One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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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...
The Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge used to be one of my favorite places to hunt. It isn’t any longer. A campaign to rid the refuge of Russian olive trees has essentially ruined the pheasant hunting there. Oh, there are still some birds, but they’re leaving with the olives. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, removal of the trees is necessary “to facilitate native prairie management ...” I realize this is a Herculean task considering that the refuge is crisscrossed with ditches...
I plan to build a bunkhouse at our place on the lake next summer. We’re up to 13 grandchildren and the cabin isn’t big enough to sleep everybody. While I’ve taken measurements and have decided on dimensions, the bunkhouse remains more of a concept than a working drawing. Bunkhouses were a staple of the Westerns I watched as a kid. We didn’t have bunkhouses where I grew up in southern Indiana. They were synonymous with the West, plain wooden structures filled with bunk beds where the hired h...
I hunted the first 15 days of the season before I took a break, but couldn’t relax on my first day off because I felt like I was missing something. Now, at the end of November, I still feel the same way, like I’m missing something if I take a day off. It all goes by so quickly. Big game season ends this weekend. Antelope is already over. Same with sage grouse. Upland bird runs through the first of the year, and I’ll go out at every opportunity, but it, too, will be over before you know it. I...
In my travels around the county this fall it’s been hard to miss the new signs: “Save the cowboy, stop American Prairie Reserve.” Apparently there’s some concern that the non-profit group hoping to create an American Serengeti in north central Montana is threatening a revered, low-paying lifestyle. The new signs were put up by United Property Owners of Montana, a group that says it supports private property rights, yet disapproves of what APR does on its own property. It’s an issue of bison vs....
It’s a clear case of the inmates running the asylum. I simply need to accept that. My dogs tell me I’m too controlling. Sit. Stay. Come. Fetch. I’m always directing them. Or trying to. Not that they pay a lot of attention. They do their thing. I do mine. My friends smile and shake their heads. They all use electronic collars on their dogs. Almost every bird hunter I see in the field follows suit, their Labs, pointers and spaniels performing beautifully on high-tech cue, I’m still old school, rel...
My wife tells me I’m a very social person. I nod and smile, all the while thinking, “What are you talking about?” The truth is I spend most of my time in the company of dogs. There are many days when the only human being I interact with is my wife. My old hunting partner – both literally and figuratively -- has been a bit under the weather this fall and has yet to come up and chase birds with me. Since the first of September it’s just been me and the dogs, nearly every day, out on the prairie, l...
Well, there’s always next year. Maybe. Sage grouse season has come and gone and I saw nary a bird. It certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. I hunted upland birds 23 days last month, much of the time in areas where I had seen sage grouse in the past. I hunted in Phillips, McCone and Garfield counties. I even hunted along barbed wire fences bedecked with those white metal tabs on the top strand indicating there are sage grouse in the area. While I didn’t specifically target sage grouse until...
My wife doesn’t like fall. She calls it the saddest time of year. I think it’s actually the end of summer that makes Barb blue. Years ago, I felt the same way, but that probably had more to do with returning to school than with a change in seasons. Now I eagerly look forward to the end of summer. The temperature reached 111 degrees here a little more than a month ago. That was the peak of a hot, dry August. But you know what they always say about Montana, if you don’t like the weather, wait...
I almost hit a deer this morning. It’s a regular thing. Like me, they’re usually on the move at first light. They seldom catch me by surprise because I expect them to be on the road, but occasionally it takes a bit of fancy driving to miss them. I’m apparently in the minority on that. Instead of swerving or hitting the brakes, a lot of folks in Montana, just plow ahead, their trucks protected by armored bumpers that wouldn’t be out of place on the front of a freight train. Cow catchers, they us...
Among the many hats I wore during my years at the Chronicle was that of fashion editor. Other than being in charge of the annual swimsuit issue, all it really meant was that any fashion-related mail sent to the paper was directed my way. That’s still somewhat the case. Probably a third of the e-mails I receive tout some new fabric or item of clothing. I usually pay them little attention, but a recent promotion for camouflage gear caught my eye. Apparently camo’s not just for hunters and red...
