Greta Samwel: LOCAL COLUMN: The bouji hunters

Dec. 2—Phillip Stewart and I have been friends for over 30 years. Until his recent retirement, Phillip was the legendary manager of the legendary Bob Moore Farms of South Norman.

Bob Moore Farm was founded in 1963 in Wichita, Kansas. It moved to Norman in 1970 and still operates today. It is Oklahoma's premiere horse breeding farm. They are an American Quarter Horse Association Legacy Breeder of racing quarter horses.

I was the farm's veterinarian for 20 some odd years. It was a great gig. The farm under Phillip's watch bred, raised and/or owned champions like DASHING PERFECTION (SW $554,000) and RARE FORM (SW $265,000) among many others.

The funnest years were the years when Mr. Moore was alive. He would stop by the barn most mornings at 7 a.m. during breeding season — Phillip always had a hot pot of coffee brewing.

He would hang out with us while we palpated mares. We would talk horses. He was a famous breeder of not only racing quarter horses but polo ponies as well.

I figured it was his 10 minutes of sanity before heading off into world of high finance and business. He was one of Oklahoma's most successful entrepreneurs. I don't know how many car dealerships and other businesses he owned.

Phillip was his glue.

A couple weeks ago, I wound up with an unexpected weekend off and a wild hair to go elk hunting. My cousin Ed recently gave me our grandfather's Winchester lever action 32-40 rifle made circa 1910.

It used to ride in grandpa's scabbard hanging off his saddle as he cowboyed in western Oklahoma before the Dust Bowl and the Depression brought that to an end.

Ed inherited the rifle after my grandma passed. He wanted me to have it with the hopes it will be passed down the generations. He has no heirs. I have six grandkids, to date.

I'm not much of a deer hunter, don't like the meat, but I love elk. I thought it might be cool to hunt elk with this old rifle.

So I gave Phil, now with time on his hands, a call. I had an idea and we have done fun spontaneous "Cowboy stuff" together in the past.

After talking on Wednesday we blew out of Norman on Thursday morning heading towards southern Colorado.

Now, we are not the kind of hunters that are going to get up before dawn and sit in the dark at 10 degrees freezing for two hours for the off chance we might see an elk.

We're the bouji hunters that are gonna wake up at dawn, start a fire with pinion wood, bring the coffee pot to a boil, grill the steak and eggs, then kick back while the frost burns off. We're going to warmly enjoy the mountain morning.

The weather forecast for southern Colorado looked good for that weekend, highs in the 40s. We thought we might as well throw in some fly rods so in the middle of the day we could wet a line if opportunity presented itself. It did!

When the frost burned off we climbed into the river and threw #14 bead head pheasant tail nymphs at brown trout. When our stomachs started panging reminding us it was lunch time, we climbed out of the river and headed to higher ground.

We looked for a nice sunny spot where a couple of elk trails came together. A place where we could make our bouji lunch, drink cowboy coffee, and breath clean mountain air.

One spring a few years back we were into turkey hunting. It is really fun and exciting to call a tom turkey up.

South of Norman along the Canadian River there are lots of turkeys. Phil and I found a spot with a large cottonwood tree that had fell. It was next to an open meadow. A perfect spot to hide as we practiced our turkey calling.

I had a scratch box. Phil had turkey call mouth pieces. He was very good at it. I was not.

It didn't take long before a turkey replied to Phillip's gobble. He was across the meadow about a quarter mile away.

It was the funniest thing. Phil would gobble and this young Jake gobbled back and began sprinting towards us across the field at lightning speed.

It was as if a teenage boy had just heard Taylor Swift for the first time and might have a chance to see her in person.

That Jake was 15 yards from us on the other side of the log in no time. Phil looked at me and whispered "shoot him."

I whispered back, "no you shoot him. You called him up."

He whispered, "I'm not sure I feel like dealing with a dead turkey before work." I said, "me neither!"

I went on to say, "on the count of three let's jump up and say boo! It will be that turkey's lucky day."

We jumped up and said "boo!" You should have seen the look on that turkey's face. He thought he had seen a ghost. He flew off like he had been shot out of a canon.

My altimeter said 11,798 ft. The trees were thinning out. There was some snow on the ground. We had hiked a bit on opening day of the third gun season. Our old unfit lungs said it was far enough. I wish we would have brought horses, but they weren't fit either so no point.

We found the Highway 9 and I-35 intersection of elk trails. There were all kinds of tracks in the snow and some fresh droppings.

More importantly there was a nearby sunny spot behind a tree with dry grass, a good view and potential for a nap.

We saw some cow elk but no bulls that weekend. With that old Winchester being about a 100-yard rifle we needed to be close. I liked the idea of using it for two reasons. It seemed more sporting, kinda like bow hunting with a rifle. It would also be more humane because at that range I can even make that shot clean.

As another example of our extreme boujiness — when we started our hike we buried two beers in the snow by the truck so when we returned we would be rewarded. We had to fight dehydration — right?

We had a great weekend, no bulls taken but some fun, food and rest. We packed up on Monday and blew out of Colorado as fast as we had headed up. Back to the real world.

Cheers!