember this particular fish when he reads this.  I'm not a whooping and hollering Fish On! type when I latch in to a big one.  Instead I usually go silent in concentration, but at the moment of this particular bite in the zone, I startled myself and everyone else by sharply bellowing, "Holy shit!" loud enough to shatter the gentle sussurations of a pleasant trip down the river.

My float had begun spectacularly far outside the zone.  Casting with a guide rod, on an unfamiliar river, standing at the bow of a raft I'd never been in, I was a towering beacon of suck.  Flailing like a crack monkey.  I couldn't see the solar system containing the zone with the Hubble Space Telescope.  With time and a couple smallish fish, I slowly improved.  Eventually, I got my wits about me and my act together, and began to fish like a moderately competent human being.

It was an odd day on the river, for me at least, in that we started with dink smallies, and the fish got progressively larger as we neared the end.  Maybe Aaron used his double secret guide mojo or the power of the beard to home in on the proper fly selection and boat positioning as the day played out.  Or maybe the fatties were too lazy to swim upstream to our launch.  I'm not sure.

Somewhere around the midpoint of the float, I found myself approaching an event horizon of imminent zonage.  Still in the bow as a guest, my cast had un-bungled itself into something resembling an effective fly presenting tool.  I spied a perfect lie -- an underwater log, barely visible from behind polarized amber shades, jutting into the current with that slick of pillow water behind it that denotes a washed out hole.  Overhanging brush provided both shade and cover for the hole, and a formidable defense against probing flies.

You forget to grin like an idiot when stumbling down out of the zone. 

Everything slowed.  I took a breath, a double-haul false cast, and laid a long, low cast perfectly just upstream of the log.  A quick mend gave the streamer a moment's pause, and it disappeared into the deep.  The instant my offering vanished from clear view I witnessed that slightly eerie signature apparition, that thing we're all chasing out there waving sticks around -- the torpedo flash and shadow of Darwin's own predator crushing the life out of a fly.

It was a great fish, though not my biggest of the day.  Probably not even the biggest that hour.  But it remains clear to mind (and heart) among countless other catches before and since because it happened when all things came together, when focus and motivation collided with loss of self consciousness at the zenith of control.

It happened in the zone.    

Tree Rat Dreams

I'm steadily approaching four decades bumbling around our little blue marble, and I'm still surprised at how my brain works.  Sometimes at how well it works, more often at how it fails to work at all, but mostly, the tangents and obsessions it frequently enjoys with or without my consent.

Since my last post on the joys of simple squirrel hunting, there has been little but visions of the delicious little tree rats dancing in my head.  I kid you not, there have been dreams about squirrel hunting.  Full-on, I can hear the snow under my feet, dreams!  Other men dream of scantily clad women or soaring through the air.  Sometimes both at the same time.  I dream about buck-toothed rodents through a peep sight.  What would Dr. Freud say about that?

I've made the most of this current unexplained obsession, hunting them frequently.  It's a wonderful time of year to be out in the woods.  They are almost devoid of human presence even in my populous neck of the woods.  There are a few snowmobilers and cross-country skiers (a past obsession of mine), but most of the hunting seasons are closed, so as a dude on a pair of snowshoes with a rifle strapped to my back, I generally have the joint to myself.

I've walked in the sun until I earned raccoon eyes behind polarized sunglasses, and fallen asleep sitting at the base of a surprisingly comfortable shagbark hickory.  I've enjoyed a hot lunch, my legs swinging over the precipice of a sharp gulley like a kid on a bar stool, whispering and basking in the afternoon warmth with a good friend.  I've drunk deeply from a flowing spring, very nearly fallen on my face, and generally had a helluva good time in the past couple weeks.  Made my share of nice shots too.

I even learned a new method for cleaning them, thanks to the wonders of YouTube.  Brunswick Stew, squirrel pot pie, and nutty squirrels fried in butter with shallots and chanterelles have been consumed at my table, alongside a host of the wonderfully dark and strong winter beers we have this time of year. 

In short, it has been squirrel-palooza around here lately.  And it isn't enough yet.  I plan to hunt them at least a couple more times before the season runs out at the end of the month.  I had to buy another brick of subsonic .22 shells.  I had to wash my snow camo jacket after so many outings, lest even the little limb rats smell me coming a mile away.  I've fallen in love all over again with my boyhood rifle.  The occasional missed shot serves only to keep my legs pumping up over the next ridge.  Like Bacchus, my thirst cannot be slaked.

While this latest obsession, approaching unhealthy fanaticism as it is, came rather unexpectedly with a single invite to go hunting, other trance-inducing fixations come at more predictable intervals.  All this tromping around the timber with fluffy-tail fever has cut into my ice fishing, and I do regret that somewhat, but I'm more well prepared to deal with the upcoming annual preoccupations.

One day near the end of February or beginning of March, I will sit at the desk directly behind me in this room, and tie a few flies.  Just a handful to replace the flies I donated to overhanging brush and submerged logs last year, nothing that would require a Zoloft prescription.  Then I will start to frequent an internet fly-tying forum I belong to more often, gazing in wonderment (and a little envy) at the beautiful ties of the other members.  The ice will begin to recede from my favorite bluegill holes, the fly tying catalogs will clog the mailbox, somebody will ask me for a dozen of that fly that worked wonders for them last year, and I will again become transfixed.

The TV will remain dark almost exclusively.  Workouts and after-work fishing trips will be forgone with nary a care.  Dinner will be forgotten.  Gasp!  Phone calls will go unanswered, and a shower or two may even be skipped.  The situation can get a little ugly when there's a short in the wiring, and things slip out of control.  Look at Gary Busey.  

Sometime around the middle of April, I will emerge from this room like a bear from the den.  Eyes bloodshot and weary from precision work and my refusal to admit the possible need for a pair of drug store reading glasses, fingers calloused and sore from packing and prodding, deer hair clippings and feather pieces in my hair.  With fly boxes overflowing and confidence in my smallie ammunition for the year, I will retire the vice for the most part, and take a nap.  Until the ice begins to fade again next year.

Which is convenient because shortly after I've come out of hibernation at the fly tying bench, the venerable morel mushroom will come into season.  Prized for their rich earthy flavor and ease of identification, no other fungi in Wisconsin is pursued with the fervor and passion given to the diminutive honeycomb obelisk of the mighty morel.

Recipes and folklore abound in the cult-like following of the morel.  How to find them, preserve them, cook them; everyone has an idea or an anecdote or two.  There are books, forums, and walking tours dedicated to finding this mycological marvel.  Restaurants are named after it.  Mushroom hunters hide their secret spots with the maniacal zeal of wizened trout fishermen.  As a seasonal locavore, my personal menu varies throughout the year.  No meal, not a single one, is more looked forward to, obsessed about, and fawningly doted over than that first morel dinner of the year.  I dream about that meal, but that somehow seems more sane than dreaming about squirrels.  You'll just have to keep reading this blog to find out what it is.

I searched for years with varying degrees of success before my friend Woody invited me out to his farm in the heart of morel country.  I still grab my favorite walking stick and tour the woods on my own as the calendar slinks up on Mother's Day, and I do well at times.  I can think of little better for the body and spirit than a good long walk in the Spring woods, but I know when I see Woody's name pop up on my phone, it ain't about the hike anymore.  Enough with the romance and foreplay, it's time to get some.

Thanks, Woody!

Simplicity

It all started with a cast iron pan.  A dutch oven, to be exact.

I love cast iron cookware.  I collect it, fawn over it, obsessively season it, and cook with it whenever I can.  I like the idea that a single pan can so comfortably migrate from stove top to oven, grill to campfire, and many of mine often do.  I love how these heavy behemoths hold heat and caramelize meat and vegetables.  They can coast along, nurturing a slow, burbling simmer, and just as easily, withstand a raging charcoal forge to get that pinging, almost glowing hot needed for true blackening.  Many pans last generations, and I like to think about the feasts and culinary debacles that inevitably took place in their presence.  They are a joy to cook with.

Everything from bouillabaisse to cowboy beans are at home in a cast iron pan.  My three quart chicken fryer has a finish on it you can almost see your reflection in after years of use and care.  It's one of my prized possessions in the kitchen, and would make a pretty formidable home defense weapon in a pinch. 

So when Brian was looking to add a new dutch oven to his repertoire a couple weeks ago, the phone calls and texts began pouring in.  He's no slouch in the kitchen, and he's also a cast iron aficionado, but a purchase of such import must be analyzed, researched, and gabbed into the ground between the two of us.

He ended up buying a great seven quart dutch oven from Lodge, the one without the bail handle or legs.  The factory seasoning they come with now is unbelievable.  Straight out of the box, the pan looked liked it had spent a couple decades in the loving hands of grandma.  It arrived on Thursday, and I drove down Saturday morning.  Not solely to cook for the boys in that pan, but I'm not going to lie, I was really looking forward to taking her out on her maiden voyage.

We'd decided I would make venison and stout pie for dinner Saturday night before the big pan purchase came up.  I love this Irish classic, normally made with lamb, I believe.  It's hearty and satisfying without being overbearing.  And you get to drink Guinness while you make it.  But I wanted to get my mitts on that enticing new pan.  Being in an Irish state of mid already, my mind drifted over to a near cousin of the stout pie, shepherd's pie.  It's a very similar thing, with some more vegetables invited to the party, and the addition of the mashed potato crust.  Easy to pull off after a day in the woods, and I would get to use the gorgeous new dutch oven.

I combined the two, morphing two recipes into one, and when in doubt, adding more Guinness.  Murph, Brian, and I sat in the kitchen, rehashing the day's hunt and many before it as that venison pie filling slowly simmered.  The smell was intoxicating, and I don't mind admitting I giggled upon my final taste test, an hour or more in.  I vow to you now, gentle reader, I will not go back to the more traditional preparation anytime soon when cooking for myself.  The combination of the potatoes with the Guinness pie filling was simply out of this world. (Who'da thunk it, I know.)  Sweet and meaty, thick and gooey, we smiled as a hush fell over the table, unable to speak with mouths full.

The maiden voyage of Black Beauty and Venison Guinness Shepherd's Pie

Despite our unseasonably warm weather this year, I'm fully in the winter food mindset now.  Simple soups and hearty stews, good bread, dark beer.  A fire to warm the toes, and good company to share it all.  There's no need to mash up trendy ingredients this time of year.  At least not for me.  Give me a few root vegetables, some stock, a couple aromatics, and maybe some protein.  We're on the the bullet train to Comfort Town, baby.

  Coq au Vin.  A hearty and satisfying classic peasant treasure, despite my near-maniacal obsession with grill marks.  And so simple if you have the time.

Before we tucked into the glorious venison and Guinness concoction last Saturday night, we'd been squirrel hunting, another endeavor marked by it's utter simplicity.  Like the willing panfish that guided almost all of us through the early trials and successes of our fishing careers, squirrel hunting is stripped down to the bare essentials of gathering meat in the woods.

The hunter need not concern himself too much with the minutiae of more complex hunting while chasing ol' fluffy tail.  Wind direction and scent control are easily ignored.  You should probably cover your face and hands to help prevent getting busted while moving, but head-to-toe camouflage isn't necessary.  And the tools are as simple as they get.  You won't find a multitude of calls around the squirrel hunter's neck.  He carries no GPS, most likely, and may not even have a scope on his weapon of choice.  The only concession to specialized gear a squirrel hunter might chose to make is subsonic ammunition or an air rifle.  Quiet is king in the squirrel woods.

 Well worn boots, and a trusty boyhood .22.  It can't get more pared down than that.

There is plenty of action to keep the young and old interested, and they will forgive you a mistake or two.  But that is not to say that Squirrels are easy prey.  These aren't the city-fied tree rats you see in the yard or on the bird feeder, immune to human presence.  They're just as wild as any animal out there, and if they see or hear hear you, they will be just as gone.  So you learn (or remember) to stalk quietly, sit still, and be patient.  Eyes and ears just as wary as when in a tree stand, movements held to a bare minimum.  All things that apply to hunting much larger game, but that most of us learned from the wily squirrel.  

And they're small.  I love that .22 rifle, and shoot it well more consistently than any other gun I own, having grown up with it, but I still have to concentrate and remember my fundamentals to hit a tiny gray target well down range.  The stalking, the marksmanship, the patience and concentration required will all make you a better big game hunter, no doubt about it.

Still, it harkens back to the happy hunts of childhood.  There is no pressure to fill a tag or bag a trophy.  It's an exercise in comfort, but it only lends results if done with some care.

As far as taste, I think squirrels are a knockout.  Sweet and nutty, they lend themselves well to any number of  winter stews.  Young ones are particularly delicious simply fried up with with some butter and onions.  Add mushrooms and some minced acorns, gathered on the hunt, and you're laughing.  I think classically trained chef and author (and the girl I'm going to marry someday), Georgia Pellegrini, sums them up very well.  “They’re delicious.  I think it’s one of my favorite game meats right now. Think about it: You are what you eat, and they eat acorns. People spend a fortune for acorn-fed pigs. Squirrels are buttery and a little bit sweet because when animals eat nuts it makes their flesh sweet and nutty, and it creates an inherent fattiness in the meat.”  And just check out her new cookbook and memoir, "Girl Hunter"  She's holding a shotgun and a cast iron pan!  I've never swooned before, but I think I'm working up to it.

 This Saturday night: Squirrel Brunswick Stew