Mingo’s Skeeto, courtesy Mingo Oh.

Fly-tying Corner I met him on the Fall River one afternoon and he told me the story of “the drab, sorta boring, deadly effective” Mingo’s Skeeto. “When you pick a flying insect up and study it, the first thing you notice is how fragile and sparse they really are,” Mingo said. “It doesn’t look like much. Just like a real bug.” Tie a handful. You will want them for clear water presentations where the fish have seen “everything” and for late evenings on the lakes when there’s a little wind riffle on the surface and trout are rising in the shallows. Tie Mingo’s Skeeto with gray/brown or light tan thread on a No. 14 or 16 TMC 2487. For the tail, use 5 to 6 pintail flank fibers. Build the slender tapered body with tying thread. A wing is optional and a tip of the hackle feather is all that’s necessary. For the hackle, tie in a palmer-wrapped standard barred cream/black grizzly sized to the hook.

Bruce Rhine looked over his shoulder as I walked up behind. “See those bucks?” he asked.

I did now, and set up the spotting scope. At least four were 4-points and the others were threes and 2x3s.

Lindsay and Callan Valentine were down in the canyon and they had eyes on the same bucks we did and started up the hill in the gray morning light. We estimated Lindsay had a 400-foot elevation gain to get to the same level as the bucks canyon in order to make a good shot.

Lindsay Valentine carried the rifle, a Nosler Model 21 chambered for the 26 Nosler cartridge. Callan Valentine had the binocular and the range finder.

A bachelor herd of seven bucks fed high on the hill opposite, headed to morning beds after having fed on alfalfa in the moonlight.

When Bill Valentine called one December night and said he had pancreatic cancer, we talked about the four boys — Lindsay, Callan, Tate and Perry. He had an assignment for me, he said. And I wasn’t the only one. Several other friends of Bill were given various tasks relative to the boys and their mother. My job was to make sure the kids each harvested a deer, hunted birds, cast dry flies to trout and caught a steelhead. And learned all the words to a certain George Strait song. Having made the same rules for my daughters, this was a mission for which I was eminently qualified.

When both Bill and Jessica passed, and after the celebration of life held on a June afternoon overlooking the Sunriver golf course, I got a call from Bruce Rhine. Lindsay had drawn a deer tag in the Northside Unit and could I come up and help out?

We marked out time in the middle of the season. I had hunted with Lindsay and Callan before but it had been long ago. We caught up on the drive out to Kimberly and points east. Finally I put the F-150 in 4-wheel drive for the last hill climb and when we arrived, we met Summit High School students, Davis and Ivan. Davis had tagged his first buck opening weekend and Bruce had invited him back to help with this hunt. Bruce showed up an hour later and we pulled out the optics to see if we could spot a buck before dark.

We had four bachelors in camp, a couple of older guys (Bruce and me) and in the early morning light we had a bachelor group of mule deer bucks in the spotting scope.

Across the canyon we glassed a steep hillside studded with juniper trees, sagebrush and bitterbrush. I tried to count antler points as deer browsed in and out of view.

To the south, Lindsay and Callan appeared briefly on a trail then were out of sight again. In my scope, a buck lifted its head and cocked its ears and the others alerted too. The bucks began to move north and filter around the end of the ridge. Three remained on our side and all we could do was wonder if Lindsay and Callan were making the right moves.

Lindsay and Cal quickly made a decision to head off the four that had gone around the corner. They slipped over the top and using juniper trees for cover, found an opening to look through. A buck showed down below and Lindsay tried to steady the rifle.

“I’d had a cup of coffee and no breakfast,” Lindsay said later. “I was super shaky.” Lindsay looked at his brother. “Give me your boot.” And immediately Callan unlaced his boot, peeled it off and handed it over. Lindsay, prone, the muzzle angled downhill, rested the Nosler rifle in his brother’s boot, found the crosshair, snicked the safety to ‘fire’ and touched the trigger. He stayed in the scope and cycled the bolt for a second shot if needed. We heard the muffled boom one canyon back and heard the second shot.

We mobilized the recovery team to find the buck where it had come to rest beneath a juniper. The meat will be turned to sausage, burger and steaks and the head and antlers will be hung over a fireplace somewhere, wherever Lindsay Valentine decides to call home in the years to come.

The Valentine men are a credit to their parents who were loved and respected in Bend, but I have to say, the two 17-year-olds from Summit High were high quality individuals too, lending a hand where needed, always with smiles on their faces. Ivan has signed up for the Marine Corps and at the time of our hunt was looking forward to boot camp without having fired a rifle. We put the 26 Nosler in his hands and I was happy to donate a portion of my deer season ammo to watch him seat the rifle against his shoulder, work the bolt for the first time, load an AccuBond in the chamber and send it. His first two shots grouped a quarter-inch at 100 yards and then he turned his attention to the 500-yard target.

In the middle of a busy October, two guys with gray in their beards got a chance to hang out with four topnotch young men, be a part of their lives and encourage them as they find their own paths in the world.

I met him on the Fall River one afternoon and he told me the story of “the drab, sorta boring, deadly effective” Mingo’s Skeeto.

“When you pick a flying insect up and study it, the first thing you notice is how fragile and sparse they really are,” Mingo said. “It doesn’t look like much. Just like a real bug.”

Tie a handful. You will want them for clear water presentations where the fish have seen “everything” and for late evenings on the lakes when there’s a little wind riffle on the surface and trout are rising in the shallows.

Tie Mingo’s Skeeto with gray/brown or light tan thread on a No. 14 or 16 TMC 2487. For the tail, use 5 to 6 pintail flank fibers. Build the slender tapered body with tying thread. A wing is optional and a tip of the hackle feather is all that’s necessary. For the hackle, tie in a palmer-wrapped standard barred cream/black grizzly sized to the hook.

—Gary Lewis, for The Bulletin