Cheney shot triggers memory

News that Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally wounded a hunting companion Saturday while quail hunting in Texas strikes a chord with every hunter.

When your thumb flicks off the safety and your finger slips into the trigger guard, there can be no distractions. Squeezing that trigger has the potential to be the most important decision you will ever make.

But Cheney is a political figure, and the jokes are easy to spin – The Veep probably got misleading CIA intelligence on where his hunting partner was standing. … Harry Whittington wasn’t as good as Antonin Scalia at dodging the bullet? … Cheney would be a better role model if he’d do his road hunting from a Prius. …Cheney cited for not having a quail stamp; no license required for shooting Republicans and other varmints. …

As a hunter, I don’t see much humor in this. I’m sick instead that the first reports on the incident implicated the victim as the one who made the mistake and the president’s official Web site did not have a simple apology or signal of taking responsibility.

In Washington state, a person who accidentally shoots another person or livestock while hunting automatically loses his hunting privileges for at least three years. The people who wrote that law are aware accidents can happen, but they knew where the ultimate responsibility must land.

Hunters have been dealing with this issue long before the vice president made it a national talk show topic. However, to set myself apart from the masses of Monday morning quarterbacks responding to the Cheney incident, the rest of this piece is an excerpt of intimate insight from a column I wrote in 2003.

My hunting partners will vouch that I am routinely safe with a firearm. My father drilled it into my core.

I evolved long ago to an over-under shotgun, for instance, primarily for the ease of breaking it open anytime I’m not actively hunting, whether it’s to cross a fence or hike out to the road after bagging a limit of pheasants.

Others never have to wonder whether my shotgun is loaded because they can see for themselves that my action is always open unless I’m pursuing game.

I’ve passed up countless shots with shotguns and rifles at everything from grouse to elk. The reasons included a dog working ahead, the proximity to roads or backgrounds that weren’t 100 percent clear.

Game populations aren’t what they used to be, but I can still count on getting safe shots on another day.

Once I pull the trigger, however, I can’t call a shot back.

Once unleashed, bullets go their own way, like an under-trained bird dog in the rush of the flush.

I mention my own preoccupation with safety not to gloat but as a timely reminder to other hunters, and as a foreword to the story of a shot that was not my best.

My partner, Dan Hoke of Four Lakes, and I were hunting for quail in Lincoln County. The bird population appeared to average about one per square mile, and our feet were sore and the dogs’ tongues were hanging long from their mouths before we got the first point.

My Brittany, Radar, locked up, and several quail exploded from the brush as I approached. I dropped a pair and, as I reloaded, Radar retrieved one bird immediately. Dan came over to help find the other bird, but Radar was already busting into thick grass to find it.

Suddenly we were two hunters in a small area almost surrounded by trees or cliffs or brush. A German shorthair and a Brittany were working hard for us, busting into the snags and thorns and weeds, their nostrils flaring, their brains fumigated with the consuming scent of gamebirds, dead and alive.

Radar froze on point again just 15 feet away from me with his head to the side and his nose pointing almost straight down.

The dead bird came into view as I approached and I praised the dog. But as I reached down to pick it up, a hiding quail flushed from inches away.

Instinctively, my gun snapped up, my waist and knees straightened and my eyes were riveted on the bird as it streaked skyward like a missile to clear a wall of trees.

The 12-gauge was fired instinctively, as it is with experienced wing-shooters, the instant the butt met my shoulder even though my mind was simultaneously yelling “Whoa!”

Everything in my world froze around that moment except for a few feathers drifting to the ground.

Dan stood 10 feet ahead facing away from me, his shoulders hunched.

I did not fire directly over his head, but it was close enough to make his ears ring.

I was mortified, and apologized profusely.

More than once, I’ve lectured other hunters about the need for a cool head in the heat of a hunt.

Hoke excused me for the inexcusable.

Years later, that shot still haunts me.