NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
May 7, 1998
Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University
©1998 Plains Folk
One fall along about 1940, Ernie Zahn and his brother were mowing weeds with a team and horse mower for the highway department along Highway 56 south of Kulm, N.D. They stopped by a slough, gave the horses some oats, ate their lunch, and rested a bit. A car stopped, and it was full of hunters.
These fellows wanted to know where they might find some pheasants. The Zahn boys, having grown up in a big German-Russian family in Dickey County, were always on the lookout for any way to make a buck. So they said, "Sure, we know where you can find some birds, but it's hard to tell you where—come up to our farm on the highway Saturday morning, and we'll take you out."
That Saturday morning the two boys were up early and impatient. "We walked down to the pasture to see if we could get any ducks," Ernie relates. "We got to a pothole and there was quite a bunch of ducks on there. We pulled a sneak on them and fired into them, and we each had our limit of mallards. And wouldn't you know it, every one was a big greenhead." When they got back to the house, the carload of hunters pulled in from Ellendale, where they had been staying at the hotel. Ernie recalls, "We came up from the pasture, each us carrying these four nice big greenheads, and them guys just went wild. They didn't care anymore if they got any pheasants, but they wanted us to show them where they could get some of them ducks."
The hunters all got their limits of drakes that day, too. "That evening when they went into their hotel at Ellendale, they walked into the lobby with their ducks hanging across the front and back of their hunting coats, and the people were amazed. They wanted to know where and how they hunted, but they wouldn't tell, because they wanted us as their guides as long as they were there. After that, though, they did tell."
And thus the Zahn boys were launched on a career as hunting guides for out-of-state sportsmen. One problem, though, was rationing of ammunition during the war. "It was almost impossible to buy ammunition or gas," Ernie says. "We had these out-of-state hunters call us, saying they would come up by train. They would ship the ammunition to the hotel to be there when they came up. We couldn't even buy it here, but there was more than they or we could shoot up."
Guiding hunters turned into a lucrative sideline in several ways. "The pheasants, ducks and geese were plentiful," Ernie reminisces. "The potholes were full." He recruited his mother- and father-in-law to clean birds for a price. "They were busy every afternoon and evening, sometimes practically working all night, to process the game. They would save the down feathers, and this down was worth a lot of money."
One day Ernie was supposed to take out a group of hunters, but it turned out too cold and blustery to hunt, so he took them up to the house for lunch. It being Sunday, his wife was gone to church and visiting relatives. After lunch the men got to playing gin rummy, and as you might guess, they left a certain amount of clutter around the house. Ernie was pretty worried about what his wife would say—until he noticed the fellows also had left behind four $20 bills.
"I want to say a word about the nonresident hunters," Ernie closes the story of his exploits as hunting guide. "On average, they were the best and most courteous and law-abiding citizens I ever took out. They were careful how they handled themselves when they were our guests."
If old Ernie's eyes were a little better, I'd sure try to recruit him to spend a little time down around his home country next fall.
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Source: Tom Isern (701) 231-8339
Editor: Barry Brissman (701) 231-7866