One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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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...
I had such high hopes. Following the same routine I always use when applying for special tags, I clicked “send” and settled in for the wait, visions of big bucks and bulls dancing through my head. It’s been a while since I shot a bull elk, in part because bull tags are a precious commodity in this part of the state, and partly due to a of lack of effort. (As in: I could hunt somewhere else but I’m too lazy.) So I applied for the area closest to home where bull tags are rare as hen’s teeth, and f...
There’s a photo of Spot at our cabin on the lake when she was 14. She’s plopped down in the kitchen doorway looking cute. Our friend Elizabeth took the picture, had it framed, and gave it to us as a gift nearly two years ago. It’s a great portrait, and what we thought would be a wonderful memory of the old dog. Except that she’s still here. No longer looking cute, but still on her feet, Spot isn’t going anywhere fast, but she’s still going. I considered entering the picture of her in the Chro...
I put the canoe in the lake last weekend. Ice only covered half the bay, and I hoped a pike or two would be cruising the melting edge. I didn’t get a bite but it was good to be on the water again. I’ve been a boat guy since I was a kid. I bought that canoe with paper route money. It wasn’t, however, my first craft. That was a little jon boat I found abandoned in the woods when I was 12. Dad helped me get it home where I patched the holes, gave it a coat of paint, and bought a pair of oars....
I was interested to read that the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks wants to kill the smallmouth bass in a public pond in River Rock subdivision in Belgrade. FWP worries that the smallies could be illegally introduced into area rivers and streams. The department plans to replace the bass with rainbow trout. Neither species is native to Montana, but perhaps because rainbows were planted here first – 1889 as opposed to 1914 -- they get preferential treatment. Or maybe it’s bec...
I spit in a tube last week. My wife made me do it. She wants to know who I am. I thought I knew, but perhaps who I think I am is just who I identify as and not who I really am, or is, or was. Until recently I was unaware I had options. Now, it seems, I can be all that I can be or want to be without ever joining the Army. It’s my choice. So I choose to self-identify as … Who knows. I can’t make up my mind. The choices are overwhelming. As much as I’d like to be a tall, muscled, young black m...
I’m losing my grip on reality. A few weeks into the recent cold spell I turned to the tube for solace. I needed a fix of Street Outlaws, Alaskan Bush People, and Beachfront Bargain Hunt to take my mind off the weather. No longer able to trust the mainstream media, I sought truth from reality television. I wanted to believe in something real, like rednecks drag racing on the street, simple-minded morons struggling to survive in the Alaska wilderness, and families buying second homes on the b...
I was surprised to read Frances Kim’s guest editorial in which she wrote about feeling excluded from the Bozeman outdoor community. Kim wrote that, “the outdoors are inherently exclusionary.” I beg to differ. Because much of Montana’s outdoor recreation is free for the taking, it’s very inclusionary. You don’t have to be any particular color in order to take a hike, cast a fly, or ride a bike. There is simply little diversity in our population. We’re pretty much white folk and American Indi...
We were snowbound, and the middle of nowhere was an hour away. I was just fine with it. Barb and I met our friend Mike last week at our cabin on Fort Peck Lake for a few days of ice fishing. Actually Mike did the fishing while Barb and I stayed warm and cozy in the cabin. Mike is of good Minnesota stock so the -30 wind chill and driving snow didn’t bother him in the least. Shortly after first light he’d fire up his 1970’s-era snowmobile and head out onto the ice, quickly vanishing into a swirl...
Build the wall! No. Not that one. Build one up here. Not real tall, just tall enough to keep the deer out. Chronic wasting disease was introduced to north central Montana in part from deer that escaped Canadian game farms. Fatal to deer, but not found to be transmissible to humans, CWD, was first reported in Montana in 2017. Prior to the 2018 hunting season, 26 deer in Montana tested positive for the disease. Twenty-one of those deer came from the Hi-line. Any deer harvested north of Highway 2...
I thought I had evolved. After nearly half a century living in a northern clime, I finally reached the point where I looked forward to winter. At least that’s what I told people. Summer’s heat was just too intolerable. I longed for cooler air, a chilly breeze, a bit of frost. The heat just wore me out. It was my excuse for most anything I didn’t want to do. The air-conditioner became my new best friend, much to the chagrin of the wood stove. During the first month of bird season I only hunte...
There’s a growing divide in Montana. And while it’s not yet political, it’s going to be, and it mimics the split our country faces. Coyote derbies pit urban sentiments against rural traditions. A winter staple in small towns across much of the state, -- Dillon, Melstone, Winnett, and Big Sandy all held derbies this winter -- coyote killing contests have stirred opposition in Montana’s more urban areas. Called a “stain on our hunting tradition of sportsmanship and fair chase” in a recent lett...
Among the many bills to be considered during this legislative session is one that would require decisions related to fish and game be based solely on facts and science. HB 161, sponsored by Brad Tschida (R), Missoula, would not allow the Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks or the FWP Commission to “use social science, human dimensions, people’s attitudes, opinions or preferences during the decision-making process related to fish and wildlife.” That would be different, using science and facts...
Things have gotten a bit quieter around my house. It took a while, however, before I noticed. Living with four dogs is no simple undertaking. They’re loud. They bark to go out. They bark to come in. They bark to be fed. They bark at each other. They make so much noise I didn’t notice that Spot had lost her voice. At 15-and-a-half years old, my sweet old springer must have decided she’d said enough. I can’t recall the last time I heard a sound from Spot except for the clicking of her claws o...
It’s time for a change. Of clothes. Of behavior. Of diet. Since the first of September I’ve been hunting more days than not. Now the season is over and there are eight long months to navigate until it starts again. My wardrobe is the first to change. The old green uniform pants I’ve been wearing all season -- the ones my wife abhors – will be exchanged for jeans, my blaze orange cap for a blue one with a bobcat on it, and my shooting gloves for something warmer. I’ve taken off the whistles...
I used to dread winter. I don’t anymore. Like most everything else these days, it passes too quickly. I’ll admit that last winter, which stretched well into April, was a bit much, but it only made spring shorter. As a kid growing up in southern Indiana I always looked forward to winter because if it snowed, we usually got out of school. Unfortunately snow was rare in that part of the country. Then I moved to Cooke City and found out what winter was really about at 7,700-feet elevation. It wou...
