Thursday October 9, 2025 Mac Furlong: Legend

Last week, in Reed River, Sven saw Mac Furlong hurrying down Main Street on his way to sign up for the Big Buck Contest at Doc's On Main. Mac was wearing his Reed River Bank suit clothes so Sven didn’t recognize him right off, walking so serious like.

Beginning soon after the Roseau County Fair in July, you might begin noticing a few people wearing at least one parcel of florescent orange as they visit their local hardware stores and sporting goods shops salivating over the latest fall hunting gear -- although temperatures are yet in the eighties. As the weeks roll on toward fall, the few become hordes awash in hunting clothes brand names; everybody wears florescent orange or florescent orange and camouflage.

Mac’s suit and tie didn’t quite make the impression of the life-long sportsman he is, but all who know him (and who doesn’t around Reed River?) would recognize the legendary name before the man anyway, even if he wasn’t wearing his classic head-to-toe camouflage he’s worn ever since he was big enough to tag along behind his dad on all his hunting trips. Having won the Big Buck Contest at what used to be known as N.O.M. (Normie's On Main/ or Flagstaff's Hardware Store) now, Doc's Hardware, every year for the past twenty-five, he had but to sign-in inspire all the new hunters. His job at the Reed River Bank was just something he had to do to support his hunting account, but he was good at both. People liked him. He is alright.

Oh for sure, Mac was the trend setter, he made wearing insulated pac boots with the laces untied, a thing several years back. A lot of wannabe hunters behaviors back then can be traced back to those years when Furlong, someone who was always conscientious about putting his best boot forward, elevated real hunter performance standards. Word was around town, it was Furlong who developed the Big Buck Contest that we all know and love today, and it was his keen business acumen that not only got him his job at RRB but provided the foundation for N.O.M. and other area sporting goods and hardware stores to benefit from these contests. 

 

 

 All a person has to do is observe real hunter-type individuals, like Mac, to determine who is a ‘real hunter’ and who is a wannabe hunter/ordinary person. The latter pick up boxes of ammunition and pretend to read the fine print, even if they don’t own a gun just to act the part. Others peer through unmounted rifle scopes or look through the varieties of scope rings and mounts as if they were actually going to buy one. They ask sales personnel important questions, within earshot of other ordinary people, using notes they have taken from on-line forums: “Has Browning resolved the firing pin issues they had with the .762 and .243 caliber Saber Lasers?” “Do minute applications of JB Weld expoxy actually correct the lateral/longitudinal mechanism on the wiper arm of a 2004 Nissan Pathfinder?”

Most ordinary people have no idea what any of that means or that it’s nonsensical jibberish, but if you’re wearing florescent orange in a sporting goods store, or any place where they even sell mosquito repellent, odds are ordinary people will realize they are in the presence of a hunter-type person--or reasonable facsimile.

“Wow, this person really knows their stuff. Maybe we should hang around and learn more, Ethel.”

“Learn more about what, Jonathan?” would snap Ethel. “How to push chewing tobacco into your lower lip and then spit when you talk? Let’s get out of here and away from him before you wanna buy a florescent orange cap or gloves yourself. Good grief man.”

Real hunters can stand the criticism. They don’t all chew tobacco or inappropriately smoke among non-smokers. They restrain their flatulence while in mixed company. They own up to their personal responsibility should they accidentally belch or exude some glandular impropriety that would maybe offend ordinary people.

Over these past many years, Furlong educated real hunters about how real hunters dress appropriately for cold weather; how to stealthily walk through the woods in the dark with only a single bulb headlamp to light their way; climb 85-steps up a rickety steel-rung ladder attached to a tree with with the confidence of a Sherpa with a howitzer strapped on his back; and then to top it off, stay in an unheated wood box from dark to dark, with only a half of left-over sandwich and a can of water in a backpack for nourishment, and an empty pancake syrup bottle tied to their belt for physiologic bladder evacuation, then sit patiently for up to twelve hours waiting for a deer, or other seasonally-legal type animal, to walk past their location. A person has to be a real hunter to do that.

Real hunter persons can tirelessly stare into the woods and across fields for hundreds of yards differentiating animal shapes and coloration from tree branches, shrub shapes, shadows, sun angles, cloud movements, flashes, swaying grass, horizontal and vertical trunks of trees, fence posts, dark earthen objects, man-made objects, vehicles, and old discarded motor vehicle and/or agricultural  tires.

Real hunters use their rifle scopes, binoculars, or powerful spotting scopes with built-in range finders that indicate how far the animal is from them and how they must correct their aim to compensate for the distance.

Ordinary hunters boast about their purported hunting prowess, bragging about shooting at animals from hundreds of yards away, when real hunters have no need to tell the world about it in the form of competitive gaseousness back at camp or cafe, knowing accuracy is essential element of a merciful shot, no matter the distance, and that it is a matter of fact, not bravado. Real hunters may subtly point out that the braggarts said they “... shot at animals hundreds of yards away. They didn’t say they hit any of them.”

"What?" Hearing plays an integral part for hunting success for real hunters. They listen closely for that tell-tale ‘snap’ of breaking twigs or brush as an animal moves through the woods. They know to be quiet and still as they stand or sit, and always pay close attention to what is around them--and not, as ordinary people would do, doze off, play a game or listen to football on their smartphones.

Even real hunters sometimes read books in their deer stands, (they’re only human) but listen with one ear open, ever wary for passing deer or other seasonally-legal animals; the difference being that ordinary people easily fall asleep in wooden boxes or open platform deer stands in trees, pretending to be real hunters. These wannabes are the majority of casualties of hunting/falling accidents, admitting, only after suffering various injuries, that they were foolish to think they could become real hunters without proper training or possessing natural ability.

Real hunter children, too young to hunt, beg to the point of annoyance to go hunting with an adult or reasonable facsimile, who safely accompany them to a nearby deer stand set up for just this purpose. Studies show that 95% of children, between the ages of five and twenty-five, cannot sit still nor remain quiet for more than eight minutes, if the stand is not heated.

Further, Furlong wrote, studies show real hunters' patience with children decline sharply if children repeatedly fidget or loudly whine about their discomfort. These 'first-time' deer stands are equipped with a battery-powered external light, which upon the point of no return of patience by either occupying party, the light is switched on to signal rescue of said child, and a pre-arranged non-hunting hunter person at deer camp,  removes the child to safety.

About the time October comes along, all the roads to deer camps across the region have been solidly packed down by eight weeks of weekend visits by trucks and SUVs pulling trailers with riding mowers, ATVs, and tractors on them, as hunters, of various stripes, eagerly prepare for November’s upcoming deer season by planting cool season food plots, building new or repairing old deer stands, creating trails through their woods, mowing the grass around the camp, stocking up foodstores and thoroughly cleaning their camps against the on-coming deluge of family and friend hunter-persons due to arrive a few days before, and after, opening day. It’s glorious.

Now the majority of these individuals are ordinary people who commonly balk at doing any kind of cleaning at home, who would never push a vacuum cleaner, sweep or push a broom, wash windows, clean and resupply cupboards, hang up hunting jackets, pants, sweatshirts and caps leftover from last year--may even take some home to wash-- but for the fact they are part of this ambitious team effort to make this year’s season even better than last season. They put their all into it while wearing something with florescent orange on it-- and that being the same piece of sweat-absorbed clothing they’ll wear hunting in the coming weeks that no amount of human scent-hiding detergent, spray, soap, salve, or gel can help or hide, except to bury it in the outhouse pit with the cooperation of a few hunting season member visits, the best known place for stinky items like that.

 

They are part of this ambitious team effort to make this year’s season even better than last season.

Furlong continued: “As important as scent is to hunting success, ordinary people/wannabe hunters don’t consider scent at all and go through their everyday regimen of washing their everyday faces using their everyday good-smelling soaps, then shaving (if they do) and slapping on aftershave, and then deodorants or various body/skin conditioning powders as if they’re going to work in town than going to the woods to hunt seasonally-legal game animals who like nothing better than to immediately zero in on where these ordinary people are in the woods so they can avoid them. Hooyah.

“Real hunters, on the other hand, make at least a little effort not to smell wholly obnoxious. They don’t wear odoriferous deodorants, or have their clothing washed using smelly detergents and dried with fabric softeners; they may use a scent-hiding spray on their pants legs and coat sleeves and boots and other parcels of clothing they only wear hunting and not in their vehicles or at home. They also are aware of which direction the wind is coming from, knowing if the wind is at their back, their human scent precedes them, and if the wind is in their face, their human sent is behind them as animals use the wind to determine where their enemies are, all the time.”

Furlong said that when the wind is wrong for the animal it cannot always scent the hunter--unless wind currents fall or rise on errant breezes that, by chance, brings the scent back to them. Being curious, especially the younger less-experienced animals, can sometimes clearly see a hunter but cannot smell them. So instead of running away, they hesitantly approach the hunter to determine if they are friend or foe, often to their great disadvantage. Some real hunters crouch down low to change their shape to take advantage of the situation. Ordinary people break the stalemate and in their ignorance, they frighten the animal.”

Furlong stressed that “Ignorance can be fixed; stupid is forever, so make your mistakes small ones.”

“There are groups of real hunters known as waterfowl hunters who hunt ducks and geese. These are crazy people, much like those individuals who ride dirt bikes or do moto-cross motorcycle racing. Waterfowl hunters think nothing of going hunting on the most miserable days, especially cold rainy cloudy windy days along wet muddy farm fields, river basins, and remote lake shores. They often use special shallow draft, camouflaged boats appropriately called: ‘duck boats’ that have a large oval-shaped open area in the middle of the boat from which the hunter or hunters can shoot, as they either sit or stand, at rapidly flying waterfowl around them. 

 

Usually stable craft, broader at the beam than canoes, some hunters become over-confident hunting from duck boats. They fail to wear life preservers or float coats under their hunting clothes, and so unnecessarily endanger themselves and others in the possibility of drowning or hypothermia should they capsize.

Other water fowlers who hunt on land, carry several dozen, often life-sized, fiberglass duck or goose decoys, which they position in fields or anchor in shallow water so to attract their prey and bring them close-in within shotgun range of 35-40 yards.

Just as is the case for deer and other seasonally legal animal hunting, waterfowl hunters need to know where the wind is from too, but for different reasons as waterfowl don’t particularly have the best sense of smell (fortunately for those duck and goose hunters who stayed too long at The American Legion on karoke night and slept in their pickups til shooting time). Wind direction is important to them because of how the waterfowl will approach their decoy sets, and what direction the birds will take when they fly away in surprise.

The hunters conceal themselves under camouflaged netting or shrouds of tall grass native to the area in which they are hunting, and raise up quickly to shoot when the birds warily approach. These hunters often utilize specialized dogs to retrieve the fallen birds. Real waterfowl hunters are easily separated from ordinary wannabe hunter people, especially after the hunt is over and there are literally dozens of geese and ducks to clean of feathers and entrails; ordinary people slip away citing forgotten school board meetings or Sunday School programs their children are in.

So next time you see Mac Furlong uptown at the Reed River Bank, stop in and say "Hi" to a legend. Or when you're in Golden Valley Township give him a honk, a wave, a smile, nod, or wink to thank him for helping promote hunter education by establishing the Big Buck Contests in your town. Mac’s alright.