One Nation, Under God
One Nation, Under God
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When Barb and I moved to Malta from Bozeman 17 years ago I jokingly told people I was moving back to Montana. Bozeman, like many places in the state had begun to look like everywhere else in the country: same stores, same housing developments, same traffic jams. It also was a place of economic vitality. There were jobs and opportunities to make a living there. Barb and I, however, didn’t need that. We could work online, and brought our jobs with us to Malta, where, unlike Bozeman, the economy w...
Even in Montana where we like to think of hunting as part of our heritage, there aren’t nearly as many hunters as there once were. That doesn’t bode well. Hunting license sales account for about two-thirds of the funding for Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Montana is third in the nation in percentage of hunters at 21.1 percent behind South Dakota at 24.1 and Wyoming at 22.7. Montana, however, does top the nation in firearm ownership. According to a 2020 report by the Rand...
I experienced a disturbing moment during the recent cold spell. While outside shoveling the sidewalk a few days ago in -27 degree weather, I realized that I was quite comfortable. I wasn’t too cold or too hot. My hands weren’t aching. My face wasn’t even covered. Perhaps I’ve lived here too long. Of course I was shoveling out of the wind, which a couple of days earlier had cooled things to a relatively chilly -72, but it was straight up -27 nonetheless. Winter seldom loses focus up here, a...
Growing up in southern Indiana I always wished for a white Christmas but seldom saw one. Snow, when it did fall, never lasted long. Then I moved to Cooke City where it can snow every month of the year. By Christmastime there the snow is typically measured in feet. A white Christmas is a given. Not all of Montana, however, is so lucky come the holiday season. I remember a December in Bozeman that started out white, but was brown and bare by Christmas. That won’t be the case this year. More t...
The writer of a letter to the editor in last week’s paper claimed the reintroduction of wolves to Montana is an effort to exterminate the deer and elk in the western part of the state. As a result, hunters have flocked to eastern Montana where there are no wolves, and consequently, more deer and elk. I beg to differ. Wolves were actually reintroduced to Montana by way of Yellowstone Park. And while they did wreak havoc on the elk herds there, that’s not western Montana. Western Montana is a str...
Why didn’t anybody tell me this was going to happen? I never understood why my father took to the couch when he turned 70. But he did, and for much of the rest of his life that’s where he remained. Mom used to say it was because his legs hurt. I left it there. I was young and healthy and full of myself. No way was I going to follow in his footsteps or lack of them. That was his choice. Not mine. I’d stay active until I tipped over. Or so I thought. Then I turned 70. I’d accumulated a few ach...
The bull was bedded in the timber at the top of a spur ridge running off the mountain. There were no tracks on the side from which I approached so his appearance caught me by surprise. My rifle was slung, and he was gone before I could bring it to my shoulder. In one leap he vanished, only to reappear in my dreams. I can still see him if I want, whenever I close my eyes. He’s bigger now. Those that got away seldom shrink in size. I’ve shot other bulls – some large, some small -- and their antler...
I fear organized sports are robbing our youth of their outdoor heritage. What with seasons and tournaments that run the entire school year, and summer sports camps, which fill in the void, there’s little time left for hunting or fishing. I was fortunate to have grown up in a time when sports didn’t monopolize my life, in part because I wasn’t a very talented athlete. But the business of youth sports camps had yet to boom, and the idea of select and traveling teams was in its infancy. In a recen...
The weather finally changed. I should have written about it sooner. It seldom fails. Pen a column lamenting the endless days of clear skies and balmy temps, and by the time those words reach print there will be a change. Just days after writing that column I found myself standing in a cold, steady rain in Livingston watching my grandson in goal for the Park High Rangers soccer team during a Class A State semifinal match against Whitefish. The Rangers won in a shutout but lost the next week to a...
The weather on the opening weekend of the general hunting season surprised more than a few folks. Hunters fled camps when snow collapsed their tents. Others awaited rescue after their vehicles got stuck in the mud. The storm, which had been forecast for a week, dumped snow in the mountains and rain on the prairie. What were they expecting? It’s hunting season in Montana. Get a clue. The first hunting camp I worked was deep in the Beartooth Mountains. After setting up the camp we left a young w...
Apparently desperate times call for desperate measures. Montana Supreme Court candidate James Brown (not the King of Soul) has recently started warning us that President Biden is coming for our jobs and our guns. It’s a tired refrain. Someone has been coming for my guns as long as I can remember, and I still have them. I’m tired of waiting. I don’t think anyone is actually coming. But for all the redneck gun owners out there who have little grasp of history or who haven’t been paying attenti...
I try to avoid writing about the weather because it usually changes when I do. Here’s hoping it works this time. Since bird season opened on Sept. 1 nearly every day has been clear, sunny, and warm. I remember it raining twice in the last two months. I didn’t hunt either day. The weather has been so monotonous I can even recall the handful of windy days we’ve had. I would have moved to Arizona if this was the climate I sought. I long for days of driving snow and freezing cold. But it’s hard to c...
If I had it to do all over again I’d become a social influencer. It’s a calling that seems to fit me. I have little talent. I don’t sing, dance, act, or play a musical instrument. My athletic skills are paltry. I’ve been told on numerous occasions that I can’t write a lick, either. I envision a world, however, where my opinion matters, where what I’m wearing matters, where what I’m eating matters. People would follow my lead. They’d wear ill-fitting clothes, hang out with dogs, and drink beer....
It’s the season of the backup. Dot came up lame last week. She may have blown out a knee. I’ll know more when we go back to the vet. In the meantime she’s supposed to take it easy, which means no hunting, and no pheasant season opener for her. Enter Ace, my Jimmy Garappolo. The San Francisco 49ers’ aging quarterback wasn’t expected to play this season until hot-shot newcomer Trey Lance broke his ankle in a game against the Seahawks last month. Jimmy G, like Ace, had been relegated to coming off...
Hurricane Ian came ashore last week at a familiar spot: Cayo Costa, a barrier island on the Gulf coast of Florida. Barb and I used to trailer a boat from Montana to Florida every spring. We’d visit my parents who were then living in St. Petersburg, and camp at various places across the state. Mom suggested we try Cayo Costa, a state park accessible only by boat. She’d read about it in the newspaper, and like she often did, clipped and saved the story for me. We almost didn’t find it. Launc...
Blame the burrowing owls. Fascinating little critters that they are, the tiny birds are apparently the reason Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge adopted a scorched-earth policy regarding habitat. According to refuge personnel, the owls thrive in areas of sparse vegetation, free of grass litter. Consequently, the refuge has been logged, drained, burned and grazed to maximize owl habitat. It appears to have worked. Two adult owls raised five babies on the 15,000-acre plus refuge this summer. The...
There are only a handful of people with whom I’ll hunt. Edub is one. He and I have hunted together for more than 30 years. We met while both of us were working for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle. He later left the newspaper business to teach journalism at the University of Wyoming. Retired now, he still returns to Montana every fall to hunt. The same age as me, Edub and I also share a few of the same bad habits, along with a passion for bird hunting. We’re also aging in a similar fashion, our sti...
It took me years to make the change. I always felt I could control my dogs with just voice commands or a whistle. And while I still maintain that approach worked over many years, some of my hunting partners might disagree. Then I got Dot and quickly realized it was time to switch tactics. Supposedly a springer spaniel -- or so say her AKC papers -- she’s a bit different than any of my previous springers. I’m beginning to suspect she’s part greyhound with a dash of Border collie thrown in just...
The lengths to which I’ll go have increased immensely. Barb and I took a trip to town yesterday. Although we live smack dab in the middle of one, with a population less than 2,000, Malta doesn’t always offer what we need. Billings, 200 miles to the south, usually does. We’ll drive down there without giving it a second thought. My family didn’t travel like that when I was a kid. I grew up in Evansville, a Billings-size city in southern Indiana. It had everything we wanted so there was no need to...
I’ve packed out a lot of critters in my time, elk, moose, deer, antelope, and bear among them. I recently had the opportunity to add another species to that list: hadrosaur. A duck-billed dinosaur that roamed these parts during the Late Cretaceous period, the remains of this one were found just north of town a few years ago. By the time I arrived at the site, the tail section of the hadrosaur was encased in three plaster jackets, ready for transport to a museum in Florida. First, however, t...
My friend Smoke has started referring to me as a “cooler.” Like the unlucky individuals employed by casinos to “cool” the action at the gaming tables when someone gets hot, I’m apparently the guy who slows down the hot fishing and hunting. Both headed rapidly downhill shortly after my arrival in Phillips County. I moved here primarily because of the hunting opportunities. The grouse and pheasants were plentiful. Elk and antelope tags were easy to draw. There were deer everywhere. Now the birds...
I fell in love with Montana when I first arrived in Cooke City. I was 18. Nestled high in the Beartooth Mountains just north of Yellowstone Park, Cooke was miles from anywhere. The closest town, Gardiner, was more than an hour away through the park. Red Lodge, the next closest, was a long drive over the Beartooth Pass. Cody was just a bit more than 80 miles away, but the road to get there was still gravel interspersed with sections of dirt two-track. It felt very remote. And still does. Maybe...
As the opening of upland bird season approaches, my trigger finger has taken an abrupt turn to the right. It doesn’t appear to be political. More likely it’s the result of 70 years of use and abuse. I hope it still works. The options are few. A left-handed shooter, I could learn to shoot right-handed except the trigger finger on that hand is a joint short following a run-in years ago with an electric saw. I could switch fingers. The middle finger on my left hand remains relatively uns...
I’m losing hope. Until about a week ago I remained optimistic that Fort Peck Lake would rise. There was even a span of six days early this month when it did come up a tiny bit. Then it fell again, and although it was only a miniscule drop -- .01 of an inch -- it quit rising for a few days. Since the first of March, the lake level has varied little more than a foot. While news reports documented extremely low water levels upstream at Canyon Ferry Reservoir this spring, late snows and heavy r...
There seems to be a bit of confusion out at the Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge. Apparently the folks in charge there – if anyone is -- thought the state’s Clean, Drain, and Dry program didn’t pertain just to boats, but to the refuge as well. However, while the Montana program is an effort to combat aquatic invasive species, the feds appear to have taken it to another level, rendering the refuge inhospitable to nearly all species except livestock. The place has been logged, burned, graze...