Last December 27 I lost my best outdoors friend.
Two day after Christmas, my father Chester Moore, Sr. passed away while on a hunting trip with me in the deep cactus thickets of South Texas.
After taking the second biggest buck of his life, he went on to be with the Lord.
Before this hunting season, I wrote that it would be a lot different for me in the field this year and it has. And despite missing Dad, I have had some good times thanks to my friends Josh Slone and Lou Marullo and my cousin Frank Moore.
We have been able to hunt together and make memories that will last a lifetime.
No, they will not replace Dad but the fact is life must go on and the worst thing I could do for him would be to leave the outdoors lifestyle that served as the backdrop of our relationship.
This Christmas I want to challenge you to be someone’s outdoors friend.
Everyone who lives to fish, hunt, camp or photograph wildlife needs a partner. Solitude in the field can be a beautiful thing and there is always a place for that but there is no replacement for people to share laughs, wildlife encounters and fish fillets.
I’ll never forget the time me and my cousin Frank got my truck stuck deep in the mud of a Type 2 Wildlife Management Area during my freshman year in college.
Frank was 15 and as I was backing up to leave, I asked him (who was in the back of the truck) if the ground behind was hard.
“Hardest ground I ever seen,” he replied.
We got out of it some two hours later.
Equally memorable was me, Dad and my friend Lewis Hogan hog hunting in South Texas a few years later.
We told Lewis every scary hog story we could think of and had him so scared he didn’t know which way to look. There is actually a good part of my book “Hog Wild’ dedicated to his misadventures with me in pursuit of wild swine.
Last weekend I hunted with Josh Slone and Lou Marullo. Marullo is from New York and I have hunted and fished with him around the Great Lakes numerous times. Slone is from Deweyville.
Let us just say they are cut from different cloths.
Marullo is a real joker and loves to pick on people he likes and threw some jabs at Slone and me over our southern accents.
While walking out of the woods last Saturday night, Marullo says, “You guys want to go grab something to eat in a bit?”
Slone quickly replies, “The proper terminology is ‘yall’. ‘You guys’ doesn’t cut it down here.”
I almost fell down laughing and so did everyone else.
It was a wonderful feeling and one I did not know if I would feel this season. I did because of the incredible gift of outdoors friends.
If someone you do not does not have someone to fish with-fish with them. If the guy at work who used to run a deer camp is getting a little older and has maybe given up on the pursuit, invite him to your camp.
Become and outdoors friend one to someone else.
Every outdoorsmen needs someone to help them put up deer blinds, clean a mess of speckled trout caught on Sabine Lake and cook a pot of gumbo at the duck camp.
That is what makes good times. Outdoors friends are a tremendous gift and this year consider giving yourself.
You might just salvage someone lonely hunting season or bring back an old excitement for fishing.
Friends can make all the difference in the world this Christmas and going into the New Year.
Merry Christmas to all of my outdoors friends!
(To contact Chester Moore, e-mail him at chester@kingdomzoo.com. You can hear him on “Moore Outdoors” Fridays from 6-7 p.m. on Newstalk AM 560 KLVI.)