Hunting Down Cancer

by Pro-Staffer Troy Bailey

Three years ago I was approached by my good friend, Doug Steinke, about an idea he had.  That idea was what we now know as Hunting Down Cancer.  HDC is a program designed to generate funds to be used for cancer patients and it has been very successfull, donating funds to the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Reel Recover.  My initial experiences with HDC consisted in taking part in guiding three donated hunts, one with Doug and then two with fellow Z-Unit member Sean Evans.  In each experience, the people and the hunting were great and the cause that brought us together even greater.  

The "cause" became even more special when it affected someone close to me.  I had lost three grandparents to cancer and knew a number of other people who had lost their lives to cancer but I hadn't known anyone that had been stricken with cancer that was close to my own age untill one afternoon I got a phone call from Matt Gideon.  Matt and I met through contest goose calling and have become good friends through calling, retrievers and hunting.  We usually talk several times a week by phone.  I can remember one day that there was something different in his voice...................then he told me that his wife Heather had cancer.  Heather is a great lady in her 30's, mother of four beautiful children, this shouldn't happen to someone so young.  The Gideon family has gone through alot as Heather has fought cancer and continues to today.  They are special people who I am very proud to call my friends.  

Matt and I started talking about buying an HDC in the summer of 2008.  We had a couple in mind but we kept coming back to on in particular, Tyson Keller's South Dakota hunt.  Both of us had long heard of the numbers of birds in the Pierre, SD area but neither of us had ever been there.  We were lucky enough to be the winning bidders and the planning began.  We filled out our foursome with Chris Jobman and Trevor Johnson, many phone calls and text messages went back and forth as we planned and anticipated the arrival of the day we would leave.  We were ready, more than ready.  Tyson had been keeping me updated with goose numbers, flight patterns, hunting reports and all it had done was build up our anticipation.  

Trevor and I met at Matts house and took off from there.  Chris lives several hours west of us and made the trip along with his dog O'Malley.  Alot of stories and laughs were traded along the road and then we hit the South Dakota border and were just amazed by the amount of wildlife that we saw.  Mule deer, whitetails, grouse and the pheasants, holy smokes there were pheasants everywhere.  Then as we started approaching Pierre we started seeing the goose flights, the closer we got the more there were.  Once we arrived and hooked up with Chris and Tyson we went scouting.  All of us were impressed by the sheer number of birds in the fields feeding and the knowledge that Tyson had about the area, geese, habits, etc.  The guy knows his area and his geese.  

Saturday morning hit and we were off for a winter wheat field.  Little cover was available but a strip of snow pack down a low portion of the field.  After some digging and hauling in more snow we were hid and our spread was placed.  While Tyson and I parked the trucks the other three started banging away on birds.  Tyson and I hustled back and less than an hour later we had our five man limit of fifteen canada geese.   After some pictures, some scouting and a great dinner we settled in for the night.  

Sunday morning was an entirely different situation, we were in corn.  We had a much easier hide and quickly made the blinds disappear.  Our spread was set, vehicles hid and we went to work and work it was.  These were tough geese, pressured geese, geese being geese.  The day before was an hour long shoot, this day would be several hours to finish our six man limit.   Tyson called it his toughest hunt of the year but none of us were complaining.  We had enjoyed ourselves so much on the trip we were wishing it would continue.  We picked up, took pictures, said our good byes and hit the road for home.  Odd how the trip always seems twice as long coming home as it does going up.  

Having been involved in HDC on both the donating and buying side of things is something I'm very proud of.   Cancer is something that has touched each of us at some point in our life.   Being able to make a difference in someones life is something very special, being able to do that while spending time with good friends doing something you love to do is also very special.   This was a trip that the four of us won't soon forget.