Cubed Bison loin in homemade chili and an ice cold Weizen beer..........everyone is invited over......................JJ

... a hot cup of coffee and a handful of GORP at 8,000 ft. while sitting on a bull elk that needs quartering...

Every post-hunt conversation with drinks over a fire and a good steak......can't forget the cigar. Then, when you think it can't get better, you get up really early before day break to do it all over again.......damn, somebody wake me up.

Sitting with your father/son/mother/daughter nearby, on the edge of a clearing as the sun comes up and the fog lifts, a tag in your pocket and a shell in the chamber.

Toss up between,

Sitting around the fire in the evening, in Africa, with an ice cold Zambezi in hand!

Chicken fried elk steak on the wood stove,and a shot of Glen Livit, in my wall tent, after a long day in the mountains.

I have had so many good hunt memories but Africa always dominates....

Sunset over the Limpopo Valley after a day of bow hunting with a large cold gin and tonic in hand and knowing BBQ'ed warthog spare ribs are waiting back at the lodge.

Picking up my 1st pheasant and walking back to show it to my Dad....my 1st "big game".

Getting an envelope from the G&F department with that bighorn sheep license inside. I'm still waiting for that day!!

MG

After taking my first buck at age 13, sitting around the campfire with my dad and my uncle talking and enjoying my first beer for I had become a man. That was and is heaven.

Having stared this post a bazillion times, I realize how blessed I am.

A campfire in the Selous, Vodka Tonic in hand, the sounds of the night, buff in the salt, talking about doing it again the next day.

Steelhead on a fly, stripping line, heading for the Pacific.

A bugling elk, armed with a bow, snow flakes in the air.

Hunkered in the tules with Cody, Mallards checking the spread.

Enjoying a campfire with my wife of 40 years, our children and grandchildren.

quote:

Getting an envelope from the G&F department with that bighorn sheep license inside. I'm still waiting for that day!!

MG

Any day! Any day!

Walking up with your 14 year old grandson to his first Elk after a perfect one shot kill, and then having his brute strength for the job after the kill. First day, first hour, two cows on the ground, with the rest of the season to Bull hunt for grandpa and the future hunter of the family, and hopefully with five more to follow in his footsteps. Good shooting.

Dropping your pack at camp after the last load of meat from a huge bull moose is packed out.

Five gentlemen, all over 50, with the libation of their choice, going "Oooh" and "Ahh" while watching the northern lights (Aurora Borealis) in northern Quebec.
Nice to be a kid again.

Getting a phone call from a terminally ill kid to whom you donated a airplane ticket for his hunt of a lifetime.

AnotherAZWriter

Yup, that would be awesome - good on ya for doing it.

Second best would have to be getting out into the bush, sitting around a campfire at day break with a cup of coffee and just contemplating it all.

Around the campfire at night cooking good food over the coals drinking beer after good hunting through the day.

quote:

Originally posted by MARK H. YOUNG:
Dropping your pack at camp after the last load of meat from a huge bull moose is packed out.

Getting to heaven by going through hell?

Aside from the joys my children bring me...

Having gone to Africa mutiple times and really wanting to share it with someone... Then finally getting 1115 to go with me and hearing him book a return trip with the PH while we were loading his first buffalo on the vehicle.

4 ibuprofen and a double whiskey after finishing a 1,500 ft. vertical packout on a 6 pt. bull elk..... JMO, Dutch.

Finding Dads 8pt Buck after looking in the weeds over my head for 4hrs only to find it 20ft from where he said it went down looking at me.

It didn't get away.

Easy, Any hunting time spent w/ my 82 year old father.

He started me in this when I was 3, it's only fair that I pay him back!

All of the above and I'll add being in the field as dawn breaks on opening day (pick the season). At that moment all things are possible.

Jeff

quote:

being in the field as dawn breaks on opening day (pick the season). At that moment all things are possible.

Jeff

Jeff, you have "soul"... I agree.

Awakening to the sounds of "Good morning I have your coffee and toast" on a cold morning in the Limpopo valley.Seeing the hunters I hated munching toast under the dinning tent wondering why I never eat or drank coffee in the morning with them.Not knowing that they just had to ask for it to be sent up to the tent by the boy.

Awaking every morning, where ever it be and to look forward to another day on God's beautiful earth.

This morning, sitting in the woods, waiting for turkey to come in with my son. Didnt get one, but heavan anyway.

Sitting in awe at the top of the mountain and just admiring the view/then dropping the fully loaded pack with sheep after walking 20 miles!

Sitting on a knob in the middle of September watching for bull moose and admiring the reds, oranges, yellows, and greens all around. Then dropping the last pack of meat from your 70" bull- it was only a 2 1/2 mile pack!

Being with your 12 year old daughter/sitting in a bear stand and having a nice cinnamon bear come in, walk up to our stand and stand up 5' away! And of course she doesn't shoot! Then watching her patiently pull the trigger after the bear settled into the bait. AWESOME!

being in nature so beautiful your heart aches and your eyes well up

snowball fights with friends

waterfights with friends

good cigar good whisky and conversation with confidants

seeing what is over the next ridge

being there for a friend

sunrises and sunsets

a clean conscience

a good shot ( bow or rifle )

working with my hands creating my own visions

dancing well with a sexy woman

playing with children

a good laugh

having no regrets

kindness from strangers

life filled with adventure

cooking for my friends

i am sure i am leavig lots out...i'll be back

Absolutely all of the above and killing elk or a deer in my neck of the woods and not having a bunch of woodticks try to use you as a new host.
They are worse than hooking yourself in the back with a Rapala while fishing alone.

Your daughter on the cover of Playboy,
Your son on the Wheaties box
The phone call telling you you have been drawn for that all-expense paid hunting trip of a lifetime.
The taxidermist's letter saying 'this one's on him'
and your ex-wife's picture on the milk carton with her lawyer!!

Elk camp.....need I say more??

Hello the capmfire:
This thread is getting a little long, but I want my two cents in.
Heaven is all of the above, and holding our grandchild when he is 10 min. old and thinking of all of the good times you have had with his father, and the bad times you got through. Heaven is that first kiss early in the morning and the last late at night. Or standing beside your mother's grave and knowing she is in a much better place now, without pain, but with quail seasons that don't end and and red setters that do't break point and a paint horse, being so sad but relieved.
Or fixing you only love crab cakes to eat by candle light, and realizing that she has dabbed a little Hoppe's Number 9 behind each ear knowing what it does for you.
Judge Sharpe

After a long hard day of elk hunting in two foot of snow, when you are dead tired and so hungry, you heat up a can of baked beans and for some unknown reason that cheap can of beans smells like the finest chow on earth and tastes just as good. Never understood it.

a reset button on the back of my wife so when i say something stupid all i have to do is press the reset button and it will erase the last two min. e.g. yeah i went to the strip club, so what!...oops (press) naw, i was out looking for your aniversary gift pamela...er i mean susan dang! (press)

either that or pamela anderson as your wife with no short term memmory

Hands down, without a doubt, for me, heaven is:

Seeing my son (8 months) smile at me and get excited that daddy's home after a long day at the office.

Other highlights:

Roasted pheasant with chestnut puree and vegetables at the hotel zum Ritter, Heidelburg, Germany.

Dinner with my wife at The French Laundry, Yountville, Ca.

Oysters a la Rockefeller at Antoine's, New Orleans, LA.

Commander's Palace's Bread Pudding, New Orleans, LA.

Oysters then drinks and cigars with friends at The Oak Room, NYC.

Sushi at the Tajiki (spelling?) Fish Market, Tokyo, Japan at five in the morning.

Tom kha kai, chicken panang and mango with sweet rice on the beach of Krabi, Thailand.

An authentic Tuscan meal with a bottle Sassacia in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy with Opera singers in the background.

Sharing a cold beer with your dad.

Sitting next to Dad, Fixing the worlds problems, while sitting in the Duck Blind on a cold drizzling October morning, with a hot cup from the thermos, also the saddest knowing that this will be his last hunt.......

Well, after hunting many large things that bite scratch, and stomp,in many countries,over a fairly long life, and catching the biggest Black bass I've ever seen, and completeing my last hunt in Alaska's widerness, 100 miles from the nearest road, while cooking a caribou steak,and thinking back over my life, the thing that brought me the greatest peace, was watching a tiny weazel take some of the raw meat from my hand while I cooked, and him somehow knowing I wouldn't even think of hurting him! If I die tomorrow, I've missed nothing!

A red hot barrel and an ice cold can

Seeing your child make his/her first big game kill.