I want to continue by Andrew Kashkarova conversation on the topic — “Where to hide hunting” (“HORN”, № 24, 2016) and to share their experience of building a hunting shelter.
In the same year (20-25 years ago) autumn hunting for waterfowl was opened in the middle Urals in the second week of August, Saturday, with the morning dawn.
On one of the sandy-rocky hills towering above the peat, we were going for the night ten people. Before dark, drizzling rain that lasted all night. For fires it special interference is not created, gaining heat, they evaporated the moisture without signs of fading, only hissed and crackled. Still, our position was not pleasant, by the time dawn on me was comparable to a wet hen.
Around three days I was again in a familiar roller coaster. Found her deserted, but five o’clock came three guys. They quickly pitched a tent — in time: after a long day pause, the rain resumed with renewed vigor. At this point I have been jealous of the newcomers and critically reflected on them and their situation. Tent today — it’s great. But generally speaking, this whole tent-campfire romance our climate and with our Ural weather on one or two of hunting, nothing more.
And the rain poured incessantly, and I, like last night, never slept a wink. Thus, for the first time in my life without sleep two days in a row, and it’s not in a metaphorical sense (“Three days to walk three days did not sleep”), but literally. Then arose the idea to build their own hunting home.
From the beginning, this shelter seemed to me small, and so I ahead of time called it “the shell” (by analogy with the name of a known type of microarray). Summer while on vacation I climbed all remote places (my shelter should not be a thoroughfare). A suitable place was found and immediately began to harvest building material — pine dead wood no thicker than 8-10 cm in diameter. The layout and everything cooked at home: dimensions — 230 cm in length and 120 cm width with the height at the ridge 160 cm; the walls are not solid, but selectie (from pole to pole pass to the thickness of the pole); the outside of the wall cladding roofing material, and the inside — padding corrugated cardboard packaging; the roof — of the same in the spacing of poles under plastic wrap and roofing material;
heating — stove of ordinary tin bucket with removable (with care) pipe.
Spent on the construction almost did not have (bought only nails). Everything you need — the scraps of tar paper, cardboard, a bucket, and even the film was picked up from the dumpsters. The use of this secondary raw material was for me a special kind of Amateur interest.
“Shell” added to the completeness, wholeness and joy to my hunting in these places. It ruled out the cases where hunting may indeed seem, as they say, forest captivity. In this connection I remember another one, this time pozdneosennee standing at dawn on a cold gusty wind with the rain. I was one among the peat bogs, bottomless as it seemed, bochagov with water and marshes. As the thickening twilight of the nerve the threshold was decreased, there was a feeling of fear, abandonment, anguish. Barely stood the dawn, the usual exhaust passages and manholes, lighting the way with a flashlight, I crept to his shelter. Quickly got inside, closed the door on the hook, lit a piece of candle, melted the stove. Together with the isolation from the elements, warmth and comfort came calm and even normal perception of what is happening.
My regular mining on hunting in the vicinity of the “shells” almost entirely consisted of representatives of waterfowl (mostly Teal, at least — mallards). But still remember one unusual and also late autumn hunting where the trophies — ducks (Pintail, two tufted ducks and a pair of Teal) I was able to add hare and black grouse.
In subsequent years, in my shelter someone once stopped, probably for the night. Judge it by the disappearance of the small stock I have procured fuel and not rinsed after use duralumin the kettle (on the bottom of it was white mold welding).
Unfortunately, I now can talk about his hunting in those places and operation of the “shells” (the “Paradise in a tent”) have only in the past tense. Arriving there one day after a long break, I found a noticeable change in the substantive setting and the surrounding landscape. In the field of view was not the usual skird some peat, and leaf working of narrow-gauge rails gone — so the peat extraction here ceased. On the former peatlands located garden plots — the place is already developed with buildings and fences, and in some places only scheduled. I walked in the trodden path and wondered: “When they (the sites) will end?” Here’s the latest twist, a few hundred meters away my shelter. He looked to the side and saw digging in ground woman and next to her a teenage boy. Come and ask did not. What?..
Back having made a forced March, managed to catch the last train. Sat in an empty car and sipped from a flask of Cabernet, but the wine is not uplifting.
