It was a very long time ago when Utah decided to create a muzzeload rifle deer hunt, we were restricted to certain areas within the state to “play” and on this one particular season it was on the Wellsville Wilderness area, quite close to where I live.

The Wellsville Range is beautiful and very much unexplored.  It is steep, very steep and it appears from a distance to not have much cover, i.e. trees and such, but I dare someone to venture up there and try to reach the top and have the same attitude once they have reached the summit as when they were at the bottom looking up, about the brush and stuff they have to hike through to get to the summit.  All dares are welcome.

So, here Wapiti Dung, Tracker, No Grimace and I were hunting deer.  A beautiful Fall time with no bad weather in the forecast and nothing but fun ahead of us.

At this time No Grimace did not have his name, we called him “Rick”…well, because that was/is his name.  You have read, or should explore on this site how No Grimace got his name and the rest will be history.  This story is not about that, but about something very special that happened on this overnight trip of ours through the wilderness of the Wellsville Range.

Brother Bob, “Just Bob”, dropped us off at a very nice little meadow just a bit north of Mantua (Man-two-a ‘long a’), Utah and we proceeded to hike from that point over to another point where he would pick us up the next day.

We were carrying all our gear in make shift backpacks.  Hunting stuff, sleeping stuff, eating stuff…all our stuff for the hunt and over night.  Each of us had our assignments to help make it through the ordeal and not everyone needed to be burdened with bringing extra.

One of the things we were each assigned was our lunch for the second day, the day when Just Bob was to pick us up….a LARGE CAN of Vienna Sausages each and of course along with them one will always have some Ritz crackers or at the very least some Saltine crackers.

We were assigned the Large cans, not these little wimpy ones with only 7 units in it.

Count them, their small……..

Now today, 2014, I don’t think they make cans of Vienna sausages as big as they did back then.  These cans were short, like todays cans, but big around.   They would hold at least 10 Vienna sausages (the picture above shows 13).

When we got to the spot where we would break out our lunches, we stopped and did just that…broke out our lunches.

All four of us had the same thing…a large can of Vienna sausages and some crackers….it sounds very good and it was….at least for the first one and maybe even the second one and for some, even the third one.  And then the little sausages which we have come to know of late as “Monkey Dinks” began to fall into that area of “marginal propensity to consume”…they didn’t taste all that great.  We were of the mind set that you should not waste stuff, especially food and so we ate………………..and ate………………and ate………and tried to convince ourselves that these little guys were good and good for us….and after a short break….we ate some more.

My mind escapes me if any one of us actually finished their can of those bad boys, but I can tell you I left some for the raccoons and I think I left more than just what was in the can for them as well.  Raccoons like the taste of crackers after they have been consumed with Vienna Sausages….nuff said.

So, every year, at least once, I like to take a Vienna sausage on a toothpick and partake of it, just to remind me of how nasty they really are.  BUT WAIT!

Today, I found a thread where  Vienna Sausages are now being produced with Bourbon flavoring!  Oh Ya Baby!  Gotta try those bad boys!

And for you Breakfast freaks that need the taste of Maple Flavoring…they have even come out with one for you….Vienna Sausages in  maple flavored sauce!

And another that caters to the spicy hot folks out there:

There are other flavors as well and it looks like they are trying to do anything they can to get people to keep eating them.  I’m sure there are some out in the world that just love these things and it’s obvious to me they have never been on a back pack trip with nothing to eat but a large can of them with a hand full of crackers.

I’m sorry, but it almost makes me want to throw up a rainbow right now…I gotta go!

Bears Butt

January 17, 2014