Hunting, Without Limits

For some years, Marylanders Mark Hoke and Tracy Groves have organized hunting outings for veterans coming back from the war with disabilities. They go to a lot of trouble arranging food to eat, fields to hunt and amateur guides to help. In the end the show goes on, but often few of the principals show, sometimes none at all.

So it was last week, as 20 or so well-meaning folks turned out to host a half-dozen recovering soldiers from Walter Reed Army Medical Center at a dove shoot at Cody Kittleman's farm in Howard County, complete with steamed crabs, corn on the cob and barbecued beef. The Paralyzed Veterans of America planned to send six young men from the hospital for the day, but in the end the guests opted not to come.

"It happens a lot," said Hoke, a stone mason from Laurel. "You have to understand, these guys are still working things out. We try to make it easy for them, but if they decide at the last minute they're not ready, nobody's going to push them to do something they don't feel comfortable with."

It's a pity, because it was a beautiful day to be out, and mixed into the crowd were a trio of extraordinary role models for anyone facing the challenge of life in a chair. "I've been in one for over 50 years," said Paul McDowell of Bowie, who's fit, busy and content as he nears 70. "I have no complaints."

McDowell spent three weeks this past spring on a hunt in Africa sponsored by the Safari Club of America. He has photos of his exploits there, where he successfully hunted kudu, springbok, blue wildebeest and several other big-game species. Last fall, he and fellow wheelchair hunter Bob Tharpe of Laurel drove out west and bagged antelope and mule deer, as they had several times before.

Tharpe, 61, is a retired artist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. McDowell works as an accountant at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both avidly hunt wild turkeys and whitetail deer locally when they aren't charging around to exotic destinations.

Last year, McDowell said he tagged wild turkeys in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. How? He and Tharpe, along with Bobby Jones of Annapolis, who also came to last week's dove hunt, share a couple of all-terrain vehicles they can tow behind a truck. They're adept at launching the buggies and piloting them around rough terrain.

McDowell said that when he hears a wild turkey gobble in the woods, he has a blind he can erect quickly to hide in, then call the bird in. He told a rollicking story about using high-powered, 3 1/2 -inch shotguns shells for the first time. The recoil knocked his chair over backwards and toppled the blind, leaving him on the ground while the turkey scampered away.

Everyone who hunts turkeys, able-bodied or not, has humbling stories like that, and McDowell's yarn earned a round of appreciative laughter from the assembled gunners at Kittleman's.

McDowell, Tharpe and Jones all lost use of their legs in vehicle accidents when they were young. McDowell was only 14. Growing up on a dairy farm in northern Pennsylvania, he was already versed in hunting and fishing, but switched to competitive wheelchair sports to stay fit. For years he played and coached basketball and track. He competed in the pentathlon, entering several national meets and championships.

That kept him busy into his 40s, when he got a call from an old friend who was about to sell his family farm. "He said, 'Come on over and hunt, it's the last chance,' " said McDowell. The experience reignited his interest and it's been full-on ever since.

Hoke sent me out with McDowell for the afternoon. My main job was to help the dog find any birds that were downed, but it was fairly slow going as doves were not abundant, the sunflower crop having petered out in the drought. No matter, it gave us plenty of time to talk.

As we sat in a clump of weeds and scanned the sky for doves, I asked what advice he might have given to the younger guys from Walter Reed, had they shown up.

"Stay away from the booze and the pills," McDowell said. "It's not easy to do because they make you feel better for a little while, but in the end, they just make things worse.

"Get active in some kind of sport. If you have the desire, there's always something out there. It wasn't always true, but today there's a terrific support system for whatever you're interested in -- hunting, fishing, basketball, track, weightlifting. Whatever you like."

McDowell and I peppered the sky with No. 8 shot for a couple of hours and managed to bag a few birds before Kittleman called a halt to the proceedings at 5 p.m. He came around with a trailer, offering to run McDowell back to the house, but the rising septuagenarian opted to wheel himself back over a rocky rubble driveway. "He's like that," said Hoke. "He likes to do things for himself."

Back at the farmhouse, Tharpe expressed his disappointment that the paralyzed veterans didn't show but said he understood. "You're different," he said. "You can't do what you did yesterday. People look at you. You don't want to go out. I was lucky, my family wouldn't let me stay in."

Not everyone is so lucky, and not everyone is ready to take advice, even when it's good advice.

"It's one thing for somebody to tell you, 'You can do this,' " said McDowell. "You look at them and say, 'Yeah, sure, you're not in this chair.' "But if I tell them, and show them, it puts a different spin on it."

Which is why it's a shame the guys from Walter Reed didn't make it out to Kittleman's place on Wednesday.

Notes: As the weather cools, fishing heats up. George Malusky reports that before Hurricane Hanna muddied the Potomac, the stretch below Seneca Breaks was hopping as smallmouth bass rose to catch bugs and flies. The white miller hatch was on, he said, which is always exciting.

Also, mixed schools of blues and rockfish are rising to the surface to slash bait on the Chesapeake. Hot spots are along the Kent Island shore below the Bay Bridge and in Eastern Bay.

Anglers should mark Saturday on the calendar: Bass Pro Shops in Hanover presents a series of seminars on fly-fishing and saltwater fishing from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Topics include fall fishing for trout, trolling for stripers, fly-fishing the Chesapeake and live-lining for stripers.