The Not So Silent Prairie

When we think of prairies we usually think in terms of open vistas of rolling plains and grasslands. We don’t often dwell on the sounds of the prairie.

We took a springtime trip across Montana to Minot, North Dakota this past week to see our son, Kevin, and his family. While there, we went fishing, of course. It’s a good reason to go there in the spring.

Fishing, of course, doesn’t come with guarantees. All you can do is wet a line and hope for the best. Sometimes, spring trips produce a lot of fishing action but this wasn’t one of them. The end of April and beginning of May seemed unseasonably cold here in western Montana, and that was also the case in North Dakota. One of the things TV weathermen keep tabs on in North Dakota is soil temperature, and while we were there soil temperatures were dropping—which is bad news for farmers putting in their crops.

While fishing was slow, there was lots of activity going on all around us.

We spent one day fishing at Devils Lake, the massive eastern North Dakota lake complex that has, in the last 20 years, tripled in size. Kevin pointed out that a few years back he’d go there and marvel at fishing spots we went to back in the 1970s and 1980s that were no longer accessible, as they’re all under water. Now it seems to be a yearly thing. You look for a spot where you fished the year before, and now it’s gone. Farms are continually going under water—and it has nothing to do with the mortgage bust.

But birds are everywhere. There are incredible populations of waterfowl, with ducks of all kinds, giant Canada geese, and shorebirds everywhere. The Devils Lake area is a magnet for birdwatchers that come there just for the myriad shorebirds.

On another day I went to Lake Sakakawea, the big Missouri impoundment downstream from Montana. I fished along a shallow bay, hoping the sheltered waters would be warming a bit. It was a good plan, even if the fish didn’t go along with it. In recent years I’ve spent a lot more time hunting pheasants along the lakeshore than fishing, and it was hard not to think of pheasants on this pleasant spring day.

As the saying goes, in springtime a young man’s fancy turns to love, and that’s certainly the case with pheasants. Cock pheasants in springtime are a vocal group, presumably advertising to hen pheasants their availability for a good time, as well as letting other roosters know that the territory is already staked out.

A discordant note comes from an oil-drilling tower at the head of the bay I was fishing. Western North Dakota is a beehive of oil drilling, exploration and pumping, along with heavy truck traffic. In fact, it’s downright mind-boggling. A few weeks ago, the New York Times did a feature story on the difficulties oil patch workers have finding housing in Williston, the informal capitol of the western North Dakota oil fields. There are lots of jobs, but finding a place to live after work is tricky.


On another outing, this time to a small lake away from oil country, at the public access point I was greeted by a chorus of birds, including the usual ducks, geese and shorebirds, but also song birds of various kinds concentrated in a patch of trees and shrubs. There were dozens of bird songs happening all at once, with birds trying to out-do each other in making themselves heard above the crowds. And, again, pheasants were calling from their hangouts on the prairie hillsides.

While the prairie was full of sounds, tiny prairie wildflowers were in bloom, adding bits of color to the green shoots of grass and last year’s dried grasses.

At the end of the day, birds settle down, but there are new sounds. Stepping outside Kevin’s house one evening, frogs were talking from a nearby wetland and open field. “Those are western chorus frogs,” Kevin explained, as we enjoyed the sounds of the chilly evening.

The photo above is Kevin and our Labs in the Devils Lake area. A year ago, farmers were driving tractors and farm trucks down this road.

Waterfowl Season Comes to a Close

It’s a crisp, still morning in southwest Montana. The sun is up but not making much of a dent in the sub-zero temperatures. In short, it’s a perfect morning for duck hunting.

Clouds of steam and fog hang over the warm springs, marking likely spots where mallard ducks, those hardy, wary and, fortunately for hunters, delicious birds come in at night seeking warmth and open water after a day of feeding on area grain fields. It’s a dry winter, so far, so the fields are mostly brown. The rushes and brush along the springs and creeks are, however, a brilliant white from hoarfrost, sparkling in the morning sun.

Flicka, my black Labrador retriever, and I are approaching a warm spring pond where I’m hoping ducks are enjoying the balmy microclimate of warm air hanging over the steaming pond. We’d made another approach on a nearby creek earlier. Hundreds of mallards were in that creek, though were flushing out, far ahead. Cattle and sheep in the field were moving nervously, and the ducks took their cue from the livestock. Still, there were ducks that stayed tight until we got in shooting range and I managed to make a rare double on the flush, dropping a pair of mallards.

The ducks were on the pond, not disturbed by those earlier gun shots, and when we came close, the air filled with ducks, their green heads and blue wing markings shimmering in the sun. I have a sorry record when it comes to shooting when there are a lot of birds in the air and this was no exception. I emptied my gun and the birds flew away unharmed. I thought I had picked out individual greenhead mallard drakes, but, if results are a true indicator, my focus was evidently on the flock.

That’s how the morning went. I made a couple more sneaks on other ranches and on one walk, I dropped a duck with my first shot but when I looked for another mallard drake, the rest of the birds were already out of range. On yet another sneak, I again came in just right, and, again, filled the air with shot without positive results.

I suppose I could have gone home that day feeling frustrated about the whole business, but I couldn’t help smiling.

If my shooting lacked accuracy, it wasn’t that big a deal. I still went home with three prime mallard ducks, and after I’d finished plucking feathers from three ducks I felt no need to pluck more. Moreover, from the perspective of whether this was a successful hunt, it was one of those days when almost everything went right. The cold weather concentrated the ducks on the little warm-water spring creeks and my hunting strategies put me in shooting range when the ducks flushed, and Flicka was elated to be able to make a few more retrieves before we came to the end of the season.
The waterfowl season, the last of the general hunting seasons, is now over, marking the end of almost five months of hunting, starting with chasing blue grouse in early September, moving on to ruffed grouse, pheasants, deer, and waterfowl. Flicka and I have walked mountainsides, wetlands and prairies from western Montana to western North Dakota and back again. We’ve had hunting thrills, along with a moment of sheer terror when Flicka got in the path of a car back in November. Yet, here we are in January, finishing up the waterfowl season with a flourish.

In short, I’m content. I’m hoping for a lot of new snow for skiing. It’s time to do some flytying, and to get going on a rod rehabilitation project. I want to try some new recipes for cooking wild game. The days are getting longer and on some mild afternoons I’ll probably sneak out for some flyfishing. Maybe I’ll try to organize a spring turkey hunt, but in any event the next hunting season is just over eight months away. We’ll figure out something to do while we wait for September.

Happy New Year! Or is it Bah, Humbug!

Welcome to 2010. In spite of a couple weeks of holiday cheer and good will, I still have some curmudgeonly thoughts.

These last couple weeks there have been all sorts of stories about starting a new decade, as well as reviews of the top stories of this past decade. I refuse to join in that nonsense! The year 2010 does not start a new decade. The year 2000 did not start a new century. Decades come in groups of 10 and we start counting with the number one, not with zero. So, to all you people who think you should be celebrating the new decade, I say, “Bah, humbug!” Make an appointment a year from now, in January 2011, and we can discuss the actual end of the first decade of the 21st Century, and the beginning of the second decade.

One of the top stories of the last couple weeks was about the Nigerian who set himself on fire on a Delta/Northwest flight headed for Detroit. Naturally, there has been abundant finger-pointing over the incident. I don’t pretend to know how things will settle out but I think we should keep in mind that no system is foolproof, or immune from a slip-up.

In my kitchen I have an exhibit, and a story, to prove my point. Our daughter, Erin, lives in the San Francisco Bay area and in a previous job did a ton of international travel, including regular trips to London. Shortly before going on one of those trips she did some gift shopping, stopping at a restaurant supply store to buy a Chinese cleaver. Now, this is not some wimpy little cleaver for slicing onions. It’s a heavy-duty tool suitable for splitting an elk in two. It’s a serious piece of cutlery.
Back in her car she stuck it in her briefcase for the drive home. The next day she caught a flight to London, and when she got to her hotel and unpacked, there in her briefcase was that cleaver. While many passengers get hassled about manicure scissors and penknives, she inadvertently smuggled on-board a cleaver capable of dismantling the airplane. The cleaver made it back across the Atlantic, this time in her checked bag, before ending its travels under our Christmas tree.

A couple issues we’ve followed this past year will continue as controversial issues in 2010.

This past year, Montana and Idaho held its first legal wolf hunts since the 1930s. The re-introduction of wolves into the Greater Yellowstone ecosystem was a roaring success. Managing wolves in ranching country has been more problematical. Unfortunately, the wolf situation is so tied up with emotions and politics that no matter what game management agencies do, they’ll make someone upset and ready to go to court to file yet another lawsuit. For the record, I think Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks did a good job of running the wolf season, taking a fairly cautious approach to the issue. Still, don’t be surprised if, in 2010, wolves go back to court, as some factions attempt to restore full federal protection.

Senator Tester’s wilderness bill, or the Forest Jobs and Recreation bill, also falls into those damned if you do—damned if you don’t categories. Like wolves, there is no middle ground for those on the extremes of either end of the forest management spectrum. Still, Tester’s cautious, middle of the road approach gives Montana the best chance for some wilderness legislation since 1988.

Finally, we should note that the last day of the 2009 waterfowl season will be Saturday, January 16. That’s one of those good news/bad news sorts of things. The bad news, the hunting season is about over. The good news, the hunting season is about over.

The end of the last hunting season also kicks off the spring banquet season with the annual Butte Area Ducks Unlimited dinner the evening of January 16, at the Mile High Reception Hall at Star Lanes, 4600 Harrison Avenue, in Butte. A perfect day; go duck or goose hunting, and then celebrate our hunting traditions with DU.