The trail has disappeared and an evening chill sets in as the sun’s warmth tucks behind a cluster of dusky clouds.
Your stomach groans with hunger, but there is no viable food for miles.
For Richard Strange, UT professor in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, this dilemma is just one of the many risks possible for any outdoorsman.
To catch a satiating roast duck dinner, Strange said a savvy survivalist needs only the following: a gallon tub of Vaseline, leather belt, a few pumpkins and knowledge of Native American hunting strategies.
Inspired by a 20-year-old magazine clip, Strange said the article’s great detail on how to trap unsuspecting waterfowl led him to regale his conservation class with his now-famous survival story.
“I’d read these (magazines) like Outdoor and Life, and they had done some research on how Native Americans hunted and fished before they had firearms,” Strange said. “One of the techniques was putting the pumpkins on the water and covering themselves with bear grease.”
Although he hooks students on the assumption his tale is a personal experience, Strange said the story is meant to demonstrate the risks inherent in outdoor activities and spark a fun environment in his class.
“You gotta take off all your clothes except your belt. Put your belt around your waist, so you’re naked except for your belt and then you take your Vaseline, and you slather it all over your body,” Strange said.
The Vaseline acts as a wetsuit, he said, and the pumpkin head covering prevents other ducks from recognizing the hunter slipping through the creek to approach the targeted meal.
“(The other ducks) think, ‘Boy, Joe dove deep for that snail, butt first!’” Strange said. “They never notice Joe never comes back up, because you’ve got Joe tucked into your belt.”
Sarah Sommerfield, a senior in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences, said Strange uses this “shock value” while in the classroom and in conversation with students.
“He was lecturing in the middle of class and just walks over to this lady and plants a big kiss on her, and all of the students were like, ‘What the heck is this guy doing?’” Sommerfield recalls. “And he doesn’t tell anyone until the end of class that it was actually his wife sitting there.”
Although Strange reluctantly gave up teaching the conservation course to focus on research and his other classes, Strange said he attributes a fascination with nature to days spent fishing near a family-owned cabin in New Mexico’s mountains.
Childhood memories of trips into a lake, being chased by a bear into an outhouse and, above all, fishing keep him coming back to the study of the creatures he likens to extra-terrestrials.
“If you think about a deer or maybe your pet dog, really those animals are basically like us,” Strange said. “But a fish (is) cold-blooded, it has a different metabolism and it gets oxygen from water, not air. It’s like going to Mars for a human.”
For Sommerfield, her instructor’s knowledge contributes not only to her education of fish life cycles and habitats, but also to her awareness of the crucial issues facing aquatic life today.
“There’s a whole big need in fisheries for a better understanding, and Dr. Strange goes into that with pollution and the problems we have in water and reservoirs,” Sommerfield said. “He is just very knowledgeable and you can ask him anything and he just knows it. He doesn’t have to look at book. It’s all up there.”
