Veteran of good hunting

It was one of the better shots of the day, the rooster pheasant pushing 100 feet high in the air and heading toward Oklahoma in a hurry. One shot sounded and the bird’s wings folded like a closed book.

Excited shouts from the shooter’s hunting partners filled the air before the bird even hit the ground. Irl Palmer didn’t understand the excitement. After all, he’s been hunting Kansas pheasants for about 70 years. He wishes he could have started sooner.

“When I was growing up, the main things we hunted were ducks and rabbits,” said Palmer, 91, of Hutchinson. “There weren’t any pheasants to hunt in those days. I didn’t get back to hunt pheasants until after I got back from the war. I’ve sure enjoyed them, and quail, through the years.”

Palmer was the guest of Mark Baldwin and others at a traditional opening-day hunt his family has helped host for about 50 years. Palmer was carted around the rough hunting fields via a utility vehicle. He, and usually three or four other hunters, waited at the ends of fields as others walked toward them. He’d done plenty of walking for birds through the decades.

“We used to go so often,” he said. “For years, if three or four of us went and didn’t shoot limits, we thought it was a bad day. Now I just like getting out, that’s the most important thing.”

During World War II, Palmer was with the Marines in the Pacific, and was slated for the invasion of Okinawa. But his ship was struck by a Japanese kamikaze flier, so he missed most of that action. Weeks later, he was one of the first three Americans to walk into Nagasaki after the U.S. dropped the second atomic bomb.

“I guess they sent us in to see if we were going to get shot at,” he said. “We didn’t. The people were real friendly and glad to see us.”

He returned to Kansas when his service was up, and the Model 12 shotgun some family members purchased and presented to him shortly after his return.

His job as a meat salesman, selling beef and other products to butchers and grocery stores across Kansas, gave him a lot of rural contacts and quite a few places to hunt for ducks, pheasant and quail. Palmer maintained some good leases,too, but they were largely for duck hunting.

“We didn’t have deer and turkeys when I was really getting into hunting,” he said. “Shoot, back then we didn’t even have very many geese and now they’re all over the place.”

Living during 15 presidencies, Palmer got to hunt and fish in many places. He’s quick to volunteer his favorite.

“We’ve got it so good here. There are a lot of good places where you can go and hunt and fish, but so often they have one really good thing,” he said, waiting for the team of hunters to walk his way. “But we just have so much that is really good in Kansas. My gosh, you can go hunting or fishing for something all year and it can be great. I even had some great days ice fishing when I was younger, and lots of other kinds of fishing and hunting. These pheasant hunts are about all I do anymore.”

And even that can be challenging.

As he waited for the walkers at the end of one strip, a rooster pheasant flushed nearby, heading to Palmer’s left. He stumbled a bit and didn’t take a shot. As he was regaining his balance, a small squadron of five brightly-colored roosters passed over his head. He couldn’t react in time to take a shot at them, either.

“I just can’t get around like I used to,” he said. “I guess that happens when you get to be my age.”

Several other unfortunate things have happened as he’s aged. He lost his wife, Betty, to Alzheimer’s Disease a few years ago. His 58-year-old son, Mike, died of cancer earlier this year, so hunters spread some of his ashes during the opening-day hunt.

“He’d always come out here every year for this,” Palmer said. “It meant a lot to him. We have a lot of great memories.”

Others on the hunt also have great memories of their time with Palmer. Baldwin bragged of Palmer’s shooting ability before the day’s hunt began and of the days when his father, John, and Palmer were great friends.

Rob Christensen, from near Columbus, Ohio, spent as much time that day with Palmer as he could. Christensen is in charge of bringing and returning Palmer, his grandfather, from his retirement facility in Hutchinson.

“It’s been about the only time my uncle (Mike) and my grandpa and I could get together,” he said. “I’ve been doing the hunt for 14 years and I have a lot of great memories of the time with family and friends. Grandpa was also such a huge influence on my life. I don’t know where I’d be today without out him.”

Several times that morning, Palmer commented that pheasant numbers had improved noticeably from last year and the year before. Each of the patches of Conservation Reserve Program grass hunted that morning held more than a dozen birds. Palmer was at the tip of one patch of tall grass when he made the great shot on the towering rooster. But it probably wasn’t the highlight of his trip.

“Before long we’ll head over there for lunch,” he said, nodding towards a farmstead to the west. “The guys have been over there getting together a big lunch. There will be a lot of great food there.”

An hour later he slowly walked from the table covered in food to one where he’d eat with a plate heaping with food in his hands.

“This can be as much fun as the hunting,” he said.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 4:37 PM with the headline "Veteran of good hunting."