Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/801177
74 • S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S You'd be amazed at how easy it is to not get the shot of The Shot. You never want to hear your cameraman say, "Bring in the stunt deer. Ron missed." This is why my most important line in any show is oft repeated and never intended for prime- time viewing: "Ready?" If I fire before Thor gives me the go- ahead, the game is over. The real star of the show is dead and unfit to "take two." I've heard of some shows propping up dead game to shoot it again, but we haven't had to do that yet. What we've often done is missed shots entirely. Not so much because the bullet went wide. More like the bullet never left the green room. "Don't shoot!" yet another cameraman hissed, this time in Kansas. This was not what I wanted to hear, because I was watching my crosshair quiver ever so slightly over the chest of a whitetail buck that would add a line to the next Boone & Crockett book. Two-point- five pounds of index finger pressure and schoolgirl. High above us on a rolling sagebrush ridge walked 60 elk, single file, etched against the kind of red-sky morning that makes sailors take warning. That undulating elk trek remains to this day one of the most sublime, stirring images of the Idaho wilderness I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of it. Thor, however, wasn't impressed. He wasn't even filming. "Why aren't you shooting this?" I asked. "This is supposed to be a mule deer show. Those are elk." By the time I'd brow-beaten him into setting up the tripod (sigh) and mounting the heavy camera (sigh), the herd was gone. At the end of that gig, so was the videographer. We missed some stunning footage that time. What really hurts is when we lose The Shot. I sometimes get too worked up over the scenery, forgetting that it's the chase, the hunt, and The Shot most critical to capture. their big hooves, so I tried my line again. "Ready?" "No. Don't shoot!" "Why not?" "Camera's not working." This cameraman, a great guy and a veteran's veteran, knew all the tricks. "It's condensation. I've seen it before. We need to dry it out. Hair dryer works great." "Sure. I'll dig mine out of my pack. Hey Joe, tell the caribou to take five. You got any currant bushes out here?" We built a fire instead and dried the condensation right up. Melted the camera's loading gate in the process, but McGiver had a fix for that, too. "Duct tape will do the trick." "Lemme see; which pocket did I put my roll in . . ." M alfunctioning cameras aren't the only fly in this ointment. Often it's Thor himself, like that time in Idaho. "Oh my goodness!" I gushed like a Ron Spomer holds a six-point Montana whitetail taken by Joe Benson (left) of RAM Trucks. The cameraman is Ryan Trenka.