Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

Hunting buddies are a special brand of buddy, since hunting is not without its perils.

You carry around implements capable of killing in environments and conditions — forest, field, cold, heat — that many people consider unpleasant and/or unsafe.

Hunting buddies actively seek out such places and climates together in pursuit of game, and they count on one another to make sure they have a good time and get home safely.

I guess what really sets hunting buddies apart from other types of buddies is that you can count on them in the most trying of circumstances.

Lebanon resident Lew Sauders, 60, has known for years that he’s got two great hunting buddies in Rick Conley of Manheim and Sam Nelson of Mount Joy.

When he was diagnosed in March with cancer — follicular lymphoma — Sauders found out just how much his two buddies mean to him and how much he means to them.

“I’ll put it this way,” Sauders, director of procurement for Amerimax Home Products in Lancaster, said. “I didn’t have to go to my own funeral to hear people say some really nice things about me.”

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Sauders, Conley and Nelson have known each other for about eight years as members of the Hemlock Field Archers club in southern Lebanon County and of United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania.

They all are die-hard target archers and bowhunters who pal around on weekend 3-D shoots and in various hunting camps both near and far.

A longtime bowhunter education instructor, Sauders is well known to many local archery hunters. If you took a bowhunter education class in the Lancaster-Lebanon area in recent years, Sauders probably was one of your teachers.

Two years ago, Nelson went on a spring bear hunt with Sandy River Outfitters in Manitoba.

He enjoyed the experience so much, he wanted to go back in 2008 — this time with his buddies Conley and Sauders along. They agreed, and plans were made for a bowhunt for black bears May 18-25.
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The three buddies talked often about the hunt during the months leading up to it. Naturally, their anticipation built as May 18 drew closer.

Planning for the hunt took a back seat one day in February, however, when Sauders was shaving and noticed a lump on his neck.

Weeks of visits to hospitals and doctors’ offices for tests confirmed Sauders’ worst fear.

He has cancer. It’s in his neck and abdomen.

“To say that it took the wind out of me doesn’t adequately describe how I felt,” he said about hearing the diagnosis.

His two buddies were equally stunned.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” Conley said.

After taking a little time to digest the diagnosis, Sauders set his mind on treatment.

“I wanted to get on with it,” he said.

Doctors told Sauders he has a treatable form of cancer and started him in mid-April on the first of eight rounds of chemotherapy.

Sauders admits being intimidated the first time he went in for treatment, but when he suffered virtually no side effects, he began thinking beyond his cancer.

One of the first things he asked his doctor was if he could still go on the upcoming bear hunt with his buddies.

“They told me it was pretty much up to me,” he said. “If I felt good enough, then I could go.”

But one thing about the hunt bothered Sauders, Conley and Nelson agreed.

“He called me up and said, ‘You know, I’m going to lose my hair by the time we go hunting. If you were any kind of friend, you’d shave your head so I don’t feel out of place,’ ” Conley said.

According to Nelson, Sauders was just joking — for the most part.

“I know he was feeling funny about losing his hair,” Nelson said.

Conley and Nelson seized upon the idea and talked with Sauders about turning it into a fundraising opportunity for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Sauders’ two buddies agreed to shave their heads for charity and the trio would go to bear camp as the Bald Bear Hunters Club.

Friends and family helped spread the word and checks started rolling in.

Employees at Clipper’s Hair and Nail Salon in Elizabethtown offered to do the shaving on May 16 — the day before the hunters flew off to Manitoba.

Employees at Darrenkamp’s Elizabethtown Market hosted the shaving in the store’s parking lot and collected donations from customers and store workers alike.

One employee, Jim Mahler, even agreed to jump in and have his head shaved, too. Although the two didn’t realize it at first, it turns out Mahler and Sauders graduated together from McCaskey High School in 1966.

“Talk about a small world,” Sauders said.

By the time all heads were bare, the Bald Bear Hunters Club had $5,000 to present to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Sauders admitted he broke down when the society presented him with a giant imitation check to commemorate the fund drive.

“Who could ask for more supportive friends?” he said.

Nelson has been involved with charitable fundraisers before, but he said this one was different.

“To see how emotional Lew was when he saw that big check was very satisfying,” he said. “He knew he was being supported and the look of appreciation was genuine.

“This was a lot different than just going to some charity golf tournament.”

The guys went on their hunt. They had a great adventure, and they all shot bears that weighed around 200 pounds.

More importantly, though, they got to spend time with their hunting buddies.

That’s something Sauders said he appreciates more today than ever.

“Life in general has changed for me,” he said. “It’s just made me stop and think about things that I didn’t think about before.”

On Monday, Sauders will undergo his fourth round of chemotherapy. Doctors will check his progress after that treatment.

“I know the lump in my neck is smaller, so it seems we’re heading in the right direction,” Sauders said.

The Bald Bear Hunters Club is still receiving donations for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, according to Nelson.

Anyone who wants to contribute a check made out to the society can mail it to: Sam Nelson, 1701 Milton Grove Road, Mount Joy 17552

Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

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He had moved his head, slowly feeling somehow that he had heard something, yet not entirely sure.    In the brief moment of frozen astonishment that held the man immobile,  the lean lipped old she-devil covered half the distance.  No doubt of it whatever she had murder in her heart.  He leaped up, hurled and impassively threw up his full choke 12 guage .  In the barrel was a hull full of high base nines.  He aimed at her face and let fly and the smash of the volley , almost knocked her down.  He jacked in another, and as she turned course slightly partially blinded,  this second one struck her left shoulder and basically knocked her good and flat.

“But amazingly she got up.  Like risen from the dead”, he said “and I suddenly realized that I did not even have the time to even climb a tree or run.  She got up and charged right at me. came right on.  I had only one , only one shell to go.  That was it .  That was all ,  My only and last chance”.

” I do not know , I have not figured it out to this very day. whether I had reasoned it out or was just scared momentarily into action – or inaction.  But regardless , I waited a split second until she was almost on top of me , right almost on top of me.  Then I let her have it , whole hog, full bore.   Then I let her have it – right to the kisser , right to the head of this monster.”  “She hit the leaves sliding and when she stopped kicking her last , her snout was not than six inches from my boots.

Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

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I had been using my caller, talking to an old gobbler some 20o yards away, he told me “As you know a turkey can move with utmost silence and stealth.  I always look behind me, occasionally, when calling from now and then a sharp old bird will circle and come my way.

He had moved his head slowly, feeling somehow that I heard something, yet not entirely sure.  As his chin came even with his right shoulder. So that he could see behind, he was scared witless.  Staring at him, from perhaps 40 yards, was a tremendous old wild sow.  She had eased-in on him soundlessly.  Now she chomped her jowls with a slurping sound and without any other warning she charged.

Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

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Before dawn , as I crept to my stand in the big timber behind the levee along the Mississippi  I kept stumbling over rough places where fresh earth had been rooted up.  I knew what it meant and because I was also remembering the story related to me by the turkey hunter , I was mildly uneasy.  I did not want that kind of trouble.

It was the spring gobbler season in Mississippi .  The dawn woods was cold and damp.  I sat now with my back against the bole of a large tree , shivering listening intently as the sun began to break through.  The evening before I had put a big gobbler to bed in this area.  I was hoping to hear him fly down down from his roost and speak to his hens

Presently I heard something.  Not the sound of wings.   To noisy for a deer.  Then I saw it , as rough looking a customer, as anyone would ever care to meet.  A long snouted hog, with sizable  tusks curling out of its distended lips , was mashing its way through the undergrowth.  Its bristles were long and almost shaggy.  It was a leggy mean beast,  and I knew that it was sure to have an unpredictable temper.  I was sure whether from smallness of brain or from the knowledge of its own brute power, it feared nothing.  Sort of like a lost criminal or a most foolish person who always had to win and might have the refrain ” I don;t work for free,,,, I don’t work for free”.

The 20 gauge in my hands, seemed awfully small right then.  The hog came on , turned to screw up its tiny eyes and stare towards momentarily.  I guessed and estimated him or it at 150 lbs.  Presently it emitted  a small grunt and went on its way. coming out of cover and moving across the open woods. I was most amazed  at the stealthy quiet with which it drifted away.  And to my memory I could hear my turkey hunting friend telling his fabled story.

Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

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