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.
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