Volume 1, Number 1, Page 38
​Broadhead Bill

Broadhead Bill has been a student of the outdoors, his first love, since his childhood in High River.  His expertise in biology broadly encompasses Alberta's flora and fauna.  He is very opinionated and hard to beat in a tournament of words ... hence, 'Broadhead'.

On Firsts

This is my first article, in the first issue of BOWBENDER.

Being first is an important concept.  When one comes first in an athletic event, it isn't only coming first that is important, but also by how much.

A chronological first can create a permanent impression.  This type of first may be somewhat misleading.  A first child can be an example.  My first son was a big deal.  He had three elder sisters and so represented the only means of carrying on the family name.  It is obvious that while first in one sense, he only came in fourth overall; by some standards, an inferior position.

Firsts which create indelible impressions include: grade one teachers, sweethearts, special dates and a car.  Something arranges the cerebral protein so that it remains in locked and permanent sequence for as long as the cerebrum functions.

I was an enthusiastic hockey player.  Hockey was paramount in my life.  My adolescence was spent dreaming about becoming a member of the N.H.L.  In spite of the obsession, I do not remember my first goal.  I've taught school for thirty years.  I cannot name my first class of some twenty students.  I've planted a garden for some thirty years.  I like gardening.  I take considerable pride in producing bountiful crops, and in keeping the garden weed-free.  I cannot remember if my first garden was good, bad or indifferent from the point of production or weeds.  I suspect it was poor on both counts.  It seems that some things just don't stick.  Maybe it is that they happen so many times that the become a blur.

There is no blur when I remember my first trout.  It was a Cutthroat.  A beauty of ten inches.  The prize came from the waters of Baker Creek on the property of a farmer by the name of Ramage.  That fish was caught in the corner pool on a minnow carefully drifted to his lie.  I was eight.  (I do not know how old the fish was.)  Seems strange; there is no blur; I see it clearly.  It was more than forty years ago and I've caught more than forty Cutthroats since.

Clearly I see my first gaudy pheasant cease flight, collapse and with a thud, lose feathers in the light brown soil of the High River district.  It was about thirty-five years ago and I've taken more than one a year since.  Nevertheless that eventful moment on a water ditch near Wiley's Sable Farm is stuck.  The proteins are permanent and recall is easy.  So too do I remember my first son's first pheasant.  It was in the Sunyslope district, east of Didsbury.  The Yellow Lab had pushed the crafty old-timer 200 yards before wing against Buck Brush and raucous chortle startled hunter and dog.  The bird's 'swan-song' was followed by "Dad I got him - Whoopeee!"

Son number two made a good shot with the old single 410.  He also made a quick one.  His two companions didn't even get lined up on the rooster that marked another first.  The gracious farmer whose land we were on was Katerhagen.  The terrain was an irrigation ditch.  This was only five years ago and who wouldn't remember something done only five years ago?

It stood on a roll of land.  I'd caught it unaware.  A snowy background exposed his entire form.  It was as if he knew he'd been outwitted and that his only defense was to stand motionless, except for the thin whisp of condensing water vapor that wafted from his nostrils.  So too his cows stared, ears erect and noses glistening like coal from one of the nearby seams.  it was Horburg country, west of Rocky Mountain House, 1949.  The Elk season would close at sundown.  He was majestic there on the hillside.  He was royally adorned.  He was my first Elk.  It is easy to remember him; he's been my only Elk.

Bob Ross of Rocky Mountain House was my first fly-fishing tutor.  He showed me my first Brown Trout; one he'd caught.  I shall ever be grateful to Mr. Ross for introducing me to the art and to the fish.  My first was caught on Cow Creek, in a spill below a beaver dam.  Like my first 'Cut', he was a beauty.  I've caught many since - more than thirty-five in thirty-five years!  Some have been at least ten times that first one's weight.  All Brown Trout are special, but my first was extra special.

Bonnie was a Cocker Spaniel.  She was jet black and stood on six-inch long legs.  She'd never do for my pheasant hunting expeditions now, but she was my first bird dog.  Many a time I broke snowballs from the axils of her legs and many a time I praised her for a flush and a retrieve.  She fetched my first and only goose from the October waters of the Little Bow River, north of Cayley.  That was two score and ten years ago.  Since Bonnie's day, I've had Webster of Ridgeway, Webster's Duke, Coke and Chocolate.  It isn't difficult to remember my first bird dog - I've only had four since.

My eldest son first took up bowhunting in 1980.  I remember my attitude was one of skepticism.  Hunting Big Game: Elk and Deer, in the Canmore area with a bow!  Preposterous!  His success, a Mulie doe, another first, altered my skepticism somewhat (not much).  The following year son number two made necessary purchases and he too was making like Hiawatha.  There were three more firsts that year. One was a Whitetail and two were Mulie bucks.  The old man's skepticism waned slightly more.  The 1983 Bow Season had the boys and two companions in the Ricinus District.  The elder got lucky again.  The 1983 first was a bull Moose.  The venison doesn't rank!  Next year could provide me with yet another first.  My two bowbenders have convinced me.  I've lost my skepticism.  I may become Chief Bull Shooter (with a bow).

Anyway, my wife cannot believe I can remember all these firsts.  "After all", she accurately states, "you cannot remember birthdays or grocery lists or where you just put your keys or where you hid that crisp, large one dollar bill or where you left the hammer or where ... or where ... or ........"

As usual, my wife is right.  I have no memory for mundane things.

The content of this article is an unedited archive of the original published in Bowbender Magazine's Volume 1, Number 1 in 1984.