One Nation, Under God
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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...
To the dangers we face in Montana every summer add catfish. Not catfishing. Catfish. My friend John ended up in the hospital recently after developing a life-threatening case of sepsis. When I told my wife John was hospitalized following a run-in with a catfish she thought I was talking about the deceptive activity where a person creates a phoney identi-ty in order to scam another person. As a mystery writer that was her first thought. As an angler who has caught a fair number of catfish in my...
I have a love/hate relationship with Chinese elms. I fight them at my home in Malta where they litter the yard with seedpods, and grow like weeds. At the cabin on Fort Peck Lake, however, three large ones provide shade and privacy, and are often filled with songbirds. But it doesn’t really matter how I feel about them, the trees appear to be dying. They didn’t put out any seed this spring and leafed out in an odd manner. Instead of sprouting leaves at the ends of the branches, the leaves cam...
Fishing used to be so much better. I’m afraid I’ve ruined it all. I don’t catch as many fish as I once did. It’s not that I fish less or more ineptly, there simply don’t seem to be as many fish available for catching as there once did. I’ve fished the same stretch of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park nearly every summer since 1971. It used to be a 40-fish-a-day spot. I caught my age in cutthroat trout there when I was 55. A dozen years later, however, and I’m lucky to hit...
I recently heard state representative Kerry White (R-Bozeman) speak out against a Forest Service proposal which would prohibit development in the Crazy Mountains. White, executive director of the advocacy group Citizens for Balanced Use, is a proponent of motorized travel. Without it, he argues, how could grandparents show their grandchildren the wilderness? It’s just not fair if everyone can’t drive there. It’s an old argument used by folks who don’t understand the concept of wildern...
I buried Spot yesterday. Planted her in the strawberry patch in the side yard where we can see her grave from our bedroom window. Her death, while long anticipated, was more difficult to deal with than I expected. She’d been dying for a long time. I thought I’d be ready. After all, she was nearly 16 years old, and not our only dog. Gaunt and unsteady on her feet for the past couple of months, she looked like the walking dead. We’d gotten her from a litter in Hardin a month before my mother died,...
My wife and I got in a fight last week. She accused me of purposely not putting her on fish. I told her that was preposterous. Nothing makes me happier than watching her catch fish. Then why aren’t we catching anything, she asked? Looking at her tear-stained face I realized it was time to confess the truth, a truth already known to my other fishing buddies, but a secret I’d kept from her: I’m simply not a very good fisherman. Oh, I love to fish, and spend an inordinate amount of time doing...
Isn’t this a wonderful spring? Days of rain mixed with days of snow, cold, and lots of wind. It’s enough to make people leave. But take my word -- they’ll regret it. I know very few folks who have moved away from Montana and not in some small way regretted their decision. It’s hard to come back. Wages are better most everywhere else, rent is cheaper, and then there’s the weather. The high temperature today in Phoenix is expected to be 81. Bozeman’s not even going to hit 50. Yet Bozeman is...
I like flying under the radar. Or I did. It’s hard to do so these days. My dogs can’t even go unnoticed any longer. I recently received a message via facebook that my “springer spaniel dog Ruth Heinlein” was celebrating a birthday. It was from the American Kennel Club, which keeps track of such things. Except Ruth isn’t registered with the AKC. She’s a spayed female and I didn’t see the point. Jem, my 12-year-old male springer is registered. Years ago I’d planned to breed him with another spring...
It’s time. The best fishing of the year is happening right now. But don’t hesitate. It will be over in a flash. There’s a narrow window of time each spring when the rivers are clear and the caddis flies are hatching. The hatch will continue once runoff begins in earnest, however, the angling opportunities will wash downstream with the muddy flow. Hit it right and there will be rafts of spent caddis, thick on the river, making it difficult to keep track of your fly. Hungry trout, feeding on this...
I’m not a joiner. I prefer to remain impartial or at least give that impression. No one can say I wrote this or that because I belong to a certain organization or know a secret handshake. I pretty much represent just me. With one exception: I am a member of the Breaks Elk Working Group. There. Finally got that off my chest. Be informed that any decision I make or opinion that I write is colored by my interest in the elk of the Missouri Breaks. I’ve been involved with the group for a number of ye...