The Sporting Life
Renaissance Man Tom Bobo has found his patch of paradise By Tom Bryant “The cowboys had lived for months under the great bowl of the sky, and yet the Montana skies seemed deeper than the skies of Texas or Nebraska. Their depth and blueness robbed even the sun of its harsh force, it seemed smaller in the vastness and the whole sky no longer turned white at noon as it had in the lower plains. Always somewhere to the north, there was a swath of blueness, with white clouds floating like petals in a pond.” From Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
Y
ep, I think I enjoy bird hunting out west more than anyplace else. It’s something about the vastness. Arizona, for example, dry, very dry. And Oklahoma, people don’t think about Oklahoma that much when it comes to bird hunting, but birds are numerous there. And Oregon, another good state. But the best I think is Montana, big sky country. We were sitting in Tom Bobo’s south side sunroom, and Tom was answering questions about his numerous bird hunts out west. Tom and I go way back, at least thirty years. We’ve hunted and fished all over the country together, losing touch a bit when my wife Linda and I retired to Southern Pines. Tom sat comfortably behind his desk, every now and then raising binoculars to his eyes to look at the far side of the lake that anchored the back of the house. Tom and his lovely bride, Judith, built their energy selfsustaining home in the mid-eighties. Nestled in the middle of twenty acres in Alamance County, the three-story log home has been written about in several magazines because of its energy efficiency. It’s a beautiful setting, just what you would think an outdoorsman like Tom Bobo would build. Bobo stands about six feet, a lanky fellow with a mane of cotton white hair and a mustache to match. He looks as if he just stepped out of McMurtry’s novel Lonesome Dove. A dozen or so Canada geese swam effortlessly at the head of the lake honking friendly welcomes to others as they came over the pines, wings locked, feet down to settle in for the morning. “Reminds me of the Eastern Shore. Remember our hunts up there on Plimhemmin Plantation with Bill Meyers?” he asked me. “I sure do, great times. Have you been up there lately?” “Nope, I prefer to remember it as it was. I hear they’ve cut the farm up into condominium tracts. And the Tidewater doesn’t even allow dogs anymore.” Tom and I had hunted Canada geese at the same Maryland plantation for at least ten years or more running, giving it up when the Canadas changed their migration habits. The venerable old Tidewater Inn in Easton was where we stayed, and it catered to water fowlers and their dogs from all over the world. “How you doing since you sold the business and retired?” I asked him. “It was time,” he replied. “Every old business needs some new blood.
32 O.Henry
August/September 2011
They were doing stuff with computers and electronics that I didn’t understand, a whole lot that they had never done before, and it seemed to me, a lot that they didn’t need to do now. They’re a smart group, and I’m sure the business will do well.” Tom had just recently sold the Burlington textile mill that he and his father had owned for years; and as much as he put off his knowledge of modern electronics, I knew that the plant had a reputation for its production quality and for using some of the most up-to-date equipment in the industry. “Talk about unnecessary modern gear, let me tell you about a bird hunt I was on last year out in Montana.” Tom picked up his binoculars again and looked to the far side of the pond’s dam. “What do you keep looking for over there?” I asked. I could see nothing but geese moving from one part of the pond to the other. “Otters,” he replied. “There were four to start with, and three have moved on. The one remaining I call Pete. He’ll show up in a few minutes. He put the binoculars down and resumed his story. “We were hunting Hungarian partridges. A guide, another hunter and me. The guide had just acquired a GPS for the dog. You know, one of those things you can put on the collar of a bird dog and it will keep you posted as to where the dog is located. The other fellow had his own GPS, and he and the guide were trying to synchronize the units so they would be on the same page. They were huddled together talking to one another. “They would point over the hill. I was standing right behind them holding a 125-year-old English black-powder, hammer shotgun watching them and their state of the art equipment. The dog they were searching so hard for with those machines was, in fact, standing twenty yards behind us doing his business on a bush. Some things just don’t belong on a hunt.” We both laughed long and hard. “How was your latest expedition, the one out to Uruguay?” I asked, remembering that he and a couple of friends had been down there for a week or two. “Well, the shooting was good and the weather was wonderful. They’re heading into winter, so it’s kind of like our November. We were hunting The Art & Soul of Greensboro