One Montana Hunter's View of the Tucson Shootings

The shooting tragedy in Tucson at a public “meet your congressional representative” event where six people were killed and many more wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), again raises complex questions about handguns, gun controls and associated issues.

I’ve held off commenting for a couple weeks while facts emerge about the incident. Obviously, that hasn’t prevented others from making instant judgments.

Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of Pima County jumped into the fray early when he made remarks about “vitriolic rhetoric” being a factor in the shooting, a reference to the 2010 political campaign in which Rep. Giffords’ congressional district was the  target in a representation of telescopic sights. I agree with the sheriff’s opinion about the tone of rhetoric in last year’s political campaigns, though as facts emerged it seems certain the gunman was not politically motivated.

Rush Limbaugh, as always the epitome of rational comment, ranted that Sheriff Dupnik should be recalled for suggesting that the rhetoric should be toned down.

An off the wall reaction to the shooting was the report that on the Monday after the Saturday shooting, Arizona firearms dealers had a 60 percent increase in handgun sales, presumably by buyers fearing the shooting would lead to gun control legislation.

The National Rifle Association has been strangely quiet. Their website, even two weeks after the shooting, shows only a statement of sympathy and concern to victims and families.

Other organizations are less subdued. Gun Owners of America, an organization that makes the NRA seem moderate, issued statements on their website that the incident only demonstrates that more people should be carrying handguns, and specifically defending large capacity magazines for those handguns.

That thinking was reflected by some Montana legislators who said the incident demonstrates that legislators should be allowed to carry concealed weapons in the state capitol (guns are not now allowed in the capitol building). They cited a story of a gunman who invaded a Utah legislative session, only to be greeted by half a dozen legislators pointing pistols at him. A good story, though the Utah senate president says it’s bunkum.

Speaking of bunkum, Tea Party darling Sarah Palin went off on a rant against people who suggested that gun sight images on political ads were inappropriate. She carried on at length to convince Palinistas that she was the real victim in the whole affair. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson says Palin’s insistence on portraying herself as a martyr reminds him of Eva Peron, and that she should find a good balcony for her next address.

There are ironies in the case. The gunman committed the carnage with a 9 mm. Glock semiautomatic pistol. Rep. Giffords, herself, has been supportive of gun rights and reportedly has a 9 mm. Glock of her own.

An undisputed fact is that the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was well known by many to be mentally ill, a sad and lonely person slipping into insanity. In that respect he has a lot in common with other perpetrators of mass killings. Yet he was able to purchase his Glock without difficulty, even buying more ammunition the morning of the shooting.

Loughner is another illustration of the health care system’s failures to recognize and treat people falling off the deep end. If we had really been paying attention we would have gotten him into a treatment program and, as a further step, sent law enforcement agencies to impound firearms he might own until he recovered.

Secondly, and I write this as an long-time firearms owner and user, we need to put some realistic controls on gun sales that would put meaningful barriers in the way of people like Loughner. Don’t hold your breath on that one, though. The gun lobby either owns or has so successfully intimidated so many members of Congress that it’ll never happen. You don’t have to look any farther than Montana’s Congressional delegation for examples of the owned and/or gutless.

If I sound extreme, just ask yourself this question: How many mass murders and dead children must we tolerate?

Winter Ice Jams and One Last Duck Hunt

The last retrieve of the season.

“Something we hydrologists occasionally forget is that water isn’t always a liquid.”

That was something a now-deceased hydrologist and friend of a neighbor liked to point out concerning the occasional problems that frozen water, better known as ice, causes. Recent ice jams at Twin Bridges and Ennis are cases in point.

This time of year, I frequently go through the community of Twin Bridges on my way to and from some of my duck hunting spots (and that is as specific as I’ll get as to just where I hunt those ducks). As always, it’s interesting to see what happens when winter hits western Montana and some of those rivers, such as the Jefferson and Beaverhead, start freezing.

The town of Twin Bridges was built right on the banks of the Beaverhead, including some businesses and the local high school that are just feet away from the river. Fortunately, the banks on the other side of the river are a bit lower so when there’s high water, the river can spread out without causing catastrophic damage.

A couple weeks ago I went through and everything looked normal. The river was flowing along with patches of slush ice on the surface. On the west side of the river there is a small park and rest area on the north side of the highway and the Madison County Fairgrounds on the south side.  Every December a low spot in that little park is flooded to create an outdoor skating rink.

In most years skating doesn’t last long, as there are usually warm spells in early January that turn the rink into slush. If you’re a skater, you have to get out there and enjoy it during the short period before the ice melts.

It was a surprise when the flooding on the Beaverhead due to ice jams downstream from Twin Bridges became the hot news a couple weeks ago. The flooding would have happened a day after I was there when everything looked normal.

My last duck trip of the season came after several days of warm weather gave the ice a chance to break up and let the water recede, though subzero weather had returned on that hunting day. In the morning the river was running pretty much normally. By noon, the ice floes had merged again and the water was again rising.

Ironically, the skating rink was closed, this time because the park was iced over. The ice rink was under a couple feet of water and new ice. Benches poking up above the ice marked where skaters might have taken a break a couple weeks earlier. The good news was that the ice rink was dramatically larger than usual. The bad news, of course, is that the new ice is unsafe; otherwise there’d be enough ice for an Olympic racing oval.

All this underscores problems humans create when they build communities next to rivers, seemingly without worrying about what might happen when streams go over their banks.

If those ice floes cause problems, they also create opportunities. In fact, when it comes to duck hunting, I depend on river ice to move ducks off the rivers and onto the warm water spring creeks I hunt.

 As the season winds down duck numbers drop as more and more ducks decide there must be better places to spend the winter than Montana. Still, on that last mid-January hunt Flicka, my faithful Labrador retriever, and I managed to get within shooting range of a small bunch of ducks and Flicka happily swam across a warm pond to retrieve one last drake mallard to end our season. After a couple minutes, Flicka was frosted with ice that formed on her coat in the zero degree temperatures. I doubt she even noticed that it was cold outside.

The hunting season is over. It has been a long time since those hot days of early September to January’s deep freeze, but it went all too quickly. It’s time to clean guns and equipment and put things away for the season. It’s time, and I’m content.

Just try convincing Flicka

Mallards on Montana's Frozen Tundra

Flick retrieving a winter mallard

The frozen tundra is an over-used term, often describing late season football fields, particularly after the frozen, subzero NFL championship game in Green Bay in 1967. Still, as Flicka and I trudged our way across the snowy field, I couldn’t help but think frozen tundra.

A couple months earlier, the field was tall, green alfalfa. In January, that green field had been grazed down and this morning, after recent snowfalls and steady winds, the snow was an untracked arctic expanse. The wind put an extra edge to the subzero temperatures.

Hank, a neighbor when we lived in North Dakota, liked to hunt but he steadfastly refused to hunt ducks. “It’s too cold,” he’d whine. Yes, we’d have some chilly days when hunting ducks, but it would still be in October. Hunting ducks in eastern North Dakota was an October game because you could almost depend on a hard freeze in early November, and after the little potholes froze up the ducks didn’t have much choice but to get back in the air and resume journeys south.

I don’t know what Hank would say about trudging across frozen fields on frigid January mornings. He was around, but probably too young to appreciate at the time that his hometown of Parshall, North Dakota, set that state’s record low temperature of -60° F, set one frigid morning in February 1936, in a winter that set records for cold temperatures all over. By that standard, this January morning was shirtsleeve weather.

While it’s cold, billows of steam mark where a warm water creek goes across the field. On cold winter nights the warm water spring creeks of southwest Montana draw ducks like a magnet, with warm water, aquatic vegetation and a layer of tropical air just above the water’s surface. Still, after a week of cold weather, the question would be whether ducks were still in residence or if they had moved on.

I made a couple trips to this ranch in mid-December when things worked as they should and when Flicka, my black Labrador retriever and I approached the creek hundreds of mallards would flush. It’s a memorable sight, with the vivid blue and white markings of drake mallards sparkling in the morning sun.

Not this morning, however. As we approached the creek nothing happened. The ducks hadn’t come in to relax in their warm water spa, or at least not this one.

There are other ranches and other creeks, however.

On an approach to another creek we didn’t see ducks, though a red fox exploded out of creek-side cover and hightailed it for the hills. At another spot, a jackrabbit hopped away in a casual lope. At another creek the springs weren’t warm enough to keep the creek from freezing.

There was one creek left. Flicka and I made a wide swing across the field before making an approach to the creek near a line of willows. The snow near the creek was deep and powdery, where the brush slowed the wind and the snow could settle out. At first I didn’t think there were any ducks here either, but then a dozen mallards flushed from about 20 yards away. I tried to pick out a drake and then missed with my shot. Then another mallard drake left the water and this time I connected.

Flicka floundered a bit in the deep snow to get to the duck but she found the duck and brought it to me.

Occasionally, I wonder about some of these late season outings, driving an hour or so to get to these ranches where I have permission to hunt, and then trudging across snow-covered fields on the off chance there are still some ducks around and that I’ll be able to get within shotgunning range. Certainly, if I attempt calculating the cost of those roast duck dinners in coming months it’s hard to justify.

As of today, there are just a couple days left in the waterfowl season. I’d better get out and take one more look. It’s a long time until September.

An end to pheasant season and farewell to an angler

Flicka with pheasants from a more productive hunt

Flicka and I approached a clump on willows along a creek. A pheasant flushed from the other side of the willows, followed a second later by another pheasant. I raised my gun but held off from shooting as the willows screened my view of the birds. As the first pheasant got out of range I could finally see some colors on the bird. It was a rooster after all.

I suppose I might have thought a few nasty thoughts about that pheasant, but it would have been a waste of time. The pheasant, after all, was simply doing what it needed to do, and that was to stay alive until spring when it could finally pay attention to what he really needed to do: attend to the propagation of the species.

Earlier, another rooster pheasant flushed from a sagebrush patch. I raised my gun and, again, put it down without shooting. The bird got up just out of range and shooting would have been futile. Or would it? That question plagued me the rest of the day. Maybe if I’d been quicker I might have had a chance.

I made a point of getting out for my last pheasant outing of the 2010 season before a well-predicted winter storm hit western Montana last week. Certainly I’ve hunted pheasants in falling snow and frigid temps over the years but it seemed logical to get out on a relatively pleasant day.

The pheasant season closed at sundown on New Year’s Day.  Of the general hunting seasons all there’s left at this point is waterfowl and that season is shrinking rapidly.

In the Pacific Flyway areas of Montana, generally west of a line from Havre to Livingston, the duck and goose seasons will close on January 14. In the Central Flyway area of Montana, the duck season closes tomorrow, January 6, though goose hunting will continue until the 14th.  Then we enter that awkward time of the year between the end of the hunting season and the beginning of the serious flyfishing part of the year.

Fortunately in Montana, there are ways to fill that time, such as skiing, flytying, ice fishing, rabbit hunting, or bird watching.

Before going into that interim season I need to return to 2010 to note the passing of a prominent personality of the flyfishing world.

Tom Helegeson described flyfishing as “Standing in the water, waiting for something good to happen.”

Tom was a college classmate at St. Olaf College years ago. After 50 years I can remember only one class we had together but I’ll always remember how, for Tom, the process of putting words together for writing or speaking came both easily and naturally.

After graduating, Tom put in a three-year stint in the Marine Corps and then began a long career in journalism as a reporter and editor with the Minneapolis Star. Somewhere along the line he picked up a flyrod and as his wife, Julie, said, “From the moment he picked up his first flyrod, I never had his undivided attention.”

He left his newspaper career in the 1980s to open Bright Waters, a fly shop in Minneapolis. He used this base for teaching flyfishing classes and leading trips to Alaska and other flyfishing destinations. He even created a sportsman’s show, the Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo, to feature and promote flyfishing in the Midwest.

In 1994, Tom launched a magazine, Midwest Fly Fishing, to highlight the many flyfishing opportunities of the Midwest, as well as to promote conservation of fishing waters. In a newspaper interview he said anglers must be stewards and caretakers. “There needs to be a new spirit in this country about conservation. It’s bigger than trout streams. It involves how we live and how we treat each other.”

Tom Helgeson died of cancer on November 12, 2010. Chris Wood, president of Trout Unlimited, paid tribute to Tom as a generous, passionate and visionary person who understood the benefits of protecting and recovering the health of our lands and waters.

Rest in peace, Tom.

                                                                              -30-