Ding-Dong!
The sound of the doorbell interrupted the football game. A grizzled old man, shivering in the cold, stood at the door. He certainly wasn’t dressed for winter. He was wearing a pair of patched chest-high fishing waders and a fishing vest, and a beat-up old hat with bedraggled flies affixed to the felt crown.
“Hello. Umm, can I help you?” I said.
“Would you let me come in and get warm? I’ve been traveling a long time.” His voice was raspy, likely from too many years of bad cigars and cheap whiskey, and too many seasons rattling around Montana.
“Do I know you? I don’t think we’ve met, have we?”
“You should know me,” he replied a bit testily. “I came in last January 1, and we’ve traveled together the last 363 days. I don’t have much time left, so come on, take a little mercy on a tired old man.”
I invited him into the house, settling him into a comfortable chair in front of the fireplace and went into the kitchen to make a couple mugs of hot chocolate. He had dozed off but woke up with a smile as I handed him the steaming mug. “Ah, that’s good,” he sighed after sipping the rich chocolate, laced with a bit of rum.
There wasn’t resemblance in the old man’s face compared to that newborn baby of last New Year’s Day. He’d obviously seen a lot more than football games. “I hate to say this, old timer, but you look like you’ve had a hard time of it. You look almost as bad as Brett Favre did after last week’s game with the Bears. And, what’s with the fishing get-up? I thought you were supposed to be wearing long white robes and carrying a scythe.”
“Oh, that’s so 20th Century,” he said with a scornful frown. “Actually, I made a quick stop to make a few casts on the Big Hole but my favorite spot was frozen solid. I did find some open water, and then slipped and took a dunk in the river. Wow! I didn’t think it was possible to get that cold.” He gestured at the firewood. I took the hint and put another chunk of pine on the fire.
Sipping hot chocolate he began reminiscing as he warmed. “Well, it’s been quite a ride, going around the world every day. You see a lot of crazy people doing crazy things. Shucks, just the United States had enough going to keep any year busy. That Gulf oil spill, for one. What a mess. If you think I look pretty rough, that had a lot to it.
“And then there’s that war in Afghanistan. It happened before I came on board but that General McChrystal sure sold your president a bill of goods on expanding the war over there. And then he had the nerve to ‘dis’ him. I thought the president let him off easy, letting him retire. He should have busted him to private and put him in an infantry platoon. “
I had to interrupt him at this point. “Haven’t you had enough of politics and problems? Didn’t you have any fun on your trip?”
He thought a moment and smiled as he reminisced about flyfishing in Montana when he had a chance. Then he started laughing. “I had a lot of fun up in Alaska, watching Sarah Palin trying to shoot a caribou for that TV show. She emptied one gun shooting holes in the air. Hadn’t she ever heard of sighting in a rifle before hunting? And then that stupid caribou; he just kept running back and forth. Every chance I get I go to a computer and watch it on You Tube. What a phony!”
He finished his cocoa and reluctantly got back on his feet. “Much obliged for the chance to warm up, but time to get back on the road. A couple more trips and I can retire.”
“Do you have some advice for the new kid, 2011?”
“Nope. Just keep his head down when he’s in Alaska.”
Paul Vang's musings about fishing, hunting, and life in the great Montana outdoors.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Merry Christmas from Montana
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| Flicka and I wish you a Merry Christmas from Montana |
“Will you shut down that computer and call it a night?” asked—no, demanded, the writer’s wife. Staying up late, staring at the computer, didn’t seem normal. Now, if he had fallen asleep in the recliner while watching the Kumquat Bowl, or some other ridiculous football game, that would be more typical.
“I’m sorry, dear,” the writer responded, sipping stale coffee. “I’m having a terrible time with my Christmas column. My deadline is tomorrow—and you know how the editor is when my copy is late.”
“So why do you always wait until the last minute to get started? You’ve had all week.”
“I was hoping to have more to write about,” he responded sleepily.
“Write about your last hunting trip. Isn’t that what you usually do?”
“I guess, now that you mention it.” He sipped his coffee and added, “But it’s easier when I have something positive to tell about. It’s difficult when the trip is a failure.”
“This certainly wasn’t the first time you went hunting and didn’t come home with any game. What’s the big deal?”
The writer pondered her question as he poured himself another cup of coffee and mentally reviewed that last pheasant outing.
It was a mild morning when he left to hunt a ranch an hour’s drive away. It was a ranch he usually put off hunting until the late season because the pheasants generally hang out in this big, marshy creek bottom, with thick willows along the creek, with patches of cattails and marsh grass. There are springs that feed the marsh and he liked to wait until cold weather froze all the water and it would be easier to get around.
East of the Continental Divide the weather looked nice, with bright sunshine reflecting off the snow. The wind, however, was roaring down the eastern slopes. The snow was crusted from recent thaws; otherwise there would be a lot of drifting.
He trudged through sagebrush above the creek, noting pheasant tracks in the snow. The birds are around, he thought, and they’ve been out feeding. With the wind, he figured the pheasants would be in heavier cover. With his black Lab leading the way he wandered around in the tangled willows and other trees before coming out to the marshy area. He hadn’t gone far when he broke through the ice and water seeped in over his boot tops.
The treacherous ice didn’t bother the dog. She scampered across the marsh, plowing her way through the cattails, and then went into a big patch of tall grasses next to the creek. A whitetail buck scampered out, followed by a hen pheasant flying to safety, and then a doe and half-grown fawn.
He tried to work himself to where the dog was, but the brush was too thick to get through. The dog put up a few more pheasants from inside the willows. All he could do was think bad thoughts as he heard pheasants fly away. Finally, after slipping on some solid ice, making a hard landing on his hip and elbow, and following that with breaking through more ice, he decided that this trip wasn’t much fun. He and his puzzled dog limped back through the snow to the truck and went home.
Telling the story to his wife he concluded, “See? That’s not much to write about.”
The wife smiled consolingly, but reminded him, “So it wasn’t your best hunt. So what! Just think how lucky you are. You have good places to hunt. You put up some pheasants and you saw lots of other wildlife. It’s Christmas time and you’ve been hunting since the beginning of September. We have game in the freezer.
“Why don’t you just write that you’re having a good hunting season and wish everybody a Merry Christmas? It can’t be that difficult.“
And so the house eventually grew quiet, though the mouse wondered, “So what was all that about?”
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
No Respect from Canada Geese
“I get no respect, I tell you. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I’d be honest.”
The late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, made a pretty good living as the poor schlemiel nobody respected.
I’ve had reason to understand how he felt, even if it wasn’t like his one liner about a girl telling him, “Come on over, nobody’s home.” “So I went over, and sure enough, nobody was home.”
I get no respect from Canada geese.
On a recent hunting outing I drove down a pasture trail towards a spring creek in search of ducks. The trail is right along the rancher’s property line, and on the other side of the fence were about 300 Canada geese feeding in a field.
Did the geese take off when Flicka, my Labrador retriever, and I left the truck, with me carrying a shotgun? Not at all. They continued feeding, unperturbed. They didn’t ignore me; for every goose with its head down in the snow looking for green shoots, there were probably three geese that had their heads up, ready to sound the alarm in the unlikely event I would suddenly pose some sort of threat to them.
These geese not only weren’t worried about legitimate threats from hunters, they also apparently knew they were out of shotgun range in case some hunter rushed the fence with shotgun blazing. They were all around 100 to 150 yards from the fenceline, far from where any pellets from a shotgun shell could do any damage.
Back in late October I had a similar day when I was hunting pheasants in North Dakota. I was hunting on public land and there were several hundred Canada geese peacefully feeding in a barley field across the road from where I was hunting. If they were bothered by a gun-totin’ hunter from Montana, they sure didn’t show it.
Canada geese are a big success story when it comes to survival and recovery. A century ago, Canada geese were relatively rare and one subspecies, the giant Canada goose, was considered extinct until the 1950s when a small flock of giants was found near Rochester, Minnesota.
Canada geese are in no danger these days. Canada geese can be found almost anywhere in North America, and they have definitely found a niche in and around urban area parks and golf courses, including Butte, of course, where geese keep both the Country Club and municipal golf course fairways well fertilized.
Canada geese have reached Europe on their own, joining Canada geese that were introduced over the years. In the 17th Century, explorer Samuel de Champlain shipped several pairs of geese to France as a gift to King Louis XIII. Not to be outdone, English colonists sent geese to King James II. More recently, Canada geese were introduced into New Zealand. In all these areas Canada geese often earn a new status as pests.
Canada geese are valued by waterfowl hunters, many of whom specialize in trying to lure flocks of geese to come to open fields where hunters, wearing various shades of camouflage, shiver by decoys in the pre-dawn darkness in hopes geese will fly into range. I confess that goose hunting requires a level of commitment above and beyond what I’m willing to give.
Still, Montana is prime hunting territory for Canada geese. They’re along just about every river in the state, and the numbers of geese are impressive, especially along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana. Driving the I-90/I-94 corridor in early winter, the flights of geese in the air resemble flights of B-17s taking off from England back in the ‘40s.
Occasionally I’ll get a shooting opportunity when I’m hunting ducks, though it doesn’t happen often. Geese are sharp-eyed and suspicious of any ground movement.
Personally, if I were to choose a hunting spot without regard to legal niceties, I’d just take my shotgun to the tennis courts at Stodden Park in early autumn. I’ve even wondered if there was some way to make a tennis racket that incorporates a 10-gauge shotgun.
Then I’d get some respect.
The late comedian, Rodney Dangerfield, made a pretty good living as the poor schlemiel nobody respected.
I’ve had reason to understand how he felt, even if it wasn’t like his one liner about a girl telling him, “Come on over, nobody’s home.” “So I went over, and sure enough, nobody was home.”
I get no respect from Canada geese.
On a recent hunting outing I drove down a pasture trail towards a spring creek in search of ducks. The trail is right along the rancher’s property line, and on the other side of the fence were about 300 Canada geese feeding in a field.
Did the geese take off when Flicka, my Labrador retriever, and I left the truck, with me carrying a shotgun? Not at all. They continued feeding, unperturbed. They didn’t ignore me; for every goose with its head down in the snow looking for green shoots, there were probably three geese that had their heads up, ready to sound the alarm in the unlikely event I would suddenly pose some sort of threat to them.
These geese not only weren’t worried about legitimate threats from hunters, they also apparently knew they were out of shotgun range in case some hunter rushed the fence with shotgun blazing. They were all around 100 to 150 yards from the fenceline, far from where any pellets from a shotgun shell could do any damage.
Back in late October I had a similar day when I was hunting pheasants in North Dakota. I was hunting on public land and there were several hundred Canada geese peacefully feeding in a barley field across the road from where I was hunting. If they were bothered by a gun-totin’ hunter from Montana, they sure didn’t show it.
Canada geese are a big success story when it comes to survival and recovery. A century ago, Canada geese were relatively rare and one subspecies, the giant Canada goose, was considered extinct until the 1950s when a small flock of giants was found near Rochester, Minnesota.
Canada geese are in no danger these days. Canada geese can be found almost anywhere in North America, and they have definitely found a niche in and around urban area parks and golf courses, including Butte, of course, where geese keep both the Country Club and municipal golf course fairways well fertilized.
Canada geese have reached Europe on their own, joining Canada geese that were introduced over the years. In the 17th Century, explorer Samuel de Champlain shipped several pairs of geese to France as a gift to King Louis XIII. Not to be outdone, English colonists sent geese to King James II. More recently, Canada geese were introduced into New Zealand. In all these areas Canada geese often earn a new status as pests.
Canada geese are valued by waterfowl hunters, many of whom specialize in trying to lure flocks of geese to come to open fields where hunters, wearing various shades of camouflage, shiver by decoys in the pre-dawn darkness in hopes geese will fly into range. I confess that goose hunting requires a level of commitment above and beyond what I’m willing to give.
Still, Montana is prime hunting territory for Canada geese. They’re along just about every river in the state, and the numbers of geese are impressive, especially along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana. Driving the I-90/I-94 corridor in early winter, the flights of geese in the air resemble flights of B-17s taking off from England back in the ‘40s.
Occasionally I’ll get a shooting opportunity when I’m hunting ducks, though it doesn’t happen often. Geese are sharp-eyed and suspicious of any ground movement.
Personally, if I were to choose a hunting spot without regard to legal niceties, I’d just take my shotgun to the tennis courts at Stodden Park in early autumn. I’ve even wondered if there was some way to make a tennis racket that incorporates a 10-gauge shotgun.
Then I’d get some respect.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Ruffed Grouse Habitat - Always Changing
Ruffed grouse coverts have a special place in my heart. Ever since I first got hooked on hunting ruffed grouse something like 35 years ago I’ve built a mental collection of patches of woodland that shelter and nurture ruffed grouse and other wildlife. It hasn’t always been easy, as I had to come up with a new collection of coverts when my last job transfer brought us to Montana 22 seasons ago, and I had to say goodbye to old haunts in North Dakota.
The term, ‘covert,’ incidentally, the word used to describe ruffed grouse hangouts, is defined in my dictionary as a hiding place, or a thicket affording cover for game. The emphasis is on the first syllable, to distinguish it from covert (with emphasis on second syllable), as in a spy mission.
It’s another example of why our English language is confusing. Adding to the confusion is that covert can be pronounced with a silent ‘t.’ In fact; some writers have come to even drop that ‘t’ and just use the word, ‘cover,’ to describe ruffed grouse hangouts.
My collection of grouse coverts is more than scattered aspen-covered hillsides and creek bottoms. They’re the repository of memories from many hunts over the years and the Labrador retrievers who shared those hunts and, of course, the ruffed grouse, that wonderful game bird that stubbornly ekes out a hardscrabble living in the thickets.
Grouse coverts are dynamic places in constant change. Ruffed grouse thrive in forested areas with a variety of habitat, with a mixture of different age classes of aspens and brushy cover, along with access to denser forest for refuge from severe weather or predators. As the forest matures, conifers take over, shading out aspens and ground cover. Eventually, as far as ruffed grouse are concerned, the forest becomes a virtual desert.
One grouse area and one of the more productive, as far as numbers of grouse flushed—which does not always translate to shots fired or birds on the dinner table, was approaching that climax stage, though with another wrinkle: mountain pine beetle. The last couple years I often thought that the area needed a controlled burn or a logging operation to clear out dead and dying pine trees and to revitalize the habitat.
On a snowy November day I made my annual visit to the covert and saw that a well-publicized logging operation on the Mt. Haggin Wildlife Management Area was, in fact, on this grouse covert. It was quite a change; with formerly dense stands of trees now pretty much gone and with aspen trees the main survivor.
One question in my mind was answered when Flicka, my Labrador retriever, put up a grouse from a hillside that had not been logged. I managed to scratch the bird down on my second shot. Flicka was retrieving the bird when another grouse flushed from in front of her. Flicka forgot about the grouse in her mouth to chase after the bird in the air. We later flushed another grouse from aspens in the logged-over area. In spite of a couple months of putting up with logging operations, the grouse are still in residence.
I subscribe to a newsletter, “Grouse Tales – the Official Newsletter of the Loyal Order of Dedicated Grouse Hunters.” In a recent issue one person wrote of trying to find a certain clear-cut area in Michigan and asking a Forest Service employee for directions. The Forest Service person pointed out it wasn’t a clear-cut; it was an aspen regeneration area. As they continued the conversation, every time the person said clear-cut, the forester corrected him, “It’s aspen regeneration.”
In fact, studies have shown that ruffed grouse love those old clear-cut—excuse me, aspen regeneration areas, especially in the 5 – 15 year period following the logging operation. It’ll be interesting to see how this area recovers in coming seasons and whether the grouse have a population boom.
For now, the covert is blanketed in snow, and after the grouse season closes next week, the only predators the grouse need worry about will be those with talons or jaws.
The term, ‘covert,’ incidentally, the word used to describe ruffed grouse hangouts, is defined in my dictionary as a hiding place, or a thicket affording cover for game. The emphasis is on the first syllable, to distinguish it from covert (with emphasis on second syllable), as in a spy mission.
It’s another example of why our English language is confusing. Adding to the confusion is that covert can be pronounced with a silent ‘t.’ In fact; some writers have come to even drop that ‘t’ and just use the word, ‘cover,’ to describe ruffed grouse hangouts.
My collection of grouse coverts is more than scattered aspen-covered hillsides and creek bottoms. They’re the repository of memories from many hunts over the years and the Labrador retrievers who shared those hunts and, of course, the ruffed grouse, that wonderful game bird that stubbornly ekes out a hardscrabble living in the thickets.
Grouse coverts are dynamic places in constant change. Ruffed grouse thrive in forested areas with a variety of habitat, with a mixture of different age classes of aspens and brushy cover, along with access to denser forest for refuge from severe weather or predators. As the forest matures, conifers take over, shading out aspens and ground cover. Eventually, as far as ruffed grouse are concerned, the forest becomes a virtual desert.
One grouse area and one of the more productive, as far as numbers of grouse flushed—which does not always translate to shots fired or birds on the dinner table, was approaching that climax stage, though with another wrinkle: mountain pine beetle. The last couple years I often thought that the area needed a controlled burn or a logging operation to clear out dead and dying pine trees and to revitalize the habitat.
On a snowy November day I made my annual visit to the covert and saw that a well-publicized logging operation on the Mt. Haggin Wildlife Management Area was, in fact, on this grouse covert. It was quite a change; with formerly dense stands of trees now pretty much gone and with aspen trees the main survivor.
One question in my mind was answered when Flicka, my Labrador retriever, put up a grouse from a hillside that had not been logged. I managed to scratch the bird down on my second shot. Flicka was retrieving the bird when another grouse flushed from in front of her. Flicka forgot about the grouse in her mouth to chase after the bird in the air. We later flushed another grouse from aspens in the logged-over area. In spite of a couple months of putting up with logging operations, the grouse are still in residence.
I subscribe to a newsletter, “Grouse Tales – the Official Newsletter of the Loyal Order of Dedicated Grouse Hunters.” In a recent issue one person wrote of trying to find a certain clear-cut area in Michigan and asking a Forest Service employee for directions. The Forest Service person pointed out it wasn’t a clear-cut; it was an aspen regeneration area. As they continued the conversation, every time the person said clear-cut, the forester corrected him, “It’s aspen regeneration.”
In fact, studies have shown that ruffed grouse love those old clear-cut—excuse me, aspen regeneration areas, especially in the 5 – 15 year period following the logging operation. It’ll be interesting to see how this area recovers in coming seasons and whether the grouse have a population boom.
For now, the covert is blanketed in snow, and after the grouse season closes next week, the only predators the grouse need worry about will be those with talons or jaws.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Montana's Big Game Season Ends
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| Here I am with my deer. It's not a trophy deer, but really good eating. |
The 2010 general big game hunting season pretty much ran to form, and so did the weather. Those two things usually go hand-in-hand. The season opened with some early winter weather, and then we had an extended period of mild weather, and then winter came back with a vengeance, with sub-zero temps and blizzard conditions during Thanksgiving week.
Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks reported outstanding hunting success in southwest Montana the next to last weekend of the season with large numbers of deer and elk coming through FWP game checking stations. The last weekend of hunting happened after my deadline for this issue of the Weekly, but for hunters able to escape Thanksgiving tables and football games long enough to get up in the high country and hunt, there were rewards.
Personally, I had a perfect big game hunting season. I left home at midday on a snowy and drizzly afternoon, spotted some white-tailed deer at 3 p.m. and fired my rifle once. Within an hour we had the deer dressed out and loaded for the trip home.
As some readers may recall from some previous columns, there are traditions among the Native Americans of North America that the animal the hunter is meant to take will offer themselves to the hunter. Scoff if you wish, but every year personal experience seems to reinforce that tradition. Taking it a step further, that bond between hunter and game animal means the hunter needs to exercise a higher level of responsibility.
That responsibility includes the obligations to hunt in an ethical manner, observing game laws and regulations, and then, when the magical moment happens and the animal is in your sights, to shoot carefully so that the animal will die quickly and with minimal suffering.
On my hunt, my friend John Jacobson, and I discussed this magic, even sacred, moment of the hunt and I commented that while we don’t celebrate the deer’s death, “I am happy that I did my part of the hunt well and that the deer didn’t suffer.” I know this all too well from some past experiences when I didn’t do my part of the hunt as I should have. Some of those memories still come back to haunt me.
The venison is now stashed away in the freezer and will be the centerpiece of a number of meals in coming months, though one small whitetail doesn’t amount to a lot of meat, sorry to say. Still, each meal will be an occasion to celebrate that gray November day when we reaffirmed those ancient bonds between hunters and wildlife.
While the big game season is now over, there are many more hunting opportunities in coming weeks.
The mountain grouse season, which includes blue (dusky), ruffed and spruce grouse, runs for a couple more weeks before it closes on December 15. Other upland game seasons, including pheasants, partridge, and sharp-tailed grouse, run through New Years Day, and waterfowl seasons extend almost to mid-January. Sage grouse hunting ended November 1.
If my idea of a perfect big game hunting season means firing my rifle just once, the perfect season for the shotgunner is when we do a lot of shooting during the four and a half months of the Montana upland bird and waterfowl seasons. By that standard I’ve had a good hunting season, but need more outings to make it a great season. I’m hoping weather and road conditions will be good enough to get in those late season hunting days.
Flicka, my Labrador retriever and always-enthusiastic hunting partner, is depending on me to help her get out for these late season hunts. She has also been reminding me that we lost out on some hunting opportunities because we went traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday.
I’d better make it up to her.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Thanksgiving Thoughts
There’s nothing like a good snowfall to put me in the mood for Thanksgiving. The weather systems that moved across western Montana last week put a good cover of snow on the landscape and we’re thankful for that. Here in the semi-arid West we depend on winter snows to give us water through the rest of the year; water for irrigation, drinking, wildlife, fish, fishing and boating. Precipitation is always good in Montana. Occasionally it comes at inconvenient times, of course, but it’s always good.
A good snowfall also puts a cap on the autumn season so we can move on to winter. I remember a farmer friend back in North Dakota who was thankful when a good snowstorm finally came after an extended period of mild weather. “I can finally get a little time off,” he said. “As long as the ground was bare I kept tinkering around with stuff. None of it was important, but since I could do it I kept on doing it.”
Thanksgiving comes at a good time. We’re approaching the end of the hunting seasons and many of us have harvested wild game and have put this bounty of nature in the freezer to help feed our families over the coming months.
When the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors celebrated that first thanksgiving dinner in 1621, most of the food on the menu was wild game, including venison, turkey, ducks, geese, swans, fish, lobster and clams, plus wild berries and fruit. Pumpkin and squash would have been among the limited crops available for the dinner.
Hunting and fishing made that first Thanksgiving dinner possible. Indeed, hunting and fishing is the only way that tiny band of ill-prepared immigrants to this cold New England coastal area could have survived, and that was mostly due to the kindness of the Wampanoag Indian tribe who shared their food and hunting skills to help them survive their first winter. Incidentally, there are now about 2,300 surviving Wampanoag people, compared to the estimated 6,500 people at the time the Pilgrims came to Plymouth. In the 1600s, the native peoples of Massachusetts were pushed out of their homes, exposed to disease and killed in warfare. By the end of that century they had all but disappeared.
It’s almost 400 years since that first Thanksgiving and it’s good we still set a day aside to give thanks. Here are a few of the things for which I’m thankful this year.
I’m grateful for the gifts of family. Our children, their spouses, and our grandchildren give us hope and confidence for the future. They make us proud.
I’m grateful for the wild things of our creation. They fill the skies, the earth and the waters and give us food, a sense of wonder and a delight for the eyes. I’m grateful for the many people who work so hard to make sure that wild things continue to be a part of our lives.
I’m grateful for Montana Tech head football coach Bob Green. Coach Green is a total class act and has been through his career as a coach and mentor of young men who play football, study engineering and sciences – and graduate. I wish Bob and his wife, Pam, nothing but the best as he begins retirement. Football season in this part of the world is going to be a lot duller without him. I will share a bit of advice, however. Coach, there is life after football.
I’m grateful for the people who till the soil, produce crops, raise livestock, and produce the food for us on Thanksgiving Day and every other day of the year. Feeding the world is a noble profession.
I’m thankful for the men and women in our armed forces that serve our country so faithfully. My biggest wish is that our nation can find a way to world peace and bring you home. In the meantime, we’re grateful for your continuing service.
And to all of you, who read this column, may you and your families have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.
A good snowfall also puts a cap on the autumn season so we can move on to winter. I remember a farmer friend back in North Dakota who was thankful when a good snowstorm finally came after an extended period of mild weather. “I can finally get a little time off,” he said. “As long as the ground was bare I kept tinkering around with stuff. None of it was important, but since I could do it I kept on doing it.”
Thanksgiving comes at a good time. We’re approaching the end of the hunting seasons and many of us have harvested wild game and have put this bounty of nature in the freezer to help feed our families over the coming months.
When the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors celebrated that first thanksgiving dinner in 1621, most of the food on the menu was wild game, including venison, turkey, ducks, geese, swans, fish, lobster and clams, plus wild berries and fruit. Pumpkin and squash would have been among the limited crops available for the dinner.
Hunting and fishing made that first Thanksgiving dinner possible. Indeed, hunting and fishing is the only way that tiny band of ill-prepared immigrants to this cold New England coastal area could have survived, and that was mostly due to the kindness of the Wampanoag Indian tribe who shared their food and hunting skills to help them survive their first winter. Incidentally, there are now about 2,300 surviving Wampanoag people, compared to the estimated 6,500 people at the time the Pilgrims came to Plymouth. In the 1600s, the native peoples of Massachusetts were pushed out of their homes, exposed to disease and killed in warfare. By the end of that century they had all but disappeared.
It’s almost 400 years since that first Thanksgiving and it’s good we still set a day aside to give thanks. Here are a few of the things for which I’m thankful this year.
I’m grateful for the gifts of family. Our children, their spouses, and our grandchildren give us hope and confidence for the future. They make us proud.
I’m grateful for the wild things of our creation. They fill the skies, the earth and the waters and give us food, a sense of wonder and a delight for the eyes. I’m grateful for the many people who work so hard to make sure that wild things continue to be a part of our lives.
I’m grateful for Montana Tech head football coach Bob Green. Coach Green is a total class act and has been through his career as a coach and mentor of young men who play football, study engineering and sciences – and graduate. I wish Bob and his wife, Pam, nothing but the best as he begins retirement. Football season in this part of the world is going to be a lot duller without him. I will share a bit of advice, however. Coach, there is life after football.
I’m grateful for the people who till the soil, produce crops, raise livestock, and produce the food for us on Thanksgiving Day and every other day of the year. Feeding the world is a noble profession.
I’m thankful for the men and women in our armed forces that serve our country so faithfully. My biggest wish is that our nation can find a way to world peace and bring you home. In the meantime, we’re grateful for your continuing service.
And to all of you, who read this column, may you and your families have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Pheasants in the North Dakota Oil Patch
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| Flicka bringing in a pheasant that didn't get away. |
Flicka, my Labrador retriever and always-enthusiastic hunting partner, and I were hunting pheasants on Wildlife Management Areas along the shores of Lakes Sakakawea, the big Missouri River impoundment in western North Dakota. I’ve hunted that area off and on around 30 years, and we’ve been making trips there regularly in recent years so that Kevin, our son who lives in Minot, and I can hunt together.
The area has been undergoing rapid change in the last few years. Some of those changes are natural and others are industrial.
The area is smack dab in the middle of the Bakken Formation oil patch of western North Dakota and eastern Montana, and the pace of development is almost mind-boggling. Almost everywhere you look you can see derricks, indicating where new wells are being drilled, site preparation where wells are going to be drilled, oil wells that are pumping, and occasional flames indicating where natural gas is being flared off. The number of natural gas flares is less than a year or so ago, as the oil companies have built natural gas pipelines to capture the gas and send it to market.
Another indicator of change is the volume of heavy truck traffic, with tanker trucks, heavy equipment movers and gravel hauling trucks fanning out across the countryside. While farming operations continue next to the oil wells it’s easy to see that energy is the driving force in western North Dakota.
Energy creates other impacts. Schools in a couple communities have put up apartments and houses specifically to provide their teachers with subsidized housing. With the influx of oil workers, housing in many small towns is at a premium.
For better or worse, Mother Nature has drastically changed the lakeshore hunting areas. The drought cycle of a few years ago resulted in low lake levels. While that hurt fisheries and boating it also created vast expanses of wildlife habitat as weeds, brush patches and groves of trees took hold, creating a paradise full of white-tailed deer, pheasants and waterfowl.
After just a couple years with heavy runoff the big impoundment is virtually full, as is the Ft. Peck impoundment in Montana, and some pheasant hotspots of a few years ago are now under 40 feet of water. In fact, lake levels increased 13 feet over the course of this past summer, going from 1837 feet above sea level in March to 1850 feet in July. Right now, the Corps of Engineers is dumping water from the reservoir at the rate of 30,000 cubic feet per second to lower lake levels to make room for next year’s runoff. Water is still coming in at the rate of 20,000 cfs, so it takes awhile to reduce the lake level, which stood at 1845 feet on October 31.
On October 31, while other people were getting ready for Halloween, Kevin and I were out walking along the lakeshore into a bitterly cold south wind, watching the surf roll in. Lines of driftwood above the current shoreline mark this year’s high water mark, while offshore, drowned trees are still standing in deep water. On this Halloween, the pheasants played all the tricks and, except for the sandwiches we’d packed for the day, we got none of the treats.
A couple days earlier I’d hunted by myself and collected a three-bird limit in relatively short order. The pheasants seemed to be bunched up in sheltered areas following an early snowstorm that roared through a couple days earlier.
After a couple days of warm sunshine the pheasants, especially those big gaudy roosters, seemed to have scattered and were hard to find. Who knows, maybe some of them strolled over to that new oilrig operating just a few hundred yards from the wildlife management area and hired on as roughnecks.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Some Notes on Veterans Day
Tomorrow, November 11, is Veteran’s Day, the annual tribute to the veterans of our armed forces who have sacrificed in so many ways to protect our country and freedoms.
The holiday originally was Armistice Day, commemorating that 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, November 11, 1918, when World War I, or the Great War, as it was called for years, finally limped to an exhausted end. While the war didn’t officially end until June 28, 1919 when the various governments signed the Treaty of Versailles in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation designating November 11, 1919 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day to honor “the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory…”
In 1926, Congress passed a resolution designating Armistice Day as a day “to be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
It was not until 1938 when a law was passed to designate the 11th of November as an official holiday. In 1954, a decade after an even more horrible war, World War II, and just after the Korean War, Congress amended the law to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a piece of legislation signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower, the five star general who commanded the allied forces in Europe to end the European part of that war.
For several years, Veterans Day was observed on the fourth Monday of October, following the 1968 legislation establishing a number of three-day weekends. When that law took effect in 1971 it was clear that not everybody agreed with the change. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed legislation to put Veterans Day back to November 11, beginning in 1978.
In most countries of the British Commonwealth, November 11 is observed as Remembrance Day, and British military units begin their observances with a bugle call, the Last Post, which usually signals day’s end. Similar to Taps, the Last Post is a part of military funerals in Commonwealth countries. Another tradition in the Commonwealth nations is to observe two minutes of silence at 11 a.m.
Armistice or Remembrance Day is not a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland. In July Ireland observes a National Day of Commemoration for Irish men and women who died in past wars or in service with United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. Still, in Dublin there is the National War Memorial Gardens, a memorial dedicated to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers serving in the British armed forces who lost their lives in the Great War. Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday closest to November 11, is marked by ecumenical ceremonies at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.
Long time readers might recall that I’ve had a long-held interest in World War I. In recent years there have been a number of books, fiction and non-fiction, published about the conflict.
The most recent book is “Fall of Giants,” by Ken Follett, a novel and the first volume of a planned trilogy about the 20th Century. It’s a heavy book, almost 1,000 pages long, about people and events leading to the war, significant events during the war and, finally, the end and aftermath of that war. Follett is a best-selling author with a long list of novels. This planned trilogy will definitely be a major achievement in his long writing career. I just finished reading it and while that book may be hard to pick up, it’s even harder to put down.
The battle of the Somme, a multi-month battle, with over a million casualties, including over 300,000 deaths, on both sides of the conflict after repeated fruitless battles, probably represents, more than other battles, the tragedy and futility of trench warfare. A recent book is a non-fiction volume by Peter Hart, “The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front.” And, yes, the Somme is a significant event in the Follett novel, as well.
Next week I’ll get back to fall hunting, but let’s take time tomorrow to honor the legacy of our nation’s veterans.
The holiday originally was Armistice Day, commemorating that 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month, November 11, 1918, when World War I, or the Great War, as it was called for years, finally limped to an exhausted end. While the war didn’t officially end until June 28, 1919 when the various governments signed the Treaty of Versailles in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation designating November 11, 1919 as the first commemoration of Armistice Day to honor “the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory…”
In 1926, Congress passed a resolution designating Armistice Day as a day “to be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations.”
It was not until 1938 when a law was passed to designate the 11th of November as an official holiday. In 1954, a decade after an even more horrible war, World War II, and just after the Korean War, Congress amended the law to change Armistice Day to Veterans Day, a piece of legislation signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower, the five star general who commanded the allied forces in Europe to end the European part of that war.
For several years, Veterans Day was observed on the fourth Monday of October, following the 1968 legislation establishing a number of three-day weekends. When that law took effect in 1971 it was clear that not everybody agreed with the change. In 1975, President Gerald Ford signed legislation to put Veterans Day back to November 11, beginning in 1978.
In most countries of the British Commonwealth, November 11 is observed as Remembrance Day, and British military units begin their observances with a bugle call, the Last Post, which usually signals day’s end. Similar to Taps, the Last Post is a part of military funerals in Commonwealth countries. Another tradition in the Commonwealth nations is to observe two minutes of silence at 11 a.m.
Armistice or Remembrance Day is not a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland. In July Ireland observes a National Day of Commemoration for Irish men and women who died in past wars or in service with United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. Still, in Dublin there is the National War Memorial Gardens, a memorial dedicated to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers serving in the British armed forces who lost their lives in the Great War. Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday closest to November 11, is marked by ecumenical ceremonies at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.
Long time readers might recall that I’ve had a long-held interest in World War I. In recent years there have been a number of books, fiction and non-fiction, published about the conflict.
The most recent book is “Fall of Giants,” by Ken Follett, a novel and the first volume of a planned trilogy about the 20th Century. It’s a heavy book, almost 1,000 pages long, about people and events leading to the war, significant events during the war and, finally, the end and aftermath of that war. Follett is a best-selling author with a long list of novels. This planned trilogy will definitely be a major achievement in his long writing career. I just finished reading it and while that book may be hard to pick up, it’s even harder to put down.
The battle of the Somme, a multi-month battle, with over a million casualties, including over 300,000 deaths, on both sides of the conflict after repeated fruitless battles, probably represents, more than other battles, the tragedy and futility of trench warfare. A recent book is a non-fiction volume by Peter Hart, “The Somme: The Darkest Hour on the Western Front.” And, yes, the Somme is a significant event in the Follett novel, as well.
Next week I’ll get back to fall hunting, but let’s take time tomorrow to honor the legacy of our nation’s veterans.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
It's November and the Seasons Are Progressing
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| The Bounty Under a Cold, Late Autumn Sky |
“Don’t go to Montana or Idaho. The wolves have gotten all the elk and deer. There’s nothing left.”
This spring our son, who lives in North Dakota, reported on attending a sportsmen’s show and that was the message blared out by a person promoting his business of booking hunts in Canada. Right now I think a lot of Montana hunters would say the guy was full of beans.
Opening weekend of the big game rifle season is just a small part of the season but if the initial reports from game checking stations hold up this could be a great hunting season. Certainly the heavy snow that pelted the high mountain peaks is a positive factor in hunting success on the opening weekend. That snow can also make hunting difficult when it comes to navigating some of those back country roads, but it also forces deer and elk to lower elevations where hunters have a better chance of finding them.
The big question is what will the weather do as we progress through the season? Certainly we’ve had other years when stormy opening weekends turned into mild and sunny Novembers, better for flyfishing than big game hunting. If nothing else, with the election campaign ending yesterday the weather should be cooling off. There will be a lot less hot air blowing around.
If you’re looking for some new hunting territory, you may be interested in knowing that the new Spotted Dog Wildlife Management Area near Deer Lodge is open to hunting this season. While there was some controversy as to whether the state should have acquired the property in the first place, it’s a done deal and the area is an important acquisition to the public lands open to hunting. More information is available at the Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks website at http://fwp.mt.gov. You can download interim regulations for the area as well as a map.
While elk and deer are getting a lot of attention this time of year let’s not forget that there are a lot of other hunting opportunities right now.
I always figure that right now is a good time to go pheasant hunting. Now that we’re almost a month into the season a lot of the people who were out tramping pheasant country in early October are now up in the mountains looking for elk or might have even quit hunting for the year. This means that some landowners will be more receptive to a polite request for hunting permission. In addition, as hunting pressure eases pheasants may be returning to some of the high quality game habitat on public land areas.
Last month I spent several days in and around the Freezeout Lake Wildlife Management Area near Fairfield, Montana. There is some great pheasant habitat in areas of the complex, with brushy shelterbelts, food plots and about as much grassland as you care to walk. The birds get pushed hard in the first few weeks of the season, but things get better.
Mountain grouse kind of get forgotten as we get into the late autumn, but right now is a prime time for hunting ruffed grouse. In Midwest and eastern states ruffed grouse get a lot of hunting attention. Here in Montana hunters often ignore these wonderful game birds. Granted, it isn’t always easy hunting, climbing up and down mountain foothills and wandering the aspen thickets. With leaves off the trees, however, it’s slightly easier to find the birds and to follow their flights through the forest.
If you’re out in search of upland birds, however, don’t forget to wear blaze orange clothing. It’s just about the most important thing you can do to stay safe.
The waterfowl season has been open for a month but I always figure the best hunting is yet to come as some of these winter weather systems sweep across the western Canadian provinces and the northern prairies of Montana. Each storm means fresh flights of ducks and geese heading for southwestern Montana.
As usual, the biggest problem is finding time to do it all. Good luck!
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
I Say Vote 'No" on I-161
The cock pheasant flushed from the edge of a patch of cattails and took to the air. I swung my shotgun along the pheasant’s flight path and pulled the trigger. The pheasant kept on flying for parts unknown.
I apologized to Flicka, my Labrador retriever. She’d been working the cover and finding the birds. She figures I should do my job and give her a pheasant to retrieve. Sometimes it works that way. This time I fell down on the job. Fortunately, Flicka is forgiving—as long as we’re looking for more birds she’s willing to overlook my lapses.
We were hunting on a farm along the Rocky Mountain Front. It’s a place I’ve hunted many tines and I treasure the memories I’ve stored up from many walks across the fields, as well as the three different Labs who have shared these walks. Also treasured are lively discussions over the kitchen table with the elderly couple that made their home on the farm for so many years. They’re gone now, too, but the bond of friendship continues with their adult children who continue to reside there.
Like many good hunting properties around Montana, the hunting isn’t free, though in this case the price of hunting is some good conversation.
I treasure this and some other farms and ranches where I have hunted over the years. At a time when many hunters are struggling to find a place to hunt it’s good to know there are places where I’m welcome to hunt. In fact, they often call to find out when I’m coming.
Nevertheless I still mourn the loss of some other farms and ranches where I used to hunt. One of those, a farm along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, was a pheasant paradise. It was often tough hunting because of impenetrable brush and thorns in spots, but it seldom failed to produce pheasants.
Several years ago the owners elected to start charging their hunters a trespass fee. That’s when I stopped going there. Before taking that step they also considered leasing the hunting rights to a local outfitter, but they ultimately decided to charge a trespass fee so as to maintain direct control of the hunting.
Losing the privilege of hunting on that farm still hurts though I don’t blame them for making changes in their policies. Making a living on a farm or ranch is a tough proposition, what with the high costs of production and a razor thin profit margin. If there has been a lot of turnover in farm and ranch ownership the last couple decades, the cold, harsh realities of agricultural economics are usually at the root of change. It’s no wonder many operators have resorted to charging trespass fees or leasing hunting rights.
That’s also at the heart of an initiative on the Montana ballot this election season. Initiative No 161 (I-161) is one of the few initiatives to pass the hurdles to get on the ballot. Two weeks ago, Rick Foote, the editor of the Weekly, wrote a detailed analysis of the measure and its pros and cons. I won’t go into that detail other than to briefly summarize the provisions of the measure. In short, I-161 would end a program of outfitter-sponsored licenses for elk and deer. Under this program non-residents pay a premium price for a big game hunting license when they book a hunt with a Montana outfitter
If the measure passes, all non-residents wanting to hunt in Montana would have to enter the general drawing for elk or deer license and pay higher fees, as well.
Backers of the measure assert that abolition of the outfitter-sponsored license will reverse that trend of landowners leasing hunting rights to outfitters and, thus, improve hunting opportunities for Montana residents.
Personally, I’m not convinced that I-161’s backers have made their case. I doubt that this measure, if passed, would roll things back to those good old days. As far as I’m concerned it’s agricultural economics that forces farmers and ranchers to seek additional revenue by leasing hunting rights and I-161 doesn’t change that.
I’m voting no.
I apologized to Flicka, my Labrador retriever. She’d been working the cover and finding the birds. She figures I should do my job and give her a pheasant to retrieve. Sometimes it works that way. This time I fell down on the job. Fortunately, Flicka is forgiving—as long as we’re looking for more birds she’s willing to overlook my lapses.
We were hunting on a farm along the Rocky Mountain Front. It’s a place I’ve hunted many tines and I treasure the memories I’ve stored up from many walks across the fields, as well as the three different Labs who have shared these walks. Also treasured are lively discussions over the kitchen table with the elderly couple that made their home on the farm for so many years. They’re gone now, too, but the bond of friendship continues with their adult children who continue to reside there.
Like many good hunting properties around Montana, the hunting isn’t free, though in this case the price of hunting is some good conversation.
I treasure this and some other farms and ranches where I have hunted over the years. At a time when many hunters are struggling to find a place to hunt it’s good to know there are places where I’m welcome to hunt. In fact, they often call to find out when I’m coming.
Nevertheless I still mourn the loss of some other farms and ranches where I used to hunt. One of those, a farm along the Yellowstone River in eastern Montana, was a pheasant paradise. It was often tough hunting because of impenetrable brush and thorns in spots, but it seldom failed to produce pheasants.
Several years ago the owners elected to start charging their hunters a trespass fee. That’s when I stopped going there. Before taking that step they also considered leasing the hunting rights to a local outfitter, but they ultimately decided to charge a trespass fee so as to maintain direct control of the hunting.
Losing the privilege of hunting on that farm still hurts though I don’t blame them for making changes in their policies. Making a living on a farm or ranch is a tough proposition, what with the high costs of production and a razor thin profit margin. If there has been a lot of turnover in farm and ranch ownership the last couple decades, the cold, harsh realities of agricultural economics are usually at the root of change. It’s no wonder many operators have resorted to charging trespass fees or leasing hunting rights.
That’s also at the heart of an initiative on the Montana ballot this election season. Initiative No 161 (I-161) is one of the few initiatives to pass the hurdles to get on the ballot. Two weeks ago, Rick Foote, the editor of the Weekly, wrote a detailed analysis of the measure and its pros and cons. I won’t go into that detail other than to briefly summarize the provisions of the measure. In short, I-161 would end a program of outfitter-sponsored licenses for elk and deer. Under this program non-residents pay a premium price for a big game hunting license when they book a hunt with a Montana outfitter
If the measure passes, all non-residents wanting to hunt in Montana would have to enter the general drawing for elk or deer license and pay higher fees, as well.
Backers of the measure assert that abolition of the outfitter-sponsored license will reverse that trend of landowners leasing hunting rights to outfitters and, thus, improve hunting opportunities for Montana residents.
Personally, I’m not convinced that I-161’s backers have made their case. I doubt that this measure, if passed, would roll things back to those good old days. As far as I’m concerned it’s agricultural economics that forces farmers and ranchers to seek additional revenue by leasing hunting rights and I-161 doesn’t change that.
I’m voting no.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Montana's Big Game Season Begins
For Montana hunters the big day is just about here. If we’ve been out there we probably have a few grouse in the freezer and these last couple weeks have been chasing waterfowl, pheasants and antelope. A lot of hunters have been taking advantage of the archery season.
Yet, that’s all a warm-up. On this Saturday, October 23, the 2010 general elk and deer season begins at sunrise and runs through Sunday, November 28, the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day. For many Montanans, this is the hunting season, or at least the only season that really counts.
And that season beginning date of Saturday, October 23, is not a typographical error. That’s right, the big game hunting seasons now open on Saturday, at the beginning of the weekend.
I don’t know how far back that traditional Sunday opening day goes back. The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks website simply notes it as “recent memory.” My Montana hunting memory goes back 40 years when the big game general season opened at sunrise on a Sunday morning and the pheasant season would open at noon. It was a long-held tradition, though it always struck me as a little crazy, in that the combination of deer and pheasant hunters all out at the same time was almost a guarantee for hunting accidents, or so it seemed.
Certainly, a segment of the hunting public cheering this change will be many clergymen who, over the years, have looked over their congregation on opening day Sunday mornings and noted all the absentees—while also feeling a little jealous because they couldn’t go hunting until they’d preached sermons and prayed their last prayer. This year they can go out on opening day with everybody else and if they’re lucky they can conduct Sunday services while their deer or elk is cooling, waiting to be turned into steaks and roasts.
While we’re on the topic of big game hunting, FWP reminds hunters to follow common sense rules if they use an Off Highway Vehicle when hunting. For example, whether you’re hunting Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or State wildlife management areas the rule is the same when it comes to using an ATV or other OHV. It’s unlawful to drive the vehicle off designated public roads or trails. If you’re hunting on private land, don’t drive off-trail unless the landowner has already given you the okay. Unauthorized use of an ATV, spreading weeds as you go, is a good way to lose your welcome at a hunting spot.
The rules for off-trail use on public lands don’t have an exception for retrieving game. Yes, it can be a real challenge dragging out a big deer or elk, but it’s still illegal to drive off designated roads and trails.
You likely don’t have to look far to see where people have violated the rules. Last month I noted a 4-wheeler track heading up a mountain meadow. Last year I noted a spot where people had been running circles with ATVs next to their archery hunting camp. They left ruts and bare tracks where they’d gone. A year later those scars are still there. It takes a long time for Nature to heal.
Don’t forget that it’s necessary to have permission to hunt on private land in Montana. This permission may be granted in person or by phone, or by posting of land as open to hunting. There are nine million acres of private land open to public hunting through the Block Management program. Don’t forget to follow the rules of getting permission slips, either through personal contact or at a designated sign-in box. If you haven’t followed the rules you don’t have permission.
Above all, be sure to wear hunter orange clothing during the big game season. When the countryside is full of hunters you want to be visible.
While there are always caveats about responsible hunting, let’s remember what a great time of year this is. People from all over the world envy us when it comes to hunting opportunities. Be safe, be legal, and have a great hunt!
Yet, that’s all a warm-up. On this Saturday, October 23, the 2010 general elk and deer season begins at sunrise and runs through Sunday, November 28, the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day. For many Montanans, this is the hunting season, or at least the only season that really counts.
And that season beginning date of Saturday, October 23, is not a typographical error. That’s right, the big game hunting seasons now open on Saturday, at the beginning of the weekend.
I don’t know how far back that traditional Sunday opening day goes back. The Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks website simply notes it as “recent memory.” My Montana hunting memory goes back 40 years when the big game general season opened at sunrise on a Sunday morning and the pheasant season would open at noon. It was a long-held tradition, though it always struck me as a little crazy, in that the combination of deer and pheasant hunters all out at the same time was almost a guarantee for hunting accidents, or so it seemed.
Certainly, a segment of the hunting public cheering this change will be many clergymen who, over the years, have looked over their congregation on opening day Sunday mornings and noted all the absentees—while also feeling a little jealous because they couldn’t go hunting until they’d preached sermons and prayed their last prayer. This year they can go out on opening day with everybody else and if they’re lucky they can conduct Sunday services while their deer or elk is cooling, waiting to be turned into steaks and roasts.
While we’re on the topic of big game hunting, FWP reminds hunters to follow common sense rules if they use an Off Highway Vehicle when hunting. For example, whether you’re hunting Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management or State wildlife management areas the rule is the same when it comes to using an ATV or other OHV. It’s unlawful to drive the vehicle off designated public roads or trails. If you’re hunting on private land, don’t drive off-trail unless the landowner has already given you the okay. Unauthorized use of an ATV, spreading weeds as you go, is a good way to lose your welcome at a hunting spot.
The rules for off-trail use on public lands don’t have an exception for retrieving game. Yes, it can be a real challenge dragging out a big deer or elk, but it’s still illegal to drive off designated roads and trails.
You likely don’t have to look far to see where people have violated the rules. Last month I noted a 4-wheeler track heading up a mountain meadow. Last year I noted a spot where people had been running circles with ATVs next to their archery hunting camp. They left ruts and bare tracks where they’d gone. A year later those scars are still there. It takes a long time for Nature to heal.
Don’t forget that it’s necessary to have permission to hunt on private land in Montana. This permission may be granted in person or by phone, or by posting of land as open to hunting. There are nine million acres of private land open to public hunting through the Block Management program. Don’t forget to follow the rules of getting permission slips, either through personal contact or at a designated sign-in box. If you haven’t followed the rules you don’t have permission.
Above all, be sure to wear hunter orange clothing during the big game season. When the countryside is full of hunters you want to be visible.
While there are always caveats about responsible hunting, let’s remember what a great time of year this is. People from all over the world envy us when it comes to hunting opportunities. Be safe, be legal, and have a great hunt!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Puffballs - a Bonus to a Ruffed Grouse Outing
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| A Woodland Prize - a softball-sized puffball |
I thought it would be a deal she couldn’t refuse.
On a September weekend of camping, fishing and grouse hunting, I suggested to my wife, “Why don’t you come along with your mushroom field guide and pick mushrooms while Flicka and I look for grouse?”
After the soaking rains of early September followed by relatively mild and sunny weather there has been an explosion of mushrooms in the mountain woodlands. They’re growing on stumps or emerging from decomposing leaf litter in the aspen thickets. I’m pretty sure a lot of them are edible, though a guideline you ignore at your own risk is to never eat a wild mushroom unless you’re certain about its identity.
My wife has the advantage here. She studied mycology (the study of fungi) as part of her college biology major and understands the scientific lingo when a guidebook discusses the identifying characteristics of mushrooms.
While I though it was a great offer, she still passed it up. Go figure.
So I wander the forest, looking at thousands of mushrooms and wonder about them.
On the other hand there are some mushrooms that are not only edible; they’re easy to identify. In spring and early summer morel mushrooms are treasures when you can find them.
Puffballs are edible mushroom that are easy to find and identify. In fact I often have puffballs growing in my yard, though they’re usually too small—marble-sized—to make picking worth the effort. Usually when I pick them they’re golf ball sized.
On an early October hunt I could hardly believe it when I looked down and spotted a softball-sized puffball. “It’s going to be all mushy,” I told myself, not wanting to get too excited about my find. I gave it a squeeze and it was nice and firm, just the way a good mushroom should be. I added it to my game bag and continued on my way.
While that softball-sized puffball was a prize it’s far from a trophy. I’ve seen them as large as a basketball and they get bigger than that. The trick is getting a large puffball that’s still fit to eat. According to a couple internet sources, when the puffball flesh is soft or looks yellowish or green, it’s no longer edible. In its final phase the puffball flesh dries and if you step on it a puff of powder comes out. Each of those little grains of powder is a spore capable of starting a new puffball. The number of spores in a giant puffball can be trillions. That’s a lot.
Perhaps if I left that puffball where it was, next year the whole hillside might have been covered with puffballs. We’ll never know because after bringing it home we sliced it and fried it in butter. That mushroom is gone.
While the puffball was a treat, it was just a bonus to the outing. Ruffed grouse were the goal of the trip and when Flicka and I finished our hike up and down the hills we had flushed several grouse and gotten two of them.
After we finished the hunt I drove on to the Big Hole River. After a late lunch in the shade of a golden cottonwood tree I rigged up a flyrod and waded up the river. It was mid-afternoon and the main dry fly action of the day was over. One trout came up and looked at my fly and turned away.
A couple minutes later another trout wasn’t so fussy and took the fly. This trout wasn’t a bit happy about being fooled into taking an artificial bug but after a few minutes I was able to bring it to hand long enough to unhook it and send it back to get a little bigger, though to tell the truth a 20-inch brown trout is just fine as it is.
We’d had a real western Montana day. A pleasant walk through the aspens on a golden October day, two ruffed grouse, a giant puffball and a 20-inch brown trout.
I love living here.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Montana Pheasant and Antelope Seasons Open
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| A memory from the 2009 pheasant season. |
The autumn season is progressing rapidly. While we had warm, sunny weather at the end of September, days keep getting shorter.
A sure sign of changing seasons is the colorful autumn foliage, both in cities and the mountains and river bottoms.
Quaking aspens, an icon of autumn in the Rocky Mountains, reached their peak last week, though there are still isolated clumps of aspens still holding on to their leaves, and some that are probably just changing colors. Aspens spread by cloning themselves and there’s no better indication of that than to look at a hillside this time of year and to see how clumps of aspen trees change colors. At any given time we might see aspens that are a bright yellow or orange, while other clumps of trees have shed their leaves and others are still green. Those clumps of aspens are made up of a number of trees but they’re still basically one big organism. They’re pretty amazing trees.
If you’re thinking of a fall color tour I’d do it this weekend as the colors are probably past their peak in the mountains, while the cottonwood groves in the river areas are just approaching their peak.
Either way, hopefully we’ll avoid that deep freeze cold front that robbed us of our fall colors last year when trees all over Montana froze their leaves before really changing color.
This weekend is a big weekend for Montana hunters.
The pheasant season opens on Saturday, October 9. Some people get excited about elk and deer. It’s pheasants that pop up in my dreams this time of the fall. There’s something about the sight of a pheasant exploding from a patch of brush that never fails to stir my senses, and I hope it never does.
While the pheasant isn’t native to North America, this import from China has certainly found a good home here in America’s heartland. They’re a bird at home in cornfields, wheat and barley stubble, wetlands, river bottoms and anywhere else they can find food and shelter.
Pheasant hunting is always a challenge. Pheasants may have no more brains than a barnyard chicken, but these birds develop an acute sense for what’s going on in their neighborhood. Pheasants are seldom caught by surprise. It’s figuring out what they are going to do that makes them so fascinating. Some birds are expert at hiding, hoping hunters and other predators will walk by without finding them. Then other birds will simply bug out, either on foot or on wing, as soon as they sense unwelcome company.
A good bird dog with a trained sense of smell is an invaluable partner when it comes to productive pheasant hunting. A good dog will find where birds are hiding and, almost more importantly, will find where a pheasant fell after a successful shot. A rooster pheasant is a gaudy, bright colored bird but it’s amazing how it can disappear into a little clump of grass or weeds.
The pheasant season runs through New Year’s Day, so there will be many opportunities in the next couple months to chase these wonderful birds.
The Montana pronghorn antelope season also opens on October 9 and runs through November 14.
According to Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, Montana is second only to Wyoming in pronghorn populations, so if you needed another reason to be happy about living in Montana, there you are.
While pronghorn populations are thriving in most of southwestern Montana, hunters heading for southeast Montana, usually a mecca for pronghorns, may have a little more challenge this year. Pronghorn populations are down after tough winters the last couple years. In the Miles City area, FWP estimates populations are down 37 percent from a couple years ago.
Whether you’re looking for pheasants or pronghorn this weekend, keep in mind that it is always necessary to have permission to hunt private land in Montana. On the other hand, there are some 9 million acres of land open to hunters through the Block Management Program. Do your homework and you may find some hunting treasures in the Treasure State.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
An Appointment with Sharptails
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| Taking Time to Smell the Wildflowers |
"Sorry. I have an appointment with some sharptails at Loma.”
I had been in Havre covering the annual convention of the Montana Tavern Association and was having breakfast with Paul Tash of Butte, publisher of the association’s publication, Tavern Times. Though I had completed my last interviews and taken my last photo, Paul jokingly suggested I could stay for just one more meeting.
No. I had that other appointment, though I wondered whether the grouse had gotten the memo.
My destination for my hunt was a tract of public land on a high prairie ridge separating the Marias and Teton Rivers on one side and the Missouri River on the other. It’s an area rich in history. In June 1805 the Lewis & Clark expedition paused to stop and figure out which stream was the true Missouri.
Off in the distance is a kiosk on top of a hill marking the point where Meriwether Lewis stopped, after an eight-mile walk before breakfast, to look over the countryside and decide which way to go, finally deciding on the south fork.
Over succeeding years the area had an early trading post, one of the first railroad lines and an infamous battle in 1870 in which American soldiers attacked a band of Piegans huddled in winter camp along the Marias. 173 Indians, mostly women and children, were killed in the pre-dawn attack still remembered as the Marias Massacre.
Over the years, countless steamboats, keelboats and smaller craft passed through the area to and from Fort Benton, head of navigation on the Missouri. These days it’s a popular launching area for floating the Missouri River.
For several years we had taken annual trips here to hunt sharp-tailed grouse. The last time was in September 2001, just a few days after the terrorist attacks on the 11th. Looking back in my journals I’m reminded that the only grouse I saw were a few that flushed wild. I never fired a shot and the most memorable part of the trip was the silence in the skies, with all civilian air travel suspended.
That was nine years and one dog ago, though the difficult part of this day’s hunt was that Flicka, my faithful Labrador retriever, was home in Butte. If there were sharptails on this prairie, would I find them without the help of a dog’s nose?
The only guarantee, when you set off on a walk across the prairie, is that you’ll have a nice long walk and plenty of time to think, especially when not keeping track of a bird dog.
I’m struck by the abundant wildflowers, particularly black-eyed Susans, blooming in the grassland. At a series of long, brushy draws connecting the benchland prairie with the river bottoms, mule deer pop out of their beds in the brush patches. The mulies, some five in all, look fat and sassy after a summer of easy living. One of the deer sports an impressive spread of antlers.
By now, my saunter across the grassland has taken about two hours and the only birds I’ve seen are meadowlarks. “Where are the grouse?” I wonder. I’d better do some more back and forth walking to cover some more of the grassland.
My question is answered when a covey of about 20 grouse flush from a low spot. I pick a bird from the covey and swing my gun on it and shoot. The bird drops, and to my surprise a second bird also drops. I’ve gotten what’s called a “Scotch double” on the flush. I’m so surprised that I forget to try to pick off another bird from the rapidly disappearing covey, missing an opportunity for a rare triple (with a double-barrel shotgun) on a covey rise.
Fortunately the downed birds fall in thin cover and I retrieve them without difficulty and it’s just a ten-minute walk back to where I started the hunt. Even with the heft of the birds in the back of my vest I have a little extra bounce in my steps.
It meant a long walk across the prairie, but we’d kept our appointment.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
A Fun Afternoon of Trapshooting in Havre, Montana
Last week I wrote about missing grouse in the opening weekend of the hunting season and that I would be doing some clay pigeon shooting to get my shooting eye back in training.
I was in Havre, Montana most of last week covering the annual convention of the Montana Tavern Association for Tavern Times, the monthly newspaper of the tavern association. The convention opens with a golf tournament and a shotgunning event. Last year we enjoyed a round of sporting clays at a facility at Polson. This year the shooting event was at the Havre Trap Club.
The Havre Trap Club has an active program, with regular registered shoots, shooting leagues and fun events., as well as some special events, such as the special shoot for the Tavern Association.
A guest shooter for the afternoon was Max Erickson, owner of Erickson Financial Services of Havre and a sponsor of the shooting event. Max is a Butte native, the son of Len and Mona Erickson.
Max demonstrates that when participating in shooting sports presents some challenges, there are ways to meet those challenges.
Max has complications from diabetes. He has some mobility issues, so he shoots from a chair, which is not particularly unusual in the trapshooting world. A more serious complication is a vision loss in his right eye. Actually, that’s a variation on a relatively common problem in shotgunning: a master eye that is at odds with the body. Many shotgunners are right-handed but have a left master eye, or have a cross-dominance problem, in other words.
There are different solutions to the cross-dominance problem. Some shooters simply close their left eye, or even put some translucent tape across the left lens of their glasses to force the right eye to take over.
The loss of vision in one eye complicates things, as closing the left eye won’t solve the problem. Max tried shooting left-handed but that didn’t prove to be satisfactory. A local gunsmith came up with a solution in the form of a secondary gun muzzle, about an inch long, attached to the left side of the end of his shotgun. This gives him a secondary reference on which his left eye can focus in tracking flying targets.
It’s not perfect, but as some members of the Havre Trap Club related he now normally misses around four targets in a 25-shot round of trap, whereas when he tried shooting left-handed, he’d hit about four targets. In the competitive world of trapshooting, that won’t win many trophies. On the other hand, for a recreational shooter it’s the difference between acute frustration and enjoyment.
On the topic of trapshooting, the Havre Trap Club went out of their way to create a fun program for the convention shooters. We shot a couple rounds of standard trap for loosening up as well as to help work up an appetite for lunch.
Later they came up with games to test shooting and reflexes. We lined up at the firing line and divided into groups of three. The first person would call for the target and shoot. If he missed the second person could shoot and if he missed the third person could shoot. It’s trickier than it sounds. If a person shot after the target had already been broken, or shot out of turn, he’d earn a disqualification point. It didn’t take long before most of the shooters became bystanders while Max Erickson and Ralph Ferraro, a Bozeman restaurateur, were the last ones shooting with Ferraro finally prevailing.
I’ll modestly mention that in a second heat your reporter ended up as the winner.
Still the main thing to the shooting event was to have fun and we succeeded in a big way. Another bonus is that we had a good refresher course in shotgunning and that should pay dividends in grouse and pheasant hunts this fall. During the afternoon we each went through about six boxes of shotgun shells and I’d bet most of us don’t go through that many shells in a full season of shooting.
I was in Havre, Montana most of last week covering the annual convention of the Montana Tavern Association for Tavern Times, the monthly newspaper of the tavern association. The convention opens with a golf tournament and a shotgunning event. Last year we enjoyed a round of sporting clays at a facility at Polson. This year the shooting event was at the Havre Trap Club.
The Havre Trap Club has an active program, with regular registered shoots, shooting leagues and fun events., as well as some special events, such as the special shoot for the Tavern Association.
A guest shooter for the afternoon was Max Erickson, owner of Erickson Financial Services of Havre and a sponsor of the shooting event. Max is a Butte native, the son of Len and Mona Erickson.
Max demonstrates that when participating in shooting sports presents some challenges, there are ways to meet those challenges.
Max has complications from diabetes. He has some mobility issues, so he shoots from a chair, which is not particularly unusual in the trapshooting world. A more serious complication is a vision loss in his right eye. Actually, that’s a variation on a relatively common problem in shotgunning: a master eye that is at odds with the body. Many shotgunners are right-handed but have a left master eye, or have a cross-dominance problem, in other words.
There are different solutions to the cross-dominance problem. Some shooters simply close their left eye, or even put some translucent tape across the left lens of their glasses to force the right eye to take over.
The loss of vision in one eye complicates things, as closing the left eye won’t solve the problem. Max tried shooting left-handed but that didn’t prove to be satisfactory. A local gunsmith came up with a solution in the form of a secondary gun muzzle, about an inch long, attached to the left side of the end of his shotgun. This gives him a secondary reference on which his left eye can focus in tracking flying targets.
It’s not perfect, but as some members of the Havre Trap Club related he now normally misses around four targets in a 25-shot round of trap, whereas when he tried shooting left-handed, he’d hit about four targets. In the competitive world of trapshooting, that won’t win many trophies. On the other hand, for a recreational shooter it’s the difference between acute frustration and enjoyment.
On the topic of trapshooting, the Havre Trap Club went out of their way to create a fun program for the convention shooters. We shot a couple rounds of standard trap for loosening up as well as to help work up an appetite for lunch.
Later they came up with games to test shooting and reflexes. We lined up at the firing line and divided into groups of three. The first person would call for the target and shoot. If he missed the second person could shoot and if he missed the third person could shoot. It’s trickier than it sounds. If a person shot after the target had already been broken, or shot out of turn, he’d earn a disqualification point. It didn’t take long before most of the shooters became bystanders while Max Erickson and Ralph Ferraro, a Bozeman restaurateur, were the last ones shooting with Ferraro finally prevailing.
I’ll modestly mention that in a second heat your reporter ended up as the winner.
Still the main thing to the shooting event was to have fun and we succeeded in a big way. Another bonus is that we had a good refresher course in shotgunning and that should pay dividends in grouse and pheasant hunts this fall. During the afternoon we each went through about six boxes of shotgun shells and I’d bet most of us don’t go through that many shells in a full season of shooting.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Art and Frustration of Shooting Flying
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| Flicka and our first grouse of 2010 |
Standing New Year’s Resolution No. 3: Go shoot some clay pigeons before the next upland bird hunting season rolls around.
Alas, that resolution, along with those resolutions to go on a diet and become a better human being, is one that gets forgotten on January 2.
Then, when September rolls around and those first grouse flush, I’m reminded about that neglected resolution. The birds are in the air and instead of picking out a bird and focusing on it, I’m poking my shotgun in the general direction of the grouse and shooting.
Shooting at flying grouse, or clay pigeons for that matter, is a lot like playing tennis. One of Butte’s tennis aficionados occasionally reiterates her Three Rules of Tennis. 1. Keep your eye on the ball. 2. Keep your eye on the ball. 3. Keep your eye on that danged ball!
Ignoring those rules of tennis generally translates into taking an ineffective poke at the ball or what tennis commentators refer to as an “unforced error.” Baseball coaches give similar advice to both batters and fielders, and football coaches give that advice to pass receivers. Keep your eye on the ball.
The same goes for shooting. Keep your eye on the bird.
Fortunately, there’s nothing like missing some shots to reinforce the need to keep your eye on the bird. Things do get better.
On those first walks for grouse at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend there was mostly frustration.
First of all, on the mountain where Flicka, my Labrador retriever, were searching for blue grouse, there was evidently poor reproduction. Last year, hunting the same mountain, there were five separate areas where it seemed I could reliably find blue grouse. This year, just one of those spots, a long sagebrush ridge, had a covey of grouse. In any event, when Flicka finally had a chance to go on point, when the birds flushed I poked my gun in their general direction when I fired and, predictably, nothing fell.
Later that day we took a walk up a brushy creek bottom in search of ruffed grouse. A grouse flushed and I had what should have been an easy straightaway shot. Again, I poked in the general direction and nothing fell. Flicka, bless her heart, went over in the optimistic hope that there would be something for her to retrieve, but her hopes were again dashed.
A few minutes later four ruffed grouse flushed and I swung on the birds, but when I pulled the trigger nothing happened. I had neglected to flip the safety to the ‘fire’ position. That’s a pretty basic error in gun handling.
The next morning we returned to that sagebrush ridge. Flicka, bless her heart, picked up the scent of the grouse and several grouse flushed from a brush patch. I missed what should have been an easy shot at the first bird to get up. I quickly reloaded and a couple more birds took off. This time I concentrated on the grouse and kept swinging on it, even after I missed the first shot. With the second shot from my over/under shotgun, the bird dropped. Flicka made the retrieve and I happily put the first bird of the season in the back of my vest.
A few minutes later I had a shot at another grouse and dropped it with my first shot.
The morning’s hunt ended with a vest pocket holding two blue grouse and a handful of fired shotgun hulls. It was one of those mornings where it felt like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra once famously said. When I got into my first bunches of birds last year I did a lot of shooting before we actually put some birds in the freezer.
I take comfort in knowing that things get better after getting those misses out of the system. That shotgun starts feeling like an old friend again and shooting at flying targets, whether feathers or clay, gets to be fun.
Nevertheless, I did shoot some clay pigeons this week. Better late than never.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Trico Time in Montana
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| My Lab Flicka sitting on a rock in the middle of the river keeping an eye on the action |
It’s mid-morning and the pool of water below the riffle looks calm. It looks calm but looks can be deceiving. The surface of the water is calm but the mayhem is about to start.
While I don’t see any fish rising I tie on a small dry fly and cast it out on the water. There’s a dimple on the water’s surface and I tighten the line; a nice fish is on the other end and it’s not at all happy about that little hook in the corner of its jaw. After a short but splashy fight I draw the fish up close so I can unhook it and send it back to the water.
For the last couple weeks I’ve been spending time on the Big Hole River following the trico hatch, that late summer blizzard of tiny mayflies that get the trout in a brief feeding frenzy just about every morning.
The trico, short for Ttrichorythodes, is tiny but prolific. As is the case with most aquatic insects, that last stage of life as an adult flying insect is brief. The bug emerges from the water in the early morning hours and in the next few hours will change from a dun to a spinner, breed in mid-air in a swarm of many thousands of bugs and then return to the water to lay eggs and die. At that point its mission in life is complete. It became an adult flying insect and procreated.
The insects feed the fish in all its life forms but it’s that final stage, the spinner fall, which triggers the feeding frenzy, though there was a time when fly anglers occasionally looked at the trico hatch as the “white curse” because they really hadn’t come to an understanding of this tiny bug and how to fish for trout during the trico season.
The sheer numbers of flying insects in the air is more than most of us can imagine. Swarms of tricos fly over the river in a visible cloud. Gusts of wind will scatter the swarms and it’s almost like a snowstorm.
On this particular morning at 10:30 the mating swarms hadn’t shown up yet but the fish were waiting and eager to nibble on anything small and dry. While I unhooked that first fish I could see some tricos in the air and at the same time I could see the rings on the water’s surface where fish were sipping in the little bits of protein. As they got into it there were rises all over the pool, with splashy rises becoming common as the trout got caught up in the moment.
On that last weekend in August I fished the same pool on two successive mornings and on the first morning I caught mostly rainbow trout. The second morning I caught mostly brown trout. Of course it’s hard to fish the trico spinner fall without catching whitefish. Whitefish really seem to love sipping in those tricos and sometimes it’ll seem as if there are nothing but whitefish in the river. On an earlier weekend I fished another stretch of the Big Hole and whitefish, along with a few yearling grayling, furnished almost all of the action.
On some waters trout are notoriously selective about taking flies that are a close match to the real thing. That means flies that seem almost microscopic, especially for those of us well advanced into the bifocal generation. Personally, I find tying flies on #24 hooks more trouble than it’s worth, and trying to thread the end of my tippet into the eye of the hook almost impossible.
On the Big Hole, at least, I can usually get away with using larger flies, if you call a fly on a #18 hook large. On this particular morning I started with a standard #18 Adams. After several fish the fly looked pretty tattered but as long as it floated it caught fish.
Elk and upland birds are taking over the spotlight right now, but don’t forget the trout. There’s a lot of fun going on.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Montana's Hunting Outlook for 2010
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| The aspens in Montana's mountain country will be turning golden in a few weeks. |
The upland bird hunting seasons opened today at sunrise and the archery deer and elk season will open on Saturday. As we plan early hunting outings, what are the prospects for success?
According to a phone interview with Rick Northrup, upland bird coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks in Helena, the overall prospects for bird populations are good for most upland game birds, with some localized exceptions.
Northrup explained that the projections of bird populations are based on a combination of looking at 2009 hunter harvest statistics, adding in data for weather conditions during late spring and early summer when birds are trying to lay and hatch eggs and get the chicks through their first couple weeks. Finally, they add in about 30 years of weather data, hunter harvest data and try to correlate all those statistics into projections for brood survival. He sums up, “We’re trying to be scientific.”
In Region 3, which includes much of southwest Montana, FWP predicts bird populations to be similar to 2009 with the exception of the southern portions of Beaverhead, Madison and Gallatin Counties, which had severe cold and precipitation conditions during the crucial nesting period. Otherwise, hunters should find average bird populations among mountain grouse, sage grouse and Hungarian partridge. The pheasant season doesn’t open until October, but bird populations should be similar to 2009, when the pheasant harvest was slightly above average.
The northwest and northeast corners of Montana are exceptions to the generally optimistic outlook for relatively healthy bird populations. Northwest Montana had severe weather conditions this spring that affected nesting success.
Northeast Montana, a popular destination for pheasant hunters, had a severe winter in 2008-2009. Pheasant hunter success in 2009 was just 41 percent of average and sharp-tailed grouse success was 74 percent of average. The 2009-2010 winter and 2010 spring conditions were better than a year ago, but putting it in sports terminology, this is a rebuilding year.
Some areas of the Rocky Mountain Front had severe weather in late April 2009 that caused pheasant and partridge deaths, and lower fall populations. There should be some improvement in 2010 populations.
While FWP makes projections based on those complex factors, the best idea is to put on those boots and see what’s out there in the areas you like to hunt. That’s what I’m going to do.
In other hunting news, FWP has tentatively sent dates for the waterfowl seasons. In both the Central and Pacific Flyway areas of Montana, duck and goose hunting will begin on October 2. In addition there will be a combined Youth Waterfowl Season and Youth Pheasant Season on September 25 and 26. These special youth seasons are statewide and are to encourage younger hunters to get involved with hunting. Youth are classed as age 11 -15, legally licensed and accompanied by a non-hunting adult age 18 or older.
For archery hunters looking for early season elk, as well as rifle hunters looking ahead to October, Vanna Boccadori, a big game wildlife biologist at the FWP Butte office says, “It’s a good year for elk. We had spring rains and summer rains, the grass is belly-deep all over in our area.
“The calf counts are good, and last year’s spike bulls are raghorns this year. We had good recruitment among this class of elk.”
On the other hand, she reports mule deer numbers are down and “They are generally depressed around Montana—it’s one of those periodic cycles, and it’s reflected in a cut in numbers of B Tags available in Region 3.” She also reports pronghorn antelope numbers are up and for a little variety she mentions, “We’ve had a lot of black bear sightings. People who still have a bear tag left over after the spring season should take it along just in case. And, as usual, whitetail deer are thriving.”
The important thing, as always, is that the hunting seasons start this week. Whether you carry a shotgun or archery equipment, our time, the best time of the year in Montana, is finally here. But don’t forget your fishing rod.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Hunting Season Almost Here
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| Flicka and a blue grouse from opening of 2009 hunting season. |
So, what happened to summer? By the calendar, of course, it’s still summer and will be for almost another month.
By the calendar, however, September 1 is a week from today and by my standards that means fall, because that is when the hunting seasons begin.
Yes, one week from today the upland bird hunting seasons begin, and time to get the shotgun out of the cabinet and make those long walks across the prairies, sagebrush meadows and mountainsides of Montana in search of mountain grouse, sharp-tailed grouse, sage grouse and Hungarian partridge. The pheasant season will open October 9, and while some seasons close a bit earlier, it means we can go chase birds of one kind or another until New Year’s Day, and then, presumably, we’ll still have a couple weeks of late waterfowling before the 2010 general hunting seasons finally close.
The archery seasons for deer and elk open a week from Saturday, on September 4. The archery seasons, in general, run through October 17, and then the rifle season, which for many Montanans is hunting season, opens October 23, running through November 28. A newer wrinkle in the hunting season calendar is a youth deer season, which will be on October 21, and 22.
Of course, don’t rely on me when making your hunting plans for the coming months. Pick up a copy of the various hunting regulations at license vendors, sporting goods stores, or online at http://fwp.mt.gov.
This has always been a special time of the year for me and most people for whom hunting is ingrained as an important part of life, and it is especially true for those of us who keep a hunting dog twelve months out of the year in order to have a canine partner during the hunting season.
At our house, Flicka, our black Labrador retriever, is definitely getting anxious for those first hunting outings of the fall season. She demands and gets daily retrieving sessions, and she wades and swims the trout streams when we’re fishing, but that’s just fun and games and the things she does just to be with her people. Finding bird scent, pointing, flushing, and when things work right, retrieving is what she lives for. For that matter, the fun of following a dog across a mountain meadow and watching it do what it was born to do has come to be almost more important than the shooting and occasionally bringing home a bag of birds.
Flicka, for those of you who have followed her adventures since she was a pup, just celebrated her fifth birthday earlier this month. She’s in this all too short prime of life, the fleeting period between obnoxious puppyhood and the inevitable geriatric period of life. She’s the seasoned veteran of many hunts since her initiation to hunting in early winter of 2005. Yet, she has lots of energy and stamina for as many days of hunting as we can fit in during the season. The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that she likely has more reason to worry about my keeping up with her as we start another season.
While we make that mental adjustment to hunting season, we shouldn’t forget that there is still a lot of fishing to do. In fact many people would suggest that the best flyfishing of the year is in the fall. The best thing is that it’s perfectly feasible to have it all. We can hunt in the morning and fish in the afternoon and evening. Cast and blast, as it’s called.
Chokecherries are now just about ripe. The tourist season is about over, so campgrounds will be all but deserted much of the time—at least after we get past the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Hunting seasons are about to start and fishing is good. The weather is great—at least some of the time at least. Yup, early fall is great. Get out there and enjoy it while it lasts.
The best time of the year is here.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Life Among the Ants
Nature is full of drama—scenes of love and life played out daily in nature, such as sharp-tailed grouse doing a mating dance in springtime, or in autumn, mountain sheep rams banging heads together to sort out issues of dominance and submission.
Some scenes are best viewed with a macro lens.
Our son, Kevin, and his family, have been with us the last couple weeks, and Kevin and I have been fishing and floating on the Big Hole River. On our last outing, we pulled into shore at midday and we found a log in the shade of a cottonwood tree for a lunch break.
After finishing my sandwich I glanced down at my feet and saw one of those dramas playing out. A few flakes of bread crust dropped to the ground while we were eating and ants were gathering to make sure this precious windfall of food wouldn’t go to waste. In fact, it was the sight of a large flake of crust moving on the ground that first caught my eye. Large is a subjective description of course. In this case, a flake ¼” by 1/8” was large, considering the size of the ants which were a diminutive 1/16” long.
A group of ants, possibly around a dozen, were working on this shred of bread crust. There was plenty of help on the team to move the bounty, though they had to move the crust over an obstacle course of twigs, shreds of leaves and other debris. One ant showed off super strength. This one had a tiny flake of crust and the ant scurried across a little patch of bare ground, like a kindergartner carrying a sheet of Styrofoam across a playground.
Ants are one of our most widespread creatures and are native to every continent except Antarctica, and a few large islands, such as Greenland. Over 12,000 ant species have been classified, though entomologists estimate there are at least 22,000 species.
Ants communicate with each other by pheromones, chemical signals ants transmit, which other ants are able to pick up with their antennae. That is how all those ants knew to come scurrying to team up to salvage my breadcrumbs.
While the ants working at my feet were tiny and inoffensive, there are other ants capable of being far more than uninvited guests at a picnic. One afternoon while we were camping I was cooking dinner on the charcoal grill. While turning burgers, it suddenly felt like my legs were on fire. A swarm of fire ants were on my legs and actively attacking. Naturally, I jumped back and brushed the ants off my legs, though the toxins associated with their bites continued to irritate for hours.
If we look closely, we often see ants crawling along riverbanks, or on streamside rocks. Naturally, some of those ants fall in the water where fish often scarf them up when they get the opportunity. There are many flies designed to resemble ants and it’s a good idea to keep a few ant patterns in the fly box. Personally, I don’t often remember to use them until I conclude nothing else is working. Still, they have saved fishing days often enough to keep them in mind, especially if I’m fishing along a rocky shoreline, or downstream from an irrigation diversion structure.
Rarely, we may see swarms of flying ants along the river. Once, when fishing the Yellowstone River, I wasn’t catching anything while Kevin was constantly into fish. I asked him what kind of fly he was using, and he said he’d seen a swarm of flying ants while walking to the water and was using an ant pattern. A couple summers ago, while camping on the Big Hole I saw swarms of flying ants just about the time dinner was ready. If I’d been thinking, I would have told my wife to put dinner on hold while I checked for a feeding frenzy.
That, of course, might have led to another kind of drama. Guess I’ll just imagine what might have been and not push my luck.
The white spot in the above photo is that bread crust. If you look closely you may be able to see a couple ants.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Big Blackfoot River
While catching fish was my immediate goal, another sound, a low-pitched roar, started to assert a different priority.
I was fishing the Blackfoot River, the river of Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It.” A number of times my wife and I have driven through the beautiful Blackfoot valley and we keep thinking that we really should spend a little time there and do some fishing and camping on the river. We finally looked at the calendar and decided that if we were going to do it, this weekend was the time.
We set up camp at a Fishing Access Site on the river’s banks, just inside the Missoula County line, and in the evening I caught several cutthroat trout as the sun dipped below the western mountains.
The next day we drove to a fishing access site upstream from our campground, where I launched my pontoon boat for a float trip back to camp. As it happened, I caught my best fish of the day, a 16-inch or so cutthroat trout, in a quiet pool just out from the launch site. While the fishing for the rest of the float wasn’t as exciting, it was still a pleasant float through a scenic area.
After getting back to camp, we did some touring, taking a trip to the top of the mountains and the old ghost town of Garnet, where we marveled at the hardy miners and their families who somehow followed the colors of gold dust all the way to the mountain tops and established a community up there, with some 1000 people living there with just 13 saloons to keep them happy, during the camp’s heyday. Garnet is now managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which is doing important work to keep the ghost town’s buildings stable and preventing their further decay into the mountainside.
Leaving the mountains, we checked out another takeout site on the Blackfoot, where the Clearwater River flows into the Blackfoot. My wife encouraged me to float that section the next day.
It’s just about the prettiest float you’d imagine, following the river through one scenic spot after another, and fishing likely looking spots.
But then there’s that stretch of water where there’s this roaring sound coming from downstream.
As I approached the end of the run I could see what was coming. The canyon narrows and squeezes the river from about 50 yards wide to about 10 yards wide, with the water plunging through a series of boulder-studded rapids. I pulled the boat over to the side to take a look at where I should go and it looked like straight down the middle was the route to follow. Reminding myself that a bunch of teenagers with inner tubes had gone ahead of me an hour earlier I headed into the current.
It’s a wild ride through the rapids, without much time to plan on a route through the whitewater. All those floats I’ve taken down the Big Hole were gently placid compared to this canyon. I could only guess at what these rapids are like during high water, though the sight of a green canoe, bent inside out and wrapped around one of those big boulders, was a pretty good hint at the power of the river early in the season.
It’s good to know that these little pontoon boats are stable and maneuverable in fast water, though I couldn’t help thinking as I approached the takeout site that at my advancing age it’s a shame to have wasted all that adrenalin on boating.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
An Outdoors Agenda for August
The summer season keeps racing along. It seems like it was just last week when we were covering the garden against late spring frosts, and now it’s August and it won’t be long before we’re covering our gardens against early fall frosts. Flathead cherries are now available, and it’s an addiction, I must confess. As a matter of fact, if you were to do a soil analysis in my backyard, you’d likely find that, within spitting distance of the back door, cherry pits are the primary component in the soil.
Going a little farther afield, or further up the mountain, to be specific, huckleberries, those wonderful berries that define the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, are ripe and ready for picking.
Closer to home, in buggy riparian areas along many of our rivers and streams, gooseberries and currants are ripe. If you can stand the mosquitoes and the thorns, you have the makings for good jams and jellies.
Chokecherries, our most abundant wild fruit in Montana, won’t be ripe in this area until the end of August or early September, so just be patient.
Something I eagerly anticipate in August fishing is the trico (for Trichorythodes) hatch. Tricos are tiny, little mayflies (they’re so small, they need two adjectives) that make their appearance on our rivers about this time of year. They’re so small it’s easy to ignore them, but the important thing is, the fish don’t. In fact, fish dote on tricos and feed actively on them.
When tricos are at their peak during mid to late August, you can often see clouds of these little bugs flying over the river as they get ready for their egg-laying flights to the water. When the bugs do hit the water trout and whitefish pull up to the table and start eating.
I often fish some slow-moving pools on the Big Hole during the trico hatch and it often seems whitefish are going crazy over tricos. And they are, but sometimes it’s browns and rainbows that are sipping in the tiny treats.
The trico hatch keeps happening well into September, so there will be lots of opportunities to get in on some of that great dry fly fishing. Just remember to think tiny and delicate. I usually use #18 or #20 hooks for tying imitations, and some go as small as a #24 hook. You may also want to put on a size 7X tippet at the end of your leader. Like I say, think tiny and delicate.
The trico hatch, or spinner fall, if you want to be technical, seems to happen around mid to late morning hours. It’s definitely not something you can set your watch by; all you can do is get out on the stream in the morning and hope to be there when it happens and the fish start feeding. If you don’t get out on the stream until afternoon, chances are you’ll miss the whole thing and you’ll be wondering why the fish aren’t’ biting.
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now seems, finally, to be capped though it’s going to take a long time to clean up the environmental damage created by the catastrophe.
For better or worse, the oil spill mess has brought renewed attention to the endangered wetlands of the Gulf Coast.
In a partial response, the Department of Interior, in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited and sporting goods retailer Bass Pro Shops, is releasing a special Duck Stamp envelope, or cachet, to be sold to waterfowl hunters, birders, collectors and others to raise money to purchase Gulf Coast wetlands to be included in federal wildlife refuges.
The envelope, or cachet, as it’s called by stamp collectors, bears a silk rendering of a photograph of Florida’s St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge and the 2010 Duck Stamp, a painting of an American widgeon by Robert Beadle of Maryland.
The cachet and stamp sells for $25, or just $10 more than the Duck Stamp alone. It can be purchased at post offices, at Bass Pro Shops stores, on-line at www.duckstamp.com, or by phone at 1-800-852-4897.
Going a little farther afield, or further up the mountain, to be specific, huckleberries, those wonderful berries that define the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, are ripe and ready for picking.
Closer to home, in buggy riparian areas along many of our rivers and streams, gooseberries and currants are ripe. If you can stand the mosquitoes and the thorns, you have the makings for good jams and jellies.
Chokecherries, our most abundant wild fruit in Montana, won’t be ripe in this area until the end of August or early September, so just be patient.
Something I eagerly anticipate in August fishing is the trico (for Trichorythodes) hatch. Tricos are tiny, little mayflies (they’re so small, they need two adjectives) that make their appearance on our rivers about this time of year. They’re so small it’s easy to ignore them, but the important thing is, the fish don’t. In fact, fish dote on tricos and feed actively on them.
When tricos are at their peak during mid to late August, you can often see clouds of these little bugs flying over the river as they get ready for their egg-laying flights to the water. When the bugs do hit the water trout and whitefish pull up to the table and start eating.
I often fish some slow-moving pools on the Big Hole during the trico hatch and it often seems whitefish are going crazy over tricos. And they are, but sometimes it’s browns and rainbows that are sipping in the tiny treats.
The trico hatch keeps happening well into September, so there will be lots of opportunities to get in on some of that great dry fly fishing. Just remember to think tiny and delicate. I usually use #18 or #20 hooks for tying imitations, and some go as small as a #24 hook. You may also want to put on a size 7X tippet at the end of your leader. Like I say, think tiny and delicate.
The trico hatch, or spinner fall, if you want to be technical, seems to happen around mid to late morning hours. It’s definitely not something you can set your watch by; all you can do is get out on the stream in the morning and hope to be there when it happens and the fish start feeding. If you don’t get out on the stream until afternoon, chances are you’ll miss the whole thing and you’ll be wondering why the fish aren’t’ biting.
The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico now seems, finally, to be capped though it’s going to take a long time to clean up the environmental damage created by the catastrophe.
For better or worse, the oil spill mess has brought renewed attention to the endangered wetlands of the Gulf Coast.
In a partial response, the Department of Interior, in cooperation with Ducks Unlimited and sporting goods retailer Bass Pro Shops, is releasing a special Duck Stamp envelope, or cachet, to be sold to waterfowl hunters, birders, collectors and others to raise money to purchase Gulf Coast wetlands to be included in federal wildlife refuges.
The envelope, or cachet, as it’s called by stamp collectors, bears a silk rendering of a photograph of Florida’s St. Mark’s National Wildlife Refuge and the 2010 Duck Stamp, a painting of an American widgeon by Robert Beadle of Maryland.
The cachet and stamp sells for $25, or just $10 more than the Duck Stamp alone. It can be purchased at post offices, at Bass Pro Shops stores, on-line at www.duckstamp.com, or by phone at 1-800-852-4897.
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