One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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When I was a kid my dad gave me an autographed copy of a book by Sasha Siemel. He was a professional hunter in Brazil, famous for killing more than 300 jaguars with a spear. As I sat shivering in a fish house on Fort Peck Lake last weekend, staring down a hole in the ice waiting for a pike to appear, I tried to channel Siemel. It didn’t work. Eventually a pike did appear and I hurled the spear with undisciplined haste, missing my target by a wide margin. Had that fish been a jaguar I would h...
Oh, how I long for summer. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like winter. I just hate getting dressed for it. It’s so much work. While covering the offending parts is all that’s necessary from June through August, getting dressed in February requires much more thought. Is it cold enough today for long johns? Can I get by with gloves or do I need mittens? Is this a face-mask day? And the big question: do I really need to go outside? When I was younger and lived in Cooke City where win...
Last week’s column on the impending invasion of feral swine from Canada attracted an unusual amount of attention. Apparently the squeal of the pig resonates with more hunters than I would have guessed. Pig hunters from across the nation and even the globe weighed in with expert advice on how to thwart the invaders. Almost all of them advocated a shoot-on-sight approach – exactly the opposite of what professional game managers in Montana recommend. In this age of denying sound science, that sho...
Last week’s column on the impending invasion of feral swine from Canada attracted an unusual amount of attention. Apparently the squeal of the pig resonates with more hunters than I would have guessed. Pig hunters from across the nation and even the globe weighed in with expert advice on how to thwart the invaders. Almost all of them advocated a shoot-on-sight approach – exactly the opposite of what professional game managers in Montana recommend. In this age of denying sound science, that sho...
Invaders are massing at our border and a bombastic reality TV star promises to save our bacon. Sound familiar? No, it’s not him. It’s Pigman. Brian Quaca, the host of “Pigman: The Series,” on the Sportsman Channel claims he’s the answer to the nation’s feral pig problem. “Want Pigman to come in and save your state?” the Texan bellows. “I’m here to save your state from pigs.” Quaca pulls out all the stops in his efforts to eradicate feral swine. One notable episode has him running down a swarm...
I’m a little torn. It’s so cold I have no interest in going outside. On the other hand, it’s cold, so it’s making ice and that means I should be outside -- fishing. I’ve never been much of an ice fisherman. It seems to require a lot of patience, of which I have little. But I own a cabin on a lake, and I have a friend of good Minnesota stock who revels in fishing through the ice. Mike has all the gear and all the knowledge so I have no excuse. He even sets me up so I can watch the tip-ups w...
It’s only a day’s drive from here, but it’s a world away. At least I fit in. With longish gray hair and a beard, I looked like a hundred other guys on the street, although they were dressed more like I do at home than on vacation. There was more camo and Carhart khaki in downtown Spokane last week than on the opening day of elk season in the Breaks. But while one younger fellow there was even packing a hatchet, and most everyone was carrying sleeping bags, there didn’t appear to be any hunters...
I never put much stock in the old saying that a man is lucky to own one good bird dog in his life. If that’s the case then that man just didn’t have enough dogs. I’ve had a bunch, some better than others. And I’ve been very lucky. Baby Ruth wasn’t just good. She brought a joie de vivre to the hunt that only a young dog can. She died last week, young and fit, only two and a half years old. Something awful, growing rapidly inside her, cut her life short. The Monday before Thanksgiving we were h...
Wow. That went fast. It always does. The five-week general big game season in Montana closed Sunday. Unless you plan to hunt the shoulder season for elk, you’re done for the year. There’s often a feeling of relief when the season ends whether you used all your tags or not. No more getting up at zero dark thirty, trudging up and down mountains and coulees in search of something you may want to shoot. Many hunters only get out for the opener, and then spend a lot of time driving around on the fin...
My 12-year-old grandson Isaac shot a good muley buck earlier this month. I hope it doesn’t spoil him. In an effort to get young people interested in hunting, the state, along with a number of hunting organizations, offer special deals for kids. Youth hunts are scheduled before the opening of pheasant, waterfowl and the general big game seasons so that young hunters can experience the sport for the first time without the competition of others in the field. The weather is also typically a bit m...
My 12-year-old grandson Isaac shot a good muley buck earlier this month. I hope it doesn’t spoil him. In an effort to get young people interested in hunting, the state, along with a number of hunting organizations, offer special deals for kids. Youth hunts are scheduled before the opening of pheasant, waterfowl and the general big game seasons so that young hunters can experience the sport for the first time without the competition of others in the field. The weather is also typically a bit m...
I fear I may be missing the message. For his entire life, my dog Ace has played second and third fiddle to other dogs. Going on nine now, he’s entering the twilight of his undistinguished career. While his nose is money, his aversion to retrieving meant he always had to hunt with another dog, preferably one that would retrieve. A close-worker, he Hoovers the cover immediately in front of me, fearing, perhaps, that if he didn’t, I might step on a bird. If a bird happens to cross our path, he...
The Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge used to offer the best public pheasant hunting in Montana. It no longer does. Not even close. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Russian olive eradication program has effectively put an end to the good hunting there. For years now the USFWS has been cutting down olive trees on the refuge. As the trees went, so did the pheasants. The feds blame the decline on drought and predators just like they did when the Northern Yellowstone elk herd suffered dramatic l...
The government of Trinidad and Tobago recently banned the importation and use of crossbows in that Caribbean nation. It’s a pre-emptive measure. Although there haven’t been any murders or assaults involving crossbows in T&T, officials there aren’t taking any chances. “If criminals knew the effectiveness (of crossbows) – and thank God they didn’t – then things may have been worse,” said police Sgt. David Swanson. Stupid criminals. They must not hunt. Until the ban, crossbows were a popular weapo...
I always have mixed feelings about the opening of pheasant season. On one hand I look forward to hunting the big, gaudy birds again, and having the house full of friends and dogs. On the other hand, now I’ll have to share the places I hunt with strangers. Since the Sept. 1 upland game bird opener I’ve been hunting more days than not. I saw other hunters twice, and I almost always hunt public land. I‘m spoiled, used to having much of Montana to myself. Few hunters, it appears, are inter...
Sage grouse season closed last week. For the second year in a row I didn’t get one. I didn’t even see one. It wasn’t for lack of effort. I’ve been hunting more days than not since the upland bird season opened. The country I hunt used to be heavily populated by sage grouse. There were at least 40 males on a lek there last April. But come September, the birds weren’t to be found. I experienced the same thing last fall. Sage grouse have been disappearing from their traditional haunts for some...
I thought I was done with fishing for the year. My focus had been on hunting since Sept. 1 when upland bird season opened. But early last week, after a morning chasing sharptails with my friend Dallas, and a forecast high of 75 for the afternoon, one final fishing trip sounded like a great idea. We changed out of our hunting clothes, gathered up the fishing tackle, and loaded the kayaks in the back of the truck. It was a 45-minute drive to the bass pond and we watched the wind pick up along the...
My picture was on the front page of the local paper last week. It’s something I try to avoid. I prefer to fly under the radar. The mug shot that accompanies my column no longer looks like me and I’m fine with that. I’d rather be incognito than recognized. I get a sinking feeling in my gut whenever someone asks: ”Hey, aren’t you …?” despite the fact that most of the time folks have something nice to say. It’s those occasions when they don’t that have me seeking anonymity. The picture that grac...
I thought Jem would be ready to retire, hang it up, head to the couch, rest on his laurels. After all, he recently turned 13, the life expectancy of a springer spaniel. He has aches and pains, walks like John Wayne, and falls a lot. But after I left him home on the second day of the season, my wife told me if I wanted to stay married I should never do that again. She said Jem moaned and groaned and howled until I returned home with the other dogs. He hasn’t stayed home since. Jem accompanies u...
I can’t get a stretch of trail out of my head. It must be the season. I haven’t been there for years, but years ago I walked it many times every fall. The stretch of trail I keep seeing isn’t particularly scenic or rugged. It’s not near the beginning or the end, but somewhere near the middle. While it’s deep in the mountains and only a couple of miles from the top of the divide, the timber is so thick there you’d never guess what’s ahead. It’s not an official trail -- marked only by faint b...
My cousin promised to call when Dorian hits. He said he’ll hold the phone outdoors so I can hear the storm. While we experience a lot of severe weather in Montana, thank goodness hurricanes aren’t on the menu. They seem to be a very high price to pay for the luxury of living in a warmer clime. When Barb and I moved to Malta nearly 15 years ago we were warned by the locals about the mosquitoes, the cold, and the wind. The mosquitoes – it turned out – are truly beyond compare, swarming the dry pra...
I put the boat away last weekend, and along with it, most thoughts of fishing. Oh, I’ll still cast a line a time or two, but probably no more than that. It’s time to hunt. Antelope season is already open in some areas, and upland bird starts Sept. 1. The wait’s been a bit longer this year. I usually finish the hunting season on New Year’s Day, but Barb got sick last year and I didn’t get a chance to go. Ever since, I’ve been anxious to make up for that day I missed. Cooler weather late in the...
I’d read the stories about vanishing honeybees, but didn’t put much stock in them. I was still seeing plenty of bees. Now all of a sudden I’m not. Last year when I’d walk close to my caragana hedge it was abuzz with a low hum. Not this year. There wasn’t a honeybee to be heard or seen among the yellow blossoms. In my sweet corn patch only a couple of bees flit from tassle to tassle doing their work. At the lake where miles of clover lines the shore and the slightest breeze used to push bees...
I guess I’ve just been lucky. For nearly half a century I’ve wandered the backcountry of Yellowstone Park without ever being mauled by a bear or gored by a bison. I seldom followed the stay-75-feet-away-from-wild-animals rule, often wandering too close to critters that could hurt me. Especially bison. My close encounters were usually the result of laziness: I simply didn’t want to leave the trail and walk farther than planned. In my misspent youth I actually sought out confrontations with bison...
Like any grandparent, I’m proud of my grandchildren, and see great promise in their future. Some of them have already begun to show an athletic prowess that I never had. Others are more accomplished students than I was, and all of them are far better looking than me. One in particular, however, appears to have a special gift for – of all things – fishing. My 6-year-old grandson would rather fish than eat. Last weekend at the lake he schooled us all in catching perch. Using a Superman rod and ree...
