Great Outdoors – Cowboy State News Network: Recent Episodes
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There’s a saying in these parts that rings pretty true. “Fish Wyoming – 300,000 Coloradans can’t all be wrong.” We give our southern neighbors a lot of grief for coming up here to fish, but in truth, they’re a big part of the reason our fishing is so good here.
Coloradans and other nonresidents pay more for their fishing licenses than Wyoming residents do, and that money goes back into raising and stocking fish, fish habitat, and other improvements that help our chances to catch the big one. Sure, you might have to share some bank space with someone else, but there are plenty of fish in the streams.
And there’s no sense complaining about the nonresidents if we don’t get out there ourselves. One of the best things about fishing is that you can take as much or as little time as you can to go. If you only have an hour or two after work, you can find a place close to town to drop a line for a little while. If you have a week off, you can go deep into the backcountry and get far away from any other people. All you have to do is grab your gear and find some water.
There’s also plenty of public water to fish in Wyoming. Even if a stream runs through private property, quite often the landowner will open the access to anyone through the Walk-In Fishing program. Check out the Wyoming Game and Fish Department’s website to find a good stretch of Walk-In Fishing water.
And then there are the fish. I joke that I’m the world’s worst fisherman, and that might actually be true. But even I can catch fish in the Cowboy State, so you should be able to limit out or catch and release all day long.
Just go fishing. What’s stopping you?
When I was a kid, my dad used to take me into the mountains above Pinedale each summer. I was quite young when Dad decided I should carry my own weight – literally.
Before we left on our trip, I had come across an article in an outdoor magazine that said a hiker’s pack shouldn’t be heavier than 30 percent of the hiker’s weight.
I showed Dad the story and asked how much our packs weighed. His response was, “Uh, I think we’ll be OK.”
I was skeptical because I knew the empty weight of the ancient external-frame pack I’d be carrying already exceeded 30 percent of my 99 pounds, and that was troubling, because we didn’t own anything resembling lightweight camping gear. Our cook kit, for example, consisted mainly of old, cast-iron pots and pans Mom had used up over the years. The rust alone weighed a good 10 pounds.
But we were determined to go camping, and what we had was what we had. After donning his pack, Dad hoisted my backpack up so I could position myself under it and strap myself in.
I realized as soon as he let go that my pack was a bit top-heavy. I had to hunch slightly forward to avoid falling on my back, but if I went too far, I’d tip over on my nose. I gamely stepped out to lead us down the trail, but I had to turn around right away to see what Dad was laughing about. As it turns out, all Dad could see of me was a backpack with a pair of legs sticking out of it.
While we were in camp, Dad and I lived like kings. The weight of our gear was justified by good cooking, warm sleeping and dry shelter when it rained.
I’ve passed down the wisdom to my own sons that the best gear isn’t always the lightest weight. I’ve showed them that to enjoy the outdoors, sometimes they have to put some physical effort into it.
Like my own father, I’ve taken lots of pictures so they can remember their good times. In those photos, they’re the backpacks with legs.
You’d think I’d own an air compressor by now. I’ve sure dealt with more than my share of flat tires over the years, but I don’t have any way to air ‘em up other than a crummy old bicycle pump that sucks air out of things about as fast as it puts air in ‘em.
And I have plenty of stuff that needs to be aired up from time to time. Most of us who hunt, fish, camp or boat do. I actually probably have fewer tires than the average outdoorsperson. But if having more toys means dealing with more flat tires, I’m happy with what I’ve got.
We’ve got a tire on the horse trailer that’s never held air the way it should. It has a very slow leak, so every third or fourth trip, I have to swing by the gas station and pump it up again. I really should just swap it out for the spare and take the offending tire to the shop to have it fixed once and for all, but I never think about it until we need the trailer.
This weekend, I used the heck out of the riding lawnmower and the trailer that goes on it, and that trailer has a tire with the same problem. I cussed at the bike pump more than a few times on Saturday and Sunday. It seemed like for every stroke of the pump handle, a half a pump or more of air came out of the tire.
I’d sort of like to get an ATV to make trips on really bad forest roads a little more bearable, but that’s just four more tires that are likely to go flat on me. Actually, eight more tires, if I throw another trailer into the mix. I’d also like a boat, but with my luck, I’d probably have a similar problem with that. Even though I wouldn’t have to worry about tires on the boat itself, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had as much trouble keeping water out of it as I have with keeping air in tires.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna’ go take that wheel off the horse trailer. While I’m at it, maybe I’ll fix the mower trailer, too. And the utility trailer. And my mountain bike. Well, you get the idea.
If you train dogs or have a hunting dog or two, you probably have more than a few electronic collars for your critters. And chances are good they’re made by TriTronics. That’s a venerable brand that’s been around since the beginning, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I have one myself, and it’s been dependable and durable.
But all gear eventually wears out, and I think my collar is nearing the end of its road. I could do worse than to replace it with another TriTronics, but this time, I think I’m going to give another brand a try. I recently had a chance to check out a bunch of the SportDog lineup, and these guys are right in league with the makers of my current collar. They get great reviews, other owners I’ve talked to say they last just as long, and to top it all off, they’re less expensive, model-for-model, than the competition.
I’m looking at a Wetland Hunter 1825, which has a one-mile range, up to 16 levels of continuous stimulation, eight levels of nick, vibration and tone options, and the ability to expand it to six dogs. Not a bad set of options for around three hundred bucks.
SportDog offers a bunch of other models, too, and most of them are waterproof and submersible. They all have very compact, simple-to-use transmitters that actually fit in a hunting vest pocket, too. Not only that, but SportDog does a great job of talking to people out there using their products, and they’re constantly making improvements based on customer comments.
While I’m at it, I might get their in-ground fenceless system to keep my collie from wandering, and I’ll probably grab a few of their scents and other training aids to keep my bird dog in shape this summer. Check ‘em out at www.sportdog.com if you’re looking for dog gear.
Each year, when school got out for the summer, my dad would haul the dusty old backpacking tent in from the barn and toss it on the living-room carpet. He’d announce that we were going to go camping that weekend, and we’d best get our hiking boots oiled up and threaded with new laces.
That first trip of the year was always a sampler of every misfortune a camper could have, except, thankfully, for the tragic kind. We came close a time or two, though. Most of the time, it was a lesson in camping hardships by immersion. Literally and figuratively.
Spring is always the best time of year to go camping if you want to get wet. Really wet. Even in a dry year, your chances of getting hosed down by 32.1-degree water falling in a torrent from a giant cloud suspended a mere four feet above your head are about a seventy-five percent. And if you go camping with me in June, you can bump that up to an even one-hundred. My dad has the same rainstorm-attracting ability, so we learned early to make sure our rain gear was always the easiest thing to reach and the most well-maintained piece of equipment we had.
We spent a week at Fisherman Creek Lake one June, and it never stopped raining. By the time we left, every piece of paper we had with us was a sodden wad of pulp, and every piece of fabric was 20 times its original weight. We were four inches taller than usual, because our boots had mud platforms concreted to their soles.
Another year, the same thing happened at Waterdog Lake. More like WaterLOGGED Lake. A week during which the rain NEVER stopped falling.
You’d think we’d have learned to stay home in June. But what would be the fun in that? Of course we were going to go camping. Now, where’s my rain suit?
I can’t even remember the first time my dad dragged me into the wilderness on a campout. For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent a good deal of my free time in the wilds. If I hadn’t been introduced to the wonders of the wild world at an early age, I doubt I’d have the love for the outdoors I have today.
My dad is too humble to admit that he planned my outdoor education the way he did, but I know the truth. He purposely used a gradual scale to step up the intensity of the mishaps he introduced me to. The early trips were pretty smooth. We hiked in, made camp, did some fishing, and hiked back out. No sweat. Then he started adding adversity in small doses. He planned trips when he knew we’d have to contend with rain of Biblical intensity and duration. He led us off the edges of our topo maps and waited until well after dark to lead us back to camp. He engineered horse wrecks that would scare the daylights out of the Marlboro Man.
But it was all part of the plan. Each trip was fraught with a little more peril than the one before. If he’d kept things smooth, I might have lost interest out of boredom. Had the more serious incidents come too early in my formative years, I might have decided camping was just too dangerous and taken up a safer hobby, like bull riding.
No, there was a method to Dad’s madness. We never lost a member of our party for more than a couple of weeks. In the end, we all found our way back home, and most of us can look back with fondness on those outings.
It’s now my turn to teach a new generation to enjoy the outdoors. I’ve been steadily increasing the number and severity of outdoor mishaps on every trip with my boys to keep them interested and test their progress.
We’ve been working up to full-scale calamity for years now. I just hope I’m providing the same opportunities for my boys that my dad gave me. If I’m not, I have only myself to blame for not getting the most out of my outdoor education. After all, when it comes to backcountry catastrophes, I learned from the master.
You don’t have to go to Moab to have a great ride on a mountain bike. Wyoming has plenty of excellent places to ride, too.
Just throw your bike on top of your car or in the bed of your truck and head for the nearest trail. Or take a longer drive and check out some of the trails in another part of the state.
If you want to learn a little more about some of the best places to ride in the state, just make a quick stop at your local bookstore. In the regional section, you’ll probably find plenty of guide books dealing with our state’s mountain biking areas.
Once you have an idea of where to go, get there. Then get a little crazy. Strap on the helmet and lace up your shoes. Get yourself to the top of the mountain, then let it rip on the way back down.
That’s the fun part of mountain biking. Believe it or not, some people make good money racing bikes downhill. They don’t even have to work to get to the top. They ride a chairlift up, then try to get to the bottom in the shortest time possible without becoming part of a tree.
I spent a couple of summers trying to break into that line of work. It was a lot of fun, but I just didn’t have what it took to make it my day job. I spent way more money on entry fees than I ever took home with my winnings. Now if I want to ride down a mountain, I have to pedal myself up it first.
Be safe while you’re riding. Wear sunglasses or other eye protection, a pair of gloves, and always wear a helmet. And if you’re not riding in a sanctioned race, there may be others using the same trail. Stay under control so you don’t hit anybody. Slow down for blind corners and hills on the path.
Get outside this summer. Put that expensive mountain bike to good use.
Those brochures they hand out at Yellowstone with a drawing of a person getting flung into the air by an angry buffalo aren’t just for the tourists. They’re a warning to everyone who spends any amount of time in areas wild animals call home. Even Wyoming natives aren’t immune to the lack of judgment that once in a while results in a tragic wildlife-human interaction.
And these encounters aren’t limited to Yellowstone. They can happen anywhere people and wildlife share the same space. If you’re doing some wildlife photography, wildlife watching or just hiking in the backcountry, you might find yourself inside a wild animal’s comfort zone.
Stay alert while you’re hiking, biking, riding a horse, or doing anything else in the backcountry. Make some noise to alert animals to your presence. If you move quietly, you might startle a moose or bear, and that’s not a good thing. A startled moose, especially a cow with a calf, can be more dangerous than a bear.
Purposely getting close to a wild animal can lead to trouble, too. It’s always a neat thing to watch wildlife, but do it from a safe distance. If you’re shooting pictures, use a telephoto lens to get that close-up. Stay back. The same’s true if you’re just watching the critters. Use binoculars or spotting scopes if you want to get a good look. Don’t walk up to the animals.
While you’re watching the wildlife, pay attention to the signals they give you. If you’re too close, they might lay their ears back or flare their nostrils. They might paw at the ground or make noises. Or they might move away. If they put distance between themselves and you, don’t follow them. Not only is that considered harassment, it’s also a good way to trigger their fight or flight instincts. If they don’t have anywhere to flee to, that leaves only fight. And even a small elk, moose or bear can maim or kill a human without too much effort.
If you keep these tips in mind, you’ll get good pictures, watch wild animals doing what they do naturally, and you won’t cause them undue stress. So keep your distance and stay safe.
Are you driving right now? Pull off the highway and do a little fishing.
I never go anywhere without fishing gear. I’ve always got a fly rod and a spinning rod in the vehicle, complete with reels and tackle. I know I’m not alone. Most of the other anglers I know don’t let their gear get too far out of reach.
But what good is having all that tackle with you if you don’t put it to use? If you don’t pull over and make a cast from time to time, all it’s doing is taking up space in your tool box.
But there are a few other important items you’ll want to keep handy while you’re out on the road. The most important things are a current license and a conservation stamp. The third is a Wyoming gazetteer. If you don’t have one, you can pick one up at most sporting goods stores, book stores or truck stops.
It’s a book of maps of the entire state, and it shows what land is privately owned, as well as state and federal sections. If you see a spot from the road that looks like it might be a good spot, you can look it up in the gazetteer to see if it’s OK to fish there. And new innovations, like the OnX Hunt app, are a great resource, too.
But just because a piece of land is private doesn’t always mean it’s closed to fishing. That’s where the other piece of literature comes in handy. In addition to the gazetteer, I also always have the walk-in fishing atlas loaded up on my phone. It shows all the areas landowners have opened to the public for fishing.
If you do fish a walk-in area, please be respectful of the landowner and the land. Park where you’re supposed to, and don’t drive where you shouldn’t. Pick up your trash, including old fishing line, and leave gates as you found them. Make sure we don’t lose the access these landowners have graciously given to us.
Make sure all your gear is handy when you get out on the road. And put it to good use.
Break up your trip with a stop or two to do a little fishing. It doesn’t matter if you’re just going from Pinedale to Big Piney or all the way from Cheyenne to Cody.
Any road trip could be improved with a stop or two to pull a cutthroat, brookie or rainbow out of the water.
Up at 8, 9, or 10,000 feet or higher, Wyoming’s still a winter wonderland. Some areas are blanketed by a couple feet of snow, and the fishing’s still no good, unless you want to drag your ice auger all the way up there.
But don’t let a little white stuff keep you from enjoying the backcountry. One of the best things about making an early trip to the high country is the lack of other hikers. Only the hardiest of souls make the trip before the snow melts, so you’re likely to have the place to yourself.
You may have to pack a little heavier than you would if you waited a month or two to get out in the wilder parts of the state, but you can still get there with a little effort. Leave the summer tent at home and carry the four-season variety. Take the heavier mummy bag.
And be sure to pack your waterproof outer layers, a cold-weather coat, a pair of snow pants, a few sets of gloves and two or three wool stocking caps. But you’d probably take those things along even in the warmer months. The weather in the Rocky Mountains isn’t always very predictable.
As with any time you venture into the woods, make sure someone back in town knows where you’re going, when you plan to return, and where you’re likely to be at any time between when you leave town and when you come back home. If a storm prevents you from returning at the appointed time or if something happens to you while you’re out, the time searchers save by not having to turn over every rock and look under every bush could mean the difference between life and death.
And make sure you have several methods for starting a fire. A fire will help you melt snow for drinking water, boil water to make it safe to drink, provide heat you’ll need to stay alive, signal your position to searchers, and even give you a bit of companionship. Take matches in a match safe, a couple of lighters, and some cotton balls coated in Vaseline to use as tinder. If you’re caught out in the woods when Mother Nature decides to remind you that winter’s not quite over in the high country, you’ll be glad you brought them along.
Enjoy Wyoming’s wilder corners, but stay safe.
Around the first of September, a good number of Wyomingites start tilting a little bit when we sit. Some of us develop a bit of a limp.
It’s not a permanent malady, and it’s not even really a bad thing. It’s just a bunch more paper than we usually carry in one of our back pockets.
You have your fishing license all year, but then you start adding to it. There’s the bird and small game license, and that might get stuck into the billfold before the first of the year. If you stick your duck stamp to the back of it, you’ll have to carry last year’s license, too, because that’s the one with the current stamp on it. You don’t get to take last year’s bird license out of your pocket until June, when the new duck stamp comes out.
Then there are all the big game tags. Antelope, deer, and elk, and sometimes you’ll have three deer and goat licenses and two for elk.
If you were really lucky, you might have a bighorn sheep, moose or mountain goat license. Maybe even a bison tag. Some folks have been known to draw a sheep and a moose in the same year. Now you’re really starting to get a fat billfold. Don’t forget the black bear and turkey licenses. And maybe a furbearer or a mountain lion tag. And if you’re an archer, you’ll have an archery permit to add to the stack. The new licenses they print right at the store cut down a little on the size of the pile, but it still adds up.
But by October, some people start thinning that pile out. As the big game meat starts filling up the freezer, the wallet starts slimming down. You can tell the successful hunters from those like me, because the ones who get their critters are sitting straighter, while I’m still canted off to the right.
Here’s to fat wallets in September and thin ones by Halloween.
Maybe it’s because I usually end up coming home empty-handed, and it’s pretty rare that I get to experience the feeling that comes at the end of a successful hunt, but my favorite part of going hunting is stepping outside on that first morning of the season. Or maybe it’s because I’ve had enough of the heat of the summer, and the cool morning is just a welcome change. But most likely, it’s the anticipation of the hunt ahead that energizes me, and it has nothing at all to do with the weather.
That’s probably what it is, because I don’t get that same feeling when I have to leave for work early on an unexpectedly chilly fall morning. In fact, that actually kind of annoys me. But when I’m going hunting, even though I know I’m going to be out in that cold all day long, I find the chill in the air invigorating.
In fact, the colder it is on a hunting morning, the better. I think there’s something about the cold that makes it seem more likely that I’ll find the animals I’m after. It seldom turns out that way, but that’s what I always feel on mornings like that.
The last several years, I’ve experienced that first-hunt-morning chill stepping out of the house. That’s a great feeling, but it’s even better when you’re crawling out of a tent deep in the backcountry. To get the full effect of the first-hunt-morning feeling, you need to have to use a flashlight to find your hiking boots.
For now, I’ll make do with leaving for the first hunt from the house. But when my boys get a little older, I plan to introduce them to the wilderness, tent-dwelling, flashlight-wielding first-hunt-morning feeling. I’m certain they’ll love it as much as I do.
Some people live for the winter, when they can strap a pair of planks to their feet and rocket down a snow-covered slope at break-neck speed. Others look forward to the spring. These are the people who are most likely to utter the phrase, “Spring is a season of rebirth and renewal.” Crikey, turn down the gain on the sap amplifier. And another group is never as happy as they are in the summer, broiling their skin until it’s a nice golden-brown.
There are parts of all these seasons I enjoy. But if I had to pick a favorite season, it would have to be the fall. Fall in Wyoming has a little bit of all the seasons. We have ninety-degree temperatures one day, followed by eighteen-inch dumps of snow and near-zero thermometer readings the next. We get rain and the green grass that comes with it, and we get the vibrant colors of the changing leaves.
But best of all, we get hunting season.
I’m not a blood-thirsty killer. In fact, I hardly ever come home with meat. I just like to be out in the wilderness with everything I need for survival on my back.
There’s also the feeling of being on a hunt. You can’t duplicate it doing anything other than hunting. It’s a sensation that comes only from knowing you’re stalking your quarry the way an alpha predator should, or from knowing at any moment, you could trip on a rock and impale yourself with a three-bladed Muzzy broadhead. All those things add up to a delicious mixture of adrenaline, excitement, anticipation, and maybe even a little bit of fear.
For most Wyoming hunters, the season really gets started in October. That’s when the bulk of the rifle seasons open. So get your work done now, and then get out there and get hunting.
I’m a map nerd. Always have been. Yes, I do have several GPS units, and yes, I have a subscription to OnX Hunt. And I tend to use those electronic navigation methods probably about 90 percent of the time I’m in the outdoors.
But I always carry a map and compass with me when I’m out. In fact, I carry three compasses. I learned long ago that you should always carry two compasses, because if you get lost and start to doubt the accuracy of your compass, you can check the other compass to renew your faith in the instrument. But what if one of the compasses is in fact wrong? That’s why I carry three – if two of them don’t agree, chances are the third will agree with one of them.
And I’ve been in situations where my electronics have let me down. One was during a massive snowstorm in the Savage Run Wilderness. My dad and I had hiked through hip-deep snow deep into the wilderness, but when it was time to go home, we had no idea which way to go. Our track through the snow had been filled in within minutes of our passing, and when we looked at the GPS, it just kept bouncing around and telling us a new direction to travel every two seconds. It turns out the wet, heavy snow was messing with the signal, and the GPS couldn’t give us an accurate heading.
Another time I was using OnX Hunt to get to where I wanted to hunt, in an area I’d never been before. Even though I’d charged my phone before I left camp, and I had the map downloaded to the phone so I didn’t have to worry about a signal, my phone died on me halfway through the day. In both cases, I ended up having to use my map and compass to get home.
So yes, technology has made things easier, but it’s always a good idea to have a backup that doesn’t require batteries or electronic signals.
I think all of my spare time between now and February is going to be spent on my latest project, which is cleaning up my store room. I’ve already reorganized most of my hunting, fishing and camping gear, which was the main focus of the project, but I still have all the rest of the store room to clean up. It might take me a while.
The hunting and outdoor gear is all pretty much well organized now. The exception is my map collection. I’m still working on that. I would have been done with it long ago, but I was given a bunch of maps a decade or so ago from a guy who had quite the collection of Wyoming USGS topos. The problem is that he rolled them all and stored them in tubes.
I have a great map storage cabinet my dad made probably 40 years ago. It stores maps flat, then folds up against the wall. When you open it, the map storage slots become a nice table to use to look at the maps. But they need to be somewhat flat to go into those narrow slots.
The maps I’ve been keeping in the store room for the last 15 years or so are all rolled. And if you’ve ever tried to mess with a map that’s been rolled for more than about 30 seconds, you know it just curls itself back into a tube the moment you let go of the corners. And the longer it’s been stored, the more reluctant it is to achieve a flat attitude ever again.
All those maps are currently laying on my work bench, under about 60 pounds of scrap metal to hold them down. I already rolled them back on themselves, then rolled them from the other end. I’m hoping after a couple of weeks, they’ll be flat and useable again. But there are no guarantees.
So please, don’t roll up your maps. Fold them if you have to, but don’t roll them up. Unless you enjoy fighting with them every time you want to use them.
I mentioned earlier this week that I cleaned up my store room to get all my hunting gear organized. I also mentioned that in previous years, I only went as far into the pile as I needed to go to find whatever I was looking for at the time. This year, I did a full-scale reorganization of everything I have, and in doing so, I actually got to the back of the pile.
Most of the way to the back, I pulled out a dusty tub that hadn’t been opened for probably close to two decades. I pulled the top off, and inside was my old ghille suit. I haven’t used that thing since I made it, and that was probably before my kids were born. I think I used it once, but I used it for an antelope hunt, and while it worked marvelously, it was incredibly hot. It was way too hot for an early fall archery antelope hunt.
But it got me to thinking that it might be great for elk hunting. Last year, even though it was still early in the season, it got pretty cold up there in the mountains. I think the temperature was 80 degrees one day, but that night it snowed, and the next day the high temperature barely broke freezing. The ghille suit would be fantastic in those conditions.
Besides, I put a lot of work into that thing. I cut thousands of strips of burlap, and I even tattered most of those strips so they were even more grasslike. Then I dyed bunches of strips and mixed them all up, and finally laced them into an old BDU jacket. The thing weighs about 20 pounds, and it’s bulky as all get-out, but when I’m in it, I’m invisible. And hot.
Maybe I’ll take it with me this weekend. If the temperature gets low enough, I’ll give it another try. Then I’ll probably forget about it for another 20 years.
I do nearly yearly family photos for a wonderful family who live out near Pine Bluffs. Some years we go into town for the photo shoot, and other years we meet somewhere magnificent like Vedauwoo. But this year, we took their photos at their place, which is quite magnificent itself.
They wanted to include their horses and their dog in the pictures this year, so taking the pictures right there at their place just made sense. The scenery at the ranch was just the icing on the cake.
I did wonder aloud early on if they see may rattlesnakes, but my client said she’s only seen one in the entire time she’s lived there. That made me feel a little better, but I still kept my eyes peeled as we took the mile-and-a-half walk across the pasture to a hill where she wanted to get some shots. All was good all the way to the hill, and we had no troubles the entire time I was getting photos of them on and around and with and without their horses.
So we were in good spirits as we hiked back to the ranch house. As I was walking and the family members were riding bareback, a very identifiable buzzing started up right behind me – exactly from a spot I had just stepped right over. And sure enough, there was an annoyed rattler, half-coiled and arched up, ready to escalate the threats if we didn’t heed its warning. I was amazed none of the horses freaked out, and maybe it was my concern for the mounted clients that made the difference, but I also didn’t scream like a little girl and try to climb the nearest object taller than a bread box, which in this case was my wife. Maybe I’m getting old and my reflexes are slowing down, or maybe, like I said, it was concern for the people on horseback. But it was a good sign. Maybe I’m finally getting over my snake phobia. I’ll just be happy if I never have to put it to the test again.
It turns out I have a lot of hunting gear. Not a lot of GOOD hunting gear, but a lot of gear in total. I do have some good stuff, and I always know where that stuff is, because it gets used a lot and has its own special places in my hunting gear storage areas. But just about every year, I decide I need something I know I have, but I just can’t put my hands on it.
Some years, I just give up the search and do without whatever item I was looking for. But once in a while, it prompts me to do another full-scale cleanup of the hunting gear section of my store room. And each time I do it, I get serious about the search, but I tend to lose interest after I find whatever gadget I was looking for.
For instance, a couple years ago, I was looking for some upland bird carrying lanyards. I got about halfway into the stack of hunting gear when I found them, so I tidied everything up and put it all back. But all the stuff below and behind where I found those lanyards didn’t get touched.
This year, I decided to do it for real. I actually pulled every piece of hunting and camping gear I have out of the store room and scattered it around the basement. For a couple of weeks, it looked like we’d been robbed by an unusually tidy thief who tossed the place, but put everything into piles of related items. It took a while, but I got everything organized, put back into containers, and this time, labeled. That was probably the key – labeling the totes. Because I have gotten to the age where I can’t remember what box has what items. But now I know, so at least until I get them all jumbled up again, I’ll be able to find exactly what I’m looking for for every hunt. I give it until this time next year before I have to clean it all up again.
It wasn’t very cold the day I got my first goose. But we’d set up the portable blind in about six inches of water, and the water wasn’t what you’d call warm.
We’d been there for about three hours. We’d seen birds all over the sky, but none were flying any closer than a mile or two from our pond. It was starting to look like we were going to get skunked.
Not completely skunked. We’d already knocked down a few greenheads and a couple of teal, but I wanted a honker. I’d never shot a goose before, and I really wanted to get a goose. The limit on dark geese was two in those days, and it would be great to get two, but I wasn’t going to get greedy. One would be enough for me.
It was getting to be that time of the morning when the birds stopped flying around for a while. Dad and the landowner were talking about calling it a day, but I could swear I heard a goose honking. And it was getting closer.
I turned carefully in the blind, remembering what Dad had told me about sudden movements. I also kept my face turned down, so my white face wouldn’t cause the bird to flare.
Sure enough, a single was coming our way. By that time, my hunting partners had heard it, too. They started calling, trying to lure the goose in to the decoys.
It worked. The goose came in from behind, then turned and set its wings. It was coming straight at us. I was between Dad and the landowner, and they told me to take the first shot. When Dad said “Take ‘em,” I stood up and fired.
But the goose had seen me move, and it shifted from landing mode to escape velocity. My 20-gauge shot caught it in the chest before it could get away. The next thing I knew, I was laying flat on my back in six inches of icy water, and there was a large goose floundering on my chest. Let me tell you, those wings can pack a wallop. Dad grabbed it by the neck and put it out of its misery, but not before it had whacked me at least a dozen times.
I was bruised, wet and cold, but I was happy. I had my first goose, as well as a story to tell about the adventure.
An outdoor writer called me the other day. She was planning a story on outdoor mishaps and asked if I knew anyone who’d had any.
I told her every hunter I know has had at least one calamity in the woods. If you hunt, camp, fish, climb or do anything else outdoors, you’ve had at least one disaster. It’s just part of the deal.
I’ve had plenty of calamities myself. And I’ve reflected on those disastrous events quite a bit over the years. I’ve come away concluding that I’m actually disappointed if I have a trip that goes off without a hitch.
I don’t think I’m alone. I think a pretty good percentage of outdoorspeople enjoy those little snags. It’s those conflicts that make the trips memorable.
I don’t mean big, nasty emergency-type bungles. I mean minor disasters. I’m not talking about getting stranded in the Alps and having to eat your companions. Or getting your arm crushed by a boulder and having to whittle it off with your Swiss Army knife.
The enjoyable ones are getting disoriented for several hours and finding yourself still in the woods when you were supposed to be back at work. Or having to sew up your hunting partner’s hand when he cuts himself while he’s cutting the string silencers off his bow. Obviously, this one fits in both categories. If it’s you whose hand is sliced open, it’s not as much fun as it is for the guy doing the stitching.
Think about it, though. What do you remember most about your own outings? Do you remember having plenty of good food, perfect weather and a tent that doesn’t leak? Heck no. You remember running out of the tasty food and having to eat the emergency freeze-dried packets of gunk during a torrential downpour as water drips through a hole in the tent and runs right down the back of your neck.
Here’s to the mishaps. May yours be just big enough to give you good stories, but small enough that you come home intact. At least with no more than a couple of stitches.
In my opinion, everybody should go hunting each weekend of the hunting season. You don’t have to go after elk or deer every time. Change it up a little. Hunt doves on the first weekend, then try to get a blue grouse or some sharptails the next. If you mix it up, it’ll keep things fresh and give you more to talk about around the water cooler on Monday morning.
I’ve had some great hunts on three-day weekends, whether they came from a holiday or a vacation day. A normal weekend isn’t long enough to really get into a hunt, but just one more day off can make all the difference.
All the archers I know live for Labor Day weekend. There isn’t much open for rifle hunters this early in the season, but if bowhunting’s not your style, you can always pick up the shotgun. Blue, sharptail and ruffed grouse, as well as doves are all fair game right now. And you can also hunt geese in the Pacific Flyway.
Don’t waste this three-day weekend. We won’t get another one until … well, there’s one in October, but only if your office lets you out for Columbus Day.
The only thing I have against Labor Day is the heat. It’s still pretty warm this time of the season, and that can be a real drag for hunting. It can certainly be a problem for big game hunting. If you get a deer, elk or antelope, you want to keep it as cool as you can, but when it’s as hot as it usually is this time of year, that can be a real problem.
The heat can cause other problems, too, especially if you bowhunt in an area where there are snakes. A few years ago, I drove out to a walk-in area north of Burns. I parked the truck, then I went around to the passenger side to get my bow. It was a pretty cool morning, which is why I decided I’d go deer hunting with my bow rather than try to kick up some sharptails out on the prairie. It was a good thing that morning was frosty, too, because when I got to the front of the truck, I literally came an inch from stepping on a coiled rattler. I thought that snake was frozen to death, because it stayed wrapped in a tight coil. It didn’t even flick its tongue, let alone try to strike, but my nervous system didn’t get the memo. Before I knew it, I was ten feet away from that snake.
It ruined my hunt. I spent the rest of the morning paying more attention to the ground than to the deer I had come to hunt. When I came up over a hill and blundered within 30 yards of a group of mule deer, I realized I had been watching where I was stepping and not paying any attention to anything else. I think those deer stayed put because they thought there was no way I could be hunting, with as much noise as I was making. They obviously didn’t consider me any sort of threat. But they still shifted into high gear and left the county before I could get an arrow knocked.
So I gave up and went back to the truck. The snake was still there, and it had warmed up enough that when I got back, he uncoiled and slowly slithered off.
It turned out to be a bad day for hunting, but at least I got out. And I got a bunch of cool snake pictures and a good story out of it.
Get outside and enjoy this Labor Day. Just watch out for snakes.
Quite often, the OutdoorHub sends some very useful information my way. If you aren’t an OutdoorHub subscriber, you should be. But enough advertisements. Back to my point.
I don’t get the chance to fish with a guide very often. I’ve been lucky enough to be treated to a couple of guided trips in my time, but after reading a recent post on the OutdoorHub, I realize I may have committed some of the mistakes that can aggravate a guide.
Most guides provide the gear they know will catch fish and most likely won’t malfunction. It turns out guides can get a little owly when you show up with your “lucky” rig that’s been rattling around in your truck’s toolbox for 30 years. The guide’s job is to get you on as many fish as possible, but he can’t do that if you’re constantly unsnarling your line.
Take the guide’s advice to heart, too, and not just the stuff he tells you while you’re out on the water. If the guide sends you a list of gear to bring, especially outerwear in case of inclement weather, do as you’re told. You don’t want to be the guy who makes the whole group quit early just because you failed to bring a rain coat. The OutdoorHub article said that’s probably the biggest pet peeve guides face.
And back to the fishing gear, take care of the guide’s stuff even better than you do your own. Don’t use the eyelets on the rod as hook holders. That’s what the hook holder near the reel is for. If you put the hook in the eyelets, you can damage the eyelets, which can fray the line, and rods that fray line have to be replaced.
So if you get the chance to fish with a guide, try not to tick him off. And tip him well.
When AirSoft guns first started hitting the market, in models that were nearly exact replicas of actual firearms, I was stoked. While the weight and recoil of a 1911 can’t be duplicated with an air gun, I figured it was a great way to practice when I couldn’t make it out to the shooting range, or when the weather was too nasty to spend much time outside.
Fast-forward about 20 years to the present day, and they’re still producing cosmetic replicas of a whole bunch of real guns. The only difference these days is that now, they’re painting the muzzles orange so they can be instantly recognized as air guns.
I guess I should have expected the natural progression, considering they shoot a softer, less dense projectile than an old-fashioned BB, and they shoot at about a quarter the velocity of a BB gun. And further considering when I was a kid, I participated in my fair share of BB gun wars, what my kids do with their AirSoft guns shouldn’t bother me.
Maybe it’s the cosmetic aspect of the AirSoft guns that give me pause, or maybe it’s because it’s my kids who are involved. But I have to admit I’m a little uneasy about them pointing realistic-looking guns at each other, and then intentionally pulling the triggers.
Kids have to be able to be kids, and it’s no use telling kids to not point toy guns at each other. The AirSoft guns look so real, though, and the kids actually shoot each other with them. It’s a little disturbing.
I do make them stick to some rules, though. They have to maintain proper muzzle discipline when they’re not “at war,” and they’re required to unload them before bringing them into the house. You gotta’ start somewhere, right?
If you want to catch trout, you don’t fish when the temperatures are in the nineties. The fish might bite, but they won’t bite as frequently as they will when it’s cooler. So as fall approaches and the daytime highs start creeping back to more bearable temperatures, those of us who love to fish ought to be hitting the streams, lakes and rivers more and more.
The fact is, we don’t. Once hunting seasons start opening, the banks tend to clear out. Sure, some people combine hunting and fishing trips, but for the most part, the waterways are pretty lonely places.
Combine that with the appetites and energy levels of the fish increasing, and you have a recipe for some great fishing. So this fall, between hunts, or even, dare I say it, instead of a hunt, go fishing. You’ll have more room than you had on a summer weekend, and you’ll probably get more bites in a day in September than you got in a week in July.
A word of caution, though. Some of those great fishing holes are also good places to find elk, deer and even antelope, so be visible. Even if it’s only archery season, take along a hat or a jacket in blaze orange while you’re fishing. Make sure everyone who’s hunting in the area can see you clearly.
I’ve never claimed to be a great fisherman. In fact, it’s really the opposite. Whether I’m using flies, lures or bait, I seldom have much luck. But even I catch fish in the fall. In fact, the biggest fish I ever caught in Wyoming was a four-pound rainbow that took my spinner on a late August day. I caught it in the same hole I’d been fishing all summer long. But in the summer, I barely caught any fish there. On that fall day, before I caught the big one, I was catching fish every other cast.
No, fishing season isn’t over yet.
Bees, butterflies, and other insects play a crucial role in the health of the natural world. They move pollen from plant to plant, which provides genetic diversity among the plants, and ensures that there are enough of those plants for other animals up the food chain.
Yet for reasons scientists haven’t yet been able to explain for sure, pollinators are declining. Bees, butterflies and other pollinators have all shown smaller populations than they did just a few years ago. If we don’t find a way to help them out, and if the populations continue to decline, there could be serious implications for not only the wild world, but for our human food sources, as well.
I wish we could train mosquitoes to step in as surrogate pollinators. For one thing, it would get them to quit sucking blood out of us, and judging from the numbers of the little vampires I’ve been swatting all spring and summer, there would be more than enough of them to cross-pollinate the entire world.
I doubt there’s any scientific link between pollinators declining and mosquitoes increasing. It’s likely just an unfortunate coincidence. The reason for the upswing in mosquitoes is probably just that this spring and summer has been wetter than usual. Instead of one or two hatches, like we get in normal years, we probably had four or five. And apparently, all those hatches were very successful ones. Even with repeated applications of Deep Woods Off!, I’m one giant, itchy mosquito bite bump.
Hopefully we’ll get the pollinator puzzle figured out soon. It would be nice if there were as many butterflies flitting around as there are mosquitoes. It would make it easier to deal with the itchy bites if we could watch some butterflies while we’re getting bled dry.
There are a lot of shooters working on their long-range shots these days. Most of those folks confine their long-distance shooting to the range, where they try to tighten up their groups and get more and more accurate from farther and farther out.
There’s a lot to think about with long-range shooting. The slightest wiggle will throw off your aim by several inches or even feet. A breath of wind will make your bullet drift far off course. Humidity, temperature, and a host of other factors come into play, as well.
Those are some of the reasons the Boone and Crockett Club has taken a stand against long-range shooting in hunting situations. There’s just so much that can go wrong. A long-distance shot made wrong will probably result in a miss, but it could also end up with a poorly hit game animal.
But even if you’re an absolute dead-eye, who can’t possibly miss at any range, at what point does hunting from long ranges take the “fair” out of fair chase? And that’s the main reason the Boone and Crockett Club is speaking out against long-range hunting.
Keep in mind the club doesn’t specify a distance that defines long range. It’s a different number for every different shooter, and even for every situation. The cutoff, according to Boone and Crockett, is the point at which a hunter stops trying to get closer. Because that’s what makes fair chase fair. The challenge of hunting is matching your wits and skills against the senses of the animals you’re pursuing. So far, the club hasn’t said it won’t certify record-book animals that are shot from extreme distances, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they do. Because as they say, if you’re not trying to get close, you’re not hunting – you’re just shooting.
I’ve never been the kind of hunter who can get an elk on a one-day hunt. I know there are guys out there who just drive up to the woods, hop out of their truck, walk a mile or so into the timber, and haul an elk back out. But that’s not me.
Even a weekend hunt isn’t enough for me. I’ve taken a few deer on a day hunt or a weekend trip, but I’ve done a lot better when I’ve spent four or more days out in the woods. That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to hunt this year. I have seven full days to hunt. I’m ready.
I’ve got my elk and deer licenses, and I might pick up a bear license just in case I get that lucky. I don’t expect to actually see a bear, even though where I’m going, there are plenty of black bears around. They’re pretty wary, and since I’ll be primarily looking for elk and deer, chances are incredibly slim that I’ll come across a bear.
I’ve been practicing with my bow every night, and I finally got a new release this year. My old release had a few issues, and I’ve missed a couple of opportunities because it wouldn’t get a grip on my bowstring. This new one should take that out of the equation, so all I’ll have to contend with is my own ineptitude.
My new camo gear is here, and it’s as incredible as I hoped it would be. It’s KUIU Verde camo, and unlike the patterns made for the swamps and forests of the southeast, this stuff will actually break up my outline in the Wyoming wilderness.
I have my maps, I’m practiced up with my bugle, and my arrows all have brand-new fletching. Time to go huntin— What? I still have a week before I can go? Man, this is going to be a loooooong week.
Every year, I sit down at the kitchen table and scrape the old fletchings off my arrows. Well, at least that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 10 years or so. Before that, when I shot aluminum arrows, I sat down at the kitchen table with arrow blanks that came without any fletching at all.
With the carbon arrows, I don’t break nearly as many as I did when I shot aluminum. This year, I still have 12 arrows left over from last season. Back in the aluminum days, I usually had one or two left, so I’d have to order a whole new set.
Those aluminum arrows were beefier, too, so they didn’t go as far into my targets as my carbon arrows do. So my annual fletching tradition wasn’t to replace fletching – it was to replace the whole arrow.
But even though I have more arrows to start with each year, the vanes always look like they’ve been run through a wood chipper. So my fletching tradition now begins with scraping the old vanes off.
Once the shafts are clean and smooth, I put the new vanes in the fletching jig and run a bead of gel super glue down each of them. After I get my fingers unstuck from the glue bottle, I snap the jig shut and get those fletchings attached to the shafts.
I fletch my arrows myself because I shoot a radical helix. I imagine the usual offset would be just fine, but I need all the help I can get to make my arrows fly straight. The radical helix forces the arrow to spin more, so in theory, it should fly straighter and truer. Granted, you still have to get close enough to a game animal to take that shot, and that’s where I usually run into trouble. But one step at a time. For now, let me enjoy my yearly tradition and delude myself that it’s making a difference.
Take an evening after work this week and go sight in that hunting rifle. I know most rifle seasons don’t open for a while, but that’s the whole idea.
If you have a problem you can’t get worked out, now’s the time to find out about it, while you still have time to take it to a gunsmith. Also, if you take a few shots and figure out you’re a little rusty, you’ll still have time to hone your skills before the season starts.
If you get out to the range and find that your scope’s been knocked more than a little out of alignment, don’t waste a bunch of ammo trying to find the paper. Set up your rifle on a pile of sandbags, or better yet, a gun vise. This only works with a bolt action, but it’s a handy trick. Take the bolt out and look through the barrel. Line the barrel up with the bull’s-eye, then adjust your scope until the crosshairs are also on the bull.
Obviously, the closer you are to the target, the easier it will be to bore-sight your rifle this way. You’ll want to do this step at about 25 yards. When you put everything back together and take a shot, it should be close to the center of the target.
Now, move out to the 100-yard target. Fire a three-shot group and see where it’s centering. A tried and true rule of thumb is to adjust your scope so it’s hitting about 3 inches high at 100 yards. Depending on your rifle, caliber, and ammo, that should put a bullet dead-center at about 200 to 250 yards.
The reason for sighting in high at 100 yards is simple. If you’re hitting three inches above where you aim at that distance, you’ll still be in an animal’s vitals. If the critter is farther out, again, you’ll still be in the kill zone.
When you shoot your three-shot groups, give your barrel enough time to cool down between groups. When you’re hunting, you’ll be taking that first shot with a cold barrel. You want to sight in with a cold barrel, too. If you sight in with a hot barrel, you may be several inches off when you take that shot at an elk or deer.
After you sight in, get some practice with different stances and distances. Do it now, well in advance of the season. Come October, you’ll be glad you did.
I am a certified map junkie. I do use a GPS when I hunt, but I still prefer the good, old-fashioned map and compass method. For one thing, a GPS is no good for planning your hunt. The screen’s too small, and usually not detailed enough, to take a good look at the country you’ll be hunting and pick out some likely spots to find critters.
Especially when I am going to a new area for the first time, I spend hours looking at a map and marking places I think might hold some game. I think about ways to get to those spots, based on the contour lines. I come up with contingency plans, in case the wind’s coming from the wrong direction or what looked like a gentle slope on the topo turns out to be a rocky cliff.
For years, I used the USGS topos for this planning. Those are still great maps, but I’ve found something better. Now I go to MyTopo.com and center my map exactly where I want to. That way, I can use one map for my entire adventure, instead of having to go back and forth between two, three, or even four USGS topos, depending on where on the maps I am.
MyTopo maps can be customized by scale and by size, too. You can go with a smaller scale and get more area on the map, or a bigger scale to see more detail. And you can get your maps from 18 by 24 inches all the way up to 5 feet by 8 feet.
The MyTopo maps can be pre-folded, so you don’t have to try to fold them correctly. And they’re printed on waterproof, tearproof paper, so they won’t get all soggy and useless in your back pocket on a long hunt.
You can even get hunt area boundaries printed on them, and you can include the satellite images. And they keep adding options every year. They’re based on the USGS map data, so they’re just as accurate as the old quadrangles. MyTopo just made them even better.
You can spend every spare moment you have in the gym, lifting weights and running on treadmills, and you’ll get in great shape, for sure. But if what you’re trying to get in shape for is hunting, you’re doing it wrong.
There’s only one way to prepare for hiking in the mountains, and that’s hiking in the mountains. You can load up your backpack with weight, strap on an oxygen deprivation mask, and get on the stair climber. That’s the closest you can come to the real thing, and it’s certainly better than sitting on the couch. But it’s not entirely the same.
Up in the mountains, for one thing, you have actual elevation to contend with. The higher you go, the less oxygen there is. Even on a trail, the footing is far less stable than it is on that stair stepper, and it’s amazing how much extra effort it takes to step carefully – especially when you’re hauling a heavy pack.
I’ve been doing what I can to stay in shape lately, but last weekend I realized I’m still a long way from being ready for hunting season. I took the family on a hike up in the Snowies on Saturday. We decided to take the Sheep Lake Trail, which is fairly easy as hiking trails go. It’s just pretty long. It’s nine miles from one end to the other, and we went out and back. At about the seven-mile mark, I started to realize I need to get a heck of a lot more mountain hiking in before my first hunting trip.
Granted, when I hunt, I usually don’t go 18 miles nonstop. There’s a lot more stopping involved when I hunt. But the weekend hike was a good reminder that I need to get up in those hills a few more times before September.
I love getting outside and tromping around in the wilds. It doesn’t matter what time of year it is or what I’m out there doing. If I’m outside, I’m happy.
But of all the excuses to get outside, hunting is my favorite. The idea is to get closer to nature, try to get inside the minds of the animals you’re pursuing, and eventually bring home some lean, healthy, tasty meat. Those animals nearly always outwit me, but that doesn’t dampen my spirits much. I freely admit I’m not as bright as a bull elk. I’ve made my peace with that.
Then there’s the adrenaline rush you get when you finally do get to draw down on that critter. Whether it’s an antelope, an elk, or even a pen-raised pheasant, you can’t beat it. It may not be as exciting as bungee jumping off a 300-foot bridge or strapping yourself to a brahma bull, but those things are just adrenaline overkill, if you ask me.
Here’s the weird thing. I love the hunt, I love the stalk, and I even love the shot. But I always feel a twinge of remorse when the animal goes down. I think that’s why I don’t often hunt critters I’m not going to eat, like prairie dogs. Knowing I’m going to put that animal to good use does a lot to temper that guilt.
Another thought that helps is knowing without hunters, those game animals would have it pretty rough out there. It’s already pretty tough to scratch out a living in the wild, but if we didn’t hunt, there’d be a whole lot more critters, and there wouldn’t be nearly enough food to go around. Hunting is an essential part of wildlife management.
Today is the first day of the archery antelope season, and for the next several months, there’s another opener about every two weeks.
That means there are plenty of adrenaline rushes in our future. Go out and take advantage of as many of ‘em as you can.
When my wife told me I’ve been doing an admirable job of losing weight, but that I’m still packing a few too many extra pounds, I had to agree. But then she said I need to spend as much time as I can hunting this year. My first reaction was to look around for the hidden camera.
But she explained hunting is good exercise, and again, I had to agree. But I went one step further. I sat down and outlined the elk hunting diet.
Here’s how it works:
Step One: Dig out the topo maps for your elk area. Find the spot where the little lines are closest together. This will indicate the steepest terrain. This is where you want to go.
Step Two: Strap all your gear on your back and stroll around the neighborhood. If you’re going to have a heart attack, it’s better to have one in town than out in the wilderness somewhere.
Step Three: Head for the hills. Be sure to carry everything you think you might need in your backpack: extra clothes, extra ammunition, a couple gallons of water, game saws, skinning knives, survival gear, etc. Head for the steepest, most tree-covered hillside in the country. Do this all day. Even if you hear elk bugling down in the flatter country, stay up on the hillside. Remember, you’re here to lose weight. Bringing down an elk is just a bonus.
Step Four: After doing this for as many days as your boss and your significant other will allow, you may have figured out where the elk are congregating. On the last day of your diet, as a reward for sticking with it, you can go where the elk are and try to take one home. A diet including elk steaks is a healthy one – it’s good, lean meat, free of steroids and other additives.
Step Five: If you’re lucky enough to get an elk, be prepared for the really hard work. You’ll have to pack that sucker out. Don’t be tempted to take the easy way out and use a game carrier. Quarter it and haul it out in four separate trips.
If for some reason this diet doesn’t work the first time, try it again next year.
I was sitting in the passenger seat of my wife’s 4Runner as we headed down the county road on our way home. Looking out the window, I noticed two mourning doves flitting along on a parallel course to ours, and as I watched, they’d dip down nearly to the tips of the grass, then instantly flit up 20 feet higher. They kept up their aerial acrobatics, but never went slower than we were going.
I asked Amy, “How fast are we going?” She said we were traveling at 53 miles an hour. Yet those doves were going just as fast as we were, while still darting up, down, and side-to-side. No wonder those winged demons are so hard to hit when you’re hunting them.
The dove season opens Sept. 1, which is still almost two weeks away. There are a bunch of them around right now, but by the time the season opens, most of them will already be headed for Argentina. It’s about 7,000 miles as the crow flies, but apparently, as the dove flies, it’s probably more like 14,000 miles.
I don’t know if the Eurasian collared doves that stick around Wyoming all year fly as fast or are as acrobatic as mourning doves are, but they’re fair game during the season, too. They’re a little bigger than mourning doves, and in my experience, they taste about the same. If you can’t find any mourning doves after the season opens, or if you’re like me and have a hard time connecting with the fast-flying aerial acrobats, maybe you’ll have more luck with the Eurasian collared versions.
One way or another, though, be ready for dove season as soon as it opens. The collared ones generally hang out where you can’t shoot them, and the mourning doves high-tail it for that long trip south. But good luck. After watching those doves fly, I think you’re going to need it.
If you’re planning to upgrade your gear for your fall hunts, you don’t have to look too far. We have more than a few great companies right here in Wyoming that make some very impressive gear.
Take Maven, for instance. The company is based in Lander, and it makes some of the best optics you can find. Equally as impressive in quality is Lucid Optics out of Riverton. Both companies offer rifle scopes, spotting scopes and binoculars, all of which are built to the highest specifications. They aren’t cheap, but they’re worth every penny.
And of course there’s Brunton, out of Riverton. In a world of GPS, compasses are often neglected, but you want to make sure you have a good one in your pocket anytime you’re in the backcountry. And Brunton makes the best compasses you can get.
We have several gun companies here, too. Weatherby made headlines when it moved to Wyoming a couple of years ago, and their barrels are now stamped with “Made in Sheridan, Wyoming.” But Freedom Arms has been making big game hunting handguns here for years, and Gunwerks offers long-distance rifle systems that are becoming very well known in the shooting world. There’s also Stag Arms and Wyoming Arms, both of which make precision rifles.
And don’t forget the accessories. Magpul builds most of its products here in Cheyenne, and ThunderBeast is also a Cheyenne company. They both offer bipods that can help you steady your aim.
While you’re gearing up for your hunt this year, buy local as much as you can. And rest assured that some of the best outdoor products are made right here in Wyoming.
I told you earlier this week that I finally broke down and bought a new 3-D archery target. I also wound up having to buy some new arrows.
Those were a couple of expenses I hadn’t planned on. But I went out to shoot my bow last weekend to get some practice for the upcoming archery antelope season, and I ruined not only my target, but also several arrows.
If you have a 3-D target, take care of it. I took good care of mine for a long time, but I started to get careless with it. The more dilapidated it got, the less I did to preserve it, and that led to it getting more weather-beaten.
Instead of keeping it inside when I wasn’t shooting at it, I just left it out in the yard. I figured if I didn’t have to move it in and out of the garage when I wanted to practice, I’d practice more. That didn’t work out, though, and to make matters worse, the weather chewed that target up.
My first shot at the target after weeks of not practicing went much farther left than I wanted it to. I hit that target right in the nose, and the nose of the antelope-shaped target vaporized. The arrow kept going and ended up somewhere in the juniper windbreak. I still haven’t found that arrow. And the target now looks more like some mutant alien monster than an antelope.
But I kept shooting, and I got dialed in pretty quick. I sunk my remaining five arrows in what I think was the vital area, though the weather has erased all the lines showing where I’m supposed to hit it. It was a pretty respectable group, and I was pleased with myself. Until I tried to pull those arrows out.
They wouldn’t come out. At all. I pulled, twisted, yanked, and finally gave up. I drove to the sporting goods store and bought a new target and a dozen new arrows.
Take care of your target. If you don’t, it’ll cost you.
I told you Monday that our neighbor had a calf killed by coyotes, and that now all the people who live around me are working hard to put an end to one of those coyotes that just keeps coming back to the scene of the crime. Even though I’m not an avid coyote hunter, I have joined in that pursuit. And every time I catch a glimpse of that ‘yote, I become a little more serious about coyote hunting.
Coyotes all tend to be a little mangy this time of year, but this one is scragglier than usual. I don’t know if it has some horrible disease, or if it’s just starving, but there’s something definitely off with it. It has almost no hair on its tail, and it has bald patches all over the rest of its body, too. I think shooting it would be an act of mercy.
And then there’s the new rifle factor. I could use this rifle for antelope hunting, but I’ve been taking my old .270 out after goats since I was old enough to hunt. It just doesn’t seem right to leave it in the safe and take the new kid out in its place. It’s a 6.5 Creedmoor, so I’m not comfortable trying to get an elk with it. Besides, it’s heavy. It’s built to plunk down on a shooting mat or a bench and put bullets exactly where I want them to go all the way out as far as I feel comfortable shooting. It’s a coyote gun, plain and simple.
And now it has a target. It’s a wily target, to be sure. That coyote has popped up and given me a good look at least six times since Kevin called to tell me we had a ‘yote that needs to be removed from the population. But each time it’s shown itself, it’s done so in a spot I can’t get a shot at it. It’s like it knows, and it’s just toying with me.
The longer this goes on, the more I want to break that new rifle in on this specific coyote. But as crafty as he is, he’ll probably die of old age before he lets me get a shot at him.
My neighbor Kevin and I are both avid bowhunters. I try to practice with my bow as much as I can the rest of the year, too, but the last few years, it’s been more and more difficult to get quality practice time. Kevin and I decided to schedule a weekly practice session so we’d be tuned up before the hunting season starts.
We were planning to start our weekly shooting sessions tonight. Our plan was to meet up this week at his backyard range, then next week at mine, and we’d do this each week until Sept. 1. We’d start well before dark, and we’d practice until the end of shooting light, so that we’d have plenty of time to work on the basics, but we’d also be ready for those early morning or late evening shots during the hunting season.
We both need the practice, and hunting season is coming up quickly. Archery season starts for antelope next Monday, so we need to get out and make sure we can still put an arrow where we want to before then.
But then a coyote came along and messed up our plans. Kevin had a calf get killed by a coyote, so now we’re spending all our evenings trying to get that coyote. Instead of practicing our archery tonight, Kevin’s going to be hiding in his barn with his .22-250, and I’ll be perched on top of my kids’ playhouse with my 6.5 Creedmoor, trying to reduce the area coyote population by one very bold individual.
Maybe we should try to get that coyote with our bows, instead. He’s brave enough to come in close, so he might get within arrow range. We could work on our archery and try to solve the coyote problem at the same time.
For a long time, it seemed like the only camo you could get was based on a close-up photograph of the vegetation you’d find in a Louisiana swamp or a Virginia forest. MossyOak, RealTree and TreeBark were probably fine camo patterns for those dense woods, but out here in the Mountain West, we still need something with bigger splotches of color with more contrast in order to break up our outlines. I still have some old garments in the World War II pattern, but they’re getting pretty threadbare. I suppose it’s finally time to get some new hunting gear.
Even though I’d like to have some hunting clothes that will actually keep me warm, I’ve resisted getting new gear because I’ve been holding out for a better pattern.
There are some alternatives now. Sitka has great gear, and they offer a few patterns that are likely to break up your outline very well. The same is true for KUIU. I’m more partial to the KUIU patterns. They actually have three versions I’m trying to decide between.
Their Valo pattern is their most brown and yellow option, and it would be great for a pronghorn hunt. For an extreme high-country hunt, where you’d go for bighorn sheep or mountain goats, their Vias pattern is perfect. But I think the best all-around pattern is their Verde, which is a little greener than the Valo and a little less contrasty than the Vias. However, for elk, deer, moose, and even waterfowl, it might be the best bet for Wyoming hunting.
KUIU gear is pricey, but it has a great reputation. I plan to put it to the test this hunting season. I’ll let you know what I find out.
My neighbor called me last week to tell me there was a coyote headed toward my place. I thanked him politely for the heads-up, but didn’t have any inclination to go get the coyote gun out of the safe and try to give that critter a case of lead poisoning. I like having coyotes and foxes around. If I’m going to shoot one on my place, I usually prefer to shoot them with my camera.
But then the neighbor went on to tell me this particular animal had just teamed up with at least one other coyote to kill one of his calves. That’s a different story. When the coyotes get bold enough to start taking down livestock, it’s time to start thinning the population.
Coyotes in healthy populations tend to give humans and our critters a wide berth. When they start running out of natural food sources, though, or if they are diseased and have a harder time catching wild prey, they start turning to the relatively easier targets that live behind fences. Last week it was a calf that met a rather gruesome end. Next week it could be somebody’s cat or dog. So if I take a few of the extra coyotes out of the population, there will be fewer of them competing for the rabbits, grouse and other critters that live outside our fences.
One of those coyotes that helped kill that calf is still coming around, even though there are now five of us neighbors trying to get it. It’s a wily one. I swear it knows where the safe shooting lanes my neighbors and I have are, and it only shows itself when it’s not in those zones. And it just keeps coming back. It even ran the cows past Kevin and the game warden who came out to necropsy the calf that had been killed.
I have to admit I will feel bad if I actually get it. It’s a smart one, and I have to respect it. Maybe one of the other guys will get lucky and save me the guilt.
It seems like there’s nothing but bad news right now. Inflation’s up, campaign ads are downright aggravating, and there’s lots of talk of a recession. But there’s one thing that’s nothing but good news – hunting season.
And it’s just around the corner. In about half the areas around the state, antelope season opens in less than two weeks. The archery antelope season kicks off on August 15th in quite a few of the hunting areas. Some areas don’t open until September 1st, but even that date will get here before you know it.
If your area’s one of the ones that opens on the 15th of this month, be ready for it. Make sure you’re dialed in with your bow, and double-check to make sure you have all the gear you’ll need for a hunt. You don’t want to be scrambing at the last minute to get new arrows, find your sagebrush camo clothes or sharpen your knife the night before you plan to go hunting.
If you hunt walk-in areas, double-check the walk-in area atlas on the Game and Fish website, too. Quite a few of the walk-in areas don’t open until later in the season, even if the hunting season is already open. Those landowners are letting you hunt on their land, so be sure to respect their wishes as to when you’re allowed to go out there. Some of them are still running livestock or harvesting fields, and they’d rather not have a bunch of hunters out there running their animals around or tromping through their crops.
With all the headaches in the news, I’m ready to spend a few days out on the prairie with a bow in my hand. I don’t even care if I get an antelope. I just want to get outside and breathe some fresh air, where there are no news stories to get me down.
I have an old 3-D archery target I’ve been poking holes in for years. For the first few years of its life, it lived in a shed out behind my garage. When I moved to a new house, it got its own corner of the garage. But as the years went by and that old target started getting more and more holes in it, I stopped being so concerned about storing it back in the garage after I’d practiced shooting at it.
Up until a few years ago, I still put it away for the winter, and I didn’t bring it out again until the spring storms had mostly passed by. But for the last couple of years, it has been left out there in the elements all year long. It turns out that’s not very good for foam targets.
It’s still roughly antelope-shaped, but it no longer has any paint left on it, and the weather has eaten away the lines that designate the vital areas. But worse than that, the foam it’s made of has basically turned to stone. I don’t know if getting wet, then baking in the sun repeatedly caused some sort of chemical reaction in the foam, but it seems like it has. It used to be somewhat soft, but now when you stick an arrow in it, it’s nearly impossible to get that arrow back out.
And even though it seems like it has turned to granite, it’s surprisingly brittle. I had an errant shot hit it in the nose a few days ago, and instead of stopping the arrow, the nose of my antelope target just exploded.
So I finally broke down and got a new 3-D target. After shelling out the money for it at the register, I remembered why I stored my first one inside for so long. Those things are expensive. I’m actually a little reluctant to poke holes in this new one, for as much money I spent on it. And it now has a special spot in my garage.
Last week, I stepped up to the 20-yard line at the trap club and had a heck of a streak going. I moved through three stations before I dropped my first shot. Granted, on that fourth station, I missed all but one of the dang targets. But it was looking pretty good there for a while.
The second round, I didn’t do as well. I was pretty much back to my usual form. But with that first-round 21, I improved my overall score remarkably.
I’m starting to understand how golfers feel. You go out there to enjoy yourself playing what’s supposed to be a very entertaining game, but you just get more and more frustrated the longer you play.
I don’t play golf, but I did try my hand at it a few times in college, and I have plenty of friends who torture themselves out on the greens for some strange reason. But from what I gather, there’s a very similar level of frustration involved.
The only difference is that before I gave it up as a lost cause, I came awful close to chucking my driver as far as I could throw it a few times, but I wouldn’t even dream of throwing my shotgun. A driver’s probably not going to go off accidentally and maim or kill someone. I might get mad enough to fling my earmuffs, but I haven’t gotten to that point yet.
Granted, the season’s still young, and I’ve got another date at the trap line tonight. We’ll see if I can repeat my first-round improvement, and better yet, if I can carry that improvement all the way through the second round. See the bird, squeeze the trigger, and follow through. See, squeeze, follow through. And keep my head down. And breathe. And … well, now I’m starting to think about it too much, and I’m pretty sure that’s my whole problem.
Some of my golfing friends keep trying to get me to join them on the fairway, but I have enough frustration in my life right now. I think I’ll stick to trap shooting. I can only be bad at one sport at a time.
It’s time to get back into the hunting groove. The actual season is still a long way away, but I’m going stir crazy being cooped up in the house or the office all the time. Fishing’s great, but it just isn’t the same as hunting. I need to go do something hunting-related.
I had a friend invite me to help him use a gift certificate he got for a sporting clays range, and we’re trying to find a time to cash it in.
The trouble is that sporting clays can be quite humbling. The few times I’ve done it, I’ve missed a whole lot more than I’ve hit. I could easily come away from an afternoon out there feeling more frustrated than fulfilled.
So I guess I’ll just have to keep going back until I can actually hit something. I’ve socked away some disposable income, so I should be able to get about an eighth of the way toward good by the time I go through all that cash. I don’t actually hold out any hope that I’ll ever be a crack shot on sporting clays, but at least I’ll have some fun. And while I’m at it, I’ll scratch the hunting itch, if only for a day or two. Now the only trick is to find the time to go do it.
That’s where the other part of my plan comes in. I’ve asked my boss’s husband if he’d like to go a few times, too, so maybe my boss’ll give me an afternoon or two here and there off so I can get her hubby out of the house for a few hours. It might not work, but it’s certainly worth a try.
The only way it would work better is if my boss were also a bird hunter. If you’re lucky enough to be in that situation, maybe you can get away from work a little more often. You’ll have to go with your boss, but it beats working.
Just don’t outshoot the boss or the boss’s main squeeze. Of course, with sporting clays, that shouldn’t be a problem.
What happened to Muskol? Do you remember that stuff? It was 100 percent Deet. All the experts recommend bug spray with Deet in it, but none of the junk they sell these days has enough Deet to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
Maybe Muskol disappeared because it was causing people to grow extra heads out of the sides of their necks or something. That stuff was pretty hard-core. If you left any of it on your hands and then picked up your fishing rod, it would eat the handle of the rod. Sometimes it was hard to let go of the rod, because the Muskol caused your hands to graft onto the handle of the rod.
But it worked. You’d put a little bit of it on your hat, a little more on the cuffs of your jeans, and maybe smear a bit on the exposed skin between your elbow and your wrist, and no mosquito would come near you. On the rare occasion a mosquito was audacious enough to land on you, it would immediately explode. Sometimes you could even hear the mosquitoes scream. It was hard to differentiate from the buzzing of the cloud of skeeters buzzing a safe distance away from your Muskol-soaked head, but if you listened close, you could hear them going, “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
But now, the best I can find is 40 percent Deet. That’s just not enough. And frankly, I feel a little ripped off when I buy a can of 40 percent Deet, and 60 percent nothing. Less than half the ingredients in my Deep Woods Off are Deet. If you looked at the label of Muskol, it said, “Ingredients: Deet.” That was it. Nothing else. No water, no glycerin, no nothing. Just straight, unadulterated Deet.
And it’s the only thing that worked. I had a full can of Deep Woods Off all over me over the weekend, and today I look like someone used me as a pin cushion.
Bring back the Deet. I’ll take my chances with mutations, as long as I don’t get sucked dry by mosquitoes.
Don’t just let that bow sit in the closet or out in the garage all summer. Dust off the case, take the bow out and get some practice.
There are dozens of archery ranges around the state where you can practice shooting in the off season. If you don’t know where the one closest to your house is, ask at your local sporting goods store. If they don’t know, they might be able to at least tell you how to contact someone else who might know.
If you can’t get onto a public range, or even a private range that offers memberships, buy an archery target and set up your own range. A company called “The Block” makes a good, inexpensive target. You can also find 3-D targets for under a hundred bucks. Not everyone’s back yard is a great place to shoot a high-power compound bow, but you can take that target to nearly any section of state or federal land and get some practice. Just make sure you pick a spot to shoot where you won’t be a danger to hikers, anglers or other land users.
If you want to tweak your bow or its accessories, now’s the time to do it, rather than the night before your elk area opens. Switch to carbon arrows, buy a new sight, adjust your rest or replace your string now. Then get out every chance you can and get used to how the bow shoots.
While you’re practicing, you’re not just honing your shooting skills. You’re also working the muscles you’ll need when you’re hunting. The stronger your upper body is, the less likely you’ll shake when you draw down on that antelope in August.
When you practice, once in a while, wear the same gear you’ll be wearing when you hunt. Put on your backpack, and make sure the straps don’t interfere with your draw. Wear the gloves you’ll wear when you hunt. And pull your face mask down over your face and take a few shots while you’re wearing it. If it interferes with your vision, you have plenty of time to look for a new one before the season rolls around.
The time to get used to all this gear and tone your muscles is now, not on opening day. So get out and fling a few arrows. It might just make the difference in the fall.
There’s not an awful lot that’s worse than a rain coat that doesn’t keep the rain out. What’s the point of packing it along if it just turns into an extra layer of soaking-wet clothing?
Gore-Tex is fantastic stuff, but it doesn’t last forever. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way more than once. But I’ve also found that leaky Gore-Tex clothing isn’t necessarily garbage. You can rejuvenate it and get it to start shedding water again.
You need to be careful what you use to re-waterproof it, though. Some waterproofers will get the water to roll off it, but they’ll also seal up the pores that make it breathable. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just cut a couple holes in a garbage sack and carry that around. It’ll be even more waterproof, and it’ll probably weigh less.
But if you use this stuff called ReviveX, you’ll get back the old breathability as well as the waterproof characteristics your garments had when they were new.
It’s a bit of a process, but it’s worth it. You first need to wash your jacket, pants, or whatever you’re trying to re-waterproof. Don’t wash it in regular detergent, though. You can just wash it in warm water, or you can use ReviveX Synthetic Fabric Cleaner. It’s made by the same company as the waterproofing spray, and you should be able to find it in the same place in the sporting goods store.
After the washing machine’s done, pull the garment out and douse it with the waterproofing spray. Then toss it into the dryer for an hour on medium. When it comes out of the dryer, it’ll shed water and breathe like it did when you first brought it home.
There may be other Gore-Tex rejuvenators out there, and one is probably just as good as another. I don’t know about any of the others, though. I’ve used the ReviveX, and it works. But like the original Gore-Tex, it doesn’t work forever. I generally re-treat my fabrics about once a year, just to be on the safe side.
If you’re starting to get wet in your Gore-Tex clothing, look into ReviveX or a similar synthetic fabric waterproofer. You paid a lot for that raingear, so you might as well get as many miles out of it as you can.
In my days in the mountains, I’ve seen some horse wrecks that probably should have turned my hair gray prematurely. I’ve had horses go lame on me deep in the backcountry. I’ve been awakened in the night to the sound of thundering hooves receding down the trail toward the trailer. None of those situations do much to give you a lot of confidence in horses as a means of mountain travel.
But for every tight spot my horses have put me in over the years, there are fifty good things horses have done for me. First of all, they can carry a lot more weight than I can. Camp is a much more homey place when the horses bring it in on their backs. Our wall tent would fill an entire backpack. And the stove we put up inside it to keep us warm on cold October nights would be too heavy to carry more than a few miles, even if it was all you were packing. But a tent stove is just a heater if you don’t have any food to cook on it.
The horses have also allowed me to go farther into the woods than I could travel in a day on my own two feet. They walk faster than I do, even when they’re loaded down. And they don’t need to stop and rest nearly as often.
For the most part, the horses I’ve taken into the mountains have been pretty well behaved. It’s actually rare to have one of our mounts blow up on us. The examples of bad behavior on the horses’ part are just more memorable than the good things the animals have done for me. It’s easier to forget how well a horse navigated a stand of dog-hair timber than it is to forget an uncomfortably close brush with death.
Some of my friends are trading in their horses for ATVs. I just can’t bring myself to do that. For one thing, the places I go camping and hunting are off-limits to motorized vehicles. They’re also too noisy for my liking. I’ve heard it argued that my horses will spook game as much as an ATV, but I just don’t buy it.
I don’t know, though. I still might change my mind. If I have to go get many more loads of hay this year, I might have some horses for sale. Cheap.
Well, I suppose my nags aren’t for sale yet.
Being prepared for the worst is never a bad idea. However, if you carry everything you might need for any emergency, you won’t have room for your tent or sleeping bag.
A first aid kit needs to be light and compact, or it’ll be one of the first things you toss out of the pack when you’re looking to shave weight or make more room. And that kit won’t do you a bit of good when you’re out in the field bleeding to death if it’s back at the house, next to the big lantern and the extra can of white gas.
You can buy a first aid kit that’s pre-packaged and ready to go, or you can put together your own. There’s nothing wrong with either way, but most of the experts like to make their own. The store-bought kits tend to have more than you’ll need in them, and even some things you don’t have the faintest idea how to use.
That’s another argument for compiling your own kit. If you put it in there, chances are, you know how to use it.
My own first aid kit is fairly simple: an Ace bandage, a couple of squares of gauze, a few Band-Aids, a little bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a roll of Tums.
I know how to use all these things. If I cut myself, which I do on almost every outing, I can dab some alcohol on a gauze pad and clean the wound. Then I can put a Band-Aid on it, or if it’s big, I can wrap it with the Ace bandage and the other gauze squares.
If I get an upset stomach, I can pop a Tums or two.
That’s about the extent of my medical expertise. If it’s anything more serious, I probably need someone else’s help, so I’m going to do my best to get myself to civilization.
I hunt and camp with my dad a lot, and he’s a doctor. I let him carry all the fancy medical gear, and once in a while, I give him a reason to pack it along.
If you have a more advanced grasp of emergency medicine, you might carry a few more items in your own kit. Either that, or do like I do, and partner up with a doctor when you head to the hills. You might as well let someone else carry all that extra weight.
There are a lot of electronic earmuffs and earplugs on the market, and most of ‘em are worth every penny you’ll spend on ‘em. The best ones are generally more expensive, but you don’t have to sell your first-born to get a good pair.
Electronic muffs are also known as active sound suppression. They’re active because they let the quieter sounds come through, but at a certain decibel level, they dampen the louder noises. That makes it possible to talk to your shooting partners without having to take off your ear protection.
The Walker’s Game Ear is one of the pioneers of the active sound suppression ear protection, and they can be pretty pricey. The nice thing is that they’re custom-molded to your ear, and since they’re earplug-style rather than muffs, you won’t hit ‘em with your gun stock. However, since they’re made for one ear, you have to buy two of ‘em to get the full effect of the hearing protection. You can spend anywhere from a hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars for each one.
SportEar makes some nice active earplugs, too. They’re priced by the pair, but you can still expect to pay four hundred fifty or eleven hundred dollars for SportEars, depending on the style you get.
Walker’s also makes muffs, as do Caldwell, Peltor, Radians and Pro Ears. The muffs are generally less expensive, but the bulkier models can get in the way of your stock. I have a pair of Pro Ears Stalker Gold muffs, and they’re tapered at the bottom so they are less likely to bonk into my shotgun butt. The trade-off is that they don’t dampen the sound as much as a bigger model would. The price was right on ‘em, though. They’re normally three hundred bucks, but I got mine for half that.
Grab a set of electronic muffs or earplugs before you go to the range. Your ears will thank you.
It’s an election year again, so you can’t watch the news without raising your blood pressure. I hope life gets back to normal soon. But in the meantime, it’s important to take some time to recharge.
No matter what we’re doing during these crazy days, we all need to just sit still for a few minutes and relax. Better yet, go outside to do that relaxing. Sit on the back deck, or maybe cruise up to a campground in the forest. Park it on a stump in a meadow. And just watch the grass grow for a little while.
You probably won’t get to sit there for long. There’s just too much to do. If you’re at home, there are all the chores that still need to get done. If you’re up in the woods, you probably need to get supper on the fire or finish getting the tent set up. But it’s summertime. Take at least a half hour to just … be.
And there’s no better time to do that than the thirty minutes before the sun finally sinks behind the western horizon. It’s a time my dad calls “long-shadows time.” For as long as I can remember, he’s made a point of sitting on the porch for at least 15 minutes every summer night, watching those shadows grow longer with every passing minute.
It’s a great way to recharge after a long day. And it’s not just good for the person doing the long-shadows watching. My mom benefits, as well, even when she doesn’t come outside with him. Dad’s out on the deck leaving her alone, so she at least gets a few minutes to herself.
Do yourself a favor this evening. Instead of running full-speed until you crash on your bed at bedtime, take a short break and soak up some long-shadows time.
I’m a horrible fisherman, at least when it comes to fishing in Wyoming. When I fish in other states, I do fine. But I can’t catch a fish to save my life in my native waters.
That’s OK, though. I don’t eat fish very often, so I’m a catch-and-release fisherman by rule. If I don’t catch any, I don’t have to worry about taking them off the hook. My inability to catch a fish saves me a lot of time.
My boys usually fish circles around me. While I’m busy casting and reeling, the boys are pulling fish after fish off their lines. My wife usually does, too. It wouldn’t bother me, but all three of them see fit to rub my nose in the fact that I’m the guy who writes about fishing all the time, but they’re the only ones who ever catch any fish.
But their luck hit a wall a few weekends ago. We went up to Mirror Lake in the Snowy Range to do a little fishing. When we walked up to the crystal-clear water, we saw 10 or 12 little cutthroats zipping around in the shallows. I figured we could entice a couple of them to gobble up a worm or a spinner. Heck, even I might be able to catch one.
My hopes were raised by another family a hundred yards or so up the bank. They were pulling fish out with nearly every cast, so I thought the denizens of the deep were hungry. It turns out they might have been, but my luck had rubbed off on everyone in my party, and nobody got so much as a single nibble.
The only bright spot was when Logan netted a dead fish that floated past.
I told the boys to get used to it. I think the inability to catch a fish is in our genes.
I’m not afraid of a little hard work. In fact, I enjoy it. It gets me moving, keeps me somewhat in shape, and most hard-work tasks come with the reward of being able to look at what you’ve done and get a feeling of accomplishment.
That’s certainly the case with cutting firewood. But in addition to all those other benefits, cutting firewood comes with a few more perks. First of all, you get to go to the mountains to do it. We tend to go to new places every year to gather firewood, so we get to see new country each time we go.
You don’t often see many critters when you cut firewood, because the chainsaw tends to deter elk, moose, deer and other wildlife from venturing anywhere near you. But we almost always get to see at least a few wild animals on the drive up or on the way back home.
It’s also almost always cooler up in the mountains than it is down in town, so you get to escape the heat for a little while – which is good, because you heat yourself up pretty good while you’re cutting and hauling logs.
A couple of weekends ago, we went up to a chunk of land some friends bought in a small patch of private land in the middle of the national forest. They are working to clear out all the standing dead trees and all the deadfall on the property so they can build a cabin up there, and we needed the firewood. So it worked out perfectly. We spent the day cutting up downed timber, then knocking down the trees that would eventually fall down on their own. We got it about halfway cleared out, and we only hauled back a small fraction of what we cut down, so we’ll be able to go back and do it all again several more times this summer.
If you don’t cut your own firewood, you should give it a go. It’s hard work, but it’s worth the effort.
If you haven’t completed a Cutt-Slam yet, now’s the time to get it done. The Cutt-Slam is like other grand slams in the hunting and fishing world. It requires you to get one of each of four different subspecies of a certain type of animal.
In this case, the four subspecies are Wyoming’s native cutthroat trout.
In our state, we have Bonneville, Colorado River, Snake River and Yellowstone cutthroat trout.
The trick to it is that you have to catch them in their native waters. Generally speaking, you can find Yellowstones in most of the northern half of the state. Snake River cutthroats live in and around the Snake River on the northern part of the west side of Wyoming. Bear Rivers are also found around their namesake on the southern end of a narrow strip on the western border. And Bonnevilles hang out on the southern part of the drainages west of the Continental Divide.
You can complete a Cutt-Slam in a summer, but doing it in a day can be a bit of a whirlwind. And you have to be a better angler than I am to accomplish it in one shot. But Al Langston and Chris Madson have done it. I don’t know if they’re the only two. All I know is that it is possible.
But as I said, you have to be a better fisherman than I am. Most of the time, when I go fishing, the only thing I catch is my left earlobe.
Neither Langston nor Madson are that pathetic. In fact, they’re pretty good. I might even go so far as to say they’re trout whisperers. These guys could catch a lunker in a mudpuddle in the supermarket parking lot.
You don’t have to be a trout whisperer to complete a Cutt-Slam. And you don’t have to do it in a day, or even in a summer. There’s no time limit for it.
The only requirements are that you catch the fish, take a picture of it with recognizable bits of the scenery in the frame, label the pictures, and send them to the Game and Fish. You don’t have to have the fish mounted. You don’t even have to keep ‘em. You can catch and release, if you want to.
Get going on your Cutt-Slam. You’ll get a nice, frameable certificate and a bunch of memories as a reward.
Last week, I tossed my mountain bike in the truck to go get some exercise. I’m hoping to be in good enough shape to get through my elk hunt without going into cardiac arrest, and riding a bike is part of my exercise regimen.
I got to the trail I had planned to ride, but when I pulled my bike out of the truck, I realized the trip was a waste of time. I had two flat tires.
It reminded me of a time I didn’t get the advanced warning, though. On the way back to town, I recalled a bike ride with my wife and kids that didn’t go smoothly.
Back when the boys were little, I often towed them along on my rides in their little bike trailer. On that trip, my wife went with us. She had been pretty good about encouraging me to get in shape without actually nagging me, and for that I was grateful. But it was kind of getting on my nerves that she was pedaling along with what seemed to be absolutely no effort whatsoever.
There I was, huffing along, dragging an extra sixty pounds, and there she’d go, zipping up the bike path like Lance Armstrong. To top it off, my oldest son made up a little song, the lyrics of which consisted entirely of “faster, daddy, faster!”
Then my bike started sounding funny. Every time I pushed on the pedals, I heard a clanking, grating sound coming from somewhere below me. I started to worry that the whole contraption would just evaporate beneath me, and I’d be run over by my own sons. Talk about an embarrassing way to check out.
But I got a little satisfaction as we were heading up the last hill to the truck. My wife was up ahead, riding like the path was flat, and my son was yelling at me to catch up to Mommy. I heard a pop-fizz, and I went past my wife like she was standing still. Well, that’s because she was. She’d run over a piece of mulch, and it had speared her back tire. It was the only time I passed HER on the whole ride. Sure, it was the result of an equipment malfunction, but it still felt pretty darn good. And right at the finish line, too.
If you’re really adventurous, you might add some spice to a tubing trip. My friends Blair and Val introduced me to the fine art of river tubing when I was in high school, and looking back, it’s a wonder I lived long enough to graduate.
The Wind River winds behind my parents’ house in Riverton, and where it curves under a cliff, Blair, Val and I found a new way to cool off on hot summer days. We bought some old, patched-up inner tubes from a local tire shop, added some air and headed for the river. It wasn’t long until Val had a bright idea.
He suggested we stack all the tubes on top of each other, then set this three-decker donut adrift over the deepest pool under the cliff bank. One of us would climb up the cliff a ways, then jump off onto the tubes. The idea was that the tubes would spring us up like a diving board, and we’d bounce out into the water. It sounded like a good idea at the time.
And apparently, I’m the stupid friend in the group, because I went first. I meant to land on the tubes like I was doing a belly-flop. Unfortunately, I pivoted too far forward, and when I hit the tubes, it was with my face, not with the entire front of my body. Due to the angle of my descent, instead of bouncing me out over the water, they shot me back toward the cliff. Since I hit face-first, my face was the first part to leave the tubes on the rebound, and my legs were the last. As I sailed back toward the mud-and-rock cliff, I rotated around my waist until my feet were up and my face was down. That’s when I hit the cliff. Showing they weren’t completely insane, Val and Blair decided they’d rather float down the river than try to bounce off its surface on an inner-tube springboard.
I guess the moral of this story is have some fun on the water, but if you’re going to do anything that might be dangerous, let your buddy test it first.
I can’t stand heat. I’d rather be cold than hot. Part of it is just how I’m wired. I just don’t do well when I’m overheated. If I’m doing any kind of exercise, I sweat like crazy. Heck, I even sweat playing cards. But part of it is the fact that if you’re cold, you can always put on more clothes. If you’re in the woods, you can build a fire.
But when you’re hot, there are only so many clothes you can take off. And if you’re in the woods, heat is often accompanied by biting insects, and there are some parts of my anatomy I’d rather not be a smorgasbord for deer flies.
Speaking of the woods, that can be a good place to go to get away from the worst of the heat. The mountains can still be hot, but it’s generally cooler in the backcountry than it is down in town. If you’re a typical Wyoming person, you probably don’t have air conditioning in your house. My office at my day job has A/C, and it’s spoiled me. When I’m at home in the summer now, I spend most of my time downstairs where it’s 20 degrees cooler.
So it’s time to throw the fishing gear in the truck and beat feet for the highest point I can get to. I’d be up in the Snowy Range right now if I wasn’t recording a bunch of radio programs. And to get even cooler, consider getting in a body of water out there in the mountains.
Even on a hot day in the high country, the water is almost always comparatively frigid. If you take a pair of waders, you can be pretty comfortable. An old pair of shorts and some wading shoes will work in a pinch. But if you go this route, be prepared for everything under the water to be nearly numb with cold, while all the parts of your body above the water level are scorching hot.
Break free and spend a night or two in the mountains. The high-altitude chill that starts setting in when the sun goes down will recalibrate your system for you.
Imagine being really hungry, or even just a little hungry, for that matter, and heading for the kitchen to do something about it. You nose around the fridge and the cabinets for a while, then you see the leftover birthday cake. You could really go for a slice of that. So you cut off a chunk, throw it on a plate, then wander over to the table. You sit down, pick up a forkful of your tasty morsel, bring it to your mouth, open wide, and cram it into your pie-hole. But just as you start to savor the taste, it bites you back.
Something sharp jabs you through the lip, and it won’t let go. Worse, it pulls you out of your chair, over the table, and through the window. You fight the pull as best you can, but it’s too much for you. Eventually, you’re in a place you can’t get a breath, being squeezed by some giant, hairy monster that’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. And at this point, your fate is determined by three possibilities. If you’re lucky, you could have the sharp thing yanked out of your lip and get thrown back into your house. But it could be worse. You could be stuck onto another rope and dangled teasingly back near your home, but unable to get back in before you eventually lose the will to live; or the monster could whomp you on the noggin with a rock.
It’s a good thing fish don’t have the same level of intelligence as humans. The PETA weirdos keep trying to put human emotions and feelings on animals, but the fact is, we’re different. If we weren’t, I could sort of see the animal rights people’s argument. Thankfully, that’s not the case. Fish just swim around until they’re yanked out of the water and eaten, and that’s that.
I still have that dream just about every night after I’ve been fishing, though. I’m just biting into that piece of cake, and then I’m dragged out the window by my upper lip. Die-hard angler or not, it does sort of make you think.
Head to the shooting range this summer. You’re going to want to make sure your hunting rifles are all sighted in, and it’s a good idea to get some practice before the fall. The more you practice, the better you’ll be when hunting season comes around.
But if you’re like me, you’re going to forget something important every time you head to the range. I don’t know why I can never seem to remember everything when I go, because I seldom forget things when I go on an actual hunt.
Maybe that’s because I have a checklist, and I check it like an obsessive-compulsive when I’m preparing for a hunt. My hunting buddies always make fun of me for my checklists, but I’m never the one who forgets a sleeping bag, a cook kit, or the ammo for my rifle.
Maybe it’s time to make a checklist for the range, too. If I were to make one, I’d include the obvious things, like the gun I intend to shoot and the proper ammo for it. That may seem silly, but if you’re going to make a list, you might as well put everything on it.
Then there’s the other important stuff, like eye and ear protection, targets, sandbags and the spotting scope. I’ve actually forgotten my earmuffs a couple of times, and that’s no fun.
Other things are less obvious, but they ought to be included, too. Like a staple gun to put the targets up. Or target spots and a Sharpie to mark the holes you’ve already made. A multi-tool and screwdrivers could be handy, if you need to adjust something, and a pair of gloves help if you have to handle a hot firearm. And don’t forget a bag for your used brass.
Go get some practice and get away from the world for a while. Just don’t forget anything.
My family went camping with several good friends of ours last weekend at Glendo, and on one of the days we were there, our friends rented a pontoon boat. I didn’t know you could rent a boat. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. You can rent cars, trucks, tractors, and just about anything else. Why not a boat?
But better than that, you can rent just about any kind of boat you can think of. Want to just zip around on the water by yourself? Rent a JetSki. Want to fish? Rent a fishing boat. Want to water ski? Rent a ski boat. The boat our friends rented was an old Sun Chaser Party Barge, and it wasn’t fancy, but it floated. Better yet, it had enough power to tug the kids around on a raft behind the boat.
I’m not sure exactly what it cost, but it was a whole lot less than it would cost to buy a boat. Sure, we only got to use it for one day, but I’ve owned two john boats over the years, and I put them in the water a total of three times. That worked out to less than one boat trip per summer.
And when I owned the john boats, I was stuck with the john boats. I could fish, but I couldn’t take more than one or two other people with me, and we could only go as fast as I could row the things. Certainly not fast enough to pull a skier.
Knowing I can rent whatever kind of boat strikes my fancy, my options have opened up immeasurably. And if I ever do decide to buy a boat again, I can test out a bunch of different kinds first, before I commit to whatever type of boat I end up with.
The other nice thing is that you don’t have to worry about it one moment past when you get off the water. You just go to where the boat is, get in, and go. No hauling, no boat ramps, no trailer wires, no winterizing.
It may end up costing me more to rent, but if I get out of those headaches, it’s worth it.
All the ads for RVs in the outdoors magazines show happy families cavorting around their house on wheels, with pristine woods surrounding them, and no other people to be seen.
But when I went to the Thermopolis rodeo a few years ago, I had to set up my little 10-foot, 1968 Aristocrat in an RV park, rather than some beautiful, secluded, lakeside camping spot. And the weirdness started immediately.
Before I’d even finished hooking up the water and electricity, the lady in the space next to me started up a conversation. I was busy, so I wasn’t terribly talkative. That didn’t seem to bother her, though. When she realized I wasn’t holding up my end of the conversation, she just went on without me. She sat there five feet away, talking, laughing, asking herself questions, and providing the answers. When she got bored with that, she started talking to her dog, but he went and hid under her truck. Then she turned her attention to her cat, but the cat ran off when she let it out of its crate. Then she continued her conversation with her lunch, and when she finished eating it, she started talking to a mail-order catalog.
I had a built-in excuse to escape, though, because I had to go take pictures of the rodeo. So I excused myself and headed out. I shot the rodeo, then came back well after dark to the camper. I figured my eccentric neighbor would be long asleep from her hard day of talking. No such luck. She started talking to me again, but I told her I needed to get inside my trailer and get to work. She seemed to take it well, but then she cranked the oldies country station on her stereo and blared it until the RV park owner came around and told her she needed to turn it off.
It was not the introduction to RVing the recreational vehicle industry would like you to see, and for good reason. It was enough to make me sell the camper not long after I got home from that trip. From now on, I’ll do my camping in a tent, far away from other humans – especially the weird ones.
In my backyard, G.I. Joe didn’t abide by the Geneva Conventions. When he encountered soldiers from Cobra (a force of evil terrorists bent on world domination), he used whatever was handy to subdue his opponent. In June and early July, Black Cat firecrackers were almost always within reach.
Through intensive battlefield research, Joe found that a minimum of three Black Cats were needed to put Cobra soldiers down permanently, but only if all three detonated at the same time. To increase the odds that this would happen, my friends and I used at least nine firecrackers on each of the bad guys.
Aside from being a bit destructive, it was good, clean fun. No flesh-and-blood creatures, human or otherwise, lost any parts. And it was active play. We stayed fit and trim, mostly because we spent our summers sprinting away from lit fuses.
But times have changed. My folks were great parents, but they did let me out of their sight. My own kids were almost never out of my line of vision as they were growing up. A lot of the activities I participated in when I was a kid just wouldn’t have been possible if any responsible adults were looking over my shoulder.
Children today suffer because of that. We don’t let them outside, and when we do, we’re constantly telling them, “Don’t do that!” “Stay away from there!” “Don’t you DARE light that fuse!”
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Keeping our children safe should be our No. 1 priority. But we’re doing them a disservice if by keeping them out of harm’s way, we’re taking away the discovery, enjoyment and excitement of childhood.
It’s more than just the Fourth of July and fireworks. There have been studies showing a link between the rise of instances of attention deficit disorder in children and the decline in kids’ access to nature. It doesn’t have to be a full-blown excursion into the heart of the wilderness. Just more time playing in the back yard can help, though wilder experiences in the forest seem to be even more beneficial.
So take your kids outside today. Take a hike. Go fishing. And find some time to go on other outings in other natural places from time to time over the summer. Change it up along the way. Go to the lake and fish one weekend, then take a backwoods camping trip the next. Maybe a short hike if you can’t get fit an overnight trip into the schedule.
As for today, if you own some land where fireworks are legal, show the kids how to blow a Cobra soldier to the moon. For safety’s sake, though, don’t forget to teach them how to run for cover.
When I was a kid, each summer I spent hundreds of dollars on fireworks. But about 20 years ago, it occurred to me that it seems pretty strange to celebrate our freedom by sending billions of dollars to a communist country.
Not only that, but it’s bizarre that we show how much we love our country by setting large chunks of it on fire.
So between the crazy amount of money we send to China and the danger of setting the prairie ablaze, I’ve had an informal fireworks boycott for the last few decades. I love watching fireworks, and I’ve missed lighting them myself, but you’ve got to have some principles.
But my principles only go as far as the real boss of the household lets them go. She understands my objections, but she also wants our family to get the full Fourth of July experience. And you can’t get that without risking life and limb by putting a match to the fuse of a Flaming Spear or a Pyro Pinnacle. It’s even better if as you’re sprinting away from the pyrotechnics, you accidentally knock it over so that the flaming projectiles chase you.
I have to admit, I’m kind of happy for the excuse to at least take a break from my fireworks boycott. Having kids of my own brought back some of the kid that’s still inside me, and I have to admit I got a heck of a charge out of showing the boys how much fun it is to drop a lit string of Black Cats into an empty 55-gallon drum when they were just little duffers.
My only fear is that lifting the self-imposed fireworks ban may rekindle the fireworks addiction I had when I was a kid. At least back home in Riverton, there were only a few weeks of the year when I could replenish my fireworks stash. But down here in Cheyenne, there are year-round fireworks outlets all over the place. I’ve got to be careful that I don’t wind up stopping at the one near my house on the way home from work each night, saying to myself, “just one more Roman Candle, then I’ll quit.”
Either way, though, I think it’ll be fun to have a good, old-fashioned Fourth of July. Happy Independence Day to you. And happy birthday, America!
Every so often, I re-read my old Calvin and Hobbes comic books. One of the books I have is called “The Days are Just Packed,” and that right there is one of the reasons I miss Bill Watterson’s comic strip so much. He had a way of summing things up in a way even a 10-year-old could understand.
“The Days are Just Packed” is mostly strips from the summer months, when Calvin, the hero of the stories, is trying to fit in everything he wants to do over the break from school. When I was a kid, reading those strips for the first time, I felt the same way. But now that I’m a grown-up, and a father of two Calvins myself, I really identify with it.
It’d be one thing if I didn’t have a job or other responsibilities that come along with adulthood, but I do. That makes squeezing in all the fishing, camping, shooting and hiking more difficult.
It’s nice that the days are longer in the summer, because I can get off work and head out for a couple hours of fishing. If I don’t get off early enough to make it to the fishing hole, I can at least set up a target in the back yard and sling some arrows at it until my arms get too tired to draw the bow.
Finding time for a camping trip is harder. That involves having a weekend free of other commitments, like the animals, visits from relatives, or yard work. I might take a Friday off one of these weeks, so maybe the boys and I can at least cram in a couple-night campout.
If we do, you can bet we’ll pack the fishing rods and the s’mores making sticks.
Because Watterson’s exactly right about the summer. Even if there’s no school to worry about, the days are still just packed.
While you’re planning your camping trips this summer, keep in mind that the most important thing you bring along may well be the camp cook. If nobody in your party is a good camp chef, go recruit one or learn how to do it yourself.
The thing that stands in the way of an average camper becoming a good camp cook is the cooking. Nobody wants to do it. I’ve been on campouts where the first person to complain about the grub was automatically elected the new camp cook. Luckily for me, it usually only took one meal for someone else to complain about my cooking.
I try to do it right. I sit down before leaving on the trip to plan the menu. The problem is, as I think of things to make for breakfast, lunch and dinner, I realize I can’t cook that stuff at home on an electric range, let alone over a campfire. My shopping list usually winds up consisting of a sack full of potatoes, four or five onions and several flavors of freeze-dried meals.
When I get to camp, the potatoes and onions always end up tasting like charcoal briquettes, and the freeze-dried meals don’t taste much better. I don’t think I’m to blame for the freeze-dried meals, though. I have yet to find anyone who can whip up a freeze-dried meal that tastes anything like what it tasted like before someone sucked all the water out of it.
No, I couldn’t make a good meal in the mountains if my life depended on it. Even fresh-caught fish end up ruined when I’m manning the pots and pans. I have a fear of undercooking the food, and even when I check the frying pan every two seconds, I wind up leaving the food over the heat for two seconds too long. When you’re cooking over a fire that could be spotted from space, two seconds can mean the difference between rare and nothing left but carbon atoms.
But I’ll keep trying as long as other people who can’t cook keep going camping with me.
Driving across our great state can get a little hypnotic. Pull off the highway and do a little fishing to recharge so you don’t start drifting off at the wheel.
I never go anywhere without fishing gear. I’ve always got a fly rod and a spinning rod in the vehicle, complete with reels and tackle. I know I’m not alone. Most of the other anglers I know don’t let their gear get too far out of reach.
But what good is having all that tackle with you if you don’t put it to use? If you don’t pull over and make a cast from time to time, all it’s doing is taking up space in your tool box.
But there are a few other important items you’ll want to keep handy while you’re out on the road. The most important things are a current license and a conservation stamp. The third is a Wyoming gazetteer. If you don’t have one, you can pick one up at most sporting goods stores, book stores or truck stops.
It’s a book of maps of the entire state, and it shows what land is privately owned, as well as state and federal sections. If you see a spot from the road that looks like it might be a good spot, you can look it up in the gazetteer to see if it’s OK to fish there.
But just because a piece of land is private doesn’t always mean it’s closed to fishing. Be sure to also have the walk-in fishing atlas from the Wyoming Game and Fish website downloaded. It shows all the areas landowners have opened to the public for fishing. You’ll want to download it so you don’t run into trouble accessing it if you’re in an area with no cell service.
If you do fish a walk-in area, please be respectful of the landowner and the land. Park where you’re supposed to, and don’t drive where you shouldn’t. Pick up your trash, including old fishing line, and leave gates as you found them. Make sure we don’t lose the access these landowners have graciously given to us.
Make sure all your gear is handy when you get out on the road. And put it to good use.
Any road trip could be improved with a stop or two to pull a cutthroat, brookie or rainbow out of the water.
Those brochures they hand out at Yellowstone with a drawing of a person getting flung into the air by an angry buffalo aren’t just for the tourists. They’re a warning to everyone who spends any amount of time in areas wild animals call home. Even Wyoming natives aren’t immune to the lack of judgment that once in a while results in a tragic wildlife-human interaction.
And these encounters aren’t limited to Yellowstone. They can happen anywhere people and wildlife share the same space. If you’re doing some wildlife photography, wildlife watching or just hiking in the backcountry, you might find yourself inside a wild animal’s comfort zone.
Stay alert while you’re hiking, biking, riding a horse, or doing anything else in the backcountry. Make some noise to alert animals to your presence. If you move quietly, you might startle a moose or bear, and that’s not a good thing. A startled moose, especially a cow with a calf, can be more dangerous than a bear.
Purposely getting close to a wild animal can lead to trouble, too. It’s always a neat thing to watch wildlife, but do it from a safe distance. If you’re shooting pictures, use a telephoto lens to get that close-up. Stay back. The same’s true if you’re just watching the critters. Use binoculars or spotting scopes if you want to get a good look. Don’t walk up to the animals.
While you’re watching the wildlife, pay attention to the signals they give you. If you’re too close, they might lay their ears back or flare their nostrils. They might paw at the ground or make noises. If they move away, don’t follow them. Not only is that considered harassment, it’s also a good way to trigger their fight or flight instincts. If they don’t have anywhere to flee to, that leaves only fight.
If you keep these tips in mind, you won’t cause the critters undue stress. So keep your distance and stay safe.
A few years ago, my wife asked me if I wanted to do the 100-mile Tour de Prairie ride. I declined. I’ve done 100-mile bike rides in my younger days, but youth was a big factor in my decision to do them. The other factor was fitness. I’m not talking about general fitness. I think my lungs and my legs could still handle a 100-miler, but I’m absolutely certain my posterior could not.
Riding a bike for that long puts a lot of pressure on your sitting region, and you really need to build up to that. But it did get me thinking about the hunting season.
That may seem like a strange correlation, but I’ve been giving a lot of thought to getting a hunting bicycle. They’re like a mountain bike on steroids. They have huge, fat tires, and you can get them with a silent electric motor that helps propel you up the trail. There’s still pedaling involved, especially if you want to have some battery left in case you knock something down miles from camp and want to be able to carry the meat back with the aid of your electric ride. But it would sure make four trips hauling out a quartered elk a lot easier.
But don’t think you’re going to get an electric hunting bike and be good to go from Day 1. You’re still going to need to ease into longer and longer trips on that thing – especially if where you hunt has any kind of terrain. The more bumps you hit and hills you climb, the more your rump is going to feel it.
I thought about getting in shape for biking so I could eventually get a hunting bicycle. I even went so far as to pull the mountain bike out of the shed and take a few rides on it. But then I gradually rode it less and less again, so now I’m back to where I was a few years ago. I’ll keep hunting on foot, or maybe I’ll convince my wife to let me take one of her horses with me this fall. I’m OK with a long ride on a saddle, but I’m nowhere near ready for one on a bike seat.
My friend Tom has always given me over-the-top birthday gifts. And this year, he gave himself one. Just to show that he wasn’t being selfish, he included me in his birthday present, too. He bought us each a “Rally Experience” package down at a place in Las Vegas.
Yesterday we drove Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the track, but today we’l lbe out in the desert, kicking up dust in rally trucks. I’ve always considered myself an above-average off-road driver, but I have a feeling these professional rally drivers will show me just how far below the apex of driving ability I am.
To be fair, I don’t go fast on the dirt. Well, not THAT fast. My wife may beg to differ. But when I’m out on a four-wheel-drive trail, I’m usually easing through the rough spots and letting the low gears claw me out of the sticky places.
But today, the object will be to see how fast I can make it around the rally course. Granted, it’ll be much smoother than, say, the road to Bear Lake in the Snowies. I doubt there’ll be boulders and sharp hunks of granite poking out of the ground every seventeen inches. But still, it’ll be driving fast on dirt, and I have to admit I’m a little nervous about it.
The good news is that these won’t be my own trucks I’ll be driving. They belong to someone else, and I’ve been assured they’re fully insured, as am I. The first trip around the course I’ll also have a professional rally driver sitting shotgun, giving me pointers on how to negotiate corners and when to hit the gas and the brake.
When I get back, I’ll let you know how it went. I doubt they’ll be begging me to join the rally circuit, so I should be home next week.
A story on WyoFile caught my eye last week. Mike Koshmrl reported that there’s a grizzly bear in Yellowstone who has five cubs with her. He noted that one to three cubs are normal, but that occasionally, a sow will have four. The storied Grizzly 399 emerged from her den in the spring of 2020 with four cubs in tow, and that was only the 11th time since the state began monitoring grizzlies 50 years ago that a sow has had quadruplets.
Five cubs would be a first.
Koshmrl interviewed Frank van Manen, who runs the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Van Manen explained that sometimes, a sow with cubs will take on the cubs of a sister, though even that is rare. That may well be the case with this pack of five cubs. Van Manen noted that if they somehow are able to get genetic samples from each of the cubs, they could know for sure whether the young bears are siblings or not. If that happens, it would be the first recorded five-cub litter in the Yellowstone area.
A Jackson man, Tim Mayo, got a picture last fall of a five-cub litter of black bears. He caught the brood on camera, and he submitted the image to WyoFile.
Unfortunately, it’s not likely all five of the cubs of either the grizzly sow or the black bear sow will survive to adulthood. Even single or twin cubs have a difficult future. And with more grizzlies in the Yellowstone area than there have been in decades, the biggest threats to these cubs are the males of their own species – and possibly even their own fathers. Bruins will kill cubs they run across.
No one knows if they’ll make it, just like nobody knows if they’re truly quintuplets. But one thing is certain – they’ll bring plenty of visitors to Yellowstone this year hoping to catch a glimpse of a rare five-cub litter.
It seems like most of the anglers I know have already completed their Cutt-Slam. Some are even working on a second slam, or even a third or fourth. I’d be happy with just one. The Cutt-Slam is a program put on by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. It was dreamed up by the late Ron Remmick, who was the fisheries supervisor for the Pinedale area. It’s similar to the sheep or turkey Grand Slam, but you don’t have to spend a million dollars or cross half of North America to get it. All you have to do is catch one of each of the four subspecies of cutthroat trout native to Wyoming in their historic waters, and send pictures of your fish to the Game and Fish.
Before I knew about the Cutt-Slam, I’m pretty sure I satisfied all the requirements, with the exception of the photos. Unfortunately, that was back when I could actually catch a fish, but somewhere along the line, I guess I stopped holding my mouth right. For the last couple of decades, I haven’t seemed to be able to catch a fish to save my life.
I went fishing with my dad on the Hoback River a few years ago, though, and I landed a really nice Snake River cutthroat. Better yet, I got a picture of that sucker. So now I’m a fourth of the way to my Cutt-Slam certificate. Now I just need to visit the Green River, Bear River and Yellowstone drainages to get a Colorado River, Bonneville and Yellowstone cutthroat, respectively. At my current rate, I should have the Cutt-Slam completed by, oh, about 2094.
Visit the Game and Fish Department’s Cutt-Slam page before you go. There are maps and all the other information you’ll need to get it done. Then all you have to do is catch ‘em. I hope you have better luck than I’ve had!
Fishing season is finally here. The die-hards have been hitting the water for the last several weeks, but now even a lot of the higher country is free of ice. Be careful, though, because the really high country is still covered with several feet of snow. In some places, the snowpack is well into the double-digits.
If your favorite fishing spot is one of the places still sitting under a blanket of white, now’s a great time to find a new one. Pack up the camping gear and grab a handful of topos, and then go exploring.
There’s plenty to do this time of year, even if you don’t want to go fishing. You can just go for a hike, or maybe dust off your GPS receiver and log on to geocaching.com. Plug in the coordinates to a few geocaches in your area and have some fun while you’re working on your orienteering skills. If you’re looking for a little more of a challenge, you can log onto letterboxing.org, which is similar to geocaching, but most of the directions to letterboxes are written in a way that makes you use a map and compass, rather than a GPS receiver.
If you have a boat or JetSki or know somebody who does, maybe just spend some time bobbing around on the reservoirs. The water’s still a little cold for waterskiing or JetSkiing, but if you’re adventurous enough, you could give it a shot.
And of course, if you just can’t bear to go outside without a firearm in your hands, you can always head to the shooting range. This is a good time to practice your shooting, so when the hunting seasons roll around, you’ll be able to hit what you want to. Or maybe track down a landowner with a hefty population of prairie dogs on his place and spend a day or two thinning the little buggers out.
There’s no shortage of things to do these days – it’s only limited by the amount of time you have to get outside.
It seems like you can get anything in camo now. You can even get a truck with a camo wrap on it. Some of the camo is truly functional, but some of it’s just a fashion statement. I used to have a phone case that was camo, and that certainly falls under the fashion statement category, rather than the functional. After about the third time I dropped that phone out in the tall grass, I decided to get rid of the camo case in favor of one that was a bit easier to see.
Until recently, though, there was one brand that was conspicuously absent from the camo craze. Especially when women’s wear started showing up in various colors of camo patterns, I doubt I was the only one wondering why Victoria’s Secret hadn’t started making stuff in camo.
Granted, like my phone, there are some things you really don’t want to have a hard time finding, and your wife is one of those. Especially if she’s wearing something exciting. Maybe that’s what’s kept Victoria’s Secret out of the camo race until now. It seems they were working on coming up with a camo pattern that wouldn’t render its wearer invisible in most situations.
The company’s pattern is definitely understated. It looks like it started with the old World War II pattern, but the individual colors are more similar to each other, so it’s hard to tell it’s camo unless you really look. Not that I looked at the pictures of the models closely … never mind. I’m going to stop right there. But the point is, Victoria’s Secret has entered the camo clothing line. I said on this show a while back that they were missing out on a real money-making opportunity by not having a camo line. Maybe they were listening.
I’m just surprised it took them so long to join the party.
Up at 8, 9, or 10,000 feet or higher, Wyoming’s still a winter wonderland. Some areas are blanketed by a couple feet of snow, and the fishing’s still no good, unless you want to drag your ice auger all the way up there.
But don’t let a little white stuff keep you from enjoying the backcountry. One of the best things about making an early trip to the high country is the lack of other hikers. Only the hardiest of souls make the trip before the snow melts, so you’re likely to have the place to yourself.
You may have to pack a little heavier than you would if you waited a month or two to get out in the wilder parts of the state, but you can still get there with a little effort. Leave the summer tent at home and carry the four-season variety. Take the heavier mummy bag.
And be sure to pack your waterproof outer layers, a cold-weather coat, a pair of snow pants, a few sets of gloves and two or three wool stocking caps. But you’d probably take those things along even in the warmer months. The weather in the Rocky Mountains isn’t always very predictable.
As with any time you venture into the woods, make sure someone back in town knows where you’re going, when you plan to return, and where you’re likely to be at any time between when you leave town and when you come back home. If a storm prevents you from returning at the appointed time or if something happens to you while you’re out, the time searchers save by not having to turn over every rock and look under every bush could mean the difference between life and death.
And make sure you have several methods for starting a fire. A fire will help you melt snow for drinking water, boil water to make it safe to drink, provide heat you’ll need to stay alive, signal your position to searchers, and even give you a bit of companionship. Take matches in a match safe, a couple of lighters, and some cotton balls coated in Vaseline to use as tinder. If you’re caught out in the woods when Mother Nature decides to remind you that winter’s not quite over in the high country, you’ll be glad you brought them along.
Enjoy Wyoming’s wilder corners, but stay safe.
Every year, I remind hunters to get their hunting license applications in on time. And every year, even though I’ve spent so much time telling others to apply, I forget to do it myself. That’s not a huge problem, because I usually hunt deer and elk in general areas, and I’ve been able to get over-the-counter leftover licenses for antelope in several areas I know pretty well.
But this year, I decided I want to hunt deer in a limited quota area. And I almost missed the deadline. Despite running a show a few days before the deadline for applications, I found myself scrambling to get my application in only a few hours before it closed. I managed to squeak in with minutes to spare.
There’s no guarantee I’ll get my limited quota deer license, but the area next to the one I’d like to hunt is general. And the elk areas that correspond to both are general. I put in for general elk and deer with my last choices, so even if I don’t get the special permit, I’ll still get both elk and deer licenses, and I won’t have to remember to buy them later.
But that means I need to get back in practice with my bow. I haven’t been shooting as much as I should, and I don’t want to be rusty when the season rolls around. Besides, after taking a few practice shots last weekend, I realized I need new arrows, too. And since I shoot a radical helix, that means I’ll need to refletch all the new arrows I buy. That’s not something I want to be worrying about on the night before I’m supposed to leave on my hunt.
While I’m at it, I should probably get a new 3-D target, too. My old one is a bit weathered. So I have a lot to do to get ready for the season. Getting my application in on time was only the tip of the iceberg. Good luck to you in your own hunt preparations. Maybe I’ll see you at the archery store.
If you’re wandering around the woods, doing everything you should do to keep from startling a bear, chances are you won’t see one. But even the best precautions don’t always work.
Say you’re whistling as you walk, talking to your hiking partners, or even wearing bear bells on your hiking boots. You hang your food far from camp, and you cook at least a hundred yards from your sleeping area. You don’t wear the same clothes to sleep or hike that you wear when you’re cooking and eating. You’re doing what you can to avoid a bear confrontation.
But there’s still a chance you might come upon a bear that doesn’t hear you coming. Now what do you do?
If you startle a bear while you’re hiking, the first thing to do is to watch its body language. A stressed bear will pace or pant and swing its head. It might also huff or woof, and it may snap its jaws and slobber.
Get your defenses ready. Pepper spray is the most effective defense you can find. But make sure your can of spray is no older than two years old. It might work if it’s three or four years old, but I don’t want to be the guy testing the hypothesis.
Take the safety off and hold it at the ready. Don’t use it unless the bear charges. If the bear stays put, back away slowly, and don’t make eye contact.
If you can’t back away or if the bear charges anyway, stand your ground. It might be a bluff charge. Fire your pepper spray directly into the bear’s face and keep spraying until the bear turns away or until your can is empty.
Drop to the ground only if the bear makes contact with you. In that event, lay flat on your stomach and lace your fingers behind your head. Don’t fight back. When the bear has decided he has shown you who is boss, he’ll go away. That may be easier said than done, but it’s all you can do in that situation.
But do all you can to avoid a confrontation. You and the bear will be better off for it.
There’s a common perception floating around that grizzlies are aggressive defenders of their territory that will maul or kill a person if the bear is startled or threatened. It’s also commonly believed that black bears are skittish and shy and will run from trouble rather than stand and fight.
These generalities can lead to trouble. These are wild animals, and they are unpredictable. But there are steps you can take to avoid causing a bear to turn your head into a canoe.
If you’re going hiking, camping or hunting, research the area you plan to visit. Special rules apply to areas where grizzlies tend to be found in relatively high numbers. These rules can include hanging your food and other items that attract bears 10 feet off the ground and four feet out from any vertical support. The use of bear-resistant containers is required in some areas. And in all grizzly use areas, dogs aren’t allowed to run off leash.
When you get done cooking and eating, bag your garbage in a sealable bag and hang it in the storage area. This storage area should be at least 100 yards from the sleeping area. The same goes for the cooking area. Cooking releases a lot of scents that can attract bears, so you want to be sleeping as far as possible from where you’ve cooked your dinner. In addition, change your clothes after you cook or eat and store the clothes in a sealed bag and hang the bag in the storage area.
Another thing to keep in mind is that bears are most active at dusk, dawn and during the night. Stay clear of likely bear habitat at these times. Don’t go bumbling into a brush patch alone in the middle of the night. There could well be a bear in there trying to figure out how to get your food out of the tree it’s hanging in.
We’ve covered what you should do to avoid putting yourself on a bear’s menu. Tune in tomorrow to find out what to do if these precautions fail.
If you’re at all serious about camping, you can spend a small fortune – or even a large one, for that matter – on camping gear. Every time you head for the hills, you evaluate all your equipment, and even some of the newest goodies can come up lacking.
There’s always something lighter, stronger or easier to use on the market. There are tents that set themselves up. All you have to do is take them out of the bag and throw them into the air. When they land, they’re ready to be lived in. There are backpacks that weigh whole ounces less than the one you’re currently lugging up and down hills. Cook kits that weigh less than a postage stamp but could be used as heat shields on the SpaceX Rocket. There’s always something in the catalogs and on the store shelves that’s better than what you have, but it all comes with a price tag.
A while back, a salesman showed me the latest, greatest thing to happen to camping. It was a stainless steel camp stove and oven. This thing looked like a miniature kitchen range with two burners on the top, and underneath the burners, it had an honest-to-goodness oven. All this for the low, low price of one hundred ninety-nine dollars.
It might be a great thing to have for those all-day grouse hunts or overnight excursions when you want to just pitch a tent next to the truck. It’d be awful nice to come back from a day tramping through the sage and sit down to a nice cherry cobbler. Or prepare for a long hike with a breakfast of omelets cooked on the stovetop. I have to admit he almost had me convinced. Then I realized I can’t cook that stuff at home on my full-size range, so what makes me think I could do it in the wild? Sorry, I’ll pass. I’ll take the two hundred-odd dollars and spend it on a lighter backpack.
An e-mail came out recently saying cell phones are now being hacked by computer-savvy creeps. I don’t know how true it is, but the word is they can listen to your calls, or they can activate the speaker phone’s mic when you’re not even using it and listen to your every word. According to the report, they can also mine your personal information to steal your identity and take control of your bank account. I’ll buy it when I see it on Fox News.
I really don’t worry too much about it. I never say anything interesting on the phone, or any other time, for that matter. Heck, you ought to know, you listen to me on the radio. And if somebody takes control of my bank account, maybe they can get me out of the hole.
But it made me think about other electronic gadgets I rely on. What if those same dirtbags figure out how to hack into my GPS receiver? I have far more important information in there. One quick scan’ll tell them where my favorite trout stream is. It’ll give them the coordinates to what I think is the most likely spot to get a turkey in all of Wyoming. It even pinpoints twenty or thirty excellent spots to hunt ducks and geese on public land.
No, if somebody hijacks my GPS, my best hunting and fishing secrets will be blown. And I assume I’m not the only one. How many of us program in our honey holes and great hunting spots, and name them so any idiot could figure out what they mean?
I suggest you get your GPS right now and change all the slugs to things like, “Horrible place to fish,” “No deer are ever here,” and “Where I saw Rush Limbaugh naked.” Until there’s a better way to safeguard your spots, that’s the best advice I can give. Good luck.
While thinking about some of the wisdom I’ve gained from experiences in the outdoors, I thought of the most obvious piece of wisdom first: Don’t eat yellow snow. But some of my wisdom has been even harder-earned.
I’ve learned to never go into the field without a spare compass. After sitting on the only compass I had with me on a trip into territory new to me, this piece of wisdom is bought and paid for with sweat and a pair of hiking boots.
Speaking of boots, it’s wise to break in new boots and clip your toenails before hiking 30 miles in those boots. To neglect either is to doom your new boots and socks (as well as your toes) to the scrap heap.
Some lessons I learned for the most part at someone else’s expense. For instance, I learned from John Whipp that down sleeping bags with nylon shells and tent stoves don’t make good bedfellows. My dad’s collapsible wood-burning tent stove consists of a fire box, an oven and a metal shelf. Though the shelf stays much cooler than the other parts of the stove, it still gets pretty hot. There are two legs coming off the side of the shelf farthest from the stove, and they warm up, too. It was these legs that did in Whipp’s bag.
I happened to be awake, reading by the light of my Mini MagLite, when Whipp rolled over in his sleep. I glanced up when I saw movement, and the next thing I knew, there was a loud, booming “WHOOOMPH,” and the entire inside of the tent filled with tiny white feathers. When Whipp rolled over, his bag touched the shelf’s support leg. When that nylon hit the hot metal, it contracted and disintegrated almost instantly and sent the feathers flying. Whipp spent most of the rest of the night chasing feathers around the tent and stuffing them back into his bag, which he repaired with duct tape. The price I paid for this bit of wisdom was enduring the smell of burnt feathers for the rest of the trip.
This summer, get out and learn some lessons of your own.
It takes all weekend to mow my lawn. I either need a smaller lawn or a bigger mower. When we don’t get much rain, I don’t have to mow more than once or twice a month during the spring, but on wetter years, like this one, by the time I get to the end of the lawn, the part I started on already looks like it needs to be mowed again.
That seriously cuts into my spring fishing time. I’d much rather be out on a creek bank somewhere, practicing my dead drift and hoping to hook a lunker of a brookie or cutthroat, but instead, I’ve been spending all my spare weekend hours driving my lawn tractor in mind-numbingly boring rows back and forth across my yard.
I can’t complain too much about the rapid growth of my grass, though. It’s essentially native prairie grass, which is exactly what’s growing on the prairies all across the state. If it’s growing this well here at my house, as long as there is a similar amount of rain falling elsewhere in Wyoming, it bodes well for the prairie species that live in the state’s wilder places. I’m betting this will be a good year for sharp-tailed grouse, sage grouse, pronghorns, deer, and a bunch of other species. In turn, it should be good for the critters that eat those herbivores, as well.
For now, I won’t have as much time as I’d like to get out and see those animals, and maybe even get some photos of some of them. But the rains will peter out as summer approaches, and the grass won’t grow as quickly. Hopefully there will be enough still out there on the plains for those animals to eat and hide in. When fall comes along, there should be plenty of game for all of us to have a great hunting season. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for as I repeatedly mow my lawn.
This time of year, it can go from sunny and beautiful to a torrential downpour at the drop of a boonie hat. And if it starts raining like it has lately, you’ll want that boonie hat on your head.
But for more than a few of us who live in the less civilized corners of Wyoming, the rain means more than just wet skin; it also means getting up our driveways or out to our favorite fishing holes is going to be a lot more challenging than usual.
My driveway is horrid when it gets wet, and right now, my truck has tires more suited to highway travel than muddy terrain. And with the rain we’ve been getting lately, I’ve been having more than a little trouble getting out of my house.
To be safe, I’ve been chaining up all four tires every night when I get back to the driveway, then taking the chains off the next day when I successfully make it back out of the driveway. The first few times I did, I wound up looking like Pig Pen from the old Peanuts cartoons. There might be a way to put chains on a pickup without wearing 20 pounds of mud when you’re done, but I haven’t found it.
I can’t get the chains on without getting mud on me, but I decided pretty quickly I didn’t have to get it on the clothes I planned to wear that day. I dug out my old Frogg Toggs poncho and rain pants combo, and now I keep those under the back seat. When I need to chain up, I just pull them over my other clothes. I still get muddy, but at least I can pull the muddy clothes off and still be presentable.
I just have to make sure the Frogg Toggs are easy to get to when it starts to rain. That’s pretty easy right now, because they’re so mud-caked, they keep their shape when I take them off, so I just step into them and I’m ready to deal with those chains.
It’s great to have a souped-up, high-zoot, winch-equipped monster truck for hunting and fishing. And there are times when a really good four-wheel-drive system is absolutely necessary. But maybe even more important than the type of vehicle you’re driving is the tread pattern on the tires underneath that rig.
I’ve long been a fan of the Cooper Discoverer S/T Maxx. They’re a great all-terrain tire that rolls well on the pavement, but still gets good traction in mud, snow and ice. I have yet to find another tire that gets better traction on such a wide variety of conditions, and still runs for 30,000 miles or more. I generally get about 35,000 miles out of a set of Discoverer S/T Maxx tires.
My curiosity was piqued a while ago at the Rocky Mountain Driving Experience, though, when representatives from BF Goodrich brought their T/A KO2 tires. These are the tires their Rally and Baja drivers are taking through some of the roughest terrain on the planet. They had a couple of their drivers at the event, and they swore by these treads. I’d love to get my hands on a set and test them out on my driveway. In a given week, my driveway can show me the gamut of what I can expect to find on just about any forest road in the state.
The BF Goodrich T/A KO2 is billed as an all-season, all-terrain tire, and the Baja drivers say the tread pattern is even better for mud and snow traction than my Coopers. In the next few months, I’m going to try to get my hands on a set of these tires and test it for myself. I hope to have it figured out by elk season.
I need new tires, anyway. The other thing about tires is that it doesn’t matter what the tread pattern is, if it’s worn almost to slicks. That’s where mine are now, and the traction is suffering because of it. Good thing I have a full set of chains.
I love introducing my kids to the things I got to experience the first time with my dad. Things like fishing, hunting, hiking and camping were some of the best things my dad taught me how to do. Even better, there are so many different ways you can do those activities, when we went on our second, third, fourth, and later adventures, they still seemed like doing them for the first time.
My dad seemed to get just as much joy out of those things as I did. And now that I have kids of my own, I realize Dad probably actually had even more fun on those trips than I did.
But it’s unfortunately not the same for every activity I introduce my kids to. Recently, my oldest son got a summer job cleaning horse stalls. He needed a little help getting it done the first day on the job, so he called me to see if I could come give him a hand.
I got the joy of teaching my kid some of the time-saving and effort-reducing tricks I’ve learned over almost 40 years of picking up after horses, and even several years of cleaning pens for money when I was about his age. However, that joy was vastly outstripped by the distastefulness of the task itself.
I would have much rather been showing my son how to cast a fly line or tighten up his groups while shooting his bow. Maybe giving him some pointers on using different camera settings to take a variety of wildlife and landscape photos. But instead, we had to settle for talking about fishing while we were mucking out those stalls.
I tried to at least give him enough advice that he can cut down on the time it takes him to clean those stalls, so maybe next weekend, he can get it done with enough time left over to go fishing.
This day has become the unofficial beginning of the summer, even though it won’t truly be summer for another month. But the weather is getting nice enough to get away to the hills, and the extra day off gives a lot of people the time they need to shake off the winter blues.
You may have already spent your three-day weekend out at the lake. Or maybe you spent the days camped deeper in the backcountry, though it’s still pretty chilly for that.
Fishing is always a popular activity on Memorial Day. I think there are several reasons for that. For one thing, it’s easy. Unless you’re planning a multi-day fishing trip, you don’t have to work out a place to camp, figure out what you’re going to do for meals, and all the other considerations. All you need to do is throw a few rods and some tackle in the truck, and find a stretch of water that might have some fish in it.
And there are just about as many ways to fish as there are people who like to fish. Some people like to fish from a boat, so they can get out to the spots that hold walleyes. This is a popular weekend to get the boat out for that first run of the open-water season, thanks to that extra day off. Other people prefer to fish from a riverbank or on the shore of a lake. Or maybe even get in the water with a pair of waders, so they can get some extra distance on their backcasts. No matter how you fish, Memorial Day is a great time to do it.
And the other reason I think it’s such a popular choice for Memorial Day is that fishing is a great activity for thinking while you’re doing it. Whether you’re drowning worms, dragging spinners or beating the water with flies, fishing lets you forget what you’re doing for a little while and let your thoughts turn inward. It’s a perfect opportunity to think about those who gave their lives so you and I would have the ability to drag the occasional brook trout out of a mountain beaver pond.
Then again, if you’re like me, you’re probably being forced against your will to use your day off to rototill the garden, fix the corral gate, and replace the tin on the mower shed. Granted, it’s my own fault for not getting those things done before Memorial Day weekend – or even on Saturday or Sunday. Maybe I can get all that done quickly and still make it to the beaver ponds this afternoon.
Happy Memorial Day to you, no matter how you spend it. But no matter what you do today, remember those who fought for your freedoms while you’re doing it.
If you want to hunt in a limited-quota area for elk or deer, or anywhere for antelope, you need to get your hunting license applications in. And they’re due a week from now, on May 31.
That’s not a ton of time, but it should give you enough time to look up the drawing odds on the Game and Fish website. If you look at last year’s draw, you can figure out where you’ll more likely get a tag – or how to apply so you don’t waste a second- or third-choice pick.
If the area you’re looking for has more first-choice applicants than the number of licenses available, you’re not going to get it on a second choice. So reserve your first choice for areas where the demand outpaces the supply, and only use your second choice and third choice picks for areas where there are more licenses available than applicants for them.
Keep in mind some areas have very little public access, and that might be why the demand is lower than the supply. If you don’t have permission to hunt on private land in that area, you might want to find a different one. There’s not much worse than drawing a license and not being able to use it.
If you haven’t applied for licenses before, you might be surprised to find out you have to pay now to get in the drawing. But the good news is that if you get your tags, you won’t have to buy them later. That’s all taken care of already. If you don’t draw, you’ll get your money back. I usually put in for a general license as my third choice for elk and deer so I don’t have to buy those licenses later, or I could be pleasantly surprised by drawing a limited-quota tag.
Get your applications in now, while you’re thinking about it.
Way back in the old days, when I was in elementary school in Riverton, I had to do a history project on something that involved Wyoming. I chose the Pony Express, and I learned a lot about this early mail delivery system. It was fascinating, and I’ve been reminded of that research project many times as I’ve traveled around Wyoming and seen the signs marking the Pony Express route.
The Pony Express only lasted for 18 months, from April 1860 to October 1861, but while it was up and running, it was the fastest way to get letters from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. It took about 10 days for a message to make the journey. But to do that, it had to be carried from station to station at a dead run by a rider on a fast horse. At each station, which were generally about 10 to 15 miles apart, the rider would pull the saddle bag, or mochila, off the saddle, throw it onto a fresh horse, and hit the trail again.
The riders could not weigh more than 125 pounds. The riders were usually young boys, but they were well paid. They earned $125 a month, which was an excellent wage for the time. Consider that skilled laborers at the time generally made less than $2 a day, or less than $60 a month.
You can go to the Historic Trails Interpretive Center in Casper on June 21 to see an exchange, or at the Granger Station in Granger on June 22. Visit the National Park Service’s Pony Express Re-Ride page for more information or for the tentative times they’re expected to hit these stations. You can also find out on that page how you can be selected to be a rider for a leg in a future Pony Express Re-Ride event.
But this year, you can at least see the ride as it come through Casper and Granger. Maybe it’ll inspire you to saddle up for the ride next year.
If my wife doesn’t get to go out for a long hike every so often, she gets antsy. She needs to strap on the hiking boots, throw on a pack, and just truck out through the wilds. The longer the hike, and the steeper the terrain she has to cover, the better.
This is usually a good thing. I enjoy hiking, too, though sometimes her hikes are longer than I’m ready for. That was certainly the case a few years ago, when my plantar fasciitis reared up about three miles into our 18-mile trek. It was miserable, and I’m sure my complaining spoiled the hike for her, too. And then there’s work and the other chores I need to do. I don’t often have enough time to get out and hike as far as she’d like to.
But a friend she’s been hiking with told her about Women Who Hike. It’s an international organization that gets like-minded women together to do just that – hike. That friend, Anna, has been on winter hikes and snowshoe trips, and even a snowmobile trip with the Wyoming chapter. She’s also gone on several summer hikes with the group. She’s been trying to get Amy to join the group for several trips, and I’m all for it. I need to work up slowly to those long treks, and I’m just not ready for a 30-miler yet. Amy could go with Women Who Hike to scratch her hiking itch, and I could stay home, do a few chores, and take a shorter prep hike of my own in the Pole Mountain area. Also, if she goes with Women Who Hike, she wouldn’t have to stop every quarter mile to wait for me to take pictures of marmots, wildflowers, or other scenic grandeur.
Check out Women Who Hike Wyoming on their Facebook page. I think they have some trips coming up, so look them up soon. And then you can go hike with them and not have to listen to your husband whining about his feet.
Weekend before last, our planet’s sun had a series of massive solar storms. I don’t know exactly what a solar storm is, but the result was some incredible light shows all over the northern hemisphere.
The Aurora Borealis, commonly called the Northern Lights, is a phenomenon in which the night sky is painted with red, blue, green, purple and yellow hues. And it’s something I’ve searched for every time I’ve seen in the news that the Northern Lights could be visible to me wherever I am.
But for whatever reason, in the past, whenever I’ve heard that I might be able to see the Aurora, I have not been able to. Usually it’s because it’s overcast where I am, and you just can’t see the lights when there are clouds in the way.
So I was cautiously optimistic when I heard about the possibilities a couple weekends ago. I went outside, and the sky did indeed look different. There was a slight coloration to it. So I pulled out my cell phone and set the camera to a 30-second exposure. Sure enough, there were the lights. They weren’t as vivid as I’d hoped – I could only really see them with a photo – but I saw them. And now I’m on a mission to see them again, in a more vivid form.
The biggest problem with viewing it from my house is the new houses that have sprung up to the north of us. All of them have mercury vapor lights, as well as other lights on barns, driveways, back doors, and other places. It’s not as bright as a city, but it doesn’t take much light pollution to mute the Aurora this far south. To really see the Northern Lights, you need to go where there aren’t any other lights on the ground washing them out.
I’m hoping there’s another round of solar storms soon.
A few years ago, I drove all over southeast Wyoming, looking for burrowing owls. I followed tips from others to find where there were suspected burrowing owl burrows, but I never found any. The closest I came was when I asked a guy on a four-wheeler if there were any prairie dog towns around, because that’s were you’ll usually find burrowing owls. He replied that they’d brought the backhoe out and filled in all the prairie dog burrows.
Just when I’d given up my search for owls, I was driving home on our county road, and a movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I looked over to see a burrowing owl sitting on top of a fence post. Directly behind the owl, across a couple of pastures, I could see my house in the background. I’d searched the whole southeast corner of the state, and here they were, within sight of my own home.
But the next year, those owls didn’t return. We went a few years with no burrowing owl sightings. But then last summer, I was driving down our easement after nightfall and two birds flew up right in front of me. In the headlights, I got a very good, though quick, view of a burrowing owl in flight.
Those owls hung around all summer, but I never did figure out where they were nesting. I have been hoping they’ll be back this year, but aside from one possible sighting of an owl earlier this spring, I haven’t seen them. I don’t know if they’re out here on my place somewhere or if they chose to go somewhere else to nest this year. I’m hoping they’re here, and I’m just not seeing them yet because they’re busy keeping eggs warm or otherwise doing whatever it is burrowing owls do to spruce up their houses in the spring.
If they are here, I’ll try to get you some pictures of ‘em.
I was out feeding the horses on Sunday morning, and a turkey vulture flew down into the pasture. As I watched, it landed just out of my view over the lip of a little rise.
I finished feeding the horses, but kept my eye on the spot where the bird had disappeared. Since it hadn’t taken off again yet, I hustled back into the house and grabbed my camera, then I started out into the pasture to try to get a good picture.
I didn’t get very close before the vulture took off, but I did snap a few shots of it in flight. Then I wandered out to see what it had been eating.
What I found really wasn’t worth taking a picture of, and in case you’re eating right now, I won’t describe it. But as I was walking back to the house, I payed a little more attention to my surroundings than usual, and I’m glad I did.
I hadn’t gone far before I noticed a tiny hedgehog cactus with a little pink flower. I got down to take a closer look at it, and there was a bee crawling over the flower, looking for nectar.
I stayed there, lying flat on the ground in the middle of my pasture, taking pictures and just watching this natural interaction, until the bee gathered all it needed and flew off. But before I got up, I looked past the cactus and saw a horned lark hopping through the grass. I stayed where I was and watched the little bird. He’d hop a few paces, then stop and tilt his head to listen for bugs. Every once in a while, he’d dart his beak at the ground before hopping off again to look somewhere else. Eventually, he came up with the legs of some tiny insect sticking out of his beak, and then he flew away.
It was all a good lesson to pay attention to the world around us. Every once in a while, you just need to open your eyes and pay attention to everything we usually just take for granted.
It turns out the most common ailments people experience in the backcountry are pretty simple things. That’s good news. And even better news is that most of these things are fairly easy to prevent in the first place.
The most common complaints in the outdoors are upset stomach, diarrhea, sprains, strains, and blisters. On the illness side of the coin, those gastrointestinal problems usually aren’t related to the water. Things like Campylobacter and Giardia are actually pretty rare, especially now that most people who go to the hills know about ‘em.
What’s much more common is your usual, run-of-the-mill intestinal bug. And it’s very easy to prevent. It’s caused by dirty hands. To put this in perspective, at the risk of getting a little too graphic, keep in mind that after you use the green latrine, you should always wash your hands. It’s even more important up in the hills than it is back here at home. Now, keep in mind that your own dirty hands probably won’t make you sick. At least, not any sicker than you already are. What makes you sick is your camping or fishing buddy’s dirty hands. If that doesn’t gross you out, not much will.
As for the injuries, like the minor sprains, strains, and blisters, they’re easily preventable, too. Make sure your boots provide good support, and break ‘em in well before you head out on your next 20-mile trip. Wear good socks with plenty of cushion, but not so thick that they make your boots tight.
Sprains and strains usually happen when you’re tired, so stop and rest before you wear yourself out too much. Don’t force yourself to go that last half-mile to camp if you’re feeling like you’re running out of steam. Listen to your body.
So be clean, and be careful. You’ll enjoy your trip more if you’re not in misery.
I don’t get the chance to go home to Riverton much anymore. The day job tends to get in the way, and the kids seem to be in every activity that’s offered. Our weekends and evenings are completely packed with stuff we need to do.
But that doesn’t keep me from thinking about what I could be doing down on the Wind River behind my parents’ house this time of year. I used to spend every free minute I had down there, regardless of the time of year. But the spring was always my favorite time to head down there.
Before the water got too murky with runoff, I’d wander down there with my bow and try to get a few carp with my bowfishing rig. Sometimes I’d take the fly rod or the spinning rod and try to catch a brown trout.
When the water turned the color of chocolate milk, I’d explore the banks or the draws farther from the water, looking for animal tracks. My dad taught me how to cast tracks, and we had a collection of fox, coyote, muskrat, raccoon, and deer tracks. Once in a while, we’d even see the critters that left the tracks.
Dad set up a pretty cool archery course down near the river, too. He staked out several 3-D targets, and we had six or seven stations to shoot at each of the targets from. It was hard to get around down there before the snow melted off, so we spent a lot of time down there in the spring. It was like we were making up for the time we’d missed during the winter.
I also had a clay pigeon trap down by the river. I fashioned a gun rack on my bike, and I strapped shells to the bike’s rear rack. I don’t know how many hours I spent shooting at those clays, but it was a lot.
I need to take a break and go spend some time down there. I hope you have a place like that, too, and that you’re able to visit it as often as you can.
Winters here are pretty mild. Sometimes they’re awfully cold, but for at least the last decade or so, they haven’t been bad at all. But we’re a little over a month into spring, and that’s when it starts to get ugly.
Even in May, snow isn’t unheard of around here. Neither are freezing temperatures. Last weekend was a case in point. But it’s not the cold, the snow, or the mud that makes us tough. It’s the wind.
I’m convinced that the legendary fly-fisherman Jack Dennis wouldn’t have been as good as he is if he had spent his formative fly-fishing days in a state with less wind than Wyoming. After practicing for so long in 50 mph winds, I don’t think anything phases him anymore.
I’m no Jack Dennis, but I escape cabin fever by heading to Curt Gowdy State Park in the spring and do my best to get my flies in the water. Once in a while I get a good wind from my back and don’t have to worry about the cast. All I have to do is flip the fly into the air and fly it like a kite until the wind recedes enough to drop it to the water.
While all this is going on, I get sandblasted by rocks small enough to be picked up by Wyoming winds. They’re usually no bigger than four or five pounds each, but when a couple hundred of these smash against you, they take a toll.
Every once in a while, a nice, windless day will come along. I’ve gone out to nearby reservoirs to get photos for upcoming magazine and newspaper stories on days like that and had people ask me to not put the date in the cutline under the photo.
“I called in sick today,” one man recently told me. “My boss reads that magazine, and he’ll know I wasn’t at home in bed.”
Don’t worry. I’d be willing to bet your boss is just up the shore from you.
I love to fish, but I’ll admit I’m not very good at it. In fact, I’m absolutely horrible. It doesn’t matter what I use for a lure – fish just don’t want whatever it is I’m throwing. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker proclaiming Fish Tremble at the Mere Mention of My Name. Well, in my case, fish laugh themselves into a stupor.
I still try to get out to the streams, rivers and lakes whenever I can for a good dose of humility and humiliation. But I’ve found an activity I’m a lot better at, and I don’t have to go very far to do it.
When I was working at the newspaper in Cheyenne, I found that I do OK with a camera. I’m not great, but if I do say so myself, I luck into a decent photo every now and then. Through trial and a whole lot of error, I’ve learned a few things about photography. The first thing I’ve learned is that it’s a great excuse to get outside for an hour, a day, or even a whole week. And when I get really lucky, I can even pay for a trip with the pictures I come home with. I’m not going to do that with fishing. Heck, I can’t even feed my family with the spoils of a fishing trip.
I haven’t been able to get out for extended stretches lately, but the best light for pictures is generally the first couple of hours of sunlight each day, anyway. So just about every day on my way to work, I stop at the little pond on the way and crack off a couple hundred frames on the ol’ Canon.
After several thousand shots, I’ve come out with two or three I wouldn’t be embarrassed to show other people. It’s a great way to start my day, and it’s a fantastic excuse to get outside, if only for a little while. Granted, I have to explain why my dress pants have grass and mud stains on the knees, but that’s a small price to pay for the satisfaction of getting outside first thing in the morning.
My dad has given me the inspiration for a lot of the shows I’ve done for The Great Outdoors over the years. I’ve given him credit for a lot of them, but usually only the ones where we ended up in some sort of catastrophe on an outing.
That’s really not fair to him, because he’s also responsible for every single successful outing I’ve been on throughout the years. Even when he hasn’t been with me, the things he taught me are, and he’s taught me more than anyone else over the years.
He taught me how to read a map and compass. I give him a hard time on this show about getting us lost, but we’ve never really been in any danger. We’ve been in situations where we weren’t sure exactly where we were on the map, but that’s just part of exploring. You don’t find new things to see and new places to go if you don’t get a little misplaced from time to time. And every time we did get turned around and confused about where we were, he always got us back. That’s because he’s not just good with a map and compass – he’s incredible with them. And he’s done his best to teach me all he knows about using them.
He also taught me how to set up a comfortable and functional camp site. How to keep the bugs off me even when they’re bad. How to look in the right places to find deer and elk. How to clean them and get them out of the hills after making a good shot – which he also showed me how to do.
Though I don’t say it enough, I’m proud of my dad. He’s great at everything he does, and I hope to know half of what he knows by the time I’m his age. He’s already given me a head start by trying to teach me. If I didn’t learn it, it’s on me, not on him.
So thanks for all you’ve done for me over the years, Dad. I love you. Happy birthday. Now let’s go fishing.
You just about can’t go to the shooting range anymore without seeing someone shooting an AR-style rifle. It’s not that they’re more common than more traditional hunting rifles – only about 20 percent of gun owners have an AR. But it seems the people who own them just might shoot them more often than other types of rifles.
That’s not surprising. They’re a lot of fun to shoot. They also have a whole lot less recoil than traditional rifles. It’s actually a pretty ingenious design. The rifle uses some of the recoil to load the next round, and a spring in the stock absorbs a little more of that kick.
That right there is one reason I’ve started to decide ARs are OK for hunting. I’d rather see a person who practices a lot with an AR take a shot at a deer than watch a guy who hasn’t put a round through his bolt-action Winchester in 10 years try the same shot.
But that lack of recoil is also a source of debate. Since they don’t kick much, they’re much easier to line up for another shot. Does that take the “fair” out of fair chase? Or does it make it easier to dispatch an animal that would have been merely wounded, and might have wandered off to die somewhere the hunter couldn’t retrieve it?
I still keep coming back to the cosmetic issue, though. There’s still a lot of misperception about AR-style rifles. The non-shooting public continues to think they’re fully automatic, even though they’re not. And the non-hunting public shouldn’t be given any reasons to become the anti-hunting public. Unfortunately, until people get a better understanding of these rifles, the sight of a hunter carrying one in the field might give hunting a bad name.
Whatever you use to hunt, be respectful and follow the rules. That, much more than the type of rifle you carry, will determine how non-hunters feel about hunting.
Most people try to avoid getting lost in the woods. I’ve long thought my dad’s goal was just the opposite. Every time we headed out into the wild, Dad would get us lost.
Never horribly lost. He always had us back at camp or the truck by midnight. Some of those trips, we wound up schlepping along in the dark for quite a while, but we never had to spend a night in a lean-to or a space blanket.
But he would get us away from where we thought we should be on the map. Sometimes, we couldn’t even find where we were on the map.
Nobody can get lost that often unless they’re trying. When it first became clear that a trip to the woods with dad meant a chance to practice my survival skills, I thought Dad was just enjoying the scenery too much. I figured he was just so immersed in the animals and plants he was seeing that he eventually stopped worrying about where he was going.
But then, after several years of this happening on every trip, I decided he was doing it on purpose. He may have been trying to teach me to use a map and compass, or maybe he was enjoying himself so much he didn’t want the trip to end. More likely, he just didn’t want to go back to civilization.
When it dawned on me that he was trying to get us lost, I thought he probably really knew exactly where we were. When he got tired of being lost, he’d suddenly figure out how to get back to camp or the truck, and the adventure would be over.
But I’ve gotten to be pretty good at reading my dad’s poker face, and on a number of occasions, I could tell he wasn’t faking it. He really was lost.
I realized Dad’s ability to get lost wasn’t the work of years of practice. He’s just naturally gifted with a gene for getting lost. It suddenly occurred to me that I probably have that gene, too. And I’m OK with it. It makes the adventures that much better.
I’ve made no secret on this radio show about my frustrations at the trap range. Just when I start to think I might be finally getting the hang of it, I step up to the line and miss more clays than I hit.
My partners on my trap team have offered advice to help me improve my scores. They’ve tell me to keep my head down, follow through, and other things I should be thinking of while I’m shooting. This advice is welcome. I’ll take all the tips from my teammates they’ll give me.
Other people I meet or hear from on email will give me tips, too, and again, I appreciate the help. Now, if I could only remember all that good advice when I shoot. It seems like it all just falls right out of my head as soon as I yell, “Pull!”
But there’s one place I really don’t need advice from, and that’s Facebook. But the other day, I logged on to the social networking site, and right there at the top of the news feed was a “suggested link” to a page that promises to help people improve their trap shooting skills.
That’s just a little creepy. I think Facebook knows way too much about me. The only thing that kept me from totally freaking out was that it was a pretty generic post. It just said, “Technical & mental information and resources for clay shooters.” If it had said something to the effect of, “Gosh, we know you only hit a measly 23 out of a possible 50 clays last week,” I probably would have deleted all my website accounts, shut off my Internet service, and bunkered down behind barricaded windows and doors. It’s just another example of how much the Internet knows about us, and it’s a little scary.
On the other hand, if Facebook really knew about me, the suggested post probably should have said, “You’re a terrible trap shooter. You should take up golf, instead.”
A while back, I bought a Kel-Tec PMC-30. It’s a sweet little .22 Mag semi-auto pistol. I got it so I could have something I could carry with me in the woods to shoot grouse or just take plinking. I was interested in it because it’s a .22 Magnum, rather than just a .22 Long Rifle. I figured that would make it a little more versatile.
And I was also interested because it is a semi-auto with a large magazine capacity. It would be great for plinking, because it holds 30 rounds in each mag. But the first time I shot it, it failed to load the next round after just about every shot. It got really frustrating very quickly. I thought about selling it, but instead, I just stuck it in the back of the gun safe and forgot about it for a while.
But a few weeks ago, I talked to a gunsmith about it. He noted that I probably hadn’t even fully broken the gun in yet, so it should get smoother after I put a couple hundred more rounds through it. He also recommended using the speed loader to make sure each round is properly seated in the mag, and to make sure I use the types of loads the manufacturer recommends – at least until it gets broken in.
So I pulled that PMC-30 back out. I actually finally read the user’s manual, which recommended three specific types of ammo. I had been using Winchester Varmint loads, which are 25 grains, and the manual recommended CCI MaxiMags, which are 30 grains. I picked up a few boxes of MaxiMags, and I loaded them with the speed loader. That did the trick. It’s even more fun to shoot than I thought it would be when I bought it.
So if you have guns that are not performing the way you think they should, talk to a gunsmith before you sell them. And maybe even read the owner’s manual.
So many things we like to have for running around in the outdoors involve tires. That’s good in that it allows us to get our gear out there to where we like to spend our time, but it’s bad in that it means so many toys we acquire come with parts we have to repair or replace more often than we’d like.
I don’t know why I did it, but the other day, I counted up all the tires I have to air up, rotate, and replace every few years. I probably shouldn’t have counted. I was better off not knowing. Granted, some of them, like the ones on the four-wheeler, are relatively inexpensive. But trailer tires are crazy right now, and I have 14 of those. And at this very moment, more than half of them are in desperate need of replacement.
The grand total number of tires, not counting the little ones on things like the dolly or other small tires for yard equipment and stuff like that, comes to 58. I know there are a lot of people who have way more than that many tires slowly rotting away under their equipment, so I shouldn’t complain. But 58 tires still seems like a lot to me, especially when I need to pay for new ones for those two trailers and a couple of my vehicles.
I started counting tires when I was thinking about buying a used camper. I’m pretty sure I could afford the camper, but it had tires on it that needed to be replaced, too, and that just got me thinking I don’t know if I can afford another four tires. I do have a couple of trailers I could sell to make room for more tires, though. Let me know if you’re in the market for a former septic tank trailer. Buyer beware, though, it’s going to need four new tires.
We’ve had a bunch of coyotes coming through our property lately. And I don’t mean just cutting through the corner of the pasture in the back 40. I mean they’ve been coming right through the middle of what passes for our back yard.
If it had just been a one-off thing, I wouldn’t have been too concerned. But this has been a regular occurrence. After about the fifth time I saw one trotting past the sliding glass door, I ran to get the coyote gun and dissuade that critter from coming so close. But by the time I got the gun and got back to where I could do something with it, that coyote was long gone.
Not long after that, my wife called me when I was on a trip out of state and told me she’d just seen four of them in the back yard. I obviously couldn’t do much about it then, and she said she’d had the same difficulty getting gunned up in time to take a shot.
So I decided to try to figure out if there’s a pattern those coyotes are following. I can’t just sit at the back door with the Stag-10 6.5mm Creedmoor all day for days on end waiting for them to show up again. But I thought maybe a trail camera would help me figure out their movements, and then if they’re showing up around a certain time, I could be ready and waiting for them.
As it turns out, I think my trail cam is actually a coyote repellant. I got one picture of a coyote with just about the first photo that trail cam ever took, but after that, I’ve gotten nothing. Well, that’s not true. I have a bunch of blurry pictures of meadowlarks, and one picture of something I can’t for the life of me identify. But no coyotes. Not a single one.
But that’s OK. If it’s keeping the coyotes away, I can live with that.
I’ve talked about my driveway on this show several times. It’s not as bad as it used to be, because we finally got it mostly fixed. It still gets to be a problem when we get a lot of rain or especially snow, but we don’t get five-foot deep ponds in the middle of it anymore. Now the deepest the low spots get is only a couple of feet.
It still gives me the chance to test and tweak the system I use to keep from getting stuck, though. I call it the Hillsdale Traction System. It works great on my driveway and around the place, but I’m not so sure it’s practical for the backroads up where I go hunting.
It starts with good tires. I try to change them out when they start losing their tread, so I end up replacing them more often than most folks do. But the extra money I spend on tires is worth not spending an entire day trying to get my truck out of a mudhole.
When it starts looking like the tread alone isn’t going to be enough, I chain up all four and drop it into four-wheel-low. That’s all part of just the standard traction system everybody uses. Where it becomes the Hillsdale Traction System is when you add the secret ingredient.
A little explanation first. The town closest to where I live is Hillsdale, which is sort of a suburb of Burns, and what I often see this time of year is large square hay bales in the beds of ranch trucks. Those hay bales weigh between 1,000 and 1,500 pounds, which is the perfect amount of weight to put extra traction on the rear wheels.
It might still need some modification, though. It’s not very practical for hunting, because the hay bale takes up all the cargo space in the bed. But it works. As long as you don’t have to put anything else in the bed.
I missed last year’s inaugural Mule Deer Days, but not for lack of trying. My son Logan and I jumped in the truck and headed for Rock Springs, but due to a late winter storm, the Interstate was closed right outside of Cheyenne. So we tried to go around through Casper and down from Riverton, but by the time we got to Riverton, South Pass was closed. We ended up spending the weekend in Riverton, which allowed us to hang out with family, but we didn’t get to go to Mule Deer Days.
That’s not going to happen this year. You might hit some rain on your drive, but it doesn’t look like snow’s going to be a problem. And even if there were some inclement weather, it’s going to be worth driving through it. They’ll have more than 50 booths from Kuiu, Weatherby, Kel-Tec, Maven, Lucid, and a bunch of others. You can also meet Cody and Kelsy Robbins from Live2Hunt at the event, and there’ll be a bunch of gear giveaways and raffles, including more than 200 guns and a Ford Bronco Raptor.
Admission to the event is free, but there are some extra events as well. Thursday night is the Annie Oakley Dinner for women and you can still get tickets for $75 each or a table for $800. On Saturday night, you can learn from the Flip-Flop Guy how to make this incredible wild game dish. There are still some tickets available for that for $100 each. Last I checked, though, the Casino Night on Friday night was sold out. Get tickets for these events either at Mule Deer Days or on the Muley Fanatics website at MuleyFanatic.org.
Make sure you get to Rock Springs for this event. It doesn’t look like you’ll have snow and closed roads to deal with this year, so you’ll have a clear shot to it.
The turkey hunting area with the most public access in the state is Area 1. That area includes the Black Hills National Forest, and it’s chock-full of wild turkeys.
When turkeys were transplanted to Wyoming, the Black Hills area was one of the first places the birds were released. Since they were put there, turkey populations have taken off like gangbusters. With the healthy populations and the hefty amount of public land, the Black Hills is a great place to hunt these big birds.
Most turkey hunters put a lot of stock in camouflage clothing, but more important than camo is patience and the ability to sit still. Turkeys have excellent eyesight, and even if you have the latest, greatest camo outfit that covers you from head to toe, any movement will give you away quicker than you can say “gobble.”
To help conceal your movements, you might want to invest in a portable blind. These contraptions allow you to call while the birds are looking your way, and they let you set up for a shot without spooking your quarry. The drawback is that once you set up your blind, it’s not as easy to pick up and move to a different spot if the turkeys aren’t moving through your area.
You can hide yourself nearly as well if you use the brush to your advantage. Set up in a spot where you can hunker down in deadfall or piles of tree branches. If the birds have been using the area, they’ll be less likely to notice something’s not quite right if you’re hiding in the debris that’s been there for a while than if you set up a big, bulky blind.
Go after a turkey this spring. Calling in a strutting tom is one of the more exciting experiences a hunter can have. Turkey hunting is a thrill, and it’s good practice for the big game hunts you’ll go on in the fall. And to top it off, turkeys make for great eating.
I’ve finally crossed that point as a fly-caster where it makes much more sense to tie my own flies than to buy ‘em. There are a few reasons for that.
First of all, I’m still a horrible angler, but I don’t lose as many flies as I used to. I still have four or five bury themselves in my clothing, or even my skin, every time I go fishing, but at least I don’t lose ‘em.
I don’t know what’s worse – losing a fly you paid good money for, or losing one you put your own effort into at the vise. Either way, it’s tough to stomach.
The scale tipped in the direction of a store-bought fly being more traumatic a couple of weeks ago, when I paid two-fifty for a girdle-bug and snapped it off on my very first backcast of the day. Two-fifty for a girdle-bug? Crikey. How much money do you think actually goes into one of those? My guess is about 22 cents.
A few years ago, losing a few flies on a fishing trip didn’t bother me as much as it does now. A big part of the reason is that I’m going fishing a lot more often, and when I go, I almost always take the fly rod. I used to switch it up a lot more than I do now. That means I’m losing a whole lot more flies over the course of a season.
In the hope of reminding myself of the importance of making good casts and knowing what my fly’s doing under the water, I started shouting out the amount of money I spent on the fly when it gets hung up or pops off the line. On my last fishing trip, I took it a step further and added up the total amount for the day, and I called out the accumulated total the river had swallowed up. It was really disconcerting how quickly I got to ten bucks.
I haven’t put a total figure on how much money I’ve left in trees, popped off the line on overzealous backcasts, or snapped off when they got snared on some submerged object. It wouldn’t be hard to figure out, but I’m afraid to. What it boils down to is that I don’t want to know myself, and I really don’t want my wife to know. I’m sure I won’t lose fewer flies if I start tying my own again, but at least I’ll be losing money in installments of dimes, or maybe quarters, rather than whole dollars.
My dad taught me the value of a good set of tire chains at a young age. I was probably eight years old, riding along with my dad on a spring bear hunt, and we got mired in the mud on a forest road outside of Pinedale.
Dad looked over at me and said, “This is no problem. I’ll just get the chains on and we’ll be out in no time.”
Unfortunately, he had washed out a winter’s worth of accumulated hay, trash, sticks, firewood chunks and other debris before our trip, and the chains didn’t make it back into the tool box. Worse yet, neither did the tow chain.
We dug for a while, hoping someone would come along with a logging chain, and finally, someone did. That guy already had his chains on his tires, so it didn’t take much to get us out of the soup. But from that day on, neither dad nor I went anywhere without double-checking to see that we had all our chains in the truck before we left the garage.
That’s why the first thing I buy when I get a new truck is always a set of tire chains, if the old ones don’t fit the new tires. The gooseneck hitch, tool box, and running boards always come later. I can usually cannibalize those things out of the old truck, anyway. But I’m not going anywhere without chains.
I buy used trucks, and they don’t always come with good tires. I could probably just get new tires, with a more aggressive tread than the highway slicks that came on it, but who needs to buy new tires when you can just strap some chains on them?
No, I’d rather have the chains, thank you. All that other stuff can wait. Besides, what does it matter if you have hitches, running boards or tool boxes if you can’t get them anywhere? That’s what chains are for, right?
Even if I win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and find myself duded up in the fanciest fishing finery, I won’t become a fly-fishing purist.
I’ve never claimed to be a proper fly fisherman. I’m the type of angler who makes the purists of the sport wrinkle their noses and turn away in disgust. But that’s OK with me. I’d rather enjoy my time on the water than turn a supposedly fun activity into work. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with owning high-tech fly-fishing gear. I don’t have a problem with people who look like they came straight to the stream from an Orvis catalog shoot. What I have a problem with is the purist attitude.
I don’t don breathable waders and carry a portable fly-tying kit with me to the center of the river. As a matter of fact, I hardly ever even wear waders at all. I’ll pull on my camo duck hunting waders if the water’s too cold for wading without them, or I’ll just find a spot on the bank where I can get a good backcast.
Part of this is pure laziness. It takes effort to learn which bugs hatch at specific times of the year. I’d rather just take a close look at the insects buzzing around my head or bobbing on the surface of the water, then rifle through my fly boxes to find a pattern that looks like the critters the fish are eating.
On a couple of occasions, I’ve seen guys actually pumping a fish’s stomach to see what it had been feeding on. That’s taking it a bit far. If I ever use a stomach pump, I hope another angler beats me to death with my own fly rod.
Besides not wanting to do the work it takes to become the perfect fly fisherman, I want to keep my options open. I’ve been known to put the fly rod down and tie a Mepps on my spinning rod’s line or thread a worm on a hook. That’s a cardinal sin to a true fly angler.
No, I’ll never be the perfect fly fisherman. It just takes too much effort, and I enjoy fishing too much to make work of it. I probably won’t ever latch onto a state record cutthroat, but I’ll have a good time hooking the smaller fish that are easier to catch.
There are better times of the year to go bowfishing for carp. Hardcore bowfishers say late summer is fantastic, when the water’s lower and hotter, and the fish are snagging cottonwood seeds off the surface. But when I was a kid, I couldn’t wait that long.
There was a deep trough in the Wind River behind my parents’ house, and it tapered to a wide, shallow riffle on both the upriver and downriver ends. When the runoff was at its peak, the riffles were deep enough for fish to get through pretty easily, but if you caught it on a lower flow, there’d be plenty of carp in that trough. And they couldn’t get out.
My buddies Josh and Blaine and I would tromp down to the river in shorts and old tennis shoes, packing our bows and bowfishing reels.
Early in the spring, that water was darn cold. But to get the carp out of the deep stretch, we had to wade. We usually took turns spooking ‘em out, but we all had blue legs from about April 20th through the end of May.
And carp are smarter than they look. We picked off the slower-witted ones early, but the brighter ones would turn around before they got into the shallow water and duck between our frozen legs to take refuge in the depths again. We had to modify our techniques in response.
Bowfishing wasn’t just a waste of time. We figured out that you have to shoot below where the fish deeper in the water seem to be if you want to hit ‘em, and that came in handy when we took physics our senior year. I actually did my term paper on reflection and refraction, and bowfishing figured prominently in the examples. So go do some physics experiments of your own this spring and summer. You’ll be hooked – or should I say arrowed – in no time.
My friend Ken Keffer wrote a fascinating article for The Nature Conservancy’s blog, Cool Green Science. He focused on some of the myths that have surrounded bird migrations in years and centuries past, and some of them are really out there.
For instance, Aristotle may have been a wise man and a deep thinker, but he missed the mark when it came to explaining where redstarts go in the winter. He postulated that they transformed into robins, because while the redstarts disappeared at a certain time of the year, robins were still around.
And Ken pointed out that the 17th century scientist Charles Morton had an even more bizarre explanation for where some birds went in the colder months. He insisted that they migrated, but he was off on the destination of that migration by about 240,000 miles. He was convinced they left us and went to the moon.
And not even that long ago, it was believed that hummingbirds migrate by catching rides on the backs of geese. The truth is maybe even more surprising, though. Some species of hummingbirds migrate even farther than geese do, and these tiny birds cross the Gulf of Mexico in a nonstop flight.
Ken dispels a few other myths that are still with us, too. He notes that many people still believe that leaving your bird feeders out will cause birds to stay put, rather than migrate. The thought is that available food will make them stay where that food is, but the ingrained instinct to migrate is more powerful than a feeder full of seeds. Don’t worry about pulling your feeders in the fall – the birds will migrate when it’s time to go.
That Cool Green Science blog often has really interesting topics about the natural world. Check it out next time you can’t get out to explore the natural world first-hand.
Now is not a great time to sight in a rifle. It’s just too windy. That wind will affect the flight of your bullets, so if you sight in now, your shots will be off when the wind dies down. And I’m optimistic that the wind will eventually die down.
So while you can’t go to the range, take all your guns out of the safe and give them a good, full-service scrubbing.
Well, for safety’s sake, maybe just pull them out one at a time. Check that each one is unloaded, and make sure there’s no ammo in the room with the gun you’re cleaning. Then break each gun down, and clean it thoroughly inside and out.
For the barrel, my favorite cleaning products are the BoreSnake and SwabIts. Both of these provide a thorough cleaning, and they’re much easier to use than patches. SwabIts are one-time use mops for your barrels, and BoreSnakes can be used over and over. I actually use both. I run the BoreSnake through first, then I shine it all up with the SwabIts.
When you’re done, give the moving parts a bit of lube. Not too much – just a drop here and there. Everyone has their favorite gun lube, but I’m kind of partial to BreakFree and CorrosionX.
And while you have your guns out, if you don’t already have one, take the time to put together a gun inventory. Or update the one you already have, if you’ve added guns to your collection. Get photos of each gun, including the serial numbers, and put together a file that has the make, model, and serial number of each of your guns. If you have bills of sale or receipts, put those in there, too. Then get digital copies of all these records and make a couple backups.
Hopefully we’ll be back out at the range practicing our shooting and getting those guns dirty again soon.
When the wind kicks up above 30 miles an hour, I spend more time indoors reading. I’ve gotten pretty efficient at my outdoor chores, like feeding the horses and filling water tanks, because I either have to do it quickly while there’s a lull in the wind, or because if I stay out in that wind too much longer, I’m going to go insane.
So I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Among the articles I have read recently was one claiming to list the six best .22 rifles on the market. I was in complete agreement with the author at the beginning of the story, when he said everyone should have a .22 rifle. In fact, everyone should have several .22 rifles.
He also pointed out that for most of us, the first rifle we owned was a .22. Technically, my dad owned the .22 I grew up with, but he bought it specifically for me to use, and for all intents and purposes, it was basically my rifle while I was growing up. I learned to shoot very well with that rifle, and when I visit my parents, I can still drive tacks with that old rifle.
The article lost me quickly when it started rating the best .22s on the market, though. Yes, all six of the rifles it mentioned are very good .22s, but they’re not, in my opinion, the best. It listed the Ruger 10/22, the Henry Lever Action, the Marlin Model 60, the Mossberg 802, the Browning Buck Mark Rifle and the Savage B22 Precision. Yes, all great .22s – though the Browning is really just a long pistol with a stock.
But the best .22 rifle? The very best .22 rifle ever made? That’s the one you grew up with. It doesn’t matter who built it or what name it carries. The one you had growing up is without a doubt the best .22. Period.
I know Wyoming’s windy, but this is ridiculous. I can’t recall a spring that has had as much constant wind as we’ve seen this year.
But if you can stand the wind, or if we ever get a calm day, take some time off. The fishing’s excellent throughout Wyoming, and the shorelines are less crowded on the weekdays. You’ll probably be able to find a good spot to drop a line on the weekend, too, but you’ll have to walk a little farther from the road.
If you’re after the big one, this is the time of year to go after it. Reports of very large fish have been flooding in from a number of public fishing areas around the state. Most waters haven’t been stocked with the smaller trout yet, so the survivors from last year are all you’ll find under the surface.
To get them, you’ll have to go deep with your lures. Take up a spot downstream from where you think the fish will be hiding. Deep holes, undercuts along the bank and driftwood tangles provide shelter for trout. Tie a nymph on your tippet and cast it toward the hole. Try to drop it upstream of the hole so it will sink to the bottom before it gets to the riffle where you think the fish are hiding.
Midges are good bets, too. You can use a midge as a dropper behind an attractor pattern. For the attractor, try a rusty scud. Tie a No. 18 midge to the bend in the hook of a No. 12 scud with about a foot of tippet material. Cast the flies upstream far enough that they’ll sink to the bottom and drift through the run.
Streamers often work well this time of year, too. Cast streamers slightly upstream and across the current. Strip them across the flow as they drift down, or through slow pools upstream of where you’re standing.
Get some fishing time in for yourself. You deserve it.
They say it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and that you can make a sow’s ear into a silk purse. I don’t know about the second one, but there may be some truth to the first. This constant wind we’ve been dealing with is a whole lot of miserable. But it has given me the time I needed to get a whole lot done around the house.
I cleaned up my home office, which was an absolute necessity, because my day job has me working from home two days a week. If I hadn’t cleaned up the office, I’d have had nowhere to work.
While I was cleaning up the office, I cleaned up the bar, too. That was another stroke of good fortune. Now I have a place to have an adult beverage or six at the end of a long day working. And I only have to walk three steps to get from my desk to the bar.
But it’s given me the time to do some other much-needed chores, too. It’s allowed me to sit down and crank out about 30-dozen flies to replenish my supply for fishing. Granted, I’m not much of a fly-tier, so they’re all very basic patterns. You’re not going to find many parachute Adamses or Royal Wulffs in my vise. About the most exciting I get is a pheasant tail nymph.
I’ve also sharpened every knife I own at least once; cleaned all my guns; and re-waterproofed all my tents and hunting jackets. If I were a reloader, I’d probably have enough ammo stocked up to invade North Korea.
I hope you are finding productive ways to survive this wind, and I hope it calms down out there soon. It’ll be good when can all go back outside without fear of blowing to Nebraska.
My wife and I, along with a family friend, hiked up to Bomber Mountain on Labor Day weekend. We camped the first night between the Fortress Lakes, about three miles from the Bomber Mountain summit, [...]
I never used to be too concerned about the weight of my camping gear, but that’s because I’ve always had horses to get deep into the backcountry. I still have horses, but sometimes it’s good [...]
As a bowhunter, Labor Day, or at least Labor Day weekend, usually falls within the hunting season. But there are usually way too many people out there in the woods on Labor Day weekend. I’m [...]
Cooking was always a daunting chore for me. I managed to scrape together meals that somehow didn’t kill me during college, and in my single days, on the rare occasions I didn’t buy food already prepared at a restaurant, I figured out how to make chili and spaghetti. But that was about all I could do.
When I got married, I was assigned the task of cooking. I added a couple more dishes to my repertoire, but there was nothing spectacular. And for 20 years, my family was forced to choke down the same six or seven different possible meals each night.
But then COVID hit, and like many people, I expanded my culinary skills. I’ve learned how to make a new version of tacos that’s a much bigger hit with the family than my previous basic attempts, which came out of a McCormick spice package. I’ve learned how to make tortellinis, Beef Wellington, French onion soup, and a whole bunch more stuff I never dreamed I’d know how to create.
I can’t take full credit for it – I learned a lot of it from Hello Fresh, the company that sends you all the ingredients and very easy to follow instructions. But I’ve also ventured out on my own and searched out some more complicated recipes on the Internet and in actual cook books that have been gathering dust in my cabinets since my wedding day.
And now it’s time to spice up some of those recipes with game meat. I don’t know if wild game will work with all those recipes, but I’m determined to try. I’ve already found that dove can give your tacos a whole different flavor, so it’s worth testing out how elk or deer work in a Wellington. Now I just need to go get the meat to put in those recipes.
I had the great fortune to acquire both a new rifle and a new bow since last hunting season. I would love a new shotgun, but that’s not in the cards yet, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t really need a new shotgun. I know, that’s blasphemy, but my old Browning BPS has been my trusted shotgun for 30 years, and while I’d love to someday own a Caesar Guerini side-by-side, the old Browning’s getting the job done at the moment.
But I did get a new Weatherby Vanguard Special Edition rifle with my life membership to the Muley Fanatic Foundation, and I also ended up with a new Ventum 33 compound bow from Hoyt Archery. Both the bow and the rifle are done up in the same KUIU Verde camo the rest of my elk hunting gear is in. I’m ready for this season.
In fact, I’ve already gotten it started. I’ve been out several times for doves, though it is apparent from the meager number of birds I’ve been able to bring home that I’m going to have to do some more practicing with that Browning. I’ve been spending all my free time getting good with the Weatherby and the Hoyt, and I’ve been neglecting my practice time with the shotgun. I’ve managed to bag enough doves for a couple of dove tacos, as long as I mix in plenty of onions and peppers when I cook them up.
I’ve also been out a few times for deer, but just short trips into the state lands and walk-in areas that are close. I’ve seen a few deer, but I need an antlered muley to wander by within my bow range in order to take a shot, and that hasn’t happened yet. I plan to make the most of this hunting season, though, and if I don’t get one with the new bow, I’ll have plenty of time to try with the new rifle later in the season.
Happy hunting to you. Get out there.
Down here in the so-called civilized world, things have been nuts for more than a year. I’m not going to mention any of the craziness by name, because it seems like no matter what you say about anything going on right now, somebody gets upset or offended, and I’m not here to anger you or hurt your feelings. I will say the silliness has caused me to seriously consider running for one public office or another, just to try to bring some sanity back to the world, but luckily, I came to my senses before I put my name on any ballot.
It’s all made time seem to crawl. I think back to last hunting season, and it seems like a lifetime ago. Last year was the first year in a while that I was able to take an extended amount of time off from work and spend that time hunting, and I took full advantage of it. I took off a few days before Labor Day and a full week after, and I spent that whole time trying to perforate the hide of a deer or an elk with a pointy stick.
While it seems like it was more than just a year ago, I still remember just about every moment of that hunt clearly. It was a welcome escape from the stress caused by all the chaos going on in the populated world. Up there in the mountains, for the first half of my hunt, it was just my boys and me, and for the last half of my time off, I was out there all by myself for much of the time. Back at camp, I had good friends to pass the time with, and we had good food, great company, and no talk about what was going on in civilization.
It was lovely. Peaceful. No cell phones, no news alerts, no angry people, no politicians. Just the serenity of nature.
With much of that chaos still going on, I’m so glad it’s hunting season again. It’s time to get back out there for another dose of peace and quiet.
I don’t think I’d try it during the rifle season, but if your antelope area’s still open to archery only, a decoy might be just the trick you need.
After the pronghorns have broken into their harem groups, the bucks get extremely territorial. Just sit back and watch them sometime. If another buck gets anywhere near the does, he’ll get run out of the area in no time flat.
You can use that territorial drive to your advantage. Get an antelope decoy and head for your area. Try to find a decoy that has pretty small horns. You don’t want your decoy to look intimidating to the herd buck.
It’s pretty simple. Just take your decoy to where the goats are, then hold it or prop it up and wait for the herd buck to come run you off. You can sometimes move closer to the buck by holding the decoy in front of you as you crouch and move, but it works better if the buck will come to you. Most decoys have a stake or a rod you can stick into the ground to hold the deke up. If you plant it in the ground, you’ll have both hands free to draw your bow.
The other benefit to the decoy is that it hides your movement while you draw. Even if it doesn’t hide all the movement, what the antelope sees makes it think the deke is an actual antelope moving.
I’ve used a decoy quite a few times, and I’ve had a lot of success. I’ve had some failures, too. Like the year I went out on September first, and just as I was drawing down on a nice buck, a bunch of dove hunters opened up a few hundred yards away. I try to avoid hunting antelope on opening day of dove season now.
But I’m still working the decoy. I haven’t connected on a goat using the deke yet, but it’s worked well in the past, and I have no doubt it’ll continue to work. Maybe one of these days it’ll all come together.
In my opinion, everybody should go hunting each weekend of the hunting season. You don’t have to go after elk or deer every time. Change it up a little. Hunt doves on the first weekend, then try to get a blue grouse or some sharptails the next. If you mix it up, it’ll keep things fresh and give you more to talk about around the water cooler on Monday morning.
I’ve had some great hunts on three-day weekends, whether they came from a holiday or a vacation day. A normal weekend isn’t long enough to really get into a hunt, but just one more day off can make all the difference.
All the archers I know live for Labor Day weekend. There isn’t much open for rifle hunters this early in the season, but if bowhunting’s not your style, you can always pick up the shotgun. Blue, sharptail and ruffed grouse, as well as doves are all fair game right now. And you can also hunt geese in the Pacific Flyway.
Don’t waste this three-day weekend. We won’t get another one until … well, there’s one in October, but only if your office lets you out for Columbus Day.
The only thing I have against Labor Day is the heat. It’s still pretty warm this time of the season, and that can be a real drag for hunting. It can certainly be a problem for big game hunting. If you get a deer, elk or antelope, you want to keep it as cool as you can, but when it’s as hot as it usually is this time of year, that can be a real problem.
The heat can cause other problems, too, especially if you bowhunt in an area where there are snakes. A few years ago, I drove out to a walk-in area north of Burns. I parked the truck, then I went around to the passenger side to get my bow. It was a pretty cool morning, which is why I decided I’d go deer hunting with my bow rather than try to kick up some sharptails out on the prairie. It was a good thing that morning was frosty, too, because when I got to the front of the truck, I literally came an inch from stepping on a coiled rattler. I thought that snake was frozen to death, because it stayed wrapped in a tight coil. It didn’t even flick its tongue, let alone try to strike, but my nervous system didn’t get the memo. Before I knew it, I was ten feet away from that snake.
It ruined my hunt. I spent the rest of the morning paying more attention to the ground than to the deer I had come to hunt. When I came up over a hill and blundered within 30 yards of a group of mule deer, I realized I had been watching where I was stepping and not paying any attention to anything else. I think those deer stayed put because they thought there was no way I could be hunting, with as much noise as I was making. They obviously didn’t consider me any sort of threat. But they still shifted into high gear and left the county before I could get an arrow knocked.
So I gave up and went back to the truck. The snake was still there, and it had warmed up enough that when I got back, he uncoiled and slowly slithered off.
It turned out to be a bad day for hunting, but at least I got out. And I got a bunch of cool snake pictures and a good story out of it.
Get outside and enjoy this Labor Day. Just watch out for snakes.
If you’re really serious about hunting, you’re probably not reading this. Depending on where you are in the state and when this program airs, the sun’s either up already or sunrise isn’t far away. If you’re a die-hard hunter, you’re probably already hunkered down in a field waiting for the doves to come by, out in the timber trying to call in a big bull elk or walking through the prairie hoping to kick up a sharp-tailed grouse.
But not all of us can take the day off to hunt on an opening day that falls on a weekday. You can bet there’ll be a bunch of people out in the fields and forests this weekend, though. Antelope, elk and deer hunters, blue, ruffed and sharp-tailed grouse hunters, dove, small game and sandhill crane hunters will all be out in the field this weekend, but there’s a whole lot of country out there. You shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a place where you won’t be competing with a bunch of other guys, even if you’re hunting on public land.
Most of the rifle seasons for big game won’t open for a while, so there’s another round of opening days still to come. But if you’re primarily a rifle hunter, don’t let the fact that your big game season hasn’t opened yet keep you out of the field.
Pick up the shotgun and go after one of the grouse species. Or try to bring home a dove or two before they all decide they’d rather be in South America. If you’d rather shoot a rifle, grab the .22 and go get a few cottontails.
Don’t let the first week of hunting season pass you by. Even if it’s only for a day, or maybe just a morning, jump in the truck and go try to get a grouse, a dove, or even an antelope, deer or elk with your bow. It won’t matter if you bring anything home or not. You’ll be glad you went, but if you stay home, you’ll be wishing you’d gone hunting.
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My son Colby has had a desire to get into rock climbing for more than half his life. My wife and I took him to a climbing gym a few years ago, hoping he’d have [...]
Wyoming doesn’t have many native game fish species. We have plenty of fish to try to catch, including a bunch of different kinds of trout, but the only trout that are natural inhabitants of our [...]
There’s a guy who works out at the same gym I go to, and since we’re both outdoors enthusiasts, we often talk about outdoor adventures between exercises. He also listens to this show, so he [...]
Don’t get me wrong. I do think fireworks are really cool. Hey, I’m a guy. Guys are just hard-wired to get excited about blowing stuff up. And living in Wyoming, where there aren’t many laws [...]
My family went to a Fourth of July barbecue with another family we’re friends with, and when we got there, everybody was out in the field shooting a variety of different guns. Roger was sighting [...]
What happened to Muskol? Do you remember that stuff? It was 100 percent Deet. All the experts recommend bug spray with Deet in it, but none of the junk they sell these days has enough [...]
In my backyard, G.I. Joe didn’t abide by the Geneva Conventions. When he encountered soldiers from Cobra (a force of evil terrorists bent on world domination), he used whatever was handy to subdue his opponent. [...]
When I was a kid back in Riverton, I pedaled my bike down to the nearest fireworks stand at least once a week and spent every dime of my lawnmowing money. I then pedaled home [...]
My wife and I decided we needed a camping trailer a few years ago, so we started looking for one. We didn’t have a whole lot to spend on one, so we knew we needed [...]
I got a letter in the mail a little while ago that has to be a hoax. It’s from the North American Hunting Club, and the envelope said “We’re looking for people to test hunting [...]
I stepped up to a demo table at the outdoor writers conference I went to a while back, and the guys there were showing off a product that fixes both neoprene and breathable waders. Better [...]
If you shoot a compound bow, keep an eye on your string and cables. Check your limbs and any screws or bolts from time to time, too. I guess that’s true of any bow – [...]
I tend to get a little obsessed when I decide to try to get photos of a certain type of animal. Sometimes it pays off, and days, weeks or months of stalking a critter pays [...]
There’s a saying in these parts that rings pretty true. “Fish Wyoming – 300,000 Coloradans can’t all be wrong.” We give our southern neighbors a lot of grief for coming up here to fish, but [...]
When I was a kid, my dad used to take me into the mountains above Pinedale each summer. I was quite young when Dad decided I should carry my own weight – literally. Before we [...]
You’d think I’d own an air compressor by now. I’ve sure dealt with more than my share of flat tires over the years, but I don’t have any way to air ‘em up other than [...]
If you train dogs or have a hunting dog or two, you probably have more than a few electronic collars for your critters. And chances are good they’re made by TriTronics. That’s a venerable brand [...]
Each year, when school got out for the summer, my dad would haul the dusty old backpacking tent in from the barn and toss it on the living-room carpet. He’d announce that we were going [...]
I can’t even remember the first time my dad dragged me into the wilderness on a campout. For as long as I can remember, I’ve spent a good deal of my free time in the [...]
You don’t have to go to Moab to have a great ride on a mountain bike. Wyoming has plenty of excellent places to ride, too. Just throw your bike on top of your car or [...]
Those brochures they hand out at Yellowstone with a drawing of a person getting flung into the air by an angry buffalo aren’t just for the tourists. They’re a warning to everyone who spends any [...]
Are you driving right now? Pull off the highway and do a little fishing. I never go anywhere without fishing gear. I’ve always got a fly rod and a spinning rod in the vehicle, complete [...]
Up at 8, 9, or 10,000 feet or higher, Wyoming’s still a winter wonderland. Some areas are blanketed by a couple feet of snow, and the fishing’s still no good, unless you want to drag [...]
Ticks aren’t just creepy little crawling arachnids. They also carry some really bad diseases. The big three are Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease, and tularemia. But recently, scientists figured out that Lone Star ticks can cause Alpha-gal syndrome, which causes an uncurable red meat allergy. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about. The thought of developing an allergy to red meat keeps me up at night. I don’t really want the fever, headache, fatigue, chills, aches and nausea associated with Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Lyme disease or tularemia, but developing an allergy to a steak is truly horrifying. At least we don’t have Lone Star ticks in Wyoming. At least not yet. They’re most common in the southeast, but they’re also found in the east and the south central states. And as deer move north and west, they’re bringing Lone Star ticks with them. The best defense against all of these tick-borne illnesses is protecting yourself from tick bites. When you’re outside, wear long-sleeved shirts and use insect repellant that includes DEET. When you get back home or back to camp, do a thorough full-body tick check. If you find one dug in, grab it with a [...]
I started helping coach my son’s precision air rifle team a few years ago, and then I started shooting air rifles myself. Logan got his Distinguished Expert award last year from Cheyenne Post 6, and now he’s shooting with the X-Caliber shooting team. His new coach, Phillip Dobkins, is a precision shooter himself, and he’s really helped Logan build on the great foundation he got from shooting with Post 6. But as an added bonus, Phillip is letting me shoot, too. Precision shooting isn’t just for kids. Phillip and his wife both compete, and they’ve gotten me to shoot in competitions, too. I think Phillip mainly has me shoot so I’ll stay out of his way while he’s coaching Logan, but he’s also genuinely interested in seeing me improve, too. And I have been improving. I’m still nowhere near the shooter Logan is, but I’m approaching respectable. And I’m pretty sure it’s going to make me a better shot with my hunting rifles, too. It’s about time to test that out. Air rifles are shot from a much closer distance than anything you’d get in a hunting situation, but then again, the bullseye is barely bigger than the pellet itself. [...]
I used to have a membership to an indoor archery range in Cheyenne, but I’ve been bad about getting back in there for the last few years. I really should shoot the bow all year long to stay in practice, but I tend to let it slide over the winter months. This time of year, though, I drag the target back out to the corner of the back yard where I’ve set up a stand to hang it, and I’ll dig my bow out from under all the Christmas decorations and Easter baskets it seems to always gets buried under. Then I’ll head out to the yard several times a week throughout the summer and get back in practice flinging arrows. If I’d spend more time throughout the year shooting it, I’d probably save some money. I invariably lose a few arrows in the pasture and break a few more hitting the fence post the target is hung on or smacking a rock to one side of the target or the other. I generally start the summer with six to nine arrows – and some years I’ve actually had a full dozen – but by about the Fourth of July, [...]
This will be my last hunting season before I turn 50, and that fact has been making itself clear to me lately. I briefly had a gym membership at Planet Fitness, but they kicked me out because I was grunting and making other noises while I was lifting weights. They pride themselves on being a place where people who aren’t muscle jocks can go and work out without feeling like they’re being judged. If you grunt and groan while you’re exercising, they call you out for it and sound the “Lunk Alarm.” I tried to explain to them I wasn’t being a meathead – I make those noises when I tie my shoes – but they kicked me out anyway.
That’s fine, though. A couple of years ago, I found a workout on the Kuiu website that was developed by a Crossfit instructor, and it’s tailored specifically for hunters to prepare for the season. And the best thing is that you can do it in the comfort and privacy of your own home – where there’s much less danger of setting off the Lunk Alarm.
I’ve modified that workout slightly, though. It’s a rotating workout that gets harder each day of the week, then starts off mild again the next week. But I added in some inner core stuff, because I’ve been doing a lot of precision shooting with my son, and it’s amazing how much a strong inner core helps you with your accuracy. I combined a Daily Burn core workout with that Kuiu routine, and I’m trying to get some cardio in, as well. I’m not as young as I once was, so I’m easing into it. The beauty of both the workout plans I’m using is that you can go as light or as hard as you feel like, and as you get in better shape, you can increase the intensity. I should be able to get back in shape in a couple of months. In a few years, though, I’ll probably have to start earlier – or just never quit. We’ll see how it works out this year, and maybe next year I’ll adjust my starting time.
I met Jimmy and Liz a long time ago. Liz was my wife’s childhood friend, and when we’d go visit her family in Montana, I’d spend time hanging out with Liz’s husband Jimmy. He and I are both avid elk and waterfowl hunters, but we’ve never had the opportunity to chase critters across either of our own home states.
One of these days, we have both vowed we will do that. But first we have to do the things our busy lives require of us. One of those things happened 23 years ago last Saturday, when Jimmy and Liz came down to Cheyenne to attend my wife’s and my wedding. That day, Liz was standing on Amy’s side of the altar, but their daughter Jael was our flower girl.
Now, 23 years later, Amy and I went up to Montana and watched our former flower girl walk down the aisle to her own wedding on our anniversary. It’s funny how things tend to come back around in their own way. But it’s also funny how things can remind you that time is ticking by, and we’re not getting any younger.
I didn’t have as much time to catch up with Jimmy as I would have liked to have, but I get it. He was busy being the father of the bride, and I’m OK with that. We’ll just have to make sure we find some time to catch up in the near future. Maybe this fall. That’s the other thing about time – as it goes by, some of the things that keep us so busy in our younger years aren’t really an issue anymore. Jimmy’s kids are all grown up now, and my youngest just graduated from high school. There won’t be as many things competing for their share of my vacation time anymore, so I can burn some of those days on hunting trips.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been thinking all of that while I was sitting at the wedding, but that’s just how my mind works. Thanks, Jael, for reminding me it’s time to go hunting with your dad.
I’m not trying to be the next Mr. Olympia or develop six-pack abs. I don’t even care about placing in my age group in 5K runs. All I worry about is being in shape for hunting season. My workouts are tailored to building the muscles I’ll need to hike high into the hills to find the elk where they live, draw my bow or take a steady shot with my rifle, and then pack that critter out again. I do try to keep my weight down, so that I can walk all day looking for pheasants or grouse, without having to stop every five minutes to catch my breath.
But lately, my fitness goals have been hampered by ailments I never had to worry about when I was younger. When I was in my 20s, I could run nonstop for days and never have to worry about the damage I might be doing to my feet. But now that I’ve been abusing my feet for roughly half a century, I’ve developed plantar fasciitis. I’m told it will go away if I stop pounding my feet on the ground for several miles at a time day in and day out, but if I stop running, I’m going to pack on the weight again, which will cause me problems for hunting season.
I could lift weights to keep in shape, and that’s part of my recipe for hunting season fitness, anyway, but even that has had to be put aside for the time being, due to a bad case of tennis elbow. I don’t even play tennis. I have no idea how I developed this ailment. All I know is that it is painful enough that when I was doing skullcrushers in the gym a few weeks ago, the name of the exercise became literal when my elbow refused to keep the dumbbell suspended above my head.
I’ve given the foot a good bit of rest lately, so I went ahead and ran the Bolder Boulder 10K run last weekend. Well, “ran” is a bit of an exaggeration. If there had been someone walking the course, they’d have lapped me.
But I’m working my way back, and I hope I have time to get in shape before hunting season. And I’m praying no other age-related ailments crop up.
My son wanted to go to a paintball course for his birthday, and I was immediately on board with that. When I got married, I had a paintball game with about 20 friends for my bachelor party, and I haven’t played much since. So I was just as excited as Logan to go play paintball again. But there was a big difference between my bachelor party and Logan’s birthday paintball game. All the people in my bachelor party game knew each other. But for Logan’s birthday, we went to a paintball place and jumped in on games with 30 complete strangers.
Pardon me for saying so, but if you’re playing paintball, you’re not Rambo. It’s a paintball game. You’re not storming the beaches of Normandy. You’re slinging nonlethal balls of paint at 16-year-old kids wearing Sketchers. Lighten up.
But at least those overzealous paintball warriors usually have a sense of honor. When they get hit by a paintball, they yell, “I’m out,” raise their hands over their heads, and go out of the game. And if they hit YOU, and YOU yell, “I’m out,” they don’t keep shooting you. Yes, I make a great target when I stand up and put my hands over my head. But that doesn’t mean you should put 14 more welts on me.
Some of the other players we faced were in this category. I watched a paintball explode on one guy’s shoulder, and he just kept shooting. And then he missed my kid, but yelled at Logan that he’d hit him. Another guy yelled, “I surrender!” when I came around a rock and had him dead to rights, then he shot me five times.
I think I’ll stick to playing paintball with people I know from now on. It can be a lot of fun, as long as everyone plays by the same set of rules.
I don’t know how many times last spring I was all set to go fishing, then realized the chicken coop needed to be cleaned out. It didn’t matter how often I cleaned it, those disgusting birds made such a mess, every time I cleaned the coop, it took the better part of the day. If it hadn’t been made of particle board, I’d have just turned the hose on it and squirted it out.
But I cleaned the coop for the last time, at least for a while, over the weekend. The chickens had stopped laying eggs, so we had to decide whether we were going to go get more birds or go chickenless for the time being. Thankfully, the family decided to take a break from chicken ranching this year.
The final coop cleaning ruined my plans to go wet a fly on Saturday, but I wasn’t too disappointed. The fact that the coop is now spotless, and will remain that way for the foreseeable future, means I won’t be derailed by chicken chores next weekend. Or the weekend after. Or any weekend this spring, summer or fall. Granted, we still have the pigs, horses and cows, but those critters are all a lot more self-sufficient – and cleaner – than chickens.
And cleaning the chicken coop may have gotten in the way of fishing, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t get to do anything fun. When we got rid of the chickens, two of the more feral specimens escaped capture. They’ve been living off the land for the past week or so, but I didn’t want them to die slowly and painfully. So I got to spend a little bit of time Sunday on a chicken hunt. Some people have turkey shoots, but I was content with a chicken shoot.
So this weekend, I believe I’ll go fishing. If I don’t catch any fish for dinner, that’s OK. I have plenty of chicken.
If you get Monday off for Memorial Day, take some time to pay tribute to people you’ve loved and lost. It’s a day for remembering those who fought for our country, as well as those who made a difference in your life.
I have a friend who’s continuing a Memorial Day tradition his dad introduced him to. Bill’s dad always used to take him fishing, and while they were together, his dad told Bill stories about trips he’d taken with Bill’s grandfather. Bill’s dad passed on a few years ago, but Bill now takes his own son fishing every Memorial Day, and he uses the time with his boy to tell the youngster all about the great times he had with the boy’s granddad on the banks of the Big Horn River.
I think that’s a fantastic way to accomplish two things. First of all, it honors the memory of someone who is no longer around. And maybe more importantly, it creates instant memories that a young person will carry with him for the rest of his life. Not only that, but it gives the kid a reason to go fishing. That’s probably all Bill’s kid really cares about right now, and he probably wishes Bill would just pipe down and let him fish. But years from now, Bill’s boy will have a son or daughter of his own, and he’ll have plenty of great memories to pass along to the next generation.
If you don’t have someone to go fishing with Monday, go fishing anyway. Use the peace and quiet to reflect on the people who fought for our freedom, as well as those who helped make you who you are. In some ways, I think memories can be just as good company as another real person.
Whatever you do on Monday, make it count. Three-day weekends don’t come around as often as we’d like them to, much like those special people we honor with Memorial Day. They’re scarce; so when one comes around, don’t take it for granted.
I never thought there was such a thing as weather too bad to go shooting. But as I get older, and now that I own some acreage of my own, it turns out there is such a thing, and for a number of reasons.
First of all, I’m getting too old to freeze my fingers off, trying to wedge another cartridge into the magazine of my old Model 94 Winchester. The spring on the magazine cover is extremely tight, either despite or because it’s more than 100 years old. When my fingers get cold, they feel like they’re going to break right off when I try to cram a cartridge in there. And that’s one task you simply can’t do with gloves on.
Then there’s the moisture factor. When it’s nasty outside, I really don’t want to have to walk all the way out to my range. I prefer to drive over there, keeping my guns safe and dry in the vehicle as I go. But when it’s this wet out, the truck leaves deep ruts through my pasture. These ruts become rivers when it rains, and with every downpour, more of my land washes down the hill to the neighbor’s place.
So yes, there is such a thing as weather too bad to go shooting. Granted, if it’s raining, snowing, hailing, or just cold when I go hunting, I’ll gut it out and go anyway. I probably ought to get out there in the rain and sleet and do some practicing.
Of course, if I do, then I’ll have to come back in when I’m done and give the guns a really good cleaning. You don’t want to leave any water on your guns after you’ve used them in damp conditions.
It’s probably safer to stay inside on these wet, cold days and save the shooting practice for nice days.
Most people try to avoid getting lost in the woods. I’ve long thought my dad’s goal was just the opposite. Every time we headed out into the wild, Dad would get us lost.
Never horribly lost. He always had us back at camp or the truck by midnight. Some of those trips, we wound up schlepping along in the dark for quite a while, but we never had to spend a night in a lean-to or a space blanket.
But he would get us away from where we thought we should be on the map. Sometimes, we couldn’t even find where we were on the map.
Nobody can get lost that often unless they’re trying. When it first became clear that a trip to the woods with dad meant a chance to practice my survival skills, I thought Dad was just enjoying the scenery too much. I figured he was just so immersed in the animals and plants he was seeing that he eventually stopped worrying about where he was going.
But then, after several years of this happening on every trip, I decided he was doing it on purpose. He may have been trying to teach me to use a map and compass, or maybe he was enjoying himself so much he didn’t want the trip to end. More likely, he just didn’t want to go back to civilization.
When it dawned on me that he was trying to get us lost, I thought he probably really knew exactly where we were. When he got tired of being lost, he’d suddenly figure out how to get back to camp or the truck, and the adventure would be over.
But I’ve gotten to be pretty good at reading my dad’s poker face, and on a number of occasions, I could tell he wasn’t faking it. He really was lost.
I realized Dad’s ability to get lost wasn’t the work of years of practice. He’s just naturally gifted with a gene for getting lost. It suddenly occurred to me that I probably have that gene, too.
The deadline for Wyoming residents to get their applications in for deer, elk and antelope tags is right around the corner. The last day to apply is May 31.
There’s not a lot of time left, but there should be enough to look up the demand index on the Game and Fish website. The demand index will show you which areas traditionally have fewer people apply than they have licenses available. Those are good areas to put in for, if you want to be guaranteed a limited quota license. Click here for the 2023 Drawing Odds.
Keep in mind that some areas have very little public access, and that might be why the demand is lower than the supply. If you don’t have permission to hunt on private land in that area, you might want to find a different one. There’s not much worse than drawing a license and not being able to use it.
With all these reminders I give you on the radio about getting your applications in, you’d think I’m already patiently awaiting my own results from the draw. Not quite. Instead of kicking back, relaxing these last few days of May, I’m frantically trying to get my own application in.
I should have sat down in front of the computer and figured out which areas I should apply for. I didn’t do that. I should have taken the time to go back through the previous years’ draw results and find some nice areas for back-ups where I’d be sure to draw a tag. Again, I did nothing of the kind.
So much for getting ahead of the game. Now I need to play catch-up.
Do as I say, not as I do. Get your applications in before the deadline is upon us.
Click here to apply for limited-quota licenses.
My youngest son graduated high school over the weekend. I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about it. I’m proud of him and I’m excited to see what he does and where he goes from here, but on the other hand, it’s kind of sad to know he’ll be leaving the nest soon. He’s going to go to the local community college next year, though, so he’s helping his mother and me by breaking away slowly.
He’ll still be living at home, so it won’t be as abrupt a change as the one his older brother left us with. And that’s a good thing, both for Logan and for his mom and me.
The biggest change is going to be that we won’t have athletic events to go to every weekend – and sometimes on weeknights. Logan was in cross country, wrestling and track, and some of those events cut into hunting and fishing time. Now that we won’t be driving halfway across the state to sit on bleachers and watch athletics, we can instead drive halfway across the state to sit on fallen logs and watch for game animals emerging from the woods.
Granted, we’ll still have some athletic events to go to. Logan got involved in precision shooting a few years ago, and that’s one sport you can keep doing long after you’ve finished high school. In fact, he got me into it, too, so for some of those events, I won’t just be going to watch – I’ll be competing, too. However, I won’t be competing at as high a level as Logan is, and that means there’ll be plenty of matches I’m there to just watch. But they won’t cut into our hunting time as much as the school sports – and they’ll actually make us better for our hunting trips.
It’s still weird thinking I don’t have any kids in school anymore, though. When did I get this old?
I love to fish, but I’ll admit I’m not very good at it. In fact, I’m absolutely horrible. It doesn’t matter what I use for a lure – fish just don’t want whatever it is I’m throwing. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker proclaiming Fish Tremble at the Mere Mention of My Name. Well, in my case, fish laugh themselves into a stupor.
I still try to get out to the streams, rivers and lakes whenever I can for a good dose of humility and humiliation. But I’ve found an activity I’m a lot better at, and I don’t have to go very far to do it.
When I was working at the newspaper in Cheyenne, I found that I do OK with a camera. I’m not great, but if I do say so myself, I luck into a decent photo every now and then. Through trial and a whole lot of error, I’ve learned a few things about photography. The first thing I’ve learned is that it’s a great excuse to get outside for an hour, a day, or even a whole week. And when I get really lucky, I can even pay for a trip with the pictures I come home with. I’m not going to do that with fishing. Heck, I can’t even feed my family with the spoils of a fishing trip.
I haven’t been able to get out for extended stretches lately, but the best light for pictures is generally the first couple of hours of sunlight each day, anyway. So just about every day on my way to work, I stop at the little pond on the way and crack off a couple hundred frames on the ol’ Canon.
After several thousand shots, I’ve come out with two or three I wouldn’t be embarrassed to show other people. It’s a great way to start my day, and it’s a fantastic excuse to get outside, if only for a little while. Granted, I have to explain why my dress pants have grass and mud stains on the knees, but that’s a small price to pay for the satisfaction of getting outside first thing in the morning.
Forget the spring cleaning; you’re just going to muddy the house up with mud from your waders and turkey feathers anyway. Just grab the shotgun and your fishing gear and get out to the hills for some long overdue outdoors activity.
The first thing you need to know is that you don’t need to draw a limited quota turkey license anymore. For some reason, there are still limited quota tags available for some of the areas, but the general license works in all turkey hunting areas. The only exception is the Yellowtail Wildlife Habitat Management Area in Hunt Area 4. If you don’t have a turkey license yet, go get one.
During the spring, only male turkeys, or those with visible beards, are legal birds. Make sure you’re drawing a bead on a male before you trip the trigger.
You’ll also need to have a valid hunter education card if you were born on or after Jan. 1, 1965. No matter when you were born, you’ll need this year’s Wyoming conservation stamp. And if you plan to hunt on private land, get written permission from the landowner before you plan your hunt.
But don’t limit your trip to a turkey hunt. If you have time, stay out a little longer and dip a line in the water. If you’re a fly fisher, make sure your vest is full of wet flies. You’ll want nymphs and midges that sink to the bottom of the waterway, because that’s where the trout are feeding right now. Bead head prince nymphs are good bets on most of the waters in the state. A good woolly worm will never treat you wrong, either.
You’ll need a conservation stamp for fishing, too. You’ll also want to make sure you have a current fishing license. The stamp and fishing license can be found at any license-selling agent in the state as well as at the regional Game and Fish offices.
So get your gear rounded up and escape civilization for a few days.
My closest friend from high school enlisted in the Army shortly after we graduated. He rapidly went from infantry to Airborne, and then he jumped straight to the Green Berets. He learned a bunch of languages, got training to be a medic, and he also became a decorated sniper.
He and I hunted a lot together when we were in high school. We hunted everything from rabbits to big game. Every chance we got, we went hunting. When he retired from the Army, I thought I could learn some great hunting tricks from him. After all, as a sniper, he not only had to learn how to shoot extremely accurately, he also had to learn how to hide. The fact that he lived through two decades of danger shows he learned how to hide very, very well.
Some of those skills would undoubtedly transfer to hunting. Maybe he could teach me how to be more sneaky in the woods, and how to make sure my one shot counts every time. So I asked him if he’d be up for a hunt sometime, and if he’d show me some of the tricks of his trade.
But all that deadly work changed my friend. He’s still a wonderful human being, but he said he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to hunt game animals again. I understand and respect that, but I admit it makes me a little sad. For two reasons. It makes me sad that we won’t ever get to prowl the woods together, looking for deer, grouse or rabbits. And sad for my friend, knowing his life experiences have closed the door on hunting for him.
Maybe someday he’ll be able to hunt again. I hope so. But for now, I’m just grateful for the service he has given our country, and grateful that he’s still around and still my friend.
I’m no fan of rattlesnakes. OK, so maybe snakes in general aren’t my cup of tea. I wasn’t always afraid of snakes. I used to like to catch garter snakes and bull snakes and let them slither up my arms.
But not anymore. After some less than positive encounters with snakes over the years, the sight of a snake now causes me to climb the closest object. On various instances, that object has been a fence post, my pickup hood, and even my wife, on one occasion. She’s never let me live that one down, especially since the snake that caused me to lose my mind was already dead. In my defense, though, her sister threw the dead snake at me, and as it flew through the air, it looked very lifelike.
My desire to get over my aversion to snakes causes me to pay extra attention when I see stories about the legless creatures. One of those stories caught my eye as I was looking for things to write about this week. A video on the Outdoor Hub featured a guy showing the “correct way” to kill a rattlesnake.
I know several ways to kill a rattlesnake. Shooting, shoveling, hacking with a hoe, or running them over with a pickup all tend to work. But this guy was correct when he said if you kill a snake any of those ways, the creepy little suckers can still bite you. That might be one of the reasons I don’t like them.
So he showed how to do it so you don’t get struck by a dead snake. He stepped on the snake’s head, grabbed it by the tail, then snapped it like a towel. The snapping motion broke the snake’s neck, and there was no post-mortem wiggling.
It was interesting, but I believe I’ll stick to blasting them with a shotgun. Or just staying far, far away from them.
Winters here are pretty mild. Sometimes they’re awfully cold, but for at least the last decade or so, they haven’t been bad at all. But we’re a little over a month into spring, and that’s when it starts to get ugly.
Even in May, snow isn’t unheard of around here. Neither are freezing temperatures. But it’s not the cold, the snow, or the mud that makes us tough. It’s the wind.
I’m convinced that the legendary fly-fisherman Jack Dennis wouldn’t have been as good as he is if he had spent his formative fly-fishing days in a state with less wind than Wyoming. After practicing for so long in 50 mph winds, I don’t think anything phases him anymore.
I’m no Jack Dennis, but I escape cabin fever by heading to Curt Gowdy State Park in the spring and do my best to get my flies in the water. Once in a while I get a good wind from my back and don’t have to worry about the cast. All I have to do is flip the fly into the air and fly it like a kite until the wind recedes enough to drop it to the water.
While all this is going on, I get sandblasted by rocks small enough to be picked up by Wyoming winds. They’re usually no bigger than four or five pounds each, but when a couple hundred of these smash against you, they take a toll.
Every once in a while, a nice, windless day will come along. I’ve gone out to nearby reservoirs to get photos for upcoming magazine and newspaper stories on days like that and had people ask me to not put the date in the cutline under the photo.
“I called in sick today,” one man recently told me. “My boss reads that magazine, and he’ll know I wasn’t at home in bed.”
Don’t worry. I’d be willing to bet your boss is just up the shore from you.
On our way back from Georgia last month, my wife, youngest son and I were in the rat maze line for security at the Atlanta airport. We kept coming even with a couple other guys on the other side of the ropes who were wearing a familiar logo. It wasn’t the Steamboat bucking horse, but it was nearly as identifiable. It was the rhino head logo of the Kifaru gear company.
I finally asked if they were just Kifaru enthusiasts or if they worked for the company. They said they did, and that they were coming back from finding out how to do some new gear construction techniques. And home for Kifaru, in case you didn’t know, is now Riverton. That’s where the headquarters is and where they actually make the gear they sell – right here in Wyoming.
If you haven’t checked Kifaru out, you need to. They make incredible packs, pack accessories, and technical outerwear. They also make tents and tent stoves. Their philosophy is to make top-quality gear that is rugged enough to handle everything from the backcountry to the battlefield, but that is equally at home in daily life.
I don’t have any Kifaru gear yet, but I plan to change that soon. I’ve got my eye on their Checkpoint day pack to use for my going-to-work bag. And their Rampart Duffel would make an excellent range bag.
It’s great that they’ve moved camp to Riverton. Their facility is in the building on Sunset where Big R used to be, and that’s where their main showroom is, too. If you’re in the Riverton area, stop in and check out their gear.
I know this isn’t really very Great Outdoorsy, but it was cool.
We were down in Colorado Springs last week while my son was shooting in the Junior Olympics, and I went down to the restaurant one night to get some drinks to take back to the room. I was standing in line to order behind a guy wearing a shirt that said “F-22 Raptor Demo Team,” so I asked him if he was in town to actually do a demo of the F-22. He said he was, and that the next day, they’d be flying over the Air Force Academy.
That was perfect timing. My son had his first relay earlier that morning, and his next one wasn’t until the following day. So the day they were doing the demo was Logan’s free day, and we didn’t have anything else we had to do. So that next morning, we cruised over to the Academy and followed the traffic over to the athletic center. We knew we were in the right place, because what appeared to be every cadet enrolled at the Academy was lining the balconies of the giant building just past where we parked.
Then we heard the jets coming. They had two F-22s fly over first, then a single Raptor thundered in overhead and spent about 20 minutes showing what that incredible aircraft was capable of. The cadets had a great view, but ours was even better. Where we happened to park was directly under where that plane was flying.
My son described the noise as being smothered between two huge, heavy pillows that were screaming at top volume. In other words, it was awesome.
My son started doing precision shooting with the American Legion Post 6 shooting team down here in Cheyenne, and he got really good really fast. The Post 6 team has a bunch of equipment the kids can use, all the way from the shooting mat to the suit, and they even have precision rifles. It was all wonderful to get Logan started, but now that he’s knocking on the door of shooting consistent 100-point targets, he needed to step up to the next level.
So he started shooting with the Excaliber Shooting Team, where he can get more advanced coaching from Phillip Dobkins, who is an amazing shooter himself. But as good a shooter as he is, he’s an even better coach. He helped Logan improve his scores by 50 points in only a couple of weeks leading up to the Junior Olympics.
The problem is, Phillip got me shooting, too. I think he set me up with a precision rifle to shoot mainly to get me out of his hair while he was coaching Logan, but he’s now coaching me, too. He keeps telling me I could be competitive, too, though on a much different level than Logan.
So now, as we’re looking at buying a shooting suit, shooting boots, pellet stands, spotting scopes and a precision rifle for Logan, now I’m starting to think about buying all that stuff for myself, too. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A lot of precision shooters do both air rifle and small-bore, which is an incredibly accurate .22 rifle. At least the suit and most everything else can be used for both, but it would require yet another multi-thousand-dollar gun.
I’m hoping Phillip will tell me there’s no hope for me soon. Then I can focus all my attention – and all my spare money – on helping Logan get to the next level.
It’s official. I’m now a precision shooter’s father. My son Logan competed last week in the Junior Olympics National Championship. If he wasn’t already hooked on air rifle shooting, he certainly is now.
He qualified for Junior Olympics by being the Wyoming Men’s State Champion for his age group, but truth be told, there weren’t a lot of other kids he was competing against. He actually had the second-to-lowest score of all the qualifiers going in. He knew he would be competing against kids who were turning in much higher scores than he’d ever achieved, but that didn’t discourage him. To be fair, he’s shooting a rifle that isn’t customized to him, and he’s using a shooting suit that doesn’t fit him quite right. I’m pretty sure all the other kids there were shooting their own rifles and wearing their own suits, while his equipment all belongs to his shooting club.
Yet he still shot well, and his scores improved at every practice and through the first relay at Junior Olympics. He came close to shooting another personal record on his last relay at nationals, too, but finished just a few points short.
But now he’s hooked. While we were down at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, we got him a new used shooting suit. It actually fits him perfectly, so that’ll help him a lot. And sometime in the next few weeks, we’ll pick up a rifle for him from a friend whose kid doesn’t use it anymore, and we’ll get it adjusted exactly right for him.
So the second phase of being a precision shooter parent has begun – the spending phase. All this equipment is incredibly expensive, even the used stuff. I think I’m going to have to start mowing lawns in my spare time to afford it.
It’s my wife’s birthday today, and I want to wish her the happiest birthday of her entire life. It’s the least I can do. Really. I can’t get her a present, because I’ve spent all our money on hunting licenses, fishing tackle, GPS receivers, guns, bows, tents, and other gear. Granted, that stuff’s all absolutely essential, and I actually got some of it for her, whether she knew she needed it or not. But it just doesn’t leave much left in the billfold for the other things she probably wants.
I always feel sorta bad this time of year when I realize there’s only a buck or two in my checking account. I’d like to send her off somewhere for a nice, relaxing day at a spa, where they do all that mysterious stuff. She’s surrounded by guys here at home, and I think she might like to have a few hours in a place where people aren’t belching, breaking wind, tracking mud across the floor and generally being pigs.
I used to think she encouraged me to get outside and go hunting or fishing just to get me out of her hair for a while, but after more than 20 years of marriage, I realize her reasons are a lot more selfless. She actually wants me to do stuff I like to do. Sure, I need to mop the kitchen floor after I track mud across it, I need to clean the sink after I fill it up with pheasant feathers, and I’m supposed to vacuum my dog’s hair up off the rug every few days, but that’s a pretty good deal, considering I also get the best wife in the world out of it.
But today’s her day. She has to work today, so I’ll try to give her another day just for her in the near future. Maybe I can delay buying a case of ammo or something so I can send her off to that spa. If she’s not excited about having cucumber slices stuck on her eyes, maybe I can just take the kids somewhere so she can spend the day riding her horses. And when the boys and I come home, we’ll try not to track mud across the floor. Happy birthday, Amy!
Trout are Wyoming’s big fishing draw. We have rainbows, browns, lake trout, brookies and even goldens. You can even catch some hybrid trout, like splake and tiger trout, in some of the state’s waters. We also have four subspecies of cutthroats. Our state’s the only one where you can get a Cutt-Slam by catching a Colorado River, Bonneville, Yellowstone and Snake River cutthroat trout in their native waters.
But trout aren’t the only fish you can catch here. We also have an impressive selection of other game fish. We have walleye, of course. Walleye are probably the best-tasting freshwater fish in the world. I don’t know many walleye fishermen who catch and release.
We also have yellow perch, bluegill, kokanee salmon, sauger, mountain whitefish, grayling, rock, large and smallmouth bass, catfish, ling, pike, tiger muskies, crappie, pumpkinseeds, shovelnose sturgeon, green sunfish and freshwater drum. There may be more gamefish in Wyoming’s waters, but I’m out of breath.
If none of those get your motor running, you might try fishing for some of the nongame fish. Common and grass carp can be found in many of our reservoirs, and they’re an awful lot of fun to catch. Especially on ultralight tackle.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there are plenty of different types of fish around here. I don’t know how fishing could ever get boring, but if you find yourself less excited about another fishing trip, consider going after a different species than what you usually try to land.
Whatever type of fish you try to catch, make sure you read the fishing regulations carefully before you go. There are different limits for the different kinds of fish.
If you’re up for a challenge, try to catch all the different species of gamefish in Wyoming. It’ll keep you busy for a while, but I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.
Even hunters I know who pay thousands of dollars to go on safaris or Alaskan adventures don’t do it just for the trophies. I know quite a few people who have had to add a room to their houses to display their collection of mounts, but even those folks usually say there’s more to the hunt than what they hang on their walls.
Far more of my hunting friends are more like me – we might get lucky and get the chance to hunt in another state someday, but nearly all of our hunting experiences happen right here in the Cowboy State.
There are quite a few reasons we hunt. We like the healthy meat it provides for our families. We know hunting plays a vital role in the management of the populations of all wild animals – not just the ones we hunt. We look forward to the time we spend in the field with our friends and family. We know it gives us a reason to stay in shape, and the hunts themselves test our fitness and survival abilities. We relish the opportunity to get outside and experience nature. If you ask most hunters, even those who might have their names in a hunting record book somewhere, what the top 10 reasons they hunt are, coming home with a trophy animal might not even make the list.
I wish there were an easy way to explain to those who don’t hunt that most hunters aren’t just bloodthirsty killers. We value the species we don’t hunt as highly as we value the ones we do hunt. Our license fees, taxes on hunting equipment, conservation group dues and other fees pay almost the entire bill for conservation efforts. And we police our own, we follow the rules, and we protect more wildlife than we hunt. If we get a big bull elk or a massive pronghorn buck, that’s great. But most of us are happy with whatever we can get. You can’t eat antlers or horns anyway.
As I was going through my emails on Sunday, one message caught my attention. The preview showed a video of a grizzly bear running on a treadmill. That video did what it was intended to do – it got me to read the rest of the email.
It turns out scientists from Washington State University are studying the eating and movement habits of bears in an effort to minimize confrontations between bears and humans. Making bears run on treadmills is one of the components of that study. It seems to me that this might actually increase tension between bears and people – If I were a bear, and some human forced me to run on a treadmill, I’m pretty sure I’d eat the next person I came across.
The treadmill is only part of the research, though. They’re also watching bears in the wild and noting their movements and activities in their natural habitat. And what they’re finding is that both bears and humans tend to take the easiest route possible whenever they can. That seems a little obvious, and it makes me wonder if all this work was really necessary. Especially the stuff with the treadmill.
But the conclusion is the important part. Because both bears and people try to avoid the steeper trails, dense woods filled with deadfall, and other obstacles that make a long walk more difficult, both species seek out the easiest paths possible through the backcountry. That leads to confrontations, because the bears and the people wind up using the same paths.
So if you’re hoping to avoid running into a bear on your hikes this summer, take the more difficult trail. Go up the steep mountainside, instead of the shallow incline around. Maybe. On the other hand, bears are wild animals. Even treadmill studies won’t tell us where they’ll be at any given moment.
Even if I win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and find myself duded up in the fanciest fishing finery, I won’t become a fly-fishing purist.
I’ve never claimed to be a proper fly fisherman. I’m the type of angler who makes the purists of the sport wrinkle their noses and turn away in disgust. But that’s OK with me. I’d rather enjoy my time on the water than turn a supposedly fun activity into work. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with owning high-tech fly-fishing gear. I don’t have a problem with people who look like they came straight to the stream from an Orvis catalog shoot. What I have a problem with is the purist attitude.
I don’t don breathable waders and carry a portable fly-tying kit with me to the center of the river. As a matter of fact, I hardly ever even wear waders at all. I’ll pull on my camo duck hunting waders if the water’s too cold for wading without them, or I’ll just find a spot on the bank where I can get a good backcast.
Part of this is pure laziness. It takes effort to learn which bugs hatch at specific times of the year. I’d rather just take a close look at the insects buzzing around my head or bobbing on the surface of the water, then rifle through my fly boxes to find a pattern that looks like the critters the fish are eating.
On a couple of occasions, I’ve seen guys actually pumping a fish’s stomach to see what it had been feeding on. That’s taking it a bit far. If I ever use a stomach pump, I hope another angler beats me to death with my own fly rod.
Besides not wanting to do the work it takes to become the perfect fly fisherman, I want to keep my options open. I’ve been known to put the fly rod down and tie a Mepps on my spinning rod’s line or thread a worm on a hook. That’s a cardinal sin to a true fly angler.
No, I’ll never be the perfect fly fisherman. It just takes too much effort, and I enjoy fishing too much to make work of it. I probably won’t ever latch onto a state record cutthroat, but I’ll have a good time hooking the smaller fish that are easier to catch.
Don’t wait to do the things you’ll need to do to enjoy the summer. Get your fishing license and conservation stamp now, while your checking account is still fat from your tax return. Standing on the riverbank, watching a guy in a red shirt and green vest coming your way is a bad time to realize you don’t have the required paperwork.
Pull the tent out of the garage and set it up in your back yard. Use the spring storms to make sure your portable home still sheds water. You don’t want to be ten miles deep in the wilderness when you find out your tent lets more water in than it keeps out. If you find some leaky spots, slap some waterproofer on them now, when you can leave the tent up long enough to dry.
Strip your fishing gear down and oil your reels. Replace the line that’s been wound around the spools since the Reagan administration, unless you enjoy telling about the one that got away.
While you’re getting ready for the summer, you might as well prepare for the fall, too. If you haven’t done it already, sign up for a hunter education course. If you were born in 1965 or later, you’ll have to have a hunter safety card to hunt in Wyoming. Call your local Game and Fish regional office to find out when and where the next class is offered in your area.
So get everything ready for your upcoming outdoors adventures now. Don’t wait until the night before you plan to leave town to make sure everything works the way it should. When you’re showing your valid fishing license to the game warden, listening to the rain patter on your tent’s fly or reeling in the new state record brown trout, you’ll be glad you planned ahead.
You don’t have to go to the same place every time you go fishing. When you find a good spot to fish, it’s nice to know you can go back there and catch fish. But if your honey hole dries up, or if someone else finds it, you’re going to need another place to go.
More people started go get outside during the pandemic, and a lot of those people are still heading outdoors for their recreation. The number of people who fish has increased quite a bit over what it was a few years ago, and that means many of the more secluded places to fish might not be so secluded soon.
Don’t wait until you have to find a new place to fish. Spend some time this spring looking for good alternates. You may not find a better place, but if you put some effort into it, you might be able to find several that are almost as good.
Before you step outside, grab a pile of maps. Take a good look at several topos. If you like to fish cricks and beaver ponds, look for little blue lines that meander through widely-spaced contour lines. If you would rather fish bigger waterways, look for places where tributaries feed into rivers.
Find your favorite honey hole on a map, and look for other spots that might be similar. That’s not always going to mean a place you’ve never been to will be just like your go-to fishing hole, but it’s a good place to start. There are things that don’t show up on a map that make a hole a good fishing hole, like submerged logs, riffles and other features. But there are other things, like inlets where smaller streams feed bigger ones, that you can find on maps.
Once you have a few likely places, go check ‘em out. Spend the spring exploring new areas. Take your maps with you when you go. Circle the good places and cross off the crummy ones.
You might not find anything better than your usual spot. You may spend several weekends checking out new waters and realize you had the best spot picked out from the start. But then again, maybe you will find a better place. And at the very least, you’ll see some new country.
A guy who said he listens to this show nearly every morning called the other day and asked if I’d refresh his memory about the Fishing Fitness System. It’s an exercise program I came up with by accident, but it’s fun, and it works. It works very slowly, but that’s part of the beauty of it. Since you don’t shed pounds quickly, you’ll have to do it often. I came up with the program when a friend asked me if I thought a guy could lose weight fishing. That got me thinking about my own fishing style, and the Fishing Fitness System was born.
To start the system, grab a map of a place you’ve always wanted to go fishing but haven’t gotten around to going to yet. Find a few places on that map you’re likely to get into some good fishing. Now load all your fishing gear into the truck. The more gear you have, the better the workout will be. You’ll get a great aerobic workout trotting back and forth to the truck to get the spinning rod when the fly rod isn’t getting results, or vice-versa.
Here’s the key part: Once you’ve gotten to your fishing hole, resist your urge to try different lures. If you need to, carry only one type of spinner in your vest. For instance, my spinner selection consists entirely of red and white Mepps Aglias in sizes 0, 1 and 2. Instead of trying to find the lure the fish are biting on, try to find the fish that are hungry for what you’re offering. Try several casts in one hole, then move upstream to the next riffle and toss a few more lines there.
Keep this up until you just can’t take it anymore. Then go get the fly rod and repeat the process.
So get out and try to snag the big one. Unlike a lot of the weight loss products on the market, I can’t guarantee results. But maybe you’ll actually work off that spare tire in an enjoyable way.
Anglers all have different definitions of personal space. One fisherman’s comfortable distance may be felt as an intrusion by another. And unlike personal space at the office or at the store, this personal space isn’t just a six- or eight-foot bubble around that angler.
If you’re approaching another angler, watch which way he seems to be going. If a fisherman is moving downstream, his personal space probably includes the next few holes downriver. Likewise, if he’s working his way against the current, you’ll tick him off if you leapfrog him and start fishing just upstream of where he is. Don’t set up shop at the next likely riffle. If it’s possible, go far enough away from the other angler that you can’t see him anymore.
If you come upon a fisherwoman and are not sure which direction she’s moving, ask. If she’s going downstream, ask if it’s OK if you toss a line in some of the holes she’s already tried. But keep your conversation short. One of the reasons people go fishing is to get away from other humans.
If you’re working the waters and someone comes too close, politely let them know. Try not to be rude or sarcastic, no matter how peeved you are that your space has been violated. That other angler most likely isn’t trying to be a jerk; he just may not have the same sense of personal space you do.
If that doesn’t work, move on to another spot. You might find yourself a brand-new honey hole.
And here’s one I’ve been guilty of. When you pull up to your favorite fishing hole and see a vehicle with out-of-state plates, don’t be too quick to pass judgement. Everyone who pays the license fee is entitled to cast a line in Wyoming’s waters, no matter what state they call home. Keep in mind that the fuel, food and flies they buy while they’re within our borders help keep our economy afloat. And nonresidents pay a lot more for their licenses. All that money comes back to manage the wildlife you hunt and the fish you try to catch.
So mind your manners while you fling your flies.
I don’t know when we started going spring bear hunting, or how many years we made it an annual tradition, but it was one of the things I looked forward to for months each winter. Dad would take a few days off each spring, and we’d pack up the truck and go looking for black bears.
We started bear hunting before I was old enough to hunt myself, but I went along to help Dad anyway. We used the spot-and-stalk method, but in all the years we tried, we failed on the “spot” part. That definitely made the “stalk” piece harder, too. We never saw a bear while we were out there.
We talked several times about increasing our chances by hunting over a bait, but we never took the steps necessary to do it. Using a bait certainly makes it more likely you’ll get a bear – or at the very least see some bears – but we were good with just trying to find the bears in the woods, even if we faced long odds of ever seeing one.
But that’s not to say our hunts were unsuccessful. We both thoroughly enjoyed the hunts. We got to see some great country, we got to spend time together, and we had a lot of fun on those trips. Even though we never got a bear, we had a lot of laughs, practiced our woodcraft and honed our survival skills.
For instance, we learned that if Mom had packed our snacks, there was a good chance she sent us with the low-sodium versions of Wheat Thins. That’ll never do. So we made sure we each had our own salt shaker, so that we could lick the cracker, sprinkle some salt on it, and then eat it. That’s an advanced survival skill right there. You don’t want to get caught out on a bear hunt with low-sodium snacks and not have the proper gear to make them edible.
I think it’s time for another spring bear hunt. I wonder if Dad’s got time. I’ll bring the salt.
While my son Colby is down in Georgia learning how to be an Army of One, his blacksmithing tools are just gathering dust. I got to thinking I could use some of his scrap steel to build some racks for my hunting equipment to keep it organized in the shop and the barn.
So I went out into the shop last weekend and fired up the forge. I would have asked Colby if it was OK to use his stuff, but he can’t get phone calls down there, and it takes months for letters to get to him. Besides, I paid for the propane for the forge, and he uses my tools all the time, so I figured it was fair game.
I also figured it couldn’t be that hard to heat up metal and bang it into various shapes. I was right about some of that. Bending metal is easy, as long as you’re just bending it in one direction. It got pretty tricky when I tried to twist the steel to make a decorative shape for my bow holder. I ended up with something that looks like it got run over by a dump truck several times.
The other tricky thing was putting holes in the metal so I could screw the newly created bow and arrow racks to the wall. I tried to drill it, but I ended up just dulling my drill bit. Then I got the brilliant idea to heat the metal up with the forge to make it soft, then drill the hot steel. But all that accomplished was melting the drill bit. I finally had to use one of Colby’s metal punches to bang the holes into the metal. And that caused the steel to jump on the anvil. Now’s a good time to warn you to never, ever try to catch a chunk of steel that’s falling off the anvil.
But ugly finished products, ruined drill bits and third-degree burns aside, I got it done. My gear has new racks to keep it organized, even if they look like they were built by a kindergartener.
There aren’t many places in the world you can’t get to by commercial airlines anymore. Just about anywhere is only a few hours away – some more hours than others, of course. Even if where you want to go isn’t right where the big planes take you, you can usually find a bush pilot or something to take you the rest of the way.
I’ve often dreamed of hunting in Alaska, and that’s how it would be up there. Anywhere within horse distance of any of the populated areas is completely overrun with other people, so you have to charter a bush plane to get farther back in the backcountry where terrestrial travel makes it difficult, if not impossible, to reach.
But after my last flight, when I went down to visit my son at Basic Training in Georgia, I don’t know if I ever want to fly again. The airline we flew on used to be the best one, but now I think it’s the worst. Or at least close to the worst. My wife had miles to use, so she got a free flight, but what they don’t tell you is that the miles only apply to the ticket itself. Do you want to bring a bag? That’s extra. Carry-on? Charge for that, too. Oh, and the checked luggage weight limit is now 40 pounds, when all the other airlines are at 50 or even 60. And then you have to pay for the actual seat, and that’s not covered in the miles, either. Her free flight cost $450.
The thing is, they have us over a barrel, and they know it. I could probably drive to Alaska for a hunt, but if I want to hunt in Africa, driving would be problematic, to say the least.
I think I’ll just stick to hunting right here in Wyoming for now.
When we went to Georgia to watch my son graduate from Basic Training, he had three days of leave. We spent a lot of that leave time running around Columbus, Georgia, getting him the things he’d need for the next phase of his Army training. The first stop was the combat boot store. I didn’t realize there were so many choices, but I supposed it shouldn’t have surprised me. There are probably thousands of different boots you can get for hunting, so why should the military be any different?
Granted, all the boots they get for the military have to look exactly the same. But it turns out UnderArmour, Nike, Danner, Garmont, and probably 12 other companies make boots that fit those uniform requirements. Colby tried on a bunch of different brands, and he ended up with a pair of Danners and a pair of Garmonts. He immediately switched out the pair he was issued for one of his new ones, and he handed the original ones to me. He told me he never wanted to see those boots again, unless it was to fill them with Tannerite and blow them up.
So when I got home, I put those boots on. We wear the same size, so I though maybe I’d give them a try and see what he was whining about. I only had to wear them for about 20 minutes to figure out exactly why he hated them. When we were at the graduation, about half the platoon was hobbling around, and now I know why. If they were all wearing these horrid boots, it’s a miracle any of them could still walk at all.
I hope his new boots are better than the original ones. He still has a heck of a lot of walking to do over the next 12 weeks, and I can’t imagine going on a single elk hunt in those things, let alone three months in them.
Make sure you have good boots, whether you’re going to Basic or going hunting. Take care of your feet.
Almost a decade and a half ago, Wyoming first put regulations on shed antler and horn hunting. That law banned collection of shed antlers west of the Continental Divide during the winter. The purpose of the law was to prevent the harassment of wildlife in those months when the animals can’t afford to spend any extra energy running away. They’re already spending almost as much energy just getting their food as they get from it, so if people start running them around, trying to get them to drop their antlers, they might not make it through the winter.
The new rules go a bit further. This time around, the laws aren’t about protecting the animals – they’re about making the experience of shed hunting more pleasant for Wyoming residents. There’s still the prohibition against venturing onto public lands west of the Divide until the spring, but now residents get a one-week head start over nonresidents. Additionally, nonresidents will have to buy a shed hunting stamp, which in effect is a license. Residents and kids under the age of 15 don’t need the stamp, but adults from outside the state do.
I’ve read a few horror stories about people getting threatened, harassed or otherwise bullied while they were out in the woods looking for sheds. Hopefully there will be less of that with these new laws. If you do get harassed or threatened, report it to law enforcement or a game warden as soon as you can.
And this should go without saying, but if you’re out there in the woods, looking for sheds, give other shed hunters space, and try not to cut them off from the places they were heading. They call it shed hunting for a reason – treat it like hunting, and give your fellow shed hunters the courtesy you would like them to give you.
Good luck this spring.
I’ve been working with my youngest son, Logan, as he prepares for air rifle shooting at the Junior Olympics. He’s shooting from 10 meters, and his target is about the size of a silver dollar. The 10-point ring on the target isn’t a ring at all – it’s a dot. The nine-ring is the size of the pellet itself. His objective is to punch out that 10-dot with every single shot. There are 10 of those targets per page, and depending on the competition, he gets anywhere from two to 10 minutes per target to get it all shot.
When I went down to Fort Benning for my older son’s graduation from Basic Training, though, Colby explained how they shoot. It’s quite a bit different than what Logan’s doing. Colby and his fellow soldiers each have one minute and 15 shots to hit three targets at each 50-yard increment from 50 yards out to 150, then two each at 200 and 250 yards, and the last two targets are at 300 and 350. The closer targets are about 10 inches by 20 inches, and the farther targets are 20 by 40 inches. It doesn’t matter where they hit those targets, as long as they hit.
Now I need to brag a little bit on both of my boys. They are both doing extremely well with their respective shooting disciplines. Colby is one of the top shooters in his company, and Logan was one of the first-invite qualifiers for the national Junior Olympics in precision air gun shooting. And even though their shooting styles are vastly different, they share some commonalities in the basics. They both have to have solid holds, good breath control, and good trigger control. They spent some time while we were in Georgia comparing notes, and I like to think they both helped each other.
And it’s official – they’re both far better shots than I am now. And I couldn’t be happier about that.
If you do anything outdoors, you probably have at least one trailer. Most hunters, hikers, campers and other outdoor enthusiasts I know actually have several. I’m no exception.
I used to have a little camper I could take to the woods to stay in on hunting or fishing trips, and it worked pretty well for going to the rodeos I photograph, too. But if I wanted to take anything else along, like a four-wheeler or a horse, I would have been out of luck. I would either have to take either the horse in the horse trailer and have no camper, or take the camper, and have no horse.
That camper turned out to be just too small for our family, so we sold it about a year ago. On one hand, I was kind of sad to see it go, because it meant I was back to camping in a tent when I head to the hills. But I prefer to get a long way from the road before I bed down for the night, so that’s OK. And at least since I no longer own that camper, I don’t have to do any of the upkeep and maintenance on it anymore.
Besides, we have several other trailers. And the stock trailer actually has a tack area in front that’s big enough to sleep in, if I want to haul it to the hills for a hunt. I can throw my sleeping bag up in the nook over the gooseneck, and it’ll do just fine as a camper. I can also take a horse or two along with me.
Eventually, I hope to be able to get another camper, though. It was nice to be able to pull a little house on wheels with me for an overnight turkey hunt or something, and have a place to cook a meal or two. But a camper’s just another set of trailer lights to constantly fight with, at least two more tires to keep air in, and another license plate to pay for each year. I’ll stick with the multi-purpose trailer for now. At least until I win the lottery.
If you’re wandering around the woods, making noise and doing everything you should do to keep from startling a bear, chances are you won’t see one. But even the best precautions don’t always work.
But what if you’re hunting turkeys, and you’re doing your best to stay quiet?
If you startle a bear while you’re hiking or hunting, the first thing to do is to watch its body language. A stressed bear will pace or pant and swing its head. It might also huff or woof, and it may snap its jaws and slobber. These signals mean the bear is threatened. If you don’t leave it alone, it might try to defend itself. And even a small, 200-pound bear can defend himself pretty effectively.
Get your defenses ready. Pepper spray is the most effective defense you can find. But make sure your can of spray is no older than two years old. That’s the recommendation, and I don’t see any reason to question it. It might work if it’s three or four years old, but I don’t want to be the guy testing the hypothesis.
Take the safety off and hold it at the ready. If the bear stays put, back away slowly. Don’t turn your back on the bear. Don’t look the bear in the eye, either. Eye contact is a sign of aggression between bears.
If you can’t back away or if the bear charges anyway, stand your ground. It might be a bluff charge. Fire your pepper spray directly into the bear’s face and keep spraying until the bear turns away or until your can is empty.
Drop to the ground only if the bear makes contact with you. Lie flat on your stomach and lace your fingers behind your head. When the bear has decided he has shown you who is boss, he’ll go away. That may be easier said than done, but it’s all you can do in that situation.
But do all you can to avoid a confrontation. You and the bear will be better off for it.
Reports are coming in that both black bears and grizzlies are emerging from their winter dens. That’s something to be aware of if you’re planning any trips to the woods in the next few weeks.
Grizzlies get more press than black bears, but all bears can be dangerous if you surprise them. Always stay aware of your surroundings while you’re hiking, and make noise while you walk to avoid startling a bear.
Special rules apply to areas where grizzlies tend to be found in relatively high numbers. These rules, which are good guidelines in black bear country, too, include hanging your food and other items that attract bears 10 feet off the ground and four feet out from any vertical support.
When you get done cooking and eating, bag your garbage in a sealable bag and hang it in the storage area. This storage area should be at least 100 yards from the sleeping area. The same goes for the cooking area. Cooking releases a lot of scents that can attract bears, so you want to be sleeping as far as possible from where you’ve cooked your dinner. In addition, change your clothes after you cook or eat and store the clothes in a sealed bag and hang the bag in the storage area.
These rules are designed to protect both bears and people. If you don’t follow the rules, bears can become conditioned to humans and see them as a source of food. A conditioned bear may have to be killed to prevent a human tragedy. It only takes one incident to ruin a bear’s natural instincts to stay away from humans.
Another thing to keep in mind is that bears are most active at dusk, dawn and during the night. Stay clear of likely bear habitat at these times. Don’t go bumbling into a brush patch alone in the middle of the night. There could well be a bear in there trying to figure out how to get your food out of the tree it’s hanging in.
We’ve covered what you should do to avoid putting yourself on a bear’s menu. Tune in tomorrow to find out what to do if these precautions fail.
In my younger days, I made the mistake of thinking a scope was a scope, and there wasn’t any reason to spend more than a couple hundred bucks on one. I’d get a new rifle that cost many hundreds of dollars, then I’d bolt a cheap scope on it. The results were predictable – even though I had a very nice rifle to shoot, the optics reduced the overall performance.
Sometimes you can get away with a cheap scope, but if you hunt in any kind of inclement weather, if you are particular about where you want to hit the animals you’re hunting, or if you don’t want to worry about your scope losing its alignment easily, you might want to spend more than a few hundred dollars on the optics. You probably really don’t absolutely need a scope that connects to your iPhone and calculates windage and loft depending on your distance from your target and the current weather conditions, but those are available – and made by at least one Wyoming company – and they’d be really cool to have.
But you do want to get a scope that’s fully multi-coated to prevent fogging up in bad weather, and one that’s built to take the rigors of a hike or a ride on a four-wheeler or a horse into the backcountry, and you’ll probably need to spend a bit more for one of those.
I finally learned my lesson, after swapping out cheap scopes for far too long. But all that sighting in would have been much easier if I’d owned my own bore sight. I finally remedied that problem, now that I have scopes I don’t have to change out every year or two. I always thought a good bore sight was prohibitively expensive, but you can get a nice one for less than $100. And with the ammo situation right now, a bore sight is a bargain at twice the price.
Ask any wild turkey hunter what season it is, and they’ll all agree it’s mud season. Springtime in Wyoming isn’t the beautiful time of rebirth and new growth it is in other parts of the country. We do have those things here, but they’re overshadowed – or completely buried – by mud.
Make sure you have your tire chains handy. And keep your FroggToggs rainsuit where you can reach it in your truck. I almost never wear my FroggToggs to keep me dry in the rain. Our rain around here usually doesn’t last long enough or come down heavily enough to justify getting out the rainsuit. But I use it all the time for putting the chains on my tires.
Not necessarily to stay dry, but rather to keep the mud off my other clothes. I don’t care how good you are at chaining up; you’re going to get completely covered in mud if you’re putting chains on this time of year. If you put on your FroggToggs before you get out of the truck, though, you can just peel the rainsuit off when you get done, and you’ll be relatively mud-free for your drive to town.
I just wish there were something like that rainsuit for the dogs. I spend half my day this time of year cleaning up the house. I suppose I could just leave the dogs outside until they dry out, but that would mean kicking them out until July. And what’s the point of having dogs if you can’t scratch them behind the ears while you’re watching Longmire on Netflix?
But the mud issues are about to get even worse. Spring turkey season’s coming up, and you can’t go turkey hunting without dragging two tons of mud back home with you. Even stuff I don’t take hunting will be muddy by the end of the season.
But it’s worth it. No matter how much cleaning I have to do when I get back, it’ll be good to get out to the forest for a few days. I just hope I remember my FroggToggs.
I’m constantly on the lookout for good tips and tricks to make getting to the backcountry easier or less likely to result in a stuck truck or an expensive repair. There are great articles in all sorts of magazines like Four Wheeler, Off Road, or even the hunting magazines. I saw an article in a back issue of Outside Magazine that piqued my interest. It was titled “How to Pack Your Pickup for Camping.”
I thought it would give some new advice for keeping stuff dry when it’s in the open bed of your truck. Maybe it would have some new revelation about the order you pack your gear to keep it protected or make everything fit better.
But no, the only advice about keeping things dry was to use a tarp. And the only revelation about the order you pack was to keep the cooler near the back, so you can reach your beer right away when you get to where you’re going to camp.
It seems the entire point of the article was to advise the reader to have plenty of a specific brand of ratchet straps and bungee cords on hand before loading everything into the truck.
It did get me thinking about advice for packing the truck for a hunting or fishing trip, though. I always manage to forget at least one important item on every trip. Well, at least I used to back when I picked on my dad for his checklists. The old man had a standard list of what seemed like everything he owned, and he’d peruse it before any trip we’d take. He’d scratch out the things he didn’t need for that particular trip, then make a tick when he got each needed item into a pile. He’d cross the tick when he loaded the item in the truck, as a double-check to make sure he’d packed everything he needed.
I finally broke down and pirated his checklist. It may be nerdy, but at least I don’t forget the toilet paper anymore.
I’ve been neglecting my bow for far too long. I haven’t pulled it out of the case since last archery season, and shooting a bow isn’t like riding a bike. You’ve got to keep practicing if you want to be able to hit what you’re aiming at.
Unfortunately, I feel like I need to do some basic tuning on my shooting, and to do that, I need a windless day. Those are hard to come by this time of year in Wyoming. I need to get some practice without too many extra variables to make sure I’m still somewhat competent before I start trying to shoot well in the wind.
I probably ought to renew my membership at the Cheyenne Field Archers range. It’s an indoor range, so you can practice inside, out of the elements, when it’s nasty outside. It certainly removes some of those variables. After a few weeks of shooting inside, out of the wind, maybe we’ll get some days when the wind’s not so bad and I can shoot outside again.
It’s important to get outside to shoot in the wind, too, though. It’s often windy during the archery season, and you’ve got to be able to shoot well no matter the conditions. But I need to make sure I’m still somewhat accurate first.
I believe there are indoor archery ranges in many other places in Wyoming. If you’re an archer, you should probably be a member of one of them. They’re great places to practice when the weather’s not conducive to doing it outside, but on top of that, they’re also great places to meet other archers who can help you shoot better. Or join an archery league, if you’re so inclined. That’s a great way to push yourself to shoot better.
As for me, I’m going to start with just trying to hit paper. Maybe I’ll get good enough to think about joining a league again in a couple of months.
I spent probably more time than I should have in Wyoming Outdoor Company in Lander over the weekend, especially over by the gun counter.
I don’t know what it is about guns that make me want more of them, but they had quite a few in their racks that just cried out to me to take them home.
I started by checking out the double guns. I actually do really need a good over-and-under. I started shooting trap several years ago, and I’ve just used my 12-gauge pump. I have a 20-gauge pump, too, but it’s a youth model. I use that 12-gauge for all my bird hunting. I suppose it’s just fine, but I just feel like I’d be so much better at trap – and upland bird hunting, too – if I had a good over-and-under for it.
I moved from there to the lever-action rifles, then the bolts. I’m a huge fan of the venerable old Winchester Model 94, and there are many other lever-actions that are nearly as wonderful. I’d love to have a .45-70, or maybe a cowboy action rifle that shoots the same rounds as a revolver I could use for that sport.
The bolts open up another whole can of worms when it comes to calibers. Yes, I have a great rifle for coyotes, another for deer and antelope, and yet another that’s perfect for elk. But I’d love to have a .338, maybe a .22-250, and possibly a 7mm Mag. Then there’s that 6-8 Western that’s getting lots of attention lately. And just for kicks (literally), a .50 BMG would be spectacular.
There were more than a few rifles and shotguns I would have loved to have, but I somehow resisted the impulse. I’m not sure I can resist it much longer, though, so I should probably stay away from places where guns are sold for a little while.
Besides, I should probably get better with the guns I already have before I get more.
I finally got my backyard shooting range built up just right. The backstop is perfect, and I have shooting stations set up at 50-yard distances out to 350 yards. The only problem is that when I’m shooting from the longer ranges, I still need to walk or drive up to the backstop to see where I hit. I have a pretty good spotting scope, but I can’t quite see the target as well as I’d like from 250 or 300 yards.
But then I was checking out all the goods on display at Wyoming Outdoor Company in Lander, and I ran across a device called the Long Shot Target Camera. This thing’s pretty cool. It has a camera you mount up near the target, pointing at what you’re shooting at, and a receiver you take with you back to your shooting spot. The receiver beams an up-close image of the target to your iPad or other mobile device, where you can see exactly where on the target you’re hitting.
There are several different options, including the LR-3 system, which is billed as being able to give you that close-up look at the target all the way out to two miles. That’s way longer than I would probably ever need, and I might have trouble justifying its $900 price tag. But they make a 300-yard version, too, and it’s a little less expensive, at $450. That one might not be enough for my 350-yard range, though, and I’ve got plans to add some stations at 400 and 450 yards, if I get good enough to make it worthwhile from the distances I already have.
I got to researching the Long Shot online when I got home, and it turns out there are some other remote target camera systems that are a little less expensive, too. Caldwell, Midway, and others make similar systems, but it looks like the Long Shot is the only one you can get a guarantee that will cover it if you accidentally shoot the camera (for an extra cost).
For now, though, I’ll keep driving up to check my targets.
I was really looking forward to Mule Deer Days, the outdoor expo put on by the Muley Fanatics Federation and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department last Friday and Saturday. But I had to work Friday, so I didn’t get on the road from Cheyenne until the afternoon. By that time, even though I-80 had been open earlier in the day, it was closed again.
So my son and I, eager to still get to Rock Springs for the event, went north up I-25 through Casper and over to Riverton, hoping to drop down through Lander and Farson on Wyoming 28. But about the time we hit Casper, we saw on the WYDOT map that the highway was closed at South Pass. By then, though, we had come that far, so we figured we’d keep going and see if we’d get lucky and the road would open up.
It was pretty late by the time we got to Riverton, but I was still really hoping to make it to Mule Deer Days, so in desperation I checked to see how the road looked if we were to keep going over Togwotee Pass and down into Jackson, then south down to Rock Springs. But that didn’t look good, either. The road cams looked worse at Antelope Flats than they did on the already closed South Pass, so we figured we’d probably just get stuck in Dubois if we kept going. Our only hope was to stay in Riverton for the night and hope they opened South Pass by morning.
But Saturday morning, there was no chance of getting through South Pass. We waited until 10, hoping it would open up, but it never did. And by that time, we wouldn’t be able to get there before the whole expo was over.
So we just hit a couple sporting goods stores in Lander and Riverton, then we came home. It was a bummer, but that’s the way it goes in Wyoming this time of year. Stay safe out there if you’re traveling our fair state.
I want to see outdoors shows that are realistic. I get pretty tired of watching anglers catch fish with every cast. Send a video camera along on one of my fishing trips, and you’ll see something completely different.
It doesn’t matter if I’m using worms, spinners or flies. I just don’t catch fish. If I’m using worms, they’re biting on spinners. When I switch to spinners, they suddenly get an appetite for flies. If I pick up my fly fishing gear, they’ll only eat worms. Everybody else I go fishing with catches fish, but I hardly ever do.
But that’s not my only problem. I always have some gear malfunction. Last week, before we got socked with snow, I went out to Crystal Reservoir, and I chucked a brand-new twelve-dollar Rapala out into the water.
When I say I chucked it into the water, I mean just that. I tied it onto my line, flipped the bail, made a cast, and my line fed out about 20 feet. Then the line snarled. Badly. It stopped short, but the lure kept going. The line snapped off, and the last time I saw that lure was when it splashed into the water about 40 yards away from shore.
I’d like to see a fishing show where somebody has luck as bad as mine. It would be refreshing to know I’m not the only one who slams rods in truck tailgates, drops reels in rivers during the spring runoff and forgets to bring the rowboat’s oars when driving halfway across the state to float a river.
Just once, it would be nice to see a professional fisherman throw everything he has at the water for an entire episode and fail to get so much as a nibble. It would be a bonus to see other anglers in the background hauling fish out of the water as the show’s host comes up with nothing.
But until someone gives me a fishing show, that’s probably not going to happen. If that’s the kind of entertainment you want to watch, come fishing with me. And bring along some extra Rapalas.
The hunting season for upland birds in Wyoming has been closed since the end of December. But if you’re a die-hard uplander, you can still hunt. There are several bird farms in Wyoming that offer pheasant, quail, and chukar hunts, and since the birds were raised by a private outfit, you can plunk down your money and hunt ‘em. If you want to do that, though, you’ll have to do it pretty soon. Even the pen-raised bird season doesn’t last forever. It ends March 31.
There are still ways to hunt after the pen-raised bird season closes, but not for most of us. The exceptions are hunt tests and field trials for dogs, and the organizers of those events can apply for permits to release and shoot upland game birds. But for the most part, if you’re hoping to get a few more birds this year, you need to get it done soon.
Hunting pen-raised birds can be somewhat pricey, but it’s worth it to a lot of hunters. If you have a young dog, you can’t beat the training a farm hunt can provide. The same’s true for young hunters. You know there are birds out there, and in some cases, you might know a general vicinity where they’ll probably be holding.
Then again, a farm hunt can also be more unpredictable. Some of the farms are pretty big, and there’s no telling where they’ll turn the birds loose, let alone where they’ll land when they stop flying. Hunts on those farms are more like wild hunts, except that your chances of flushing a bird are generally a lot better.
Get the dog out a few more times and give him some more practice before the summer. Get the kids into the field and make sure they’re hooked on bird hunting. Or just go out there yourself and put a few more pheasants in the freezer. Just do it before March 31.
I will admit, I don’t clean my guns nearly as often as I should. After a day at the range, I might have four or five guns that are in serious need of a good scrubbing. Usually, I do the right thing and take them apart, clean the actions and barrels, and put them back in the safe. But sometimes, I neglect that very important job, and just put them away.
There are a few products that make cleaning the guns less of a chore, though. Bore snakes are wonderful inventions. If you don’t take your guns all the way apart and clean every piece, you can at least run a bore snake through the action and the barrel, and that’s sometimes good enough to keep your gun in good working condition.
But you still need to tear it down and clean it up every once in a while. What makes that job so tedious is the cotton patches you have to keep changing out. They get gunked up and just start smearing stuff around, rather than actually cleaning. A product called Swab-Its eliminates that problem.
Swab-Its are foam swabs, and they’re disposable. They are like giant Q-Tips, but the swabs are made of foam, instead of cotton. They won’t shed pieces in the action or the barrel, like the cotton patches do. You’ll use fewer of them, and the best part is, you don’t have to keep threading new ones through the eyelet of your cleaning rod.
You can find them in a lot of sporting goods stores now, as well as online.
They’re more expensive than cotton patches, but they’re worth it. Especially if you actually use them, and because of that, increase the life of your firearms.
I’ve been looking forward to Mule Deer Days for several months now. It’s a new hunting and outdoors expo put on by the Muley Fanatic Foundation with collaboration from the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. There aren’t many hunting seasons open right now, so Mule Deer Days is a good way to fill that void.
They’ll have vendors from tons of outdoor companies, including KUIU, Weatherby, Lucid Optics and Sportsman’s Warehouse. Those are just the tip of the iceberg – I don’t have the entire list of vendors, but there are a whole bunch of others, too.
Admission to Mule Deer Days is $20 for one day or $30 for both, and it all happens from noon to 9 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday at the Sweetwater Events Complex in Rock Springs.
In addition to all the great stuff on display from the vendors, there are a ton of other activities and seminars both days. They’ve got the FlipFlop Guy coming to show how to cook this fantastic wild game dish, and there’s an Annie Oakley Brunch at 10 a.m. on Friday for the ladies. Comedian Ginger Billy will be there on Saturday evening, and there’ll be an auction that night, too. Tickets are extra for those special events, but you can get all the tickets at MuleyFanatic.org.
The proceeds from Mule Deer Days will go where all the Muley Fanatic funds go – to projects right here in Wyoming that help support and protect our wildlife and the habitats they live in.
Oh, and they’re giving away a ton of great prizes, too. One of the raffles alone has 200 guns to be given out.
So get to Rock Springs Friday and Saturday for Mule Deer Days.
I’ve been perfecting my hunting fitness routine for several years now, but I have to admit I go through phases where it’s hard to drag myself to the gym. It just gets so depressing hitting the treadmill, lifting weights and climbing the stairstepper day after day, and every day you just have to go back and do it all again.
As I’ve said before, I’m not going to the gym to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Let’s face it, I’m getting a little long in the tooth, and I just don’t think I’d be able to pull off the muscly old guy look. And I’m not doing it to have perfect health, either. Right now, I’m sure there’s some health nut feeling pretty stupid as he’s lying in a hospital, dying of nothing.
The only reason I go to the gym is to get in shape for hunting. I do only hunting-related exercises, so that when hunting season comes around again, I can hike miles into the woods, draw my bow, and carry out game quarters without having a coronary while I’m doing it. I’ve found the more cardio I do, the steadier I can hold my rifle, and the more strength training I do, the easier it is to draw my bow.
It’s just sometimes so hard to gather the necessary gumption to actually go to the gym and do those exercises. But then a couple of weeks ago, I got an email from KUIU, the company that makes the hunting clothes I recently became enamored with. I stayed warm, dry and invisible in my KUIU Verde camo outfit last fall on my elk and deer hunt, and that email announced that they’re now making fitness gear, too. It’s like the universe is telling me to get off the couch and get back to the gym.
I ordered a set of shorts and a T-shirt, so even my workout clothes will remind me why I’m there and keep me motivated. And since they’re camo, I’ll be less obvious to the people at the gym who actually are fit. It’s a win-win.
Man, I’m ready to go wet a line. It’s almost spring, and the fishing bug is biting hard. And repeatedly. And with the pandemic still causing havoc back in the real world, it’s even harder to resist. My boss is very understanding, though, and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take much arm-twisting to get approval for a mental health day.
Fishing fever is, in my opinion, a real illness. It’s just not one that can be cured by lying around in bed all day, sipping on tea and slurping chicken noodle soup. No, to cure a case of fishing fever, you actually have to get out of the house and find a good piece of water that’s full of hungry fish.
I’ve found that trout from a river are the best cure for fishing fever. If you have access to beaver ponds that hold brookies, that’ll work just about as well. Other people seem to prefer liberal doses of walleye as a fishing fever cure, but there’s really no wrong solution. The cure that works best is often the one that’s tailored most personally to the person suffering from fishing fever.
And just as there’s not just one type of fish that’s best, there’s also no correct method for administering the cure. When I was a kid growing up on the Wind River, I had the best luck using a bowfishing rig to get over my fishing fever. I wandered down to the river and bowfished for carp at every opportunity. I did it often enough that it worked as a preventative. As I got older and couldn’t find good places to bowfish anymore, I traded my bow for a spinning rod and reel. Lately, I’ve used a fly rod. It doesn’t matter what you use. Heck, I’m proof that it also doesn’t matter if you don’t catch anything. All you really need to do to get over a bad case of fishing fever is to go fishing. If you get out there on the water, you’ll be healed before you know it.
Of course, you’ll need to dose yourself regularly to avoid a relapse.
I know I’m out of practice with my shotgun, but it usually doesn’t take me too long to get back in the swing of things. With that in mind, I hauled the shotgun out to the back yard and cranked up the trap thrower.
I put a target on the thrower, let it rip, and brought the shotgun up. At that exact moment, a gust of wind kicked up, and that clay target jumped a good 10 feet straight up. I didn’t even try to take a shot. I just stood there in awe of what a Wyoming spring wind can do to a clay pigeon.
The target drifted safely down to the ground, and the wind quit. It was dead calm again. I waited 30 seconds or so, thinking the wind would come back up again like it had a few moments ago, but it didn’t. It was weird. No wind at all.
So I put another clay on the thrower, pulled the string, and brought the gun up again. And once again, the wind kicked up and blew the target off course. This time, I decided to try to take a shot. Of course, I missed.
But after that, the wind didn’t quit. If anything, it kept getting stronger. I figured I might as well try some shots, because the wind isn’t going to take the day off during bird season, so I should be able to shoot as well in the wind as when it’s calm.
But dang, those clays get unpredictable in the wind. Part of that could be that I was throwing them directly into the face of the wind. A few of the targets even came back and went over my head.
Needless to say, I didn’t have a very good score at the end of my impromptu round of trap. I might try again soon, if we get a day that’s supposed to be a little less windy. But I’m not holding my breath.
If you’re a turkey hunter, you have some time to wait. Spring turkey season doesn’t start until the first of April in Area 3, but not until April 20th in the rest. If you don’t have a license yet, there’s still time to get one. You won’t be able to get a limited quota license, but you can get a general tag from most Wyoming hunting license vendors.
And unless you have a piece of private land already lined up, the general license is a better deal anyway. If you put in for a limited quota tag, you can only hunt that area. But with the general, you can hunt five different areas.
Granted, there’s a limited amount of public land where you’re likely to find turkeys. But there are also a few walk-in areas on private land that have been opened to the public.
The Game and Fish doesn’t print the walk-in atlases anymore, but you can still find them online. Check out the walk-in areas in the region you plan to go hunting, and you’ll probably find a good place to go get a turkey.
Spend the next few weeks practicing with your turkey calls. This is the time of year when you’ll have the best results with a call. Spring is mating season for turkeys, and the toms will be more territorial than usual. If you’re good with a call, you should be able to lure a bird within shotgun range.
Keep in mind that the only legal birds in the spring are males, or those with visible beards. Make sure you can see the beard before you pull the trigger.
Over the rest of the month, get ready for the opener. Pattern your shotgun using the loads you’ll use when you hunt. Find all your hunting clothes, and make sure they’re in good order. If you have to replace something, you still have plenty of time to do it. Be sure you have a waterproof layer or two. This time of year, you’re likely to find yourself standing under a downpour. That’s a pretty miserable time to realize your rain suit is hanging in the closet at home.
I don’t know if we really have had more wind than ever before this winter, but it sure seems like it. The gusts have slowed down all the way into the 20s for one or two very scattered days, but for the most part, it’s been miserably windy.
Combine that with the knowledge that I haven’t been able to spend more than about an hour outside at a time since August, and you have the makings of a pretty severe case of cabin fever.
There’s been a lot of turnover in my day job, so it’s been hard to get time off. I wasn’t able to go hunting hardly at all last season. I might be able to take a few days during the light goose conservation order, but that still remains to be seen.
On top of all that, I’ve been working out at a local gym since June or July. All that running on a treadmill has really gotten me itchin’ to get outside. I’ve lubed the chain on my mountain bike, aired up the tires, and made sure the seat’s adjusted just right. I want that sucker in perfect working order the very first chance I get to take it up to Happy Jack for a spin on some of the forest trails. I think I’ll take my fishing rod, too, and wet a line while I’m out there, sucking in the scents of the forest.
Unfortunately, I think it’ll be a while yet before I can make any real progress on defeating this cabin fever. That silly groundhog up in Pennsylvania predicted six more weeks of winter, but out here in Wyoming, we’re probably looking at more like 10.
I’m usually not such a sissy about winter, and I don’t normally wish it’d hurry up and make room for spring. I guess it’s because I didn’t get much hunting done last season, and I’m just antsy for the spring hunting seasons to kick off.
I’m ready to go turkey hunting.
Come on, April.
I can think of a lot of things I’d like better than a 45 mph wind. Like a root canal with no anesthetic. Or a dinner of nothing but Brussels sprouts and chick peas. Yuck.
No, I’m not real fond of wind, especially when it breaks into the forty- or fifty-mile-per-hour range. And when it blows for four weeks straight, without letting up for more than a few hours at a time, it starts to really wear me down.
It’s tough to get outside and enjoy yourself when you’re trying to keep from being blown over. The winter’s already cold. It doesn’t need any help from wind chill. To keep from going completely insane, I tried to think of all the good things about wind. There are some benefits, and it helps to keep them in mind when you’re out there trying to keep from being blown off the lake while you’re ice fishing.
Wind is vital to wildlife, because it blows the snow off the grasses and shrubs big game rely on to get through the winter. Without wind, the snow we get around here would quickly pile up, and it would require more work to get to edible plants than those plants would provide to the animals.
Wind can also be pretty handy when you’re feeding the horses. I used to think it was just a nuisance, but I’ve learned how to harness it and use it when I feed each morning and night. If I toss the hay just right, the wind carries it right to the horse I want it to go to. It took some tweaking to get this system working right. I shot a lot of hay right out of the pasture and past the neighbor’s house before I perfected it.
Wind’s great for reminding you you’re still alive. If you don’t believe me, step out of the house directly into a good, stiff, cold wind. It’ll take you a few seconds to remember how to breathe, and when you do, the air that fills your lungs will be cold enough to pop your eyes wide open.
And wind also keeps the riff-raff out. Let’s face it. You gotta’ be tough to live here. I whine a lot about the wind, but I do gut it out. And I admire my neighbors for doing the same. It’s not always easy. But it does help to think about the good things that come along with the wind.
Maybe I’m overly sentimental, but I love rabbit hunting. When the last few weeks of February roll around, I start wishing the season would last a few months longer. I hate to see rabbit season end.
Part of that’s because I spent a lot of my youth hunting rabbits. It was how I got introduced to hunting, and I have thousands of memories of good times out rabbit hunting with my dad, my best friends Josh and Blaine Curtis, and even by myself.
That’s another nice thing about rabbit hunting. You don’t have to wait until your hunting buddy can get the time off to go with you. A rabbit hunt on your own can be just as enjoyable as one with a good friend.
Now that I have kids of my own, my love for rabbit hunting has been rekindled. I took my youngest son out into the pasture over the weekend to see if we could find a few cottontails, and even the cold temperatures and gale-force wind couldn’t dampen our spirits. We hiked around out there for an hour or so, and we saw a few rabbits, but Logan never got a shot.
It was a little disappointing that we couldn’t bring any bunnies home, or even get to take any shots. That’s one of the best things about rabbit hunting, usually – most of the time, you at least get to do a little shooting. And you don’t often have to take any long shots. Rabbits generally let you get pretty close, so a kid can move up for an easier shot.
Maybe it was that wind that got the rabbits moving quicker than normal. And once they did start running, the wind helped them get out of range in short order. One jackrabbit hopped up and took off, and I swear it came close to breaking the sound barrier with that Wyoming wind at its tail.
We still had a great time, though. Maybe next weekend we can do it again, and maybe even celebrate with some cottontail stew.
Last week was one of those weeks at work when you just can’t wait for Friday. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, and to make matters worse, my inbox was filling much faster than my outbox was emptying. It was one of those weeks when you just have to get away, if only for a couple of hours.
I decided a coyote hunt, even a short one, would be just what I needed to shake off the workday blues. I normally let the coyotes and foxes that live near my land be, but we’ve got one that’s getting a little too bold. He’s been sniffing around the calves, and my son saw him near the chicken coop a few days ago.
I didn’t have much hope of actually getting a coyote that night, but just getting outside for a few hours was all I was really needing. There are a few neighbors around my place, so it’s not like a lot of the open land where I usually hunt. That was a bit of a challenge, but the nice thing about a setup like this is that the dogs are usually less call-savvy when you find ‘em around a few houses. It’s not the sort of place that gets hammered by weekend warriors and their calls.
I spent a couple hours out there in the wind and cold, but I didn’t see any coyotes. That was OK, though, because at least I got out of the office. I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time out there before it started getting dark, and I still had to go back to work the next day. The strange thing was with that hunt sandwiched between all those hours of work, it was a lot easier to get back to work the next day. And it seemed to energize me a bit, and I actually got some things done once I did get back to the office.
My advice for you is to find a close place to go for a short hunt every once in a while. It’ll help you break up an otherwise tough week.
I haven’t spent as much time in other states as I have in Wyoming, so my impression may be biased. But I don’t know if there are as many wild animals visible from the highways anywhere else outside of Wyoming.
Granted, most of the critters you’ll see on a drive across the Cowboy State are pronghorns. There are so many of them out there, a lot of us tend to take them for granted. But they’re incredible creatures, and they’re like no other animal on Earth. They’re also actually pretty hard to see in certain situations, so you may drive right past them without noticing them much of the time.
That was almost the case on my trip to Saratoga over the weekend. It was overcast, and there was a lot of snow between the sagebrush, so the speed goats blended right in. I was actively looking for wildlife, though, so I saw them. A lot of them. There seems to be a bumper crop of antelope this year.
I saw more than a few dead on the sides of the road, too. I hate to see that. I’d much rather see them frolicking around safely well away from the pavement. But they do need to cross the roads from time to time. You can help them make it safely across by upgrading your license plates to the new Wildlife Conservation plates. They cost $180 more than normal plates, but $150 goes to a fund to build wildlife crossings that will keep both the wildlife and drivers safe across the state. We’ll need quite a few of those plates to be sold to get the crossings built, so get yours soon.
And keep your eyes open, both for the safety of the animals and yourself, and also because it’s just cool to see all those wild animals wherever you go when you drive across Wyoming.
If you’re looking for another excuse to get outside, maybe you should try trapping. If you like hunting, trapping can be just as enjoyable. It gets you outside regularly, and you can even make a few bucks if you do it right.
It’s not a get-rich-quick activity, though. There’s a lot of work involved in trapping. But most of that work happens out in the wild lands, so it seems more like fun than labor.
Before I get too far, I need to point out that trapping is a skill best learned with some help. If you haven’t done it before, find someone who has, and ask them to teach you how to do it right. There are a whole set of rules specific to trapping, and some of them can be easily overlooked by a first-timer.
There are also a lot of tricks and techniques experienced trappers have learned through trial and error. If you have the chance, learn from others’ mistakes instead of making them yourself.
There are quite a few ways to trap. You can use leg-hold traps, but keep in mind they have to be checked every 72 hours or more often.
Body-grip traps are another option, but you have to really know what you’re doing if you use them. If you catch an animal you don’t intend to trap with a body-grip trap, you can’t release it, because body-grips kill the animal immediately.
You can also use snares. Snares are easier to pack, and they can be easier to hide than traps. There isn’t a time requirement to check snares, but for any trap or snare, an ethical trapper will check them on a regular basis.
And there’s your excuse to get outside more often. Set up a trapline, then get out and check it every other day, or even daily. Find yourself a trapping mentor, get some traps or snares, then head for the hills.
There’s not a lot to hunt on Presidents’ Day, but it’d be a shame to waste a day off work. There may not be a lot of open seasons, but I always look forward to a bonus free day in February. In fact, a few years ago, I got a bit of an early start on Presidents’ Day. I worked at the Game and Fish in those days, and we got the day off. The Monday before the actual holiday, I grabbed the .22 and set out after rabbits, but my boss called me on my cell phone and pointed out that my internal clock was runnin’ a week fast. Whoops.
That year, the light goose season opened on Presidents’ Day. The light goose conservation order is in effect this year, too, and it starts on Monday. Just make sure you have your 2019 hunting license, conservation stamp and your conservation order stamp. You don’t need a HIP permit or a duck stamp during the light goose conservation order season.
If light goose hunting isn’t your thing, predator season’s always open. You can use this holiday to go after coyotes, foxes, and jackrabbits, as well as a number of other critters classified as predators.
We’re getting close to the end of the season for small game, too. If you have a mind to put some cottontails or snowshoe hares in the freezer, you better get with it. The small game season runs through March 1st.
And of course, there’s always fishing. If the ice is thick enough, you can cut a hole and drop a line.
Compared to some of the other holidays, there aren’t a lot of seasons open on Presidents’ Day. But there’s enough to keep you from being bored. Don’t waste a weekday you have off from work.
Predator hunting is a lot like waterfowl hunting, in some respects. Both require sitting out in the cold for hours on end, trying not to move. Waterfowl are a little more forgiving, though, because they aren’t usually sitting back watching for anything out of the ordinary. Usually with ducks and geese, you can wiggle around when there aren’t any visible in the sky, and you’ll still be OK. Predators like coyotes and foxes are a little trickier. They’ll come in to check out your call, but they’ll hang back scanning the area until they’re sure there’s nothing out of place. You might never see them, but if you so much as twitch your nose, they’re gone, and you’re just sitting out there in a field, playing a noise emulating a dying rabbit, with no hope of even seeing what you’re after.
And then there’s that dying rabbit noise. There aren’t many noises in the world worse than the sound of a cottontail in distress. It’s creepy as heck, and to attract coyotes from a long way away, you have to play it loud. So you sit there for hour after hour, listening to one of the most blood-curdling noises at 65 billion decibels, hoping a coyote will show up before you lose your mind.
On top of all that, the best time to hunt coyotes is when it’s 200 degrees below zero. You need a good, stiff wind in your face to prevent your scent from drifting out to the coyotes you’re hoping to fool, so the wind chill factor makes it feel like it’s just a bit above absolute zero. Doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, does it?
That’s the crazy thing. I think between sitting absolutely still, listening to the dying rabbit call and silently counting the digits you’re surely going to lose to frostbite, you lose your mind. Instead of heading home, thinking you’ll never do that again, you can’t wait to come out again the next morning and give it another shot.
See? Just like waterfowl hunting.
Next time you travel across Wyoming, take it slow and easy. Watch the scenery as you move along, instead of just focusing on getting to your destination.
On a trip from Cheyenne to Riverton several years ago, I found myself getting in a hurry. My youngest son was a year old at the time, and he was throwing a fit back behind me in his car seat. I just wanted to get to my folks’ house and get the heck out of the truck for a while.
During one of Logan’s extremely short naps, I slowed down and took a closer look at what I was passing. There was quite a bit of snow on the prairie, and the sagebrush sticking out of the blanket of white made for some really pretty scenery. I passed more herds of antelope than I could count, and I even went by three or four bunches of deer.
Logan took four or five little naps along the way, and none of them was longer than 10 or 15 minutes. But some of those brief quiet periods came at opportune times.
Out on the Interstate, after I’d rolled through Laramie, I saw the first of the three deer herds I spotted that day. I pulled off into the barrow ditch and put the binoculars on the deer. There was one buck in the group, and he was pretty sizeable. He was no record-book trophy, but he had a respectable, four-point rack. It was neat just to see him and his harem out there in the sagebrush, trying to scratch out a living.
Somewhere near Muddy Gap, I saw four turkey vultures picking on a coyote carcass. They were right on the side of a dirt road that branched off the highway. Instead of just driving past, I turned onto the road and stopped. I pulled out the camera and snapped a few close-ups of the birds with the long lens. Then, instead of getting right back on the highway, I drove down the dirt road for a ways. I ran into a couple of guys hunting rabbits. They’d done well, and they said there were still plenty more rabbits out there.
So if you take the time to stop and explore a little, you might find a new place to hunt, like I did. At the very least, you’ll probably see something interesting.
For about the thousandth time this year, and we’re barely into February, I read another article about people illegally killing wildlife, and the writer alternately calls the criminals who did it either “poachers” or “hunters.” When are they going to get it right? Those who take animals illegally are poachers. Those who do it legally and ethically, following the principles of fair chase, are hunters. The two are not the same thing.
We don’t refer to pharmacists as drug dealers. The pharmacist follows the laws and dispenses the proper medication to cure a specific malady. A drug dealer is a criminal who has no regard for the law. It’s the same difference.
A hunter is a person who follows the rules, and by doing so, helps keep wildlife populations in balance. In this world where human occupation has altered the natural landscape, hunting is a vital management tool, and without it, certain species would damage the habitat to the point that all wildlife species would be harmed. Hunting protects that habitat, and all the animals that use it.
Poaching is a crime. Poachers are criminals. They intentionally violate the laws, and by doing so, they harm all the species in the habitat – including the people who live or recreate there.
That said, honest mistakes happen. Hunters sometimes misread regulations or accidentally take more than one of their intended targets with one shot. While they might pay a fine for the mistake – and they often voluntarily turn themselves in – they aren’t poachers.
Poachers are scum. They give all hunters a bad name. Stand up for hunting by following the rules and insisting those you hunt with do the same. Then take it a step further: correct anyone who uses the terms poaching and hunting interchangeably.
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. I hate Valentine’s Day.
It’s supposed to be a day when romance blossoms. Whether you’re in a shiny, new relationship, or have been married for 70 years, or anything in between, it’s supposed to be a day for you and your sweetheart. But I always goof it up.
I’ve tried taking my beloved wife to the goose pit with me, but she didn’t enjoy it, because it was 30 degrees below zero and blowing like a hurricane. I tried taking her ice fishing, but I slipped on the ice and dragged her down with me. I tried making her a romantic dinner of fresh-killed rabbits, but I didn’t get the mess cleaned up from cleaning them before she got home from work.
I’ve gone the over-the-top romantic way, as well. I got reservations at the fanciest restaurant in town, got us a room for the night in the nicest bed and breakfast around, and hired a limo to take us from one to the other. But that, admittedly, was more money than I should have spent at the time.
So this year, I’m going practical. It’s probably not the most romantic Valentine’s Day gift ever given, but maybe it’s the right thing for this circumstance. She’s been driving around with a horribly cracked and pitted windshield, but she doesn’t want to spend the money to get it fixed. That’s where her Prince Charming comes in. I’ve saved up enough from selling my photos to get her a new one, so I’ll go steal her 4Runner today, run it down to the glass shop, and have a new one installed while she’s at work.
No, it’s not romantic. But that never got me anywhere, anyway. I’ll see if going practical does the trick.
And yes, I was smart enough to save up enough to also get her a few flowers to go along with the windshield.
I say it every year – I hate Valentine’s Day. Even if I had a billion dollars, I’d still find a way to mess it up. I guess I’m just not a very romantic guy.
My idea of the best way to show my wife I love her is to get up early in the morning, wade out into some frigid marsh somewhere, lure some geese within range, and bring the carcasses of those creatures back to my bride.
I’ve done that for her in the past, but it didn’t seem to have the desired effect. I just don’t get it. When I complained to my coworkers that my romantic gesture fell flat, they sided with my wife. They all insisted it would be much more romantic to arrange for a babysitter, get dinner reservations at some fancy restaurant, and to recite poetry to my wife over candles and wine.
What a crock. That’s not romantic. That’s bribery and plagiarism. I still think my idea is much more romantic. After all, it hearkens back to the very beginnings of love and partnership between a man and a woman.
When humans first started dating, a guy didn’t roll up to his girlfriend’s cave on his sportswheel (which archaeologists have confirmed was the precursor to the sportscar). He didn’t treat her to dinner at some trendy five-rock restaurant. No, he brought her the edible portions of some animal – preferably a dangerous animal – he had killed himself. It was the purest gesture of support, respect, and love then, and in my opinion, it still is today.
Actually, I think it’s an even bigger gesture in modern society. Sure, we have more efficient methods of hunting than the cave men did, but cave men had to hunt their own food. They couldn’t run down to the corner Safeway for a pound of ground mammoth.
I stand by my gift of goose, thank you. But I think I’ll get some jewelry, and maybe some flowers, as a backup.
I do love to listen to coyotes yip and howl at night. I never want to live somewhere that I can’t hear that sound. There have been plenty of rabbits out on the prairie, and I think that’s allowed the coyote population to climb.
I’m not a hard-core coyote hunter. I know quite a few guys who go out every chance they can to hunt coyotes, and they’ll come back from a hunt with several pelts. First of all, I’m not good enough with a call to fool that many ‘yotes. I can call in the odd stupid coyote once in a while – the ones that aren’t smart enough to know the difference between an actual dying rabbit and my poor imitation of one.
I also haven’t put the work in to find places to hunt coyotes those other guys have. Most of the serious coyote hunters I know have lists of ranchers who have given them permission to hunt, and they rotate through those lists scientifically to maximize their chances of calling in as many critters as possible each time they go out. I usually just head to a chunk of public land somewhere, try to conceal myself as well as I can, and start calling.
But lately, I’ve been getting an itch to do it a little more strategically. There’s a large chunk of private land south of my house where I’ve heard coyotes calling each night. Last time I talked to the owner, he said he’d be open to me hunting out there. And the most recent dusting of snow revealed a roadmap of coyote prints going in and out of those sections of land. I think it’s time I officially ask permission to hunt there.
I’m assembling my white gear and snow camo, and I’ve been practicing with my call and reading up on coyote setups. I only need a couple of ‘yotes to scratch this itch. I’m not greedy. Besides, I still want to hear some of them howling at night.
The U.S. Military was tracking a Chinese balloon for the past week as it floated through Alaska, then across the Continental United States. I didn’t see the thing, but from the news reports about it, it sounds like it was enormous. I guess they waited to shoot it down until it was over the ocean, so it wouldn’t fall on someone’s grandma.
That was actually a valid concern. China says it was an errant weather balloon owned and operated by a private business. But more likely, it was a spy balloon owned and operated by the Chinese government. I mean, come on. The reports said the bottom of the balloon, which houses all the supposed scientific instruments for collecting weather data, was the size of three buses. If it were really a weather balloon, I’d think with that much equipment, they’d be able to predict the weather accurately for the next 100 years.
And why were they spying on Montana? It entered the United States at the Canadian border over the panhandle of Idaho, and it bumbled across Montana for a few days. I’m actually surprised nobody in Montana shot that thing down long before the government did it. Maybe that’s why they sent it over Montana and not Wyoming. Even the Chinese know better than to try to float something over our airspace. I don’t know what kind of gun you need to shoot down a three-bus-sized balloon, but I’ll bet there are several people here in Wyoming who have one. And they probably wouldn’t be afraid to use it, either.
The military finally blew that sucker out of the sky when it drifted out over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Carolinas. I’ll be interested to see if they recover the debris, and what it proves about what that balloon was doing over Montana.
It seems like we just keep getting hit with outbreaks of disease, and about the time we get past one, another one crops up to take its place. A few years ago, it was the pandemic I won’t name, because it just makes people mad. And now, it’s the avian flu.
The full name of this one is the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza. It’s a very apt name for it. It’s what’s responsible for eggs being more than $6 a dozen. It’s already wiped out many of the chickens in poultry production operations, and now it’s taking a toll on our wild birds, including geese.
The thing is, it doesn’t just affect birds. It may be called the Avian Influenza, but it’s zoonotic, meaning it can be transmitted to humans, or even to other animals. Just a few days ago, there was a confirmed case of a fox dying after being infected by eating affected birds near Powell, and Montana officials euthanized three grizzly bears that were suffering from the virus.
If you’re still hunting geese this year, be careful. It’s harder to watch geese before you shoot them than it is to observe odd behavior in big game animals, but the same precautions apply. Try to not shoot any animals that are visibly ill. And when you field dress them, wear rubber or nitrile gloves, and wash your hands and knives thoroughly with soap or disinfectant.
If you see clusters of dead birds, report them to your nearest Game and Fish regional office or fill out the online form on the Game and Fish website.
Keep this all in mind if you hunt light geese later this month, too. They’re not immune to avian influenza, either.
On March 10 and 11, the Muley Fanatic Foundation has a solution to your winter boredom. That lull in outdoor opportunities between the end of the waterfowl and small game seasons and the start of the spring hunting seasons can seem to drag on forever. But the Muley Fanatic Foundation and the Game and Fish Department have partnered to bring us a hunting expo that’ll help us get back in the hunting mindset again, at least for a weekend.
They’re calling it Mule Deer Days, and it’ll be packed full of seminars, guest speakers, hunting gear auctions and gun giveaways. They’re actually bringing 200 guns to the event that will be given away.
In addition, there will be vendors from all your favorite outdoor gear brands, and probably quite a few you’ll be happy to learn about for the first time. They’ll have guest speakers providing seminars on the best methods and tactics for hunting, as well as fishing, hiking, and other outdoor activities.
They’ll have a demonstration by the FlipFlop Guy himself, showing us how to cook this incredibly succulent cut of wild game meat. They’ll have folks from Kuiu, Weatherby, Lucid Optics, Kenetrek, and Sportsman’s Warehouse, just to name a few. They’ll have live music and food trucks, too.
It all happens Friday, March 10, from noon to 9 p.m., and Saturday, March 11, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Sweetwater Events Complex in Rock Springs. Tickets are $20 for one-day admission or $30 for both days, and the special events, including the FlipFlop Guy show and the Saturday evening dinner with comedian Ginger Billy, have an extra cost. Go to MuleyFanatic.org to get your tickets, and plan to be in Rock Springs on March 10 and 11.
Before this area was Wyoming, grizzly bears were plentiful in our mountains. When European settlers came in, they nearly exterminated this ultimate apex predator. But over the last roughly 50 years, we’ve brought them back from the brink of extinction and now have a vibrant grizzly population again.
In fact, we have too many. There are far more bears in Wyoming than the suitable habitat can support. The Game and Fish estimates there are more than 1,000 bears in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.
The state petitioned the federal government in January to delist the bears again. They were delisted once before, and Wyoming proved it could manage the bears well. But then a federal judge slammed the door on our state management, and put the bears back on the endangered list again.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has reviewed our petition, and they have found that the bear population may indeed warrant delisting. That agency will now conduct a 12-month status review of the bears, and if they again find that removing the bears from the endangered species list is appropriate, they’ll turn management back over to the state again.
That doesn’t mean you should stand in line at the sporting goods store for a bear license, though. It may be a while before we are able to hunt them, though it would give the state much more leeway to regulate their numbers. It’s about time. Keeping grizzlies in Wyoming on the endangered species list only hurts them. They get bold and aggressive, they kill each other over habitat, and they starve to death from lack of food. It’s time to get the bears off the list and manage them the way they should be managed – by the people who live with them here in Wyoming.
I grew up outside of Riverton, on a piece of land that abutted the Wind River. We had the yard and the pasture, and surrounding that were three large fields a local farmer took care of for us. He rotated those fields with alfalfa, barley and occasionally corn, so they were smorgasbords for deer, pheasants and waterfowl. I was spoiled as a youngster, because I needed only walk about 400 yards to hunt ducks and geese all through the season.
But beyond the fields was what we referred to as the Lower Pasture. It was an uncultivated chunk of wild land, comprised of high plateaus covered with six-foot-tall sagebrush, and deep coulees where thick grass and rabbitbrush grew. Foxes, coyotes, skunks and other critters could occasionally be found there, though they usually saw, smelled or heard me coming and vanished before I caught a glimpse. But I saw their tracks everywhere I looked.
There were only about 20 acres of this wild, untamed land, but to a kid, it was a vast wilderness. I rode my bike down there every chance I got, or sometimes saddled up one of my dad’s old rope horses for a more thorough exploration.
I tried my hand at trapping down there, starting with crude deadfalls I learned to build by following instructions in Dad’s old woodcraft books. Later, I tried snares and leg-hold traps. I never caught anything, but I enjoyed trying.
I wish I had a place like that for my kids. Heck, I wish I could still go down to the Lower Pasture myself, even as a 47-year-old. All the worries of the world disappeared when I was exploring those fox dens and deer trails. It was a magical place where you could be Daniel Boone, John Colter, or Chief Washakie, and the only rules were those imposed by Mother Nature – and to be home by supper.
If you have a Lower Pasture of your own, hold onto it. Don’t let it get swallowed by what passes for “progress.”
I love fishing, even though I’m not very good at it. I get skunked on most of my fishing expeditions. But that’s OK. I really go fishing just to get out of the house and deep into the backcountry. Fishing is just an excuse to get out there.
But this time of year, I lose that excuse. So I’ve been thinking of adding some ice fishing gear to my inventory. I may still get skunked every time I go fishing, but at least I can go fishing more often.
If you’re looking at getting into ice fishing, you can easily go overboard on the gear you’ll get talked into buying. Sure, you could blow your savings on a portable fishing hut, seventeen kinds of tip-ups and ice fishing rods, and an electric auger. Or you could go even bigger and get an ice castle, which is basically a camper with a removable floor and wheels that articulate up to allow the RV to sit flat on the ice. I would not recommend one of those for ice fishing in Wyoming.
To get started, all you really need are the basics. You’ll need an auger to get through the ice. A hand-operated auger will work just fine. You’ll need a slush scoop to keep the ice out of the hole, and you’ll need a rod that works for ice fishing and a reel that is made to resist the cold temperatures. You might already have those in your fishing gear, but if not, you don’t have to spend a ton on them. A couple of tip-ups would be handy, too, and you should rig your reel and your tip-ups with ice fishing line instead of whatever you use in the warmer months. It’ll resist freezing better than the summer stuff. A bucket is good to have to carry your gear and use as a seat, and you’ll want to take your warmest clothes and waterproof boots and gloves when you go.
If you decide you enjoy ice fishing, get the sled, the ice hut, and the other goodies later. For now, just stick with the basics.
When I was trying to decide what caliber I should pick for my newest rifle, I contacted an old friend who is a legend in the shooting world. Ron Spomer is a hunting and shooting writer who has been the host of several outdoors TV shows, written countless books, and currently has a series of shooting videos on YouTube. I don’t think there’s a caliber ever made that he hasn’t shot. He also understands ballistic coefficient, maximum point blank range, rate of twist, and everything else that has anything to do with how a bullet works. And best of all, he has a way of explaining all of it that even I can understand.
Frustratingly, though, he didn’t have an answer for me. He gave me some great information about all the calibers I could choose from, but ultimately he left the choice to me. I guess that’s fair, since it’ll be my rifle. But at the end of the conversation, he dropped a bombshell. He told me if I wasn’t confused enough, I should check out his next video about the relatively new Browning cartridge, the 6.8 Western.
Now I need yet another new rifle. I watched Ron’s video, and the 6.8 Western is impressive. It’s a short-action, fast-twisting, high-pressure bullet with an incredibly high ballistic coefficient and less recoil on average than a .30-06. Sign me up. Granted, I already have a .270, and I love that rifle. I shoot very well with it, and there’s nothing really wrong with it. The 6.8 is the same diameter as a .270.
But it sounds like the 6.8 Western is a new and improved .270. If I were into long-distance shooting, I’d be trotting right down to the gun store right now to get a 6.8 Western.
Thanks for helping me with my caliber choice, Ron. All you really did was get me thinking I need another new gun, too, though.
Suicide is something we just don’t talk about. We hear about it when someone famous or someone in our community dies from it, but we don’t talk about it. There’s some thought that if we talk about it, we’ll give someone the idea, but that’s ridiculous. If someone is dealing with issues that lead down that road, they’re already thinking about it. And oddly enough, talking about it, especially if we’re supportive and not flippant or judgmental about it, can actually help that person find a better solution to what’s hurting them.
And as gun owners, we also have to be cognizant of the accessibility of our firearms. There are many ways a person can die by suicide, but guns are the choice that leads to the highest percentage of fatal attempts.
Keep them locked up. If they’re not concealed somewhere on your person, lock your firearms away. Make them hard to get to, especially if you have young people living in your house. Contrary to popular belief, most people who attempt suicide don’t actually want to die. Most think, in that moment of internal chaos, that it’s their only option. But if given a chance to think about it, they usually find a better solution.
I know this is a deeper subject than what I usually talk about. And it’s about to get even deeper. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide, and you’re the keeper of the safe combination, talk to someone. Talk to a counselor or therapist. Be honest about your feelings and talk to someone you are close to. Or call 988 on your phone and talk to the suicide and crisis lifeline folks. Talk to someone about what you’re feeling.
We need you here, with us, in our community. Stay with us.
It’s a wonder I’ve made it this far. I made more than my fair share of stupid decisions when I was growing up, and many of them involved a motorized vehicle. And a great many of those also involved driving said vehicle on dirt roads – or no roads at all.
The bad decision that sticks out the most in my mind was the time I went coyote hunting with my friends Josh and Blaine. They were twins, but they tended to be like the little angel on one shoulder and the little devil on the other in the cartoons. Josh was usually the voice of reason and responsibility, and Blaine was normally the one saying, “you only live once.”
But that morning as we blazed down a two-track in the Gas Hills in my Ford Ranger, it was Josh who was urging me on. We had seen a coyote across the prairie, and we were trying to cut it off at the pass. Every so often, a snow drift crossed the road, and the Ranger would cut right through that snow in a shower of white. But there was what looked like a bigger drift in the road ahead. Josh said, “just gun it, and you’ll be fine.”
But it wasn’t a drift. There was a drift there, sure, but it was hiding the ditch behind it. A big ditch. Big enough that when we went into it, the entire truck fit between the sides. It didn’t fit well, though. There was some damage. OK, there was a lot of damage. And not just to the truck. Blaine was in the back seat, and when we hit the far side of the ditch, he rocked forward. When we launched back out, he rocked back, and his head turned my back window into tiny pebbles of safety glass. But he was still yelling, ‘Go, go, go! We can still catch him!”
I’m glad my boys seem to have more sense than I had at their age.
For a guy who was born in Wyoming and has spent pretty close to his whole life here, I’m a big wimp when it comes to wind. I can take it for reasonably extended periods when it’s blowing in the 15- to 20-mile-per-hour range, but beyond that, it gets on my nerves in a hurry.
I was born in Riverton, which isn’t exactly the world’s windiest place. But it’s been known to howl through there with pretty amazing force frequently. Then I went to college in Laramie, which is a town that can boast about surviving some mighty horrific gales. And for the last 8 years, I’ve lived in Cheyenne. The capital city is by far the windiest place I’ve been for an extended period of time, and not just in the months when the Legislature is in town.
Even during January and February, it’s not as windy here, on average, as it is in some of Wyoming’s more blustery places. But we get more than our fair share of gusty weather.
You’d think all that time spent dealing with the wind would harden me to its effects. It seems I should be nearly impervious to all but the most powerful gusts. I do have a permanent tilt to my stance that kilters toward the northwest, but I’m far from being immune to wind.
In fact, I think the years I’ve spent fighting the wind may have beat me down. Instead of ignoring it like many of my friends do, I dread it. I get tired of turning my steering wheel 30 degrees into the wind in order to drive in a straight line. I’m sick of hearing shingles being ripped off my roof in the middle of the night. And I’ve given up even trying to fly-fish when the wind’s kicking up past the 15-mile-per-hour mark.
There. I’ve said it. I hate the wind. But with everything else we have in Wyoming, like great big game hunting, lots of places to take a shot at a duck or a goose, some of the best trout fishing waters on the planet, and places like the Hoback, the Tetons, the Bridger Wilderness, and the Red Desert, I think I can put up with a little bit of breezy weather.
Back before I was asked to not come back to Boy Scouts, I remember a Scout Master telling us it’s the dull knives that end up cutting people. My reaction was probably one of the first strikes against me.
In my typical fashion, I shifted my mouth into drive before engaging my brain. I think I said something to the effect of, “Yeah, a dull knife’ll cut your finger, but it takes a really sharp one to lop that sucker clean off.”
It has since been explained to me that a dull blade will slip more easily, making it more likely to hop off whatever you’re trying to cut and lodge itself in your flesh. I’ve also demonstrated that phenomenon a few times.
But I’ve also had an extremely sharp knife slice right through a loop of canvas or a piece of baling twine with a whole lot less resistance than I thought it was going to meet, and the next thing I know, I have a blade buried all the way to the hilt in my upper thigh.
I’ll give my old Scout Master credit for trying to encourage us to keep our blades sharp, because after years of trial and error, I’ll tell you I’d much rather cut myself with a sharp blade than a dull one. The sharp ones sting a little, but the dull ones cause an aching throb, and the wounds don’t heal nearly as quickly.
I had my most recent mishap with a blade while I was cooking dinner. I was trying to slice a tomato, but the knife was just mushing it instead of cutting. So I broke out two diamond stones and put a fresh edge on that knife.
After running it along the medium hone, then taking several passes with the extra fine one, I had a nice, sharp knife in my hand. Unfortunately, I didn’t adjust my approach to the tomato accordingly. The first cut I made went right through the tomato and deep into the tip of my left thumb. I could actually feel the blade catch when it hit the bone.
The first thing that came to mind was my old Scout Master telling us it’s the dull knives that cut you. Heck, that knife couldn’t even cut a tomato until I put a new edge on it, then it darn near took my thumb off.
No, it’s not the dull ones that’ll cut you. It’s the carelessly wielded ones.
While waiting to get on the ice for a league hockey game, I often hear my teammates grumbling about the figure skaters who are twirling around on the surface. The most common comment is, “What a waste of perfectly good ice.”
But I’ve heard the same comment uttered by ice fishermen when youngsters are batting a puck around on a city park lake. I’ve also been riding in a truck with fellow goose hunters when we pass a lake where ice anglers are trying their luck. The familiar phrase can be applied to that situation, too. I guess it all depends on your point of view.
My hockey teammates might be mortified to hear me say this, but I don’t see anything wrong with either ice fishing or goose hunting on ice.
That being said, I don’t mind ice fishing, but you probably won’t find me hunkered over a hole very often. During my short stint as a Game and Fish photographer up in North Dakota, I got to tour quite a few ice huts that were nicer than my own home. They had recliners, full kitchens, satellite TV and just about anything else you could think of. But that just seems to go against what ice fishing’s all about. It seems to me if you go ice fishing, you should just resign yourself to the fact that it’s going to be cold, and probably windy. And as far as I’m concerned, fishing and television just don’t mix.
The same’s true for goose hunting. Again, I’ve been in some pretty plush blinds. Comfortable chairs keep the hunters’ rumps off the cold ground, and propane heaters keep the pit a reasonable 65 degrees. But again, it just doesn’t seem right to me.
But as long as I’m hunting or fishing, I think I’d learn to live with it. For now, I’ll make do with my ground blind for hunting and an upside-down bucket for fishing. It’s what I have, and I’m happy to have it.
I spent New Year’s Day at the range, shooting several of my firearms. I shot rifles, handguns and shotguns, and I shot them a lot. I have purposely refrained from figuring out how many rounds I fired in total, because I don’t want to know how much money I sent down range. I don’t reload, so every round I fired had to be bought at the sporting goods store.
Granted, reloading isn’t free, either, and most of the guys I know who reload their own ammo don’t do it for the cost savings. They do it for the accuracy benefit, and the way they do it, it probably doesn’t save them much, if any, money. But they all shoot a lot better than I do, so maybe I ought to think about it.
Of course, if I did reload, not only would I have to clean all my guns when I get done shooting, I’d also have to spend a few hours at the reloading bench after a target shooting spree, and I just don’t have that kind of time.
My new year’s day evening was a long one, as it was. I stripped all those guns down and gave them a good, thorough cleaning. Then, since I had all my cleaning gear out, I pulled all the other guns out of the safe and cleaned them, as well. I didn’t think it would take too long, but it appeared a couple of those guns hadn’t been cleaned for decades. I try to be a good, responsible gun owner and take care of my guns, but sometimes, I have to admit, I just put them away when I’m done with them, thinking I’ll get around to cleaning them before too long.
That’s one of the reasons I try to get out to the shooting range on New Year’s Day every year. I get a chance to get some recoil therapy, and then I spend the evening cleaning all my guns, whether they need it or not. And while I’m at it, I change the batteries in the gun safe’s digital pad and the smoke detectors. Safety first, right?
Happy New Year to you. Here’s wishing you clean guns, plenty of trips to the range, and good luck in your hunting trips.
Some people go to the gym to sculp their bodies. Some of those people even practice looking muscley in the gym’s mirrors. But that’s not me.
Some people go to the gym to live a long life free from heart disease and other ailments caused by carrying too much extra weight. Again, that’s not why I go to the gym.
I go to the gym with only one goal: to be in good shape for hunting. Granted, there are quite a few different types of hunting, and I need to be in shape for all of them, so I’ve crafted a workout program that gets me ready for anything I might encounter while I’m hunting.
There’s the stair-climber workout, which can be done with a backpack when the season starts to get closer, to emulate climbing mountain after mountain in search of elk. That’s one of the staple routines of the workout program. You can never get too much hill-climbing practice in. Then I move over to the weights, where I have several exercises specifically for hunting. There are upper-body and core lifts that help me draw my bow or steady my rifle; hoist a pack or a carcass quarter onto my back; or sit up and lie back down when I’m hunting geese in a corn field. The lower-body work focuses on getting my legs strong enough to carry me and a heavy pack deep into the backcountry and back.
And then there’s the treadmill work. That’s to simulate walking mile after mile on the prairie looking for antelope or kicking up pheasants. And I can kick the speed up to a sprint to work on escaping from bears I might blunder into.
I should start my own gym, catering to hunters. I probably wouldn’t get rich, but at least I’d stay in good hunting shape.
I’ve been neglecting my camera for the last several years. I haven’t been carrying it with me when I go to work, or on trips to other towns to watch my kid compete in athletic activities. I’ve been telling myself I’m too busy to stop and take pictures of stuff, let alone take some time to go out specifically looking for things to take pictures of.
But I’ve noticed it’s causing me to be a little more fidgety than usual. I have a grown-up job now, so I don’t have to rely on selling photos to make money to feed my family. But that doesn’t mean I need to quit taking pictures altogether.
I realized this a few days ago when I was heading in to work. We’d gotten a surprise dump of snow overnight, and the prairies were covered with a soft, pristine white blanket. Add to that the frost that rimed all the tree limbs and fence wires, and it added up to a magnificent spectacle.
In the past, I would have pulled over, gotten out of the truck, and taken five to 10 minutes to capture all that natural splendor. But I haven’t been packing the camera with me, so it wasn’t an option. I suppose I could have taken a few shots with my phone, but that’s just not the same.
It was further driven home to me that I need to start carrying the camera with me when I went home that night. The days are getting a little longer, and it was still just light enough on my drive home. As I passed the airport, there was a C-130 sitting on the end of the runway near the road, and it was perfectly silhouetted against a gorgeous sunset sky. Again, it would have made a spectacular shot.
It’s time to get the camera back out. It’s also time to start getting out in the wilds again, looking for cool critters and landscapes to shoot. If nothing else, it’ll give me an excuse to get outside just a little bit more.
There are a number of apps available now for your smartphone that are extremely helpful for navigating in the backcountry while you’re hunting. I’m a fairly traditional guy in a lot of ways, though, and I’m still clinging to my map and compass. I did branch out into the GPS world several years ago, but I always have a map and compass in the pack wherever I go.
These mapping apps do more than just help you figure out where you are, though, and they can be constantly updated or overlaid with layers that tell you if you’re on public or private property, what hunt area you’re in, and much more.
The apps that cost money tend to be the ones with the best features. BaseMap is about $30 a year; Huntwise is about $50 per year; and OnXHunt is either $20 a year for one state or $100 per year for all 50 states.
There’s at least one other option that’s free, though. FarWide is not as robust as those pay-to-play apps, but it’s decent as a basic navigation aid. I haven’t figured out a way to get a topographic overlay on it yet. I don’t think it has that option. It’s also missing many of the overlays OnXHunt has, like land ownership.
FarWide does have hunt area boundaries, though, and just like the other apps, it can show you where you are on that map when you’re using it with your smartphone.
Any one of these apps would be a great tool for hunting. I am still partial to OnXHunt, though, so I’ll stick with it as a supplement to my map and compass. I just have the one-state version right now, and that’s all I really need.
I will say I’m finding myself using the mapping app more often than my map and compass – at least, as much as the battery on my phone lets me. That’s one good thing about a paper map – it won’t die on you when you need it.
The Wyoming Wildlife Federation is supporting a couple of bills during this Legislative session that could help clear up some misperceptions nonhunters have. For decades, we’ve referred to bears and mountain lions as “trophy game.” However, in recent years, trophy hunting has come to be thought of as wasteful or elitist. Most hunters, including those who go hunting with the goal of bringing home the head and horns of the biggest critter they can find, still use as much of the animal as they can. They eat the meat, and some even do something with the hide.
But others do hunt solely for the trophy. While this is not my idea of hunting, it still has its place. Trophy hunting, especially in other countries where game animals are overpopulated, hunting is a means to thin the herds to protect the herds as a whole or human populations in the region.
We don’t have that problem here, so it makes sense to change the term “Trophy Game” so it doesn’t carry that connotation. That’s what these bills, if they are introduced, will do. The first bill will change the designation “Trophy Game” to “Large Carnivore.” The other bill would require hunters to pack out any edible portions of those animals, which is not required currently under the trophy game designation. Many hunters already do this with bears and mountain lions, and there are many good uses for that meat – including some very tasty dishes if you have the right recipes.
These bills would be good for hunting, and I’d love to see them passed. For more information about the bills, visit the Wyoming Wildlife Federation’s website at wyomingwildlife.org.
At the risk of getting into a political argument, I want to tell you why I like the law Colorado passed banning those plastic shopping bags. For me, it’s not a political issue. Yeah, I know one group says if we don’t get rid of plastic bags, we’re all going to die a horrible death. And the other group says the bag ban means we’ve become commies and no longer have our freedom. Both sides need to just calm down.
The fact is, those bags are a nuisance. I’ve heard them referred to as the unofficial state bird, because you see so many of them flying through the air on our strong Wyoming winds, or perched in trees – sometimes in flocks of dozens.
If we stop using those stupid things, there’ll be a lot less trash scattered out around our otherwise pristine places. I can’t even begin to estimate how many of those things I’ve picked up when I’ve been out in the field hunting. I don’t think I’ve been on a hunt in the last 20 years when I haven’t picked up at least one of them. I’d be happy to not find any of them when I’m out in the wilds.
On a more technical note, they’re made from petroleum. The more they make, the more petroleum they need for it, and the less is available for other uses – like making the gasoline and diesel we need to run our trucks, four-wheelers, side-by-sides and other stuff we use to get out to the woods to hunt in the first place. That makes the price of that fuel higher. If they’re not using it to make bags, it should cause fuel prices to drop, and we’ll be able to hunt more.
For those reasons alone, I’m happy to bring my own bag when I go to the store. It’s not a political statement – it’s just because I’m sick of picking those stupid things up and paying so much for fuel.
I like to joke that much of Wyoming gets this day off because it’s my birthday, but that’s a bit disrespectful to the real reason for Equality Day. We get this day off because Martin Luther King, Jr., sacrificed everything but his dedication to the idea that every human deserves to be treated equally. He did this at a time when having that opinion could be dangerous.
In fact, it cost Rev. King his life. But the work he did to advance civil rights for all has endured, and we’ve made a lot of progress. We still have work to do, but we’ve come a long way.
On a lighter note, it’s now a state holiday. And due to a stroke of good fortune, it coincides with my birthday. Some years I end up having to work on my birthday, but it often falls on the weekend or on Equality Day. When that happens, I try not to waste it.
For the last couple of decades, the waterfowl season has extended into January, so some years I’ve been able to commemorate another trip around the sun by sitting in a goose blind in sub-zero temperatures. When my boys were little, I liked to spend the day chasing cottontails across the plains. When the kids got a little older and were able to endure the cold a little better, we had a few Equality Day coyote hunts.
This year, I’m going to be a little more laid back. Hunting on my birthday is great, but I’ve gotten to the age where sleeping in is a wonderful thing. So instead of getting up at oh-dark-thirty, I’m sleeping in today. When I do eventually get up, I’m just going to head out to the range and spend a leisurely day shooting.
And because it’s my birthday, I’ll wait to clean all the guns until tomorrow.
I used to dream of someday taking Pat McManus’ place, writing those hilarious stories in Outdoor Life. But McManus had a unique genius that won’t ever be replaced. I have made a new year’s resolution to try to make you laugh at least a fraction as hard as McManus always made me laugh, though, so starting next week, I’ll do my best to bring you a funny story on this show. I can’t promise they’ll always be 100% true – but I’m sure McManus stretched a truth from time to time, too. I have enough poor decisions and unlucky breaks in my own past to give you a chuckle at my expense. And you’ll laugh because you’ve probably done similar stupid things, too.
Consider, for instance, the time, early in my marriage, that I tried to impress my wife with my outdoorsy prowess. I asked her if she’d like to go with me on a deer hunt, and she accepted. I deluded myself thinking I’d have better luck than usual, and on this hunt, I would prove to her I was the perfect husband by harvesting a giant mule deer buck as she looked on in awe.
It didn’t go well. Or, I should say, it went as my hunts usually go. I slipped on a wet branch and plummeted 30 feet down a near-vertical slope into an icy stream; I spooked a herd of deer that had been bedded down when I had to ask Amy a third time where she was saying the deer were; and I got us lost for a couple hours. When we finally made it back to the truck, there was a deer grazing right next to my pickup, but I couldn’t shoot without hitting the truck. The one good decision I made was to NOT try to take a shot.
Lord knows there are plenty more stories like that one. I’ve heard you should always learn from your mistakes, but I take it a step further. In addition to learning from them, I also try to let other people laugh at them.
We should all be members of every conservation group you can think of – Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, Muley Fanatics Foundation and others. And yesterday, I told you what you get if you get a lifetime membership with Muley Fanatics. But what does the wildlife get from your membership fees?
There are a lot of conservation organizations out there, and they all do fantastic work for wildlife. The group that’s probably the most active in Wyoming right now, though, is Muley Fanatics Foundation. They’ve done tons of work to get the Wildlife Conservation license plates passed through the Wyoming legislature, and the sales and renewals of those plates fund wildlife conservation, including the wildlife crossings WYDOT is putting in along migration corridors. Muley Fanatics has done extra fundraising and lobbying for those crossings, too.
They don’t just fund projects, although they do spend a lot of money on conservation projects. In 2019, they spent just short of a half a million dollars for on-the-ground projects involving habitat, water, research and wildlife connectivity. But they also get their gloves dirty and actually pitch in and do some of that on-the-ground work. They’ve done fencing projects, invasive species removal, and more. They’re not the only group doing all this work and giving money to fund these projects, and they’re doing work in other states outside Wyoming, too. But they’re headquartered in Green River, and they are doing a whole lot for Wyoming’s wildlife and wild places. So if you’re not a member yet, get on it. And while you’re at it, sign up for several other organizations, too.
I think all wildlife conservation organizations have life membership options. And all those conservation groups do wonders for the wildlife and the habitat – and not just the species they are named for. The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, for instance, does a lot of work that benefits pronghorn, deer, moose, and even grouse and other animals in addition to elk.
Life memberships in those organizations is usually pretty spendy. Most of the organizations offer those memberships for $1,000 or $1,500. But that money goes to projects that help make sure we still have wild places and the animals that live in them.
My goal is to someday have life memberships in all the conservation organizations that have a presence in Wyoming. I’m starting with the Muley Fanatic Foundation, because Muley Fanatics is a little more focused on Wyoming than other states right now. They’ve done a tremendous amount of work to improve the habitat for deer, elk, antelope, and a bunch of other wildlife species right here in Wyoming.
They also have a great package for life members. Their life membership, which is $1,500, gets you a KUIU or First Lite hat, a KUIU jacket or First Lite vest, and a Weatherby rifle in your choice of 15 calibers. All life members also are entered in drawings at every milestone for extra loot. They’re getting close to 525 life members right now, so all life members will have a chance at a KUIU Yukon gear package. They’ll draw for that when they hit 525Life life members, and they’ll do more drawings at other milestone numbers of memberships.
Do your part for conservation, and get some great gear while you’re at it.
There are many reasons people work out. The smart people go to the gym or have some sort of fitness routine they do regularly, and they just stay in shape. Others of us woke up one day and realized we needed to start hitting the gym if we didn’t want to keep buying the next size up in pants and shirts. I’m one of the latter. I was a decent athlete when I was younger, and I remember people urging me to stay in shape, because it would be easier to stay that way than to try to get back into good shape if I let myself slide. But I didn’t listen.
I was always amazed at how my clothes seemed to shrink in the closet. Buying new clothes for work was one thing – I would have had to buy new stuff anyway, because I can wear out a pair of pants or stain a shirt faster than anyone I know. But it was when I didn’t fit in my camo gear that I finally decided to do something about it.
Besides the clothes not fitting, I couldn’t get as far into the backcountry on an elk hunt as I used to, and I knew it wasn’t simply age causing that reduction in range. Even a pheasant hunt would take the breath out of me.
So I started working out to get in shape for hunting. I lost a lot of weight, and I started fitting into my hunting clothes again. The more I worked out, the farther and quicker I could go into the woods or through the prairie. And that was great motivation to keep working out. But I am starting to need more motivation.
So I’ve decided to get myself some cross-country skis. When it snows, I’ll be able to change up my fitness routine – but I’m not going to stop at the skis. I’m going to sling my .22 over my shoulder when I ski around my pasture, and I’ll build a couple of shooting stations. That way, I can get some exercise and do some shooting, too. A backyard biathlon might be just what I need to stay fit.
Mark your calendar for Feb. 2, and plan to be in Cheyenne for the Wyoming Wildlife Federation’s Camo at the Capitol event. The Federation has put together a slate of events that will help you make your voice heard by the legislators when it comes to issues that can affect your access and ability to hunt.
It starts with Advocacy Training from 9 a.m. to noon in the Cottonwood Room at the Laramie County Library, where you’ll learn about the legislative process, including bill creation, tracking, and how a bill passes or doesn’t make it to a law. You’ll have the chance to not only learn the necessary skills for communicating with lawmakers – you’ll also get the chance to speak directly with elected officials about the bills they are supporting or opposing that deal with the hunting and fishing community.
Then after the provided lunch, from 1 to 4 p.m., you’ll move over to the State Capitol for a tour and lobbying training.
The day wraps up with a Legislative Reception at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens from 6:30 to 9 p.m. This is where you’ll meet with legislators and wildlife managers and learn about the issues that matter to you. They’ll be serving wild game dishes along with Wyoming beers and spirits.
Don’t miss this opportunity to make your voice heard. Again, it’s February 2, starting at the Cottonwood Room at the Laramie County Library at 9 a.m. It’s free to attend, but you’ll want to RSVP on the Wyoming Wildlife Federation website at wyomingwildlife.org. Find the Camo at the Capitol link, click it, and enter your information.
I hope to see you there in February!
There’s a lot to be said for a roaring fire, a batch of fresh cookies and a warm cup of hot chocolate on a blisteringly cold day. But there’s also a lot to be said for getting outside in weather like that and heading for the rifle range.
If you have an elk hunt planned for late October, and the night before you head for the hills, the weather reports call for two feet of snow and below-zero temperatures in the high country, you don’t call off the hunt. You know that snow’ll push the critters toward you as you work your way into the mountains.
The same’s true if you plan to go coyote hunting on the weekend, but Mother Nature decides to turn the landscape white. The snow actually helps you out, because it records the passage of every animal heavy enough to leave a track. You don’t put the rifle back in the gun safe and put a fresh pot of coffee on. No, you bundle up in your white coveralls and go out anyway.
So why don’t you practice shooting in weather like that? Sure, it helps to have good weather when you’re sighting in your rifle or getting a feel for a new gun. But once you know you can make a bullet land where you want it, get outside in all sorts of weather and see if you can reproduce those results in less-than-optimal conditions.
Shooting in crummy weather can help you with more than just your aim. It also gives you a chance to see if your scope truly is fog resistant, or if it’s going to become useless when the temperature drops and the humidity rises. It’ll also give you an opportunity to practice shooting in the same coat, coveralls, gloves and hat you’ll have to wear when it’s too cold to be outside in anything lighter.
And maybe most importantly, it’ll help you get used to being outside for extended periods of time when it’s cold enough to freeze the coffee inside your Thermos. I don’t know if you can ever get completely used to sitting still for hours on end in below-zero weather, but the more time you spend doing just that, the less it’ll seem to affect you. Go get some practice in the cold. If nothing else, it’ll make coming back in to that hot fire and warm cookies all that much better.
I wintered in North Dakota a few years ago, and I learned a lot about ice fishing while I was there. Those folks take ice fishing very seriously. They even have camping trailers that are built specifically for ice fishing. The wheels and hitch articulate up, allowing the floor of the trailer to sit flush on the ice. Inside, the floors have segments that can be removed, and you just drill your fishing hole right there inside your camper.
But that requires that you pull that trailer out onto the ice with your pickup or SUV. I suppose in a state like North Dakota, where you often need an auger extension to get your hole all the way through the ice, that’s not a big deal. But you’re not going to catch me driving my truck out onto the ice anywhere in Wyoming.
Stick to walking out onto the ice to keep from having to explain a very expensive mistake to your car insurance company. Four inches of clear ice is usually safe to walk on, but of course, the thicker, the better. And keep in mind that clear ice is more stable than milky ice. If it looks milky, the bonds between the water molecules aren’t as strong. As you walk out onto the ice, drill test holes every so often. Check to make sure the ice is thick enough, and look for cracks or bands of white running through the ice.
If for some reason you do fall through the ice and find yourself in near-freezing water, you won’t last long, so never go ice fishing alone. Always go with a buddy who can help you if the ice suddenly disappears.
Pack extra clothes and hot liquids for every ice fishing excursion. You might keep a sleeping bag handy, too, along with a couple methods for starting a fire. If a member of your party falls through the ice, strip them of wet clothes, stuff the victim in a sleeping bag, then take your own clothes off and crawl in with them. That’s why you want to go ice fishing with good friends.
Stay on top of the ice. But be prepared to do what you need to if someone falls through.
Ammo availability is getting better all the time, but it got expensive during the pandemic, and it hasn’t seemed to have dropped much in price, even with more of it available. Even reloading supplies are pricey. If you want to practice, you either have to be independently wealthy, or one of the people sitting on a stockpile of hoarded ammo.
Or you can do some dry-fire training. There are quite a few dry-fire training tutorials on YouTube that can help you work on your fundamental shooting skills without using up any expensive or rare live ammunition, and those are good alternatives. It’s never a bad idea to brush up on the basics.
But if you want a bit more feedback, there are some options out there. Several companies make laser dry-fire training systems that can be used with your own firearms, making the practice more effective, since you’re using the gun you actually carry instead of a simulation.
Some of those companies are iTarget, Mantis, G-Sight, LaserLyte, LaserHit and Strikeman. I got a Strikeman system a while back. It was about $100, and it came with a .45 caliber laser bullet. I also ordered a .40 caliber laser cartridge and a .223 for $59 each.
I’ve already practiced with that system with my guns for hours, and I’m seeing improvement in my shooting. I just load the cartridge in an unloaded gun of the appropriate caliber, and I can practice right in my house. The system works with my phone, and it keeps track of my progress. Last time I went out to the shooting range, after practicing for a while with the Strikeman system, I was already shooting much better than my previous range session.
I should have gotten this system years ago. It saves money, I can practice as often as I like, and best of all, I don’t have to clean my guns when I’m done.
The four-day work week after Christmas was a complete wash, and this one won’t be much better. With only four days to get all your normal work done, as well as all the stuff you didn’t finish last week, you might as well give up and go hunting.
If you decide to call in hunting or ice fishing this week, don’t forget to get your licenses. Some seasons actually continue into the New Year, and some licenses will carry over from one year to the next. Fishing, small game, game bird and furbearers licenses, as well as conservation stamps, are good for 12 months from the date of purchase, and duck stamps and harvest information program stamps are good from July through June every year. Make sure you have all your current licenses, though, especially if you need one that doesn’t stay good into the new year.
The Game and Fish switched to the 12-month license system in 2019. It’s a huge benefit, because depending on how much hunting or fishing you do in the first few months each year, you used to wind up spending all your Christmas money on licenses.
Start off the new year with a much-needed vacation and head for the hills.
Go ahead and take some of your vacation time now. You don’t want to be stuck at the end of December with ten vacation days and only five days left in the month. Most of us have to use our days or lose ‘em, so get a jump on ‘em now.
Depending on what you got for Christmas, you might be daydreaming about putting your presents to use instead of answering phone messages. You’d rather be out sighting in that new rifle, giving that new winter coat a serious test-run, squeezing stuff with your new Leatherman, or using your new GPS to figure out how far it is from your recliner to Cabela’s.
So take the whole week off and go hunting. Go duck hunting tomorrow, try to get a coyote Thursday, and look for rabbits with the kids on Friday. Bring in the New Year right.
It’s a time when a lot of people, with the best of intentions, resolve to make positive changes in their lives. I quit making new year’s resolutions a long time ago. Then I got fat and out of shape, I stopped getting out in the field as much as I did before, and my aim with both my rifle and my shotgun went out the window.
So this year, I’ve decided to get back into the resolution game. But instead of setting goals that are no fun to get to, I’ll actually enjoy the process.
I’m only making one resolution, but it’ll take several steps. The resolution is to get back in shape again. I’ve been on a roller coaster of fitness for the last 10 or 15 years, and I’ve had some moments of greatness, but then I tend to lapse into my old habits and lose all the progress I’ve made. A couple of years ago, I got back down to my old high school wrestling weight. It was a huge accomplishment, and not only was I proud of myself for reaching my goal, I also had more energy and had a much easier time chasing elk around the hills that year. It’s time to get back to that again. I may never get my old wrestling physique back, but I hope to be able to go on an elk hunt without feeling like I’m going to keel over at any moment. And I’ll have fun doing it.
The first step is to walk at least five miles a week. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. I’ll spend whatever time I can in January and February tramping around the prairies and the foothills with a .22 in my hands, looking for rabbits. The added benefit is that rabbit is good, lean meat, so I’ll eat well, too.
When the opportunities arise, I’ll change it up by grabbing the 12-gauge and buying pheasants at bird farms. If I’m feeling pretty good, I’ll ask the owner to release the birds as far apart as possible.
By April, I should be ready for more strenuous activity. I’ll get my turkey license and go out after a gobbler. If my previous experiences with turkey hunting are any indication, I’ll spend an entire month running from ridge to ridge, trying in vain to cut the birds off at the pass.
When it gets warm in the high country, I’ll add some weight to my workout. I’ll strap on the backpack with all the gear I’ll need for a few days and nights in the woods, as well as everything my wife will want. The more gear I carry, the better workout I’ll get, and I might even score some points with the better half by carrying as much of her stuff as possible.
By the time fall comes around, I should be a lean, mean hunting machine. I won’t be running any 4-4 forties, but I should be able to hike a few miles. I’ll be able to hike deep into the wilderness on elk hunts, and I might even be able to go on a few chukar hunts, as well. That’s the real test of a person’s fitness, by the way. If you’ve never hunted chukar before, don’t do it without some prep training. Those dang birds will work you over if you’re not in shape.
That’s the goal, anyway. I think if I can combine exercise with hunting, I should be able to stick to it, and it’ll be one resolution that should actually fun to keep.
OK, let me just get this out of the way: Time just seems to go faster the older I get. There. I said it. Now I’ve officially crossed into middle age. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I can get on with what’s left of my life.
No, seriously, the years do seem to go by faster all the time. I think it has a lot to do with all the stuff we’ve learned, the things we’ve done, and most of all, the cool things we still want to do. It’s amazing how for every experience you cross off your list, five or six others take its place.
That’s what this time of year has traditionally stood for. The end of an old year and the beginning of a new one marks a chance for new beginnings. Yeah, we’ve all set resolutions that we’ve broken within the first few weeks of the new year, or even the first few days. I can only think of one resolution I’ve made that ever got anywhere, though I’m still kinda’ proud of that one. When I knocked 80 pounds off my frame a couple years ago, it made it a whole lot easier to get out in the field and chase critters. If that’s the only one I ever keep, I guess I can be happy with it.
But I’d still like to do some cool stuff this coming year. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call these resolutions, but I suppose they’re goals, anyway.
I plan to get my sons out to the archery range this year and get them going with bows and arrows. I need to do a little more practice myself, too.
I’ll do a little better job of getting the boys out to the streams and rivers to do some fishing, too. While we’re at it, maybe I can complete my Cutt-Slam this year.
But above all else, I really, really want to finally get an elk this year. I might even go so far as to put the bow down and give it a try with a rifle, just to increase my chances. And you can bet I won’t be picky about coming home with the biggest bull on the mountain. I’ll be content with a cow. Just as long as it’s an elk.
Well, anyway, Happy New Year to you. I hope this one’s good to you.
In my opinion, you just can’t beat winter. The colder and snowier, the better.
As for the cold, I say bring it on. I love it. I enjoy getting bundled up in layer after layer of Thinsulate, down and Gore-Tex for a jaunt to the end of the driveway to retrieve my newspaper each morning.
Granted, I can always duck back into the house and crank up the thermostat if I get too cold. Once I warm up, I just bundle up again and head back into the elements. When I’m in the field, I don’t have as much access to warmth, but that doesn’t bother me much. When you’re having fun, it takes longer for the cold to work its way into your bones.
Cold is much more enjoyable when it is accompanied by snow. It’s hard to get excited about going outside when the thermometer is reading single digits if there’s not a layer of white covering the dirt and dead vegetation.
It has to do with anticipation. After all, when there’s snow on the ground, you never know when a snowball fight will break out. Nothing is as exciting as the imminent danger of a well-packed snowball colliding with the side of your face at 30 mph.
The only drawback to a snowy January is the extra work. I don’t have a sidewalk at my house, so I don’t have to shovel it. My driveway is dirt, so I don’t shovel that either. But that doesn’t mean my shovel gets to take the winter off.
Because I’m not a kid anymore, I don’t get snow days. I have to go to work whether my driveway is visible or buried under two feet of drifted snow.
I also often wind up digging a lot when I’m out in the field. I don’t always exercise the best judgment about which snow-covered roads to drive on and which to stay off of. But even with all the digging, I still say snowy weather is the best weather. Snow makes it easier to track game, it’s easier to ski on than dirt, and snowball fights are much more fun than rock fights.
So if you see me standing in the middle of a snowy landscape with a stupid grin on my face, you’ll know why. If you don’t agree with me about snow and cold, you have my permission to try to knock the smile off my face with a snowball. Just be prepared for the all-out, no-holds-barred snowball war that ensues.
The last week of the year is always pretty meager in terms of production on the job. You’re still probably a bit groggy from all the Christmas festivities, and in another couple of days, you’ll just do it all again for New Year’s.
Let me put it this way. It’s highly unlikely you got anything done yesterday. You probably spent more time telling people about your holiday or hearing about theirs than you did doing actual work. Today’s probably not going to be much better, either, because all the people who were too hung over to come in yesterday will want to tell you all about it today.
Then tomorrow, you’ll just be thinking about what you’ve got planned for New Year’s. There’s very little point in going in to work at all the rest of this week.
Instead, why don’t you pull that billfold out of your back pocket, pull out the licenses you have tucked away behind the credit cards and gas receipts, and see how many of ‘em are still valid. I have an antelope license in there that’s good until the last day of the year, and I don’t plan to waste it.
Your bird and small game licenses are good until the end of the year, too, as long as there are seasons open. Pheasants, ducks, geese, cottontails and snowshoe hares are all fair game, so use those licenses before they expire.
If you’re sitting on a turkey license for one of a few areas, you still have a few more days for that, too.
While you’re spending those last several days away from work, go ahead and stop in at your regional Game and Fish office or sporting goods store where they sell licenses, and get your licenses for next year before you forget. There are some you won’t be able to get for a while, but you can get your fishing, bird and small game licenses now.
But first, get your vacation request in.
I’m sure there were plenty of goose calls, pheasant vests and shotgun shells under the trees yesterday. And I’m sure if you were the happy recipient of any of these items, you were dying to get outside and use them as soon as possible.
Some lucky buggers even got shotguns. Maybe a break-action single-shot or two for the youngsters. Now’s the time to get out and use them. There are a few more days left in the pheasant season, and you’ve still got plenty of time to get out for waterfowl.
You can also go after rabbits with those new shotguns. If you or a junior hunter you know got a .22 for Christmas, it’s a good time to break that in, too. The rabbit season runs until March, so you can use those new rifles for quite a while.
If you got a big game gun, you might not be able to take it hunting, but you can still sight it in. Take it to the sporting goods store or the gunsmith and get it bore sighted, then go to the range. After you get it sighted in, get some practice with it. Send a few boxes of bullets down the barrel. Make sure when the season rolls around, you can hit where you’re aiming.
The same goes for the shotguns. Just because the season’s still open for birds doesn’t mean you have to go hunting. In fact, it might be a good idea to go to the trap range and break a few clays before you try your new gun out on live targets. If you get a feel for it, you’ll have better luck when you take it on its first hunt.
Maybe you didn’t get a new shotgun, rifle or even a new duck call for Christmas. That doesn’t mean you can’t still get out in the field on these last few days of the year. Take the old, trusty 12-gauge out for geese. Pull on your tattered hunting vest and go after pheasants. Or get the beat-up, well-used .22 out of the gun safe and bring a few rabbits home.
Use your vacation time before you lose it. There are only a few days left in the year, and those licenses in your hip pocket will expire at midnight on the 31st. Put a few more birds in the freezer before you have to buy a new set of licenses.
I hope you had a very merry Christmas. If you have some sort of a Christian background, Christmas is a day of peace, love and caring.
Maybe you enjoyed some long-running holiday traditions, or maybe you started some new ones. One of the things I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older is that not all the traditions endure, no matter how much I’d like them to. It’s just part of life. Before the kids came along, for instance, my wife and I relished our newfound tradition of sleeping in on Christmas Day. But then the kids came along, and that tradition went by the wayside pretty quickly.
Now the boys are young men, and it looks like we might get to revert to getting some extra sleep on Christmas Day again soon. Not this year, though. Colby made it home for the holidays, but he’ll be shipping out for Basic Training in January. Logan’s a senior in high school, and he hasn’t decided what he’s going to do next year. Odds are that next Christmas, both the boys will be in college, and they’ll probably be able to come home for the holidays, but nothing’s guaranteed at this point. With that in mind, I didn’t mind being rudely awakened at 5:30 yesterday morning by my Christmas-crazed offspring.
In the future, I don’t know what our Christmases will be like. If the boys can come home, I imagine they’ll be much like they’ve always been – maybe with the addition of some members of another generation of Stocktons. If they’re off living their own lives and can’t make it back, that’s OK, too, but it’ll just mean our house will be a lot quieter.
Either way, though, you can bet there will be plenty of outdoor activity going on around here. When we get warm Christmases, Amy likes to saddle up the horses and take a Christmas ride. It doesn’t matter if there’s snow on the ground or not, as long as it’s warm enough that we don’t freeze our fingers off halfway down the trail.
And Christmas Day is always a good time for me to get out to my backyard shooting range. I always ask for ammo for Christmas, and my family is always good about delivering. That means I generally have a few boxes of something I can send downrange. If it’s windy or cold out, the shooting session is pretty short, but I can’t recall a Christmas I’ve missed a chance to shoot.
It’s fun if it’s just Amy and me, or even if it’s just me by myself. But it’s always better if the boys join us at the range and make it a full family affair.
Whatever your Christmas traditions are, I hope you got your fill of them, and I hope Santa brought you everything you dreamed of.
Just remember, no matter how excited you are about your presents or how good you feel about how happy the gifts you’ve given others have made them, there is a higher meaning to this day. Keep in mind that the presents you give and get on Christmas are secondary to the gift all of mankind was given more than 2,000 years ago.
Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas to you. Even to those who aren’t deeply religious, if they have some sort of a Christian background, Christmas is a day of peace, love and caring.
In Wyoming, for most people, December means Christmas. Some families celebrate Hanukkah and some celebrate Kwanzaa, but almost everyone in this area celebrates a holiday in which the exchange of gifts is a part. It’s not the biggest part, but it often gets highest billing. Not to toot my own horn, but I feel I am wise beyond my years in knowing that there’s nothing wrong with enjoying the giving and receiving associated with the season, as long as you keep in mind the reason for the celebration.
Many families in this part of the country also put quite a bit of emphasis on outdoor pursuits. For that reason, binoculars, snowshoes, skis, shotguns, rifles, fly rods and camouflage clothing are probably under quite a few trees in The Cowboy State. Some of this gear will see its first use in the final days of this year. But some of these gifts will sit dormant for several months.
For some kids, it doesn’t matter whether they can use their gifts right away or be forced to wait the better part of a year to put them to use. They’ll have such a need to get the full experience out of their presents that they’ll insist on having them at hand all day, every day for weeks.
Please do me a favor, though. If you get a new rifle or shotgun for Christmas, please don’t insist on sleeping with it. That’s just a bad idea.
And remember, no matter how excited you are about your presents or how good you feel about how happy the gifts you’ve given others have made them, there is a higher meaning to this day. Keep in mind that the presents you give and get on Sunday are secondary to the gift all of mankind was given more than 2,000 years ago.
Merry Christmas.
It’s stocking stuffing season again, and I freely admit I’m terrible about finding stuff to stick in stockings. I’m determined to do a better job of it this year.
And while I’m out there trying to find what to cram in my wife’s sock, I figure I’ll try to help you with your stocking stuffers list, too.
I spent a couple hours in a local sporting goods store one day last week, looking for small gifts outdoorsy types would like. It didn’t take long for me to realize my problem in the past wasn’t that there aren’t good stocking gifts available, it was that I just didn’t apply myself to finding them.
For instance, who wouldn’t want a headlamp? Most of the headlamps ranged from 100-lumen models for about $25 to super bright 500-lumen ones for about $100. Some of the new, fancy ones can be charged with a USB cord, too. Those were a little more expensive, though. A good stocking stuffer one is the Inova STS, which runs about $30.
Then there are the Gear Ties. These things rock. I have a huge assortment of these, and I used one just the other day to keep the zippers on my backpack closed when we went to get our Christmas tree. Gear Ties are like high-zoot twist-ties, and they can be reused countless times. No stocking should be without Gear Ties this Christmas. You can get an assortment pack for about $24, or specific sizes and colors for anywhere from $4 to $10 for each pack.
And I would be in trouble with Bob from the gun counter if I forgot to tell you that handguns are perfectly stocking-shaped. And he’s right. I hope there’s a Kimber Micro 9mm in my stocking this year.
There’s a huge group of people who already know about Air Soft guns. Or Soft Air guns, depending on who makes the model in question. They’re pretty much the same thing. If you don’t know what they are, they’re air guns that shoot plastic BBs, and you can get them in models that are copies of most of the actual firearms on the market. The Soft Air warriors you might run into use guns that mimic the military and special forces weapons, and they get together on weekends to shoot those guns at each other.
But if you’re just hoping to get a little practice when the weather’s too nasty outside to do it for real, you can get one that matches your regular sidearm and shoot to your heart’s content in the comfort of your own living room.
Granted, you might want a high-quality pellet trap, because even though these things shoot fairly soft plastic projectiles, they shoot them fast. The spring-powered versions generally push at about 300 feet per second, and the gas-powered ones can break 400.
Some of the most popular versions, like the one modeled after the Smith & Wesson M&P, come in either spring or gas powered styles. If you’re trying to decide which type to get, keep in mind that though the CO2 versions will shoot with more velocity, you’ll have to keep plenty of CO2 cartridges on hand. The spring versions aren’t as powerful, but the only thing you’ll need to reload is the ammo.
Thank goodness there are people like us who can’t stand the thought of a day when we can’t go shooting. And thank goodness those people had the knowledge to make an idea like this work. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some shooting to do.
Let’s face it. If you haven’t sent off that stack of Christmas cards yet, it’s too late now. On the same token, any packages you haven’t sent to their intended recipients in other states aren’t going to get there on time, no matter how much you spend on shipping. There’s no sense wasting time trying to get ‘em there now.
You might be able to find gifts for people in town, but that means fighting the mobs in the stores. If there’s even anything good left on the shelves, you’ll have to stand in incredibly long lines filled with surly last-minute shoppers to get it all taken care of.
Your only hope is to forget about it all and just go hunting. Sure, you might have to face some pretty upset or disappointed people on Christmas, but look at the bright side. The fields and duck marshes will be pretty empty in the next couple of days, because most everyone else will be stuck in check-out lines, getting grumpier and grumpier. You’ll be out in the fresh air, doing what you really want to be doing, rather than spending your hard-earned money on something that’s probably just going to be returned within a week, anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Scrooge. I love Christmas. I’m just being realistic. I’m also pretty sure if you force it now and just buy the first thing you come across for your significant other, you might wind up worse off than if you just admit you put it off too long and don’t get anything. Trust me when I say that a bad gift might land you in more trouble than no gift at all. Oh, you’ll be in trouble either way, but if you show up with, say, a ThighMaster or a set of Shake Weights, you’ll wish you’d just wrapped an empty box instead.
So grab the decoys and the shotgun, or take advantage of the tail end of the pheasant season. And start thinking now about what you’re going to get your sweetie next year.
Several years ago, my wife gave me a paintball gun for Christmas. Actually, the preferred term is paintball marker. With the “don’t point guns at people” rule in mind, painball players decided to go with the term “markers” instead of “guns.” Either way, you’re still pointing it at other human beings, then pulling the trigger. And the result is a paint-filled ball whistling out the end of the barrel at an extremely high velocity. When you get hit by one, you’re lucky if you don’t wind up with a nice welt.
I was extremely happy when I opened the package. The only trouble was that none of my friends in town owned paintball markers, and I didn’t know of any paintball battle zones indoors in the area. You can’t play outside when the temperature is hovering near zero. Well, you could, but getting hit with a frozen paintball is NOT recommended. So I had to wait a couple months before I could play. When I did get a chance, it was with my wife’s brother and his friends.
These guys are serious paintball warriors. They all have customized markers, complete with sniper barrels, enormous CO2 tanks and specially designed protective gear. I had my off-the-rack marker, a regular-sized CO2 tank and my warm-weather BDU pants and jacket. I blended well with the surroundings in the woods around my brother-in-law’s house, but there wasn’t much cushion between my flesh and the speeding paintballs.
After earning about my 12th Boone and Crockett welt, I started to wonder if my wife was trying to kill me. When you’re old, fat and out of shape, running from a platoon of 18-year-olds who are trying to shoot you is not what the doctor ordered.
I did finally get the hang of the game. I used my best skill – hiding in the foliage and not moving. I just sniped my young, athletic opponents as they ran by.
If you’re still looking for gifts for someone who seems to have just about everything, get ‘em a paintball marker this Christmas. They’ll love you for it, despite the welts.
Our oldest son is in his second year of college, and to complicate matters even more, he’s going to head to basic training for the Army and the Wyoming Guard in January. We wanted to make sure he could go with us for our Christmas tree hunt, so we put it off until this weekend.
I’m not sure if this will be the last year Colby goes with us to cut down a tree or not. He’s doing his own thing more and more, and while I’m glad to see him spread his wings and become his own man, it’s harder than I thought it would be to let him go. It seems like only last Christmas I was watching him unwrap his first .22 rifle or the first fishing rod that was truly his. But time has flown, and in reality, those gifts were given many Christmases ago.
And while we were lamenting the fact that Colby might soon be starting his own holiday traditions that don’t necessarily include his mom and me, our youngest son is about to leave the nest, too. Logan’s a senior in high school this year, so it’s only a matter of time before he isn’t joining us on our pilgrimage to the Medicine Bow to cut down a tree.
That’s devastating. It’s heartbreaking, yet exciting, to know the boys are both on the verge of starting their own lives. Every cloud has a silver lining, they say, I guess. But I don’t think that’s true. Because there is a cloud that doesn’t have a silver lining on the horizon. It’s the cloud that comes along with Amy and me having to drag whatever tree we cut down out of the forest ourselves. Amy’s strong for her size, and she’s a powerhouse in her own right, but even so, I think when the boys stop coming home to cut the tree, we’ll be picking much smaller ones.
This being Wyoming, there are undoubtedly going to be quite a few firearms tucked under Christmas trees across the state. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t wishing for one, but between my expensive tastes and my wife’s misguided idea that I already have enough, I’m not optimistic. As for that thought that there’s such a thing as enough guns, and that I’ve already achieved that status, don’t get me started.
Anyway, some folks will be getting guns for Christmas. Rifles, shotguns, maybe some handguns. When it comes to putting a smile on someone’s face, it’s tough to find a better present than a new gun.
But if you give someone a hunting gun, or if you’re lucky enough to get one, I’d caution you against trying to break it in on live game. There’s less danger of that with a centerfire rifle than with a shotgun or a small game gun, but I know quite a few people who got shotguns for Christmas and took them out to the duck blind the next morning.
It’s just as important to get a feel for a new shotgun in a controlled environment as it is to sight in your elk rifle each year. Instead of heading for the marsh on the 26th, take the new shotgun to the shooting range. Break a few clay targets before you try your luck on anything with feathers.
It’s tough to hold back, though. Especially if you’re giving the new shotgun to your kid. My dad gave me my first shotgun for Christmas when I was 11 years old. But he also gave me a trap thrower, a couple boxes of clays, and a case of 9-shot. We spent most of the rest of Christmas break flinging clays, and eventually, we broke more than we missed. By the time I took it hunting, I was pretty good with it. I can’t think of a better way to give a shotgun as a gift.
You may recall the Christmas story called The Gift of the Magi, where two people, in the hopes of getting each other the perfect gift, sold the items their gifts to each other would have paired with. It’s a wonderful story about two people’s love for each other, and how that love is more important to them than any material items.
But when it happens in real life, it’s a real bummer, and even more so when what really happens is only half of the Gift of the Magi. A few Christmases ago, I wanted to get my wife the perfect gift, but I was a little short of cash. So in order to come up with enough money, I sold the one rifle I owned that didn’t have any significant sentimental value. It happened to be my AR-15. It was one of the few rifles I’ve bought for myself, and to be honest, I bought it as an investment. I bought it back when guns like it were relatively inexpensive, but there were signs that their value might increase rapidly due to changes in laws and other factors.
I wound up holding onto it too long – I did make more money on it when I sold it than what I paid for it, but if I’d sold it a few years earlier, it would have brought a lot more. But that’s beside the point. The point is, I sold it to buy my wife the perfect gift, and then I waited patiently for Christmas to arrive.
On Christmas morning, I gave Amy her present, and she gave me mine. She was very appreciative of the gift I gave her, and she asked how I’d been able to afford it. I told her I’d sold my AR, and her face fell. Then I opened mine. It was four new P-mags for an AR. It’s the thought that counts, right?
So this year, I’m hoping for a new AR-15 under the tree. I just hope she doesn’t sell anything to buy one.
If I had the ability to head up to Riverton today, I’d take my mom out for a fantastic birthday adventure. We’d start with a duck hunt down on the Wind River, where a few hot springs keep the water open, even when the air temperature is 20 below. We probably wouldn’t be able to expect a full limit, but we’d be sure to have a good morning of pass shooting.
After that, we’d grab some white sheets and the rabbit in distress calls and wander out to a ranch where we could hunt coyotes. We’d wedge ourselves deep into a snowdrift and turn our faces into the wind, then sit patiently, waiting for some ‘yotes to come to the call.
In the afternoon, we’d head out to my parents’ field and take a crack at some crows. The crow population has come down from where it was a few years ago, but there are still plenty of ‘em up around Riverton.
Finally, we’d use the last of the daylight to try to get some geese. Last time I talked to Dad, he said the geese were really starting to show up around his place. I think it’d be great to call in a few for Mom.
Oh, wait. All that stuff involves cold, snow and shooting stuff. My mom’s not against any of that, but she’s not usually very excited about actively participating in any of it. She’d much rather curl up on a warm couch with a good book and a steaming cup of hot chocolate than huddle in a frigid blind with a Thermos filled with tepid coffee.
If I could have made it up to Riverton today, though, I probably still could have done all that. Mom has always been great at letting me chase my outdoor dreams. In fact, if I got Dad to go with me, she’d love the peace and quiet. All she’d ask in return would be that we take her out to a nice dinner.
Happy birthday, Mom. I wish I could be there to take you to that dinner.
My son Logan has been participating in the American Legion shooting sports for the last few years. Some Legion posts have small-bore, or .22, shooting, and I think some have trap shooting. But Cheyenne Post 6 has air rifle, and a few years ago, Logan decided he wanted to give it a try.
The pellet guns these kids use aren’t little Daisys that have to be pumped up 10 times to leave a welt. These things are serious shooting machines. They’re precision-tuned for accuracy.
That said, you still have to get a perfect sight picture, squeeze the trigger just right, hold steady, and control your breathing and heart rate in order to shoot them consistently well. But if you do all of that, it’s amazing how accurate these things are.
The distance the kids shoot is only 10 meters, but that might as well be a mile considering the tiny size of the target they’re shooting at. The 10-ring is only a hair wider than the pellet itself. It takes serious skill – and a whole bunch of practice – to hit that 10-ring every time.
But Logan achieved the highest award the NRA gives to civilians a few weeks ago. He got the Distinguished Expert award, which is the culmination of 17 progressively more difficult levels. For the final level, he had to shoot 10 groups of 20 prone, 20 kneeling and 20 standing shots, and he had to have a minimum score of 520 out of a possible 600 to get it. If he missed on any of those steps, he’d have to start that three-position aggregate all over again.
It all made it clear to me that shooting decently is one thing. But that kind of shooting – where you nail the bull on just about every shot, no matter what – is only attainable through lots and lots of practice.
So get out there and practice.
When I was up in North Dakota working as a wildlife photographer, I often had to spend a lot of time in extremely cold conditions. I’ve been in similar situations here in Wyoming. Cold is cold, no matter where you are.
I don’t know if cold affects you the way it does me, but it tends to hit my fingers first. It starts out just being uncomfortable, then my fingers just plain quit working. That was the case with a photo shoot I was trying to do a while back.
The temperature was one degree, and the wind was blowing 30 miles an hour. I had all the goodies to keep most of me as comfortable as possible – I had a balaclava to keep my ears and face warm; I had snow pants to stay dry below the waist; and I had my super heavy Filson coat with the extreme wool liner to keep my core nice and toasty.
But to shoot pictures, I was going to need to have some dexterity in my fingers, so all I had for my hands was a pair of glove liners. Before I left the truck, I poked a couple of hand warmer packets inside the gloves, and that helped, but by the time I got my photos and got back to the rig, my thumbs were bone white. It got me thinking, why don’t they make the whole darn gloves out of the stuff they make those hand warmer packets out of? You’d just open the packet, shake the gloves for a minute, then pull them on, and the entire gloves would keep your hands warm and toasty all day long.
Come on, hand warmer maker people, help us out a little. Your packets are lovely things, but you need to kick it up a notch. Especially for those of us who live in places where the temperature and wind chill regularly combine to make it feel like we’re wandering around on the back side of the moon.
Both my wife’s Toyota 4Runner and my Ram 2500 have stupid wheel rims on them. All eight wheels just collect dirt, mud and snow when we take them off road, and that causes the wheels to be horribly out of balance. When we get back out on the highway after driving through dirt, mud or snow, both vehicles vibrate like a washing machine with all the clothes on one side of the drum. There have been times when I couldn’t go more than 60 miles an hour, for fear the truck was just going to bounce itself right off the road.
The problem is the way the rims are being built – and the fancier looking the rims are, the worse the problem seems to be. For the rims to look cool, apparently they have to have open space around the inside of the tire, and that area gets clogged up with dirt and debris.
In the old days, when nobody cared what their rims looked like, the rim was slanted on that inside diameter, so if any dirt, snow, mud or other crud got in there, it would just get slung off to the inside of the wheel, and the tire stayed in balance. The majority of people buying vehicles these days live in cities, and they never take their vehicles off of the paved roads, so there aren’t enough people complaining. That means the manufacturers are free to keep selling these awful dirt-gathering rims.
Sorry about the rant, but I’m tired of having to go to the car wash once a week simply to blast the dirt out of my wheel rims. If I find a set of rims that’s built right, I’ll let you know, so you can put them on your own off-road rig. Until then, I guess we’ll all just have to keep bouncing down the road with dirt-filled wheels.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been walking along in the winter, when all of a sudden, my feet go out from under me. It happens so fast, there’s often no time to even put a hand out to catch myself.
It’s really bad when it happens in town, because the sidewalk isn’t my favorite place to face-plant. But it’s annoying when my feet slip while I’m out pheasant hunting or deer hunting, too. And then there’s ice fishing. As clumsy as I am without any help, I really don’t need to be trying to stay vertical on a sheet of sheer ice while the wind’s whipping along at 40 miles an hour.
But if you’re like me, or if there’s someone on your Christmas list who’s as likely as I am to take a winter digger, there’s hope. Several years ago, my grandfather sent me a pair of Yaktrax for Christmas, and they’ve been one of the most useful presents I’ve ever received. Yaktrax are like a set of tire chains for your shoes. They’re a rubber net that stretches over the soles of your boots, and the parts that contact the ground are wound with a coil of wire, like a spring. They give you a heck of a lot of traction when you’re walking on ice and snow.
I have that original pair of Yaktrax Walkers, and I picked up another pair last year, but I bought the Yaktrax Pro model. The pro version has a strap that goes over your boot, to keep them on more securely. I’ve had the snow pull the walker model off my shoes, but that hasn’t happened with the pro version yet.
They also make running models, a Diamond Grip type and a Spikes model, both of which have metal studs for even better grip, especially on ice.
If you know someone who doesn’t like to fall down on the ice and snow, toss a pair of Yaktrax in their stocking this year.
While you’re exchanging gifts on Christmas morning, you might glance over and notice your most faithful friend giving you those sad puppy-dog eyes. That’s just the sort of thing that can put a damper on an otherwise jovial celebration. Don’t let it happen to you this year.
While you’re finishing up your Christmas shopping, make sure you have a couple things on the list for your hard-working hunting companion. Pick up a few bumpers to give your pooch something less grungy and grimy to retrieve in your training sessions. You could pick up some pheasant or grouse scent to make those sessions a little more interesting and meaningful, too.
But you might want to get something to keep your pup occupied while the rest of the family is swapping presents. I found a great thing at one of the local feed stores last week, and I’m sure my Lab will love it. It’s called a Quado, and it’s a chew bone with four limbs. At any given time, three of those legs are on the ground, leaving one sticking straight up in the air. Your dog can roll it, flip it, and chew it. I was looking for a wishbone-shaped Nylabone, but I can’t find those anywhere anymore. The Quado is the next best thing.
My Lab had a wishbone Nylabone a few years ago, and she loved it. She could work it around with her paws, and because she liked it so much, it didn’t last long. The Quado ought to last longer, because it’s huge. In fact, on the package, it lists the size as Ginormous.
Grab a few treats to keep your dog happy, while you’re at it. My dogs love the Science Diet Simple Essentials treats, and those goodies also help keep their teeth clean and their coats soft.
And when the treats and chew bones are handed out, just give that dog some attention. Make sure his Christmas day is merry.
A goose blind can be anything from a burlap sack you pull over yourself to a concrete bunker you’ve constructed in a field or on the edge of a marsh. The burlap sack has two big advantages; it’s portable, and you can use it to carry your decoys, too.
If the ducks are going into Farmer Johnson’s field, you can take your burlap sack out there. If they’re flocking to the river, you can poke a little riverbank vegetation into it for added camouflage.
But there’s also something to be said for dugout blinds. You have to either own the property or lease it from someone who will let you build one, so they’re not possible for every hunter. The other drawback is that they’re stuck where you build ‘em, but you can camouflage them to look like part of the landscape. With a flip top or a retractable roof, they’ll blend right in with the rest of the surroundings and be completely invisible from the air.
You can also make them pretty comfortable. You don’t have to go crazy like a friend of mine did. He insulated his blind, so the cold from the ground wouldn’t seep in as fast. Then he installed four propane burners and a stove. As a final touch, he outfitted it with three old arm chairs and a recliner. You don’t find a lot of blinds with that many creature comforts.
All you really need is a hole in the ground you can line with plywood. Put a top on it and cut some holes in the lid. Then get some 5-gallon buckets to use as seats. That’ll get you started. You can add other comforts, like heat and better chairs, over time.
Or you can just stick with the old, trusty burlap sack.
One way or another, get out and do some hunting. It’s nice to hunt from those ultra-plush blinds once in a while, if only to give you something to dream about while you’re lying under your burlap sack, waiting for the birds to come in.
It’s that time of year again when we all scratch our heads wondering what to give the people on our shopping lists who are tough to buy for. I’ve heard a lot of people say hunters are hard to find presents for, because most of us tend to just buy the things we want for hunting, instead of waiting for it to be given as a gift. But that’s not really true. And even if it is, there are plenty of things hunters use that we can always use more of. Ammo is a prime example. As long as you know what caliber the hunter on your list shoots, several boxes of ammo is always good. Better yet, if you can get a peek at that hunter’s ammo collection and figure out what grain they like to shoot for each caliber, you’re golden. Then there are trail cameras. Of the hunters I know who use trail cameras, I don’t know of a single one who would say, “Yeah, I have enough trail cameras.” That’s one of the reasons I don’t have any – I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before I had two or three dozen of them. And if [...]
I love a good snow. The more we get, the merrier I am. Especially if I get to go outside and play in it. There’s a ton of stuff you can do in the snow. Ski, snowshoe, hitch up a sleigh, whatever. When it snows during hunting season, it makes it easier to track game, and sometimes makes better scent conditions for dogs. You might have to bundle up a little more and make sure your gaiters are tight around your ankles, but it’s more than worth it. You don’t have to go hunting to enjoy it, though. You can rev up your snowmobile, if you have one. Blasting through the drifts for a couple of hours is a great way to spend a snowy day. If you want to move a little slower and possibly see some wildlife, strap on the cross-country skis or the snowshoes and make your way through the woods a little more quietly. I have friends who snowmobile, and other friends who ski. I don’t have many friends who do both. It seems the cross-country skiers and snowshoers are a little more laid back, in general, while the snowmobilers and downhill skiers tend to be [...]
Like a lot of Wyoming kids, I grew up hunting. I bagged my first cottontail before I can remember, and I outgrew more duck hunting parkas than I’ve worn out. But during the first few of my hunting seasons, the critters I spent the most time hunting were pheasants. That may be a bit unusual for a Wyoming hunter, but my dad had a friend who raised his own birds. We also spent some time chasing quail around Dave’s property, and that’s more unusual yet. But growing up in Riverton, we had a few wild pheasants, too. I didn’t have to go far to find pheasants. My dad had a chunk of land down by the Wind River, and the pheasants did pretty well on the edges of his crop fields. When I was old enough to hunt on my own, I’d walk down to the river with pheasant loads in the shotgun, then switch to duck loads when I got to the water. If I hadn’t limited out on ringnecks, I’d reload the pheasant shot for the walk back home. But long before I was hiking down to the river by myself, my dad would take me out to [...]
One of my biggest pet peeves is a dull knife blade. On the other hand, few things make me happier than a surgically sharp blade that glides through anything in its path. But it’s not easy to keep that razor’s edge on all the blades I carry around. Part of the problem is that I cut things I probably shouldn’t with my knives. I cut hay bale strings just about every morning, and I saw the tops off of boxes several times a week, and cardboard and twine are some of the worst materials for knife blades. I used to use a Spyderco Sharpmaker ceramic sharpener, and I still do use it for my serrated blades. I’ve also used a Lansky sharpening system, and that’s a great sharpener, too. The problem with both is that they’re not very portable. Several years ago, a WorkSharp Guided Field Sharpener appeared in my Christmas stocking. This thing is amazing. In one, compact package, the WorkSharp has a coarse diamond stone, a fine diamond stone, a ceramic rod with coarse and fine surfaces, as well as a fish hook sharpener. The handle also has several broadhead wrenches, too. And on the side opposite the [...]
My boys are getting older, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting less excited about Christmas. About the only difference is the price of their gifts. We used to be able to get by with spending a couple hundred bucks on a bunch of stuff to cram underneath the tree – and even then, the boys seemed happier playing with the boxes the toys came in than the toys themselves. Gifts have gotten more expensive as they’ve gotten older. My youngest thinks he should get a Ram 2500 for Christmas. Not a new one, he assures me. He’d be happy with a 2015 or 2016, he tells me. I think he greatly overestimates what an outdoors show radio host makes. He changed his tune after we took an afternoon to go hunt pheasants last weekend, though. Now he said he can wait on the truck, but he says he needs a new Browning Citori Sporting Clays 12 gauge over-and-under. For crying out loud, I’D love to have one of those. I hate to break it to the kid, but there’s no way in heck Santa’s leaving one of those under the tree, and if he does, I’m claiming it. All of [...]
A few years ago, I snared a bunch of pigeons out of my dad’s barn in Riverton and took them to a dog trainer out by Albin. I just gave the birds to Ron, but I found out later that there’s actually a market for those rats with wings. Most of the people who buy pigeons are dog trainers. They don’t pay a lot for them, but you can make a go of a pigeon ranch with sheer numbers. When I caught those birds out of my dad’s barn, there were only a few I couldn’t snag. But in just a couple of weeks, Dad was overrun with pigeons again. And they say rabbits reproduce fast! They ought to use pigeons for that example. If you have the space and a complete lack of pride, you could build a pigeon coop with some two-by-twos and some chicken wire. Toss in a handful of birds, and in no time, you’ll have more squab than you know what to do with. You might want to line up some buyers before you start hatching them. But it turns out dog trainers aren’t the only people buying these disgusting things. If you have the [...]
I know, a show about giving thanks on Thanksgiving is pretty predictable. But it doesn’t feel right to overlook the importance of this day. However, because this is a program about the outdoors, I’ll just talk about the things in the outdoors I’m thankful for. There’s plenty of it. Especially here in Wyoming. We’ve got it in spades over a ton of other places we could have wound up. Take the big game seasons, for starters. We can pick up a general license and go hunting in more than half of the areas. On top of that, we can hunt for the better part of two months, or in some cases, three months. That’s assuming we don’t get our critters on opening weekend. With the numbers of animals out there, getting your elk, deer or antelope early is certainly possible – as long as you’re a better hunter than I am. Then there’s the fishing. I can’t think of another state with as many fishing opportunities as Wyoming, with the exception of Alaska. If you’re a trout fisherman, Wyoming is heaven. Upland game bird hunting here may not be as exciting as it is in some other states, but what [...]
At my day job, we have a fitness challenge that’s designed to encourage people to be more active. It’s a great idea, but I miss the old step challenge that tracked the number of steps you took each day. Now it’s based on the amount of time you’re active. I liked the step challenge, but some people took it to a whole new level. It had an app for our phones that could keep track of how many steps we take in a day. I admit I became a bit obsessed about how many steps I got in a day, and I got frustrated if I didn’t get 10,000. But the app also showed us the leader board, and it told us how many steps the top 10 people were taking each week. One of the leaders had 600,000 steps one week. I did a few calculations to figure out how far that person had walked, and if she takes long strides, she’d have walked 30 miles a day during that week. Pardon me for being a little bit skeptical of that. But then I thought about a hunt I took with my kids and my Lab a few years [...]
I don’t know if it’s been as windy where you are as it has been down in the southeast corner of the state, but I hope not. Granted, it’s Wyoming, so it probably has been. We’ve had a brief respite from it for a few days, but I won’t be surprised if it kicks back up to gale force again soon. I went out to feed the horses a couple of Saturdays ago, and it put me in a foul mood. It was bad enough that I couldn’t get the hay from the stack to the feeder without it blowing off the pitchfork and disappearing instantly, but I had been hoping to go pheasant or duck hunting over that weekend. There was no point in trying to go hunting. If I’d kicked up a pheasant, the bird would have been in Nebraska before I could have gotten a shot off. And it was uselsess to try to get my pup on some birds. Any odors left by birds out there were erased by those gale-force winds. Waterfowl hunting would have been equally useless. I’ve been watching birds giving up on Wyoming for weeks, heading south in long V’s and big [...]
You don’t have to put up with nasty recoil when you’re hunting. Even if you’re hunting our state’s bigger animals, like elk, moose, or even bison, today’s technology can take a lot of the sting out of your hunting rifle. A friend told me he developed a bad flinch while sighting in his .300 Win Mag this year, and he fought with it during the season. He had three chances at nice bull elk, but he jerked as he pulled the trigger each time, and he ended up missing. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There are a bunch of options out there to cut down on recoil. You can get recoil pads you can mount on your rifle, or you can get separate ones that go on your shoulder. You need to be careful with recoil pads, though, because they increase your length of pull, and that can change how you shoot. The best option is to have a gunsmith install a good recoil pad on your rifle after putting you and your gun through a fitting. That way, you can make sure your rifle is exactly the length it should be for you. You can also [...]
I wish I could have timed it better this year, but my new bird dog wasn’t born in time to get out and actually hunt this season. He’s coming along nicely in his training, and I could take him out after some sharptails or pheasants, but he’s still pretty small. He knows how to retrieve, and he’s kicked several birds out of the weeds in the pasture, so I know he has the instincts to flush the birds for me. But if I were to knock down a grouse or a pheasant, let alone a goose, he’d have a hard time bringing it back to me. He’s growing fast, but he’s still not big enough to bring back a big bird. I did take him out in the pasture to see if we could get some practical training on some doves last week, because there are still quite a few of them around. Most of the ones still in the area are the Eurasian collared doves, which are slightly bigger than mourning doves, but I think Copper could handle one. Unfortunately, our training session ended up just being a long walk with some practice sitting still and waiting, because no [...]
A few years ago, Wyoming made national news with a disagreement between a landowner and a group of hunters. The landowner’s land is broken up by several sections of public land interspersed in the checkerboard pattern that dots much of our state. That checkerboard results in many acres of land in our state that are technically public land, but they’re inaccessible because they’re surrounded on their flat sides by private land, and only meet other public sections at their corners. In theory, you can cross from one public section to another at those corners without ever setting foot on the private land. Global positioning technology has made it easier to do that without violating trespassing laws, because you can find out with a great deal of accuracy where exactly on the Earth you are. And some hunters used that technology – along with an A-frame ladder they designed – to cross from one corner of public land to the next without physically touching the private land around it. But the landowner objected to their trespass, and he pressed charges on the hunters. Wyoming law states you can’t travel through private land without permission to hunt, but it doesn’t say you [...]
I’ve been helping out coaching the group of kids who shoot air guns with my youngest son. It’s and American Legion shooting team, and it’s only open to kids who are 18 years old or younger, so they don’t let me shoot, too. It’s a great program to get kids interested in shooting, and making sure they handle guns safely. As a bonus, they get really, really good at shooting if they make it all the way through the program. My youngest son started shooting with the team a few years ago. He moved through all the levels at a decent pace, and now he’s shooting for the highest level possible. He only needs a couple more scores to earn his Distinguished Expert award, as long as he stays focused. But all that helping kids shoot well has got me wanting to do some shooting on my own. I’d like to get better with my handguns, and it wouldn’t hurt me to practice more with my rifles, too. If I can just get to the shooting range early, though, I could do some shooting before I have to set up the range for the kids to shoot. I wouldn’t need [...]
Talking about Christmas gift ideas before Thanksgiving is always dicey. There are a lot of people who don’t like anything being mentioned about Christmas before Thanksgiving, and they’re a vocal bunch. But please don’t take this as me ignoring Thanksgiving and skipping straight to Christmas – I just want to make sure you have time to get all the gifts you want to give others before it becomes a last-minute emergency. That was my disclaimer. I hope I can now continue without fear of being attacked by the Thanksgiving Preservation League. A few years ago, I got the Strikeman dry fire training system for my boys. It’s a great way to practice shooting when you can’t get to the range, or it’s too cold and nasty outside. It uses a laser cartridge and your phone to show you where you’re hitting, and it’s easy to use and helps you work on your shooting fundamentals. And with ammo prices still high, it’s a great way to practice without going broke. The basic system is 100 bucks, and it comes with the target stand, the phone mount and one cartridge. You can get extra cartridges for a variety of calibers for another [...]
My first Golden Retriever, Cricket, was a nearly perfect dog. Her only flaws were that she would tear up something that had my scent on it if I left her in the house for too long, and that she wouldn’t get far enough away from me when we were hunting. Other than that, she was an angel. She was a quick learner, and she picked up on all my commands after only a few tries. We got her when she was about a year old, so I didn’t ever have to worry about house training, but I assume she figured that out quickly, too. And she was gentle, kind, sweet and always eager to please. Copper, my new Golden, is a different story. He’s pretty closely related to Cricket, and he’s a miniature carbon copy of her. He’s also very quick to pick up on the commands, but that’s where the similarities end. He’s an absolute menace. He saves most of his deviousness for Paisley, the other dog in the house. She’s a nine-year-old Australian Shepherd, and Copper’s turning her into a cranky old lady. He can’t resist stealing every sock he can get his mouth on. And when I [...]
Some folks get today off for Veterans’ Day, and I think it’s a state law that you have to do two things. First off, thank a vet. Whether it’s someone who served decades ago or one of the kids fighting for us right now, tell ‘em thanks for all you have today. And you don’t have to stop at one. Thank a whole passel of veterans, if you can. Then go huntin’. That’s the other required activity on Veterans’ Day. If you’re stuck at work today, let your employer know that he or she is violating State Law eight-two-zero-zero-niner dash ten-four-q. Just make up some number, but make sure you get that “niner” in there. It sounds a whole lot more official. There’s all sorts of stuff open right now, so don’t waste this day off. If the kids are free, take ‘em out after rabbits. Or go after a few ducks and geese, depending on where you like to hunt. There are still quite a few deer areas open, and there are a few places to go for elk and antelope. And wild turkeys are fair game to hunters in all the areas. Chukars, huns, and blue, ruffed and [...]
I got a new golden retriever a few weeks ago, and I immediately started working on his hunting ability. It’s been a while since I had a good hunting dog, and I’m hoping Copper fills that void. But even if he’s instinctively a good hunter, there are some things even natural hunting dogs don’t do without some reinforcement. You have to work with them constantly to make sure they’re going to do what they’re supposed to do when you’re out hunting. And that’s the beauty of a hunting dog. Training a dog is enjoyable. Sure, some things aren’t much fun, like force fetching, but that’s a very small part of the training. And when you get the dog up to speed on the basics, the training gets really fun. That’s when you have to go do the practical exams out in the field. Once your dog knows most of the commands, and he knows he needs to fetch when you tell him to fetch, even if he’s gotten bored with it, get him out to the duck blind or the pheasant fields as much as possible and get his nose on the ground. Copper’s still just a little guy, so [...]
When I went hunting back in September with a group of friends, everyone had a different method for finding their way through the woods. Some of us were still using maps and compasses, though even that has changed. Instead of using the USGS quads that always seemed to put the spot you’re in right on the edge of two maps, or worse yet, the corner of four maps, I’ve started custom ordering my maps from MyTopo.com. But maps aren’t the only thing that’s gotten a serious upgrade in the last several years. GPS receivers have come a long way, too. I’m still using my old Garmin eTrex Vista – the version with the black and white display. Yeah, it’s old, but it still works – at least as long as there’s not a food of wet snow on the ground and in the trees. I’ve had my GPS go haywire in those conditions before. Others in the group had newer GPS units, but the really cool thing was the OnX Hunt app a couple of guys had on their phones. If you haven’t heard of OnX, check it out. You can use it on your phone, so you don’t need [...]
Man, it’s great to have a string of shots that isn’t marred by a single miss. You shoot at a bird, and it goes down. Every time. It’s even better when that streak comes along when you’re hunting with friends. Better yet, when you’re hunting with your father-in-law. You feel so good when you can’t miss that it’s hard to stay humble. But no matter how strong the urge is, resist the temptation to gloat. Even a little bit. Because the shotgunning gods don’t like a braggart. Not at all. I had one of those hot streaks a few years ago. It started with a goose hunt with two friends. I was on the upwind end of the blind when the geese came in. My friends, who have the lease on the blind and because of this will remain nameless, each took a shot at the passing birds. They missed. I pulled up on the lead goose, touched off a shot, and the bird crumpled. I racked the slide, fired again, and another goose fell. I was on top of the world. I resisted the urge to rub it in, even when a lone goose came in a little later. [...]
Ducks Unlimited has a great library of excellent tips for hunting on its website. You don’t have to be a member to access most of the advice, but if you do join, your membership fees go to support and enhance waterfowl habitat. One of DU’s recent posts focused on ways to keep your retriever happy and healthy when you’re hunting waterfowl in extreme conditions. Even though many of the retrieving breeds, such as Labs, goldens and Chesapeakes, have double coats that repel water and keep them warm, they can still get wet and cold. The article says nutrition is the first line of defense for your retriever. The more your dog hunts, the more calories he burns. And the colder the weather is during the hunt, the more calories yet he expends. The article says a gun dog requires up to 80 percent more calories during the hunting season than he does during the off-season. While you’re out hunting, keep a close eye on your dog. Pale skin is a sign of frostbite, and you might see it on his toes, ears, tail, or other areas where the hair is thin enough to see the skin. To prevent it, keep [...]
There’s not much that beats a good Thanksgiving turkey. Especially when it’s surrounded by all the other Thanksgiving goodies: stuffing, sweet potatoes, green beans, jello salad and cranberry sauce. About the only way you can top all that is to use a wild turkey, instead of a store-bought one, for the centerpiece. A wild bird won’t always taste better to everyone at the table. Some people prefer a pen-raised turkey. But for anyone involved in any part of the harvest, a wild bird can’t be beat. There’s just something about getting that turkey yourself that makes it taste a hundred times better. But you don’t have to be the one who pulls the trigger to feel that way. The youngster who tagged along or the spouse who stayed home should take just as much pride in the bird as the hunter does. After all, if it hadn’t been for the junior hunter who stayed quiet or the better half who kept an eye on the home, that bird wouldn’t have made it to the Thanksgiving table. Most of the turkey areas are open until the end of the year, and those that aren’t are at least open until the end [...]
Every year, there’s at least one story in the news about a dog tripping the trigger on a shotgun and killing the dog’s owner, or someone else along on the hunt. The thing is, incidents like this should never happen. There are a number of things you can – and should – do to make sure you’re never the subject of one of these stories. There is no reason to ever put your loaded gun down on the ground while you’re hunting. Getting that pheasant, elk or turkey is not so important that you should ignore basic gun safety. Whether you’re hunting with friends, out alone with your dog, or if you’re out there by yourself, never put a loaded gun down. Unload it before you set it down. You’re most likely putting it down to cross a fence or some other obstacle. Because of that, you’re probably in an awkward position when you pick the gun back up, so you want to make sure it cannot fire before you set it down. The easiest way to ensure that is to take the ammo out of it. Each year, someone gets shot by their dog when they put their gun [...]
Waterfowl hunting has become more of a private land activity in the last decade or so. A lot of waterfowlers have resorted to leasing blinds on ponds and in farm fields. That’s a great way to go, if you can afford it, but it’s not the only option. There’s a lot of waterfowl hunting to be found on public land. Especially in Wyoming, which is about 50 percent public. There are plenty of birds to go along with that abundance of public ground, as well. The only problem with hunting public areas is the competition from other hunters. Ducks Unlimited recently sent out some tips to hunting public areas for waterfowl. DU’s first recommendation is to set out a good decoy spread. They talked to Dr. Joe Sands, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, who said birds don’t spread out on the water. They clump together where there are good sources of food. So instead of laying out your dekes evenly, put them in bunches, to simulate birds feeding. Ducks Unlimited also recommends volunteering with state or federal agencies to perform some of the habitat restoration. While that won’t help you now, next spring and summer, [...]
Coyotes are very wary critters. It doesn’t take long before they’re well-educated about hunters. The good news is that they reproduce pretty fast, so there’s always a new crop of dogs that haven’t been initiated yet. But if you want to be sure to lure them in, you need to master more than just the basics. Most coyote hunters use the rabbit in distress as their staple call. It’s not a bad choice, because coyotes generally eat more rabbits than anything else. But because it’s so widely used, the yotes get pretty savvy about looking for humans when they’re investigating noises from a potential meal. Think about adding a few other distress calls to your arsenal. Look for calls that simulate the noises made by other rodents in peril. Or maybe even birds, like woodpeckers, pheasants, or grouse. And while you’re at it, find a call that reproduces the sound of a murder of crows squabbling over a tasty morsel. Calls that mimic the predators themselves work really well, too. But when you’re speaking their language, you need to be more accurate in your vocalizations than when you’re imitating a different animal. That’s why you need to start now. Get [...]
Wyoming went to a preference point system for bighorn sheep and moose licenses quite a while ago. It’s not a straight preference point system, because it still keeps 25 percent of the drawing open to anyone, regardless of the number of points they have. The other 75 percent of the licenses available to residents go to those who have the highest number of preference points. You get one preference point each year that you apply for a license. Or you can buy a preference point if you don’t apply for a license that year. Some people I know alternate years they apply for moose and sheep, because they know they won’t be able to hunt both in one year. So they apply for moose this year, and buy a sheep preference point. If they draw the moose, they won’t get a preference point, but hopefully they’ll actually get a moose. Not to make this too complicated, but if you do draw a license for either moose or bighorn sheep, you can’t apply or buy preference points for that species again for five years. And you can only get one preference point for each species a year. You can’t buy 43 [...]
My dad is one of those hikers who knows millions of shortcuts that always wind up being at least six times as far as the “long way.” “One more hill” is a favorite phrase, as is, “We’re not lost, we’re just misplaced.” I remember a pack trip into the Hoback when I was 5 years old. The first leg of the journey was unbelievably smooth, though it was a little long. But as all good things must come to an end, Dad found another “shortcut.” We looked up to see a huge, hulking red monster of a mountain. At 12:30 a.m. on a moonless, starless mid-August night, we dragged into camp, Mom cursing threats on Dad’s life under her breath, my 8-year-old sister babbling incoherently (no doubt a result of her finding the bottle of whiskey in Dad’s saddlebag), and me falling out of my saddle every few hundred yards. Dad was gloating about how much more fun his shortcut was than the tried-and-true route. It must have been the lack of oxygen to his brain at that altitude. Well, many years have passed since that “blissful” pack trip into the Hoback, and times have changed. Dad’s desire to climb [...]
If you’ve done any goose hunting, you’ve probably heard the term “skybusting.” You may know it means shooting at birds that are out of your shotgun’s effective range, but do you know if you’re guilty of it? You can set up your decoys to minimize the risk of shooting at birds when they’re too far away by putting your farthest dekes at a point you know you can’t shoot beyond. This makes it easy to keep your shots reasonable when the birds are working the decoys, but what if they’re just passing through and fly overhead? There’s a simple guide to estimating range in your late migratory game bird regulations. The guide tells you how to use the barrel of your shotgun as a reference. As you’re drawing a bead on the birds, pay attention to how much of the goose the end of your barrel covers. The closer the goose is, less of the goose will be covered by the barrel. If the goose is fifty-five yards out or farther, the barrel will completely cover the body. If you can’t see any body, the goose is too far away. Keep in mind these guidelines were developed for single-barrel or [...]
I have a Ruger M77 in .270 that I absolutely love. I got it as a Christmas present when I was 13 or 14 years old, and for years, it was the only gun I’d ever think of taking with me on big game hunts. There’s a lot of sentimental value in that rifle, even though it kicks more like a .300 Mag than a .270. I started developing a flinch with it years ago, and that kick made me think twice about taking it to the field, let alone to the shooting range for practice. I didn’t want to let it just fade into the back corner of the gun safe, so I had a custom muzzle break put on it to tame it down a bit. The break works great, and I started taking it to the range a lot more. I also started taking it hunting much more often. In fact, for the last few years, it’s the only gun I’ve taken hunting. But last year, the scope started losing pieces, and the reticle doesn’t stay where I want it anymore. So I started looking for a new scope. I wanted one with variable power, so I [...]
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service produces a report every few years that tries to gauge how many people are hunters, anglers, or wildlife watchers. The idea is to see what percentage of the population actually gets out there and enjoys the natural world. The last few studies have been pretty discouraging. The number of anglers has been increasing, but since the population is increasing faster, there are actually fewer anglers on a percentage basis than there were just a few years ago. Hunter numbers are even more alarming. Hunters are disappearing even faster. But you wouldn’t know it by strolling down the aisles in your favorite department store or looking through the pages of the mail-order catalogs. The number of things you can find with a hunting twist are nearly limitless. A lot of that stuff is just the regular item, but it comes in a camo pattern. There have always been the camo hats and T-shirts, but you can also find camo Thermoses, camo couches, and camo wraps for your pickup. You can get camo sheets for the bed, and even camo lingerie for your better half. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have to [...]
I used to be a Merrell hiking boots fan, but after a few pairs that didn’t last as long as they should, I switched over to Danner Boots. The Danners tend to be a little more expensive than Merrells, but the last pair of Danners I had lasted me more than a year, and I’m really hard on boots. Not only are the Danners durable, they’re comfortable. I tend to lean toward the heavier styles, because I know I’m going to be rough on them, but even the bulky versions I’ve worn have felt more like tennis shoes than clod-hoppers. They’re also made in America. Portland, Oregon, to be precise. In a time when most footwear is put together overseas, finding good boots made right here in the USA is pretty rare. And they’re not as expensive as I thought they’d be. The pair I just bought ran me $140, which is about what I used to pay for Merrells that were made in Asia. I got mine at Sportsman’s Warehouse, and they had quite a few other styles of Danners for under $200. I opted for the hiking style, rather than a hunting boot, because I tend to wear [...]
I don’t have good eyes. Had I been born two hundred years ago, there would have been no help for me. Glasses can’t help me, so I’d have been blind. I have to wear a special kind of contact lens, which wasn’t available in the days of Davey Crockett and Daniel Boone. But through the miracle of modern science, I can see, and pretty well. As long as I’m wearing those funky contacts, my vision’s actually better than the average human’s. That’s where my greatest fear comes into play. I try to get out to the woods every chance I can. I’ve learned to read a map and compass like the morning paper, so I can easily find my way home, because I don’t want to find myself stuck in the wilderness for too long without a bottle of saline solution. My contacts are marvels of technology, but they aren’t meant to be worn overnight. If I got in a pinch, I bet I could sleep in them one night. But after that, they’d be useless. I would be better off sticking aspen leaves in my eyes than wearing my contacts for more than a couple of days straight. My [...]
One of the greatest things about Wyoming is the fact that we can hunt the archery season, and if we don’t get what we’re after, we can go out again in the rifle season. And because we have a lot of game animals, we can often pick up additional tags for the antlerless versions of our quarry, too. That comes in handy this time of year. There are quite a few hunt areas around the state that have leftover doe/fawn or cow/calf licenses for deer and elk. Many of those areas have surplus tags because there’s not a lot of public access to hunt there. But in those cases, there are usually quite a few landowners who welcome hunters who will come in and reduce the number of deer or elk that tear up their hay stacks or cause other damage. I prefer to hunt out in the wilderness, where I can go for hours, or even days, without seeing so much as a sign of other humans. But I’m also a pretty unsuccessful hunter, in the sense of bringing meat home. So I often spend the first half of the season trying to outwit the denizens of the deepest, [...]
Hunting elk is definitely easiest when they’re bugling. They’re easier to find, because their songs carry for a surprisingly long distance. Once you get to the area where the elk are making a racket, sometimes you can lure one in with a cow call or a bugle. You just have to know what they’re looking for. Male elk are a lot like male humans. When they get an idea in their heads, they don’t change their focus easily. So if the bull is looking for love, a cow call is your best bet. If he’s looking to prove he’s the king of the mountain, you might be able to call him in with a bugle. If you use the wrong call, though, he might just go off to find what he’s looking for somewhere else. Be careful with your bugle, especially late in the rut. Once the bulls have determined their pecking order, your bugle won’t have the desired effect. The bulls get bugle shy awful quickly, and all you’ll do is push them away. However, if you get between a herd bull and his cows, a bugle might be exactly what you need. If you’re lucky enough or skillful [...]
If you’re an upland game bird hunter, Wyoming’s a great state to be in. We have plenty of options, and most of those options are fair game right now. We’ve got four species of grouse, including blue grouse, ruffed grouse, sharp-tailed grouse and sage grouse. Sage grouse season’s closed, but the other three are open through the end of the year. We also have two types of partridge. We have gray or Hungarian partridges, as well as chukar here, and both of those seasons run through the end of January. And of course we have pheasants, though a good portion of those birds are put-and-take. Wyoming’s climate is kind of hard on pheasants, although there are quite a few populations of wild pheasants around. They’re not as plentiful as you’d find them in some of the states to the east of us, but they’re out there. And where possible, the Game and Fish releases a good many birds each hunting season. You’ll have to make sure you have your pheasant management stamp, in addition to your bird license, your hunter safety card, and your conservation stamp if you’re hunting pheasants, though. And pheasant season’s not quite open yet. The Springer [...]
I stepped out my front door Sunday, and I almost got nailed by three doves flying by so low I could have knocked them out of the air with my hands. When I used to live in town, or even on the outskirts of Cheyenne and Riverton, I thought doves vanished completely by about September third. They gave us a couple days of the season, then they high-tailed it for Argentina. But that’s not the case out in the less inhabited parts of Laramie County, and I suspect it’s the same in much of the rest of the state. Maybe it’s because there’s more out here for them to eat and fewer people to bother them, or maybe it’s because most of them are those dang Eurasian collared doves, rather than the more stately mourning doves. Either way, it means the dove season isn’t over quite yet. After I nearly got beheaded by that winged trio, I turned right around and went back inside to get my shotgun and hunting vest. I loaded up the pockets with No. 7 shot, then tramped outside again to see if more birds would make an appearance. I spent about an hour out there, [...]
I have a set of Vanguard shooting sticks I picked up several years ago. I’ve used them at the shooting range when I’ve practiced with my hunting rifles, but about a week ago, I got to actually use them on a real-live hunt. I had spotted a herd of antelope with a pretty good-sized buck about 800 yards out, and I tried to get closer to them. I got to about 650 yards, and the does didn’t seem to be too worried about me, but the buck was locked on to me from the moment I poked my head above the little hill I was using for cover. I edged back to where I couldn’t be seen again and started working my way around to get closer, when a smaller satellite buck jumped up out of the weeds. He was only about 300 yards away, but he was quite aware that I was there. I knew if I spooked him, all the goats would head for the next ZIP code, and I wasn’t out there for a trophy, anyway. So I switched my attention to this younger, smaller, most likely tastier buck. And even though he started to run toward [...]
If you’re looking for a monster muley this year, you have to think like a big buck. Head for the high country. That’s where the big ones’ll be until the snow pushes ‘em down. If you’re an elk hunter, you should be familiar with working the hard-to-reach terrain. But even if you have to go high in the hills and navigate steep slopes, hunting deer isn’t quite as strenuous as elk hunting. Especially when it comes to packing the meat back out. But trying to get the big one is still pretty tough. The hardest part’s finding him. Get up above timberline and glass the basins, especially the ones with a bit of brush in ‘em. Look at the bases of rimrock ridges, too. Look carefully with good binocs or spotting scopes, because deer can be surprisingly hard to see, especially if they’re bedded down in shadows. Once you find the deer you’d like to take home with you, you’ll have to get close without being seen. If the deer’s up on a hillside, try coming around from the other side of the hill in the afternoon. In the early morning, there’ll probably be a breeze coming down the slope, [...]
The rabbit populations in the state are going crazy. I have a degree in zoology, so I feel I’m qualified to estimate the number of cottontails hopping around Wyoming. My best estimate is zillions. OK, so maybe my methods for determining the rabbit numbers aren’t exactly scientific. But there are a lot of ‘em. There were a lot last year, and I expected the populations to crash this summer. They didn’t. There are even more of ‘em this fall. That’s great news for hunters. You don’t have to go far to hunt rabbits this year. Some folks don’t even have to step out of their own yards. And with a daily limit of 10 and a possession limit of 20, if you have two licensed hunters in your household, you can have 40 cottontails in the freezer between the two of you. If there are three people in the house with licenses, that works out to 60 rabbits. With four hunters, you’ll need to buy another freezer. It may not be elk meat, but in terms of volume, you could have almost the same amount of wild game meat if you take a few rabbit hunting trips this year. But [...]
There’s not much I like better than packing deep into the wilderness with all I need to survive for nine days on my back. That’s a recipe for a great hunt, whether we find the critters we’re hunting for or not. Just getting out and matching wits with the wild for an extended period of time is immensely satisfying – especially on those occasions I survive the expedition. But unless you’re independently wealthy, you probably don’t have the ability to jet off to the backcountry for nine days at a stretch as often as you’d like. I think my boss would be a bit unhappy with me if I even suggested taking that much time off. So I have to get my hunting fix in small increments most of the season, and save up the time for one big, extended hunt. Before my kids came along, most of those small hunts happened on weekends. Sometimes they were overnight trips, but more often, they were just quick day hunts. Like most of my hunts, those short ones very seldom resulted in meat for the freezer, but I still enjoyed my time outside. Now that I have two young boys, weekends are [...]
Not long ago, I saw two posts within a week about guys getting stuck in the eyes by fish they’d caught. One was a catfish spine, and the other was a walleye fin. I don’t know if either of those guys lost their vision permanently from those accidents, but no matter what, it doesn’t sound pleasant. There are hunting accidents every year where people get eye injuries, too. If you took hunter’s safety, you’ll probably recall being told repeatedly you should always wear eye protection when you’re shooting guns or bows. Most hunters I know wear sunglasses to protect their eyes, but those sunglasses can’t be cheap discount store shades. For one thing, cheap sunglasses aren’t going to be durable enough to provide you any protection if something goes wrong, and for another thing, you probably won’t be wearing them early in the morning or late in the evening, when you’re more likely to actually get a shot at a critter. Your eyes are arguably your most important sensory organs, so spend a little more to protect them. Buy good sunglasses for hunting. Maybe even invest in a couple of pairs – one for low-light conditions and one for bright [...]
Not long ago, I saw a message on one of the hunting blogs I like to read. The writer wanted hunters to send in accounts of disasters they’d had in the field. I bet he got swamped with emails. Every hunter I know has had at least one calamity in the woods. If you hunt, camp, fish, climb or do anything else outdoors, you’ve had at least one disaster. It’s just part of the deal. I’ve had plenty of calamities myself, and I’ve come away concluding that I’m actually disappointed if I have a trip that goes off without a hitch. I don’t think I’m alone. I think a pretty good percentage of outdoorspeople enjoy those little snags. It’s those conflicts that make the trips memorable. I don’t mean big, nasty emergency-type bungles. I mean minor disasters. I’m not talking about getting stranded in the Alps and having to eat your companions. Or getting your arm crushed by a boulder and having to whittle it off with your Swiss Army knife. The enjoyable ones are getting disoriented for several hours and finding yourself still in the woods when you were supposed to be back at work. Or having to sew [...]
Maybe it’s because I usually end up coming home empty-handed, and it’s pretty rare that I get to experience the feeling that comes at the end of a successful hunt, but my favorite part of going hunting is stepping outside on that first morning of the season. Or maybe it’s because I’ve had enough of the heat of the summer, and the cool morning is just a welcome change. But most likely, it’s the anticipation of the hunt ahead that energizes me, and it has nothing at all to do with the weather. That’s probably what it is, because I don’t get that same feeling when I have to leave for work early on an unexpectedly chilly fall morning. In fact, that actually kind of annoys me. But when I’m going hunting, even though I know I’m going to be out in that cold all day long, I find the chill in the air invigorating. In fact, the colder it is on a hunting morning, the better. I think there’s something about the cold that makes it seem more likely that I’ll find the animals I’m after. It seldom turns out that way, but that’s what I always feel on [...]
Around the first of September, a good number of Wyomingites start tilting a little bit when we sit. Some of us develop a bit of a limp. It’s not a permanent malady, and it’s not even really a bad thing. It’s just a bunch more paper than we usually carry in one of our back pockets. You have your fishing license all year, but then you start adding to it. There’s the bird and small game license, and that might get stuck into the billfold before the first of the year. If you stick your duck stamp to the back of it, you’ll have to carry last year’s license, too, because that’s the one with the current stamp on it. You don’t get to take last year’s bird license out of your pocket until June, when the new duck stamp comes out. Then there are all the big game tags. Antelope, deer, and elk, and sometimes you’ll have three deer and goat licenses and two for elk. If you were really lucky, you might have a bighorn sheep, moose or mountain goat license. Maybe even a bison tag. Some folks have been known to draw a sheep and a moose [...]
Some people live for the winter, when they can strap a pair of planks to their feet and rocket down a snow-covered slope at break-neck speed. Others look forward to the spring. These are the people who are most likely to utter the phrase, “Spring is a season of rebirth and renewal.” Crikey, turn down the gain on the sap amplifier. And another group is never as happy as they are in the summer, broiling their skin until it’s a nice golden-brown. There are parts of all these seasons I enjoy. But if I had to pick a favorite season, it would have to be the fall. Fall in Wyoming has a little bit of all the seasons. We have ninety-degree temperatures one day, followed by eighteen-inch dumps of snow and near-zero thermometer readings the next. We get rain and the green grass that comes with it, and we get the vibrant colors of the changing leaves. But best of all, we get hunting season. I’m not a blood-thirsty killer. In fact, I hardly ever come home with meat. I just like to be out in the wilderness with everything I need for survival on my back. There’s also the [...]
Biologists with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department are deeply concerned about our state’s wild residents this year. The spring and summer months have been hotter and drier than they’ve been in a long time, and wildlife have a tough time making a living even in good years. Even if we don’t get a brutal winter, it’s pretty likely we’re going to lose a lot of deer, elk and antelope before next spring comes around. There’s just not much food out there for the big game species that live here. Even more troubling is the lack of water. One strategy hunters often use is to stake out water holes, where the animals will likely show up at some point in the day. But doing that can be hard on the herds. It will certainly make it easier for you to get your animal, especially in a drought year, when those water holes are fewer and farther between. And if you put an arrow or a bullet in an antelope, that critter’s not going to care that there was a human sitting there when it came to get a drink. But all the other animals in that herd will be disturbed [...]
Many of us in Wyoming have braved the frigid waters of our state in a float tube in order to get into a better position to catch a big fish. But would you consider just jumping all the way in and swimming out to the deep water? Some crazy guy out in New York is doing just that. Paul Melnyk crams himself into a wet suit, grabs his fly rod, and just starts swimming. His goal is to latch onto a striped bass big enough to actually tow him around in the water, and he succeeds quite often. Apparently, this nontraditional method has earned Melnyk some enemies. Some say he’s taking unfair advantage by getting outside the range of the surfcasters who confine themselves to the shallower areas where they can stay dry in their waders. I really don’t see it being any more of an advantage than using a boat or a float tube. In fact, it’s probably a lot harder. Really, how the heck can you cast when you’re bobbing in the water with only your head and the tip of your fly rod sticking out? And why the heck would you do it, anyway? I really doubt [...]
Ruffed grouse hunters in the parts of the country where the birds are hunted heavily might flush 60 birds in one day, see six, get shots at four and come home with two. They consider that an average day. The birds are not easy to see, even when you know where they are. If you happen to catch a glimpse of one, it’s even harder to hit. Ruffed grouse are built to fly in densely wooded areas, and they can zip in and out of trees without clipping so much as a primary feather on a limb. The ruffed grouse we have in Wyoming don’t usually act the same way. Unless you have a dog, they’re more likely to hunker in the brush and not move than fly. Or they might run, much like a pheasant. They’re a lot like blue grouse in that way. That’s why many of the ruffed grouse in the Cowboy State are harvested by big game hunters. But if you have a dog, you might get to experience at least some of the excitement of a Great Lakes-area grouse hunt. Even where we have ruffed grouse, we don’t have the hunters they do in Minnesota [...]
There’s a lot to keep in mind when you’re hunting. You have to think like your quarry, remember where you put the truck, and make sure you’re not violating any game laws. And that’s the one that takes the most brain power. Sorting out these hunting seasons is enough to give my underpowered brain a real workout. I carry a set of hunting regulations in my truck and another in my camera bag so they’ll be easy to get to when questions about season dates come up. As though that’s not enough, there’s another set at home and yet another one at my desk at the office. A final set resides in the bag that holds my waders, hunting coat, gloves and shotgun shells. I don’t want to be caught anywhere wondering if it’s legal to smoke a duck or not. Starting about June, I check the regulations on a nearly daily basis. When hunting season opens, I start to get a bit obsessive about it. If I’m at home or at work, I check the regs each time I think about a time and a place I could go hunting. When I actually get out in the field for [...]
Fall is my favorite season for a number of reasons. I am much more suited to cooler weather than the heat of summer, so I always look forward to this time of year when the temperatures outside become more bearable – and even drop down to the freezing range overnight. I love those first mornings when you can see your breath again and need to put on a few extra layers. But the biggest reason I love fall is that it comes with hunting season. When I was just a kid, I wanted to hunt with my dad so I could shoot a gun or a bow, and I was stoked to bring home a deer, a duck or a pheasant. I was excited to be able to shoot, and even more excited to get something. But over the years, shooting and harvesting have played a less important role for me. These days, I don’t need to fill my freezer, or even take a shot, to have a successful hunt. It doesn’t matter if I’m bowhunting for elk, rifle hunting for deer, or sitting in a blind or walking the fields with a shotgun hunting birds. The important thing is [...]
I was sitting in the passenger seat of my wife’s 4Runner as we headed down the county road on our way home. Looking out the window, I noticed two mourning doves flitting along on a parallel course to ours, and as I watched, they’d dip down nearly to the tips of the grass, then instantly flit up 20 feet higher. They kept up their aerial acrobatics, but never went slower than we were going. I asked Amy, “How fast are we going?” She said we were traveling at 53 miles an hour. Yet those doves were going just as fast as we were, while still darting up, down, and side-to-side. No wonder those winged demons are so hard to hit when you’re hunting them. The dove season opens Sept. 1, which is still almost two weeks away. There are a bunch of them around right now, but by the time the season opens, most of them will already be headed for Argentina. It’s about 7,000 miles as the crow flies, but apparently, as the dove flies, it’s probably more like 14,000 miles. I don’t know if the Eurasian collared doves that stick around Wyoming all year fly as fast or [...]
When my wife told me I’ve been doing an admirable job of losing weight, but that I’m still packing a few too many extra pounds, I had to agree. But then she said I need to spend as much time as I can hunting this year. My first reaction was to look around for the hidden camera. But she explained hunting is good exercise, and again, I had to agree. But I went one step further. I sat down and outlined the elk hunting diet. Here’s how it works: Step One: Dig out the topo maps for your elk area. Find the spot where the little lines are closest together. This will indicate the steepest terrain. This is where you want to go. Step Two: Strap all your gear on your back and stroll around the neighborhood. If you’re going to have a heart attack, it’s better to have one in town than out in the wilderness somewhere. Step Three: Head for the hills. Be sure to carry everything you think you might need in your backpack: extra clothes, extra ammunition, a couple gallons of water, game saws, skinning knives, survival gear, etc. Head for the steepest, most tree-covered hillside [...]
Most of my spare time this summer has been devoted to helping the boys get their animals ready for the County Fair, and when I haven’t been doing that, I’ve been building my wife a greenhouse. It’s not a huge greenhouse, and it’s nothing spectacular. But it’s also not one of those quick, snap-together kits. I’m pretty sure one of those wouldn’t survive the wind and hail storms we get out here on the high plains. The greenhouse I’ve been building is mostly made of whatever I could find either free or very cheap. Yet I’ve had to make sure it doesn’t look too much like something Jed Clampett would have cobbled together out of pieces off the truck he drove to Beverly Hills. That’s meant I’ve had to take a little more time fitting those pieces together so they have at least some visual appeal. We got windows people were giving away to serve as the walls, and we helped a friend tear down a loafing shed and used the tin from that for a little aesthetic touch. And last weekend, I finally put the last of the clear plastic roof on. All I have left to do is [...]
If you’re planning to upgrade your gear for your fall hunts, you don’t have to look too far. We have more than a few great companies right here in Wyoming that make some very impressive gear. Take Maven, for instance. The company is based in Lander, and it makes some of the best optics you can find. Equally as impressive in quality is Lucid Optics out of Riverton. Both companies offer rifle scopes, spotting scopes and binoculars, all of which are built to the highest specifications. They aren’t cheap, but they’re worth every penny. And of course there’s Brunton, out of Riverton. In a world of GPS, compasses are often neglected, but you want to make sure you have a good one in your pocket anytime you’re in the backcountry. And Brunton makes the best compasses you can get. We have several gun companies here, too. Weatherby made headlines when it moved to Wyoming a couple of years ago, and their barrels are now stamped with “Made in Sheridan, Wyoming.” But Freedom Arms has been making big game hunting handguns here for years, and Gunwerks offers long-distance rifle systems that are becoming very well known in the shooting world. There’s [...]
I told you Monday that our neighbor had a calf killed by coyotes, and that now all the people who live around me are working hard to put an end to one of those coyotes that just keeps coming back to the scene of the crime. Even though I’m not an avid coyote hunter, I have joined in that pursuit. And every time I catch a glimpse of that ‘yote, I become a little more serious about coyote hunting. Coyotes all tend to be a little mangy this time of year, but this one is scragglier than usual. I don’t know if it has some horrible disease, or if it’s just starving, but there’s something definitely off with it. It has almost no hair on its tail, and it has bald patches all over the rest of its body, too. I think shooting it would be an act of mercy. And then there’s the new rifle factor. I could use this rifle for antelope hunting, but I’ve been taking my old .270 out after goats since I was old enough to hunt. It just doesn’t seem right to leave it in the safe and take the new kid out in [...]
My neighbor Kevin and I are both avid bowhunters. I try to practice with my bow as much as I can the rest of the year, too, but the last few years, it’s been more and more difficult to get quality practice time. Kevin and I decided to schedule a weekly practice session so we’d be tuned up before the hunting season starts. We were planning to start our weekly shooting sessions tonight. Our plan was to meet up this week at his backyard range, then next week at mine, and we’d do this each week until Sept. 1. We’d start well before dark, and we’d practice until the end of shooting light, so that we’d have plenty of time to work on the basics, but we’d also be ready for those early morning or late evening shots during the hunting season. We both need the practice, and hunting season is coming up quickly. Archery season starts for antelope next Monday, so we need to get out and make sure we can still put an arrow where we want to before then. But then a coyote came along and messed up our plans. Kevin had a calf get killed by [...]
My neighbor called me last week to tell me there was a coyote headed toward my place. I thanked him politely for the heads-up, but didn’t have any inclination to go get the coyote gun out of the safe and try to give that critter a case of lead poisoning. I like having coyotes and foxes around. If I’m going to shoot one on my place, I usually prefer to shoot them with my camera. But then the neighbor went on to tell me this particular animal had just teamed up with at least one other coyote to kill one of his calves. That’s a different story. When the coyotes get bold enough to start taking down livestock, it’s time to start thinning the population. Coyotes in healthy populations tend to give humans and our critters a wide berth. When they start running out of natural food sources, though, or if they are diseased and have a harder time catching wild prey, they start turning to the relatively easier targets that live behind fences. Last week it was a calf that met a rather gruesome end. Next week it could be somebody’s cat or dog. So if I take a [...]
I have a feeling this week is just going to seem like it crawls by. Time always seems to slow down when you’re waiting for something. And for me, that something is getting to meet my new Golden Retriever. Well, I won’t be sure which of the five males in the litter is the one I’ll get to take home in September. There are four other Golden buyers in line ahead of me, and even though the breeder is going to do her best to match the pups’ personalities with their future homes, we won’t know for sure which one is going to be mine until all the other owners have picked theirs. But that’s OK. The pup is from a pair of parents that both still have hunting abilities, and it’s a Golden Retriever. So I’m good with whichever one is mine. The only thing I’m nervous about is how my Australian Shepherd’s going to take it. She’s been an only dog for quite a while now. We lost her only canine companion last September, so she’s spent almost a year being the center of attention. However, I realized a few months ago that she’s ready for a new [...]
For a long time, it seemed like the only camo you could get was based on a close-up photograph of the vegetation you’d find in a Louisiana swamp or a Virginia forest. MossyOak, RealTree and TreeBark were probably fine camo patterns for those dense woods, but out here in the Mountain West, we still need something with bigger splotches of color with more contrast in order to break up our outlines. I still have some old garments in the World War II pattern, but they’re getting pretty threadbare. I suppose it’s finally time to get some new hunting gear. Even though I’d like to have some hunting clothes that will actually keep me warm, I’ve resisted getting new gear because I’ve been holding out for a better pattern. There are some alternatives now. Sitka has great gear, and they offer a few patterns that are likely to break up your outline very well. The same is true for KUIU. I’m more partial to the KUIU patterns. They actually have three versions I’m trying to decide between. Their Valo pattern is their most brown and yellow option, and it would be great for a pronghorn hunt. For an extreme high-country hunt, [...]
I told you earlier this week that I finally broke down and bought a new 3-D archery target. I also wound up having to buy some new arrows. Those were a couple of expenses I hadn’t planned on. But I went out to shoot my bow last weekend to get some practice for the upcoming archery antelope season, and I ruined not only my target, but also several arrows. If you have a 3-D target, take care of it. I took good care of mine for a long time, but I started to get careless with it. The more dilapidated it got, the less I did to preserve it, and that led to it getting more weather-beaten. Instead of keeping it inside when I wasn’t shooting at it, I just left it out in the yard. I figured if I didn’t have to move it in and out of the garage when I wanted to practice, I’d practice more. That didn’t work out, though, and to make matters worse, the weather chewed that target up. My first shot at the target after weeks of not practicing went much farther left than I wanted it to. I hit that target right [...]
I have an old 3-D archery target I’ve been poking holes in for years. For the first few years of its life, it lived in a shed out behind my garage. When I moved to a new house, it got its own corner of the garage. But as the years went by and that old target started getting more and more holes in it, I stopped being so concerned about storing it back in the garage after I’d practiced shooting at it. Up until a few years ago, I still put it away for the winter, and I didn’t bring it out again until the spring storms had mostly passed by. But for the last couple of years, it has been left out there in the elements all year long. It turns out that’s not very good for foam targets. It’s still roughly antelope-shaped, but it no longer has any paint left on it, and the weather has eaten away the lines that designate the vital areas. But worse than that, the foam it’s made of has basically turned to stone. I don’t know if getting wet, then baking in the sun repeatedly caused some sort of chemical reaction in [...]
It seems like there’s nothing but bad news right now. Inflation’s up, campaign ads are downright aggravating, and there’s lots of talk of a recession. But there’s one thing that’s nothing but good news – hunting season. And it’s just around the corner. In about half the areas around the state, antelope season opens in less than two weeks. The archery antelope season kicks off on August 15th in quite a few of the hunting areas. Some areas don’t open until September 1st, but even that date will get here before you know it. If your area’s one of the ones that opens on the 15th of this month, be ready for it. Make sure you’re dialed in with your bow, and double-check to make sure you have all the gear you’ll need for a hunt. You don’t want to be scrambing at the last minute to get new arrows, find your sagebrush camo clothes or sharpen your knife the night before you plan to go hunting. If you hunt walk-in areas, double-check the walk-in area atlas on the Game and Fish website, too. Quite a few of the walk-in areas don’t open until later in the season, even if [...]
Friday, the U.S. House passed its bill to ban the sale of what it calls “assault weapons.” There is a lot of confusion among many news agencies about what constitutes an “assault weapon,” but the bill essentially would outlaw the sale of modern sporting rifles such as the AR-15 and the AK-47. It would also apply to a great many other semi-automatic rifle and pistol platforms. The language of the bill includes the phrase, “it shall be unlawful for a person to import, sell, manufacture, transfer or possess … a semiautomatic assault weapon,” and the same language is repeated in reference to detachable magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. I’m not entirely sure what they mean by “possess,” but from the looks of it, this bill would make owning an AR-15 or a 30-round magazine illegal. And in my humble opinion, that’s ridiculous. The supporters of the bill argue that enacting this bill would reduce the likelihood of mass shootings like those we’ve experienced in the last several years. But they’re absolutely wrong. All it’ll do is cause difficulties for millions of law-abiding gun owners across the country. The criminals aren’t going to care about these laws, and in [...]
Don’t just let that bow sit in the closet or out in the garage all summer. Dust off the case, take the bow out and get some practice. There are dozens of archery ranges around the state where you can practice shooting in the off season. If you don’t know where the one closest to your house is, ask at your local sporting goods store. If they don’t know, they might be able to at least tell you how to contact someone else who might know. If you can’t get onto a public range, or even a private range that offers memberships, buy an archery target and set up your own range. A company called “The Block” makes a good, inexpensive target. You can also find 3-D targets for under a hundred bucks. Not everyone’s back yard is a great place to shoot a high-power compound bow, but you can take that target to nearly any section of state or federal land and get some practice. Just make sure you pick a spot to shoot where you won’t be a danger to hikers, anglers or other land users. If you want to tweak your bow or its accessories, now’s the [...]
There’s not an awful lot that’s worse than a rain coat that doesn’t keep the rain out. What’s the point of packing it along if it just turns into an extra layer of soaking-wet clothing? Gore-Tex is fantastic stuff, but it doesn’t last forever. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way more than once. But I’ve also found that leaky Gore-Tex clothing isn’t necessarily garbage. You can rejuvenate it and get it to start shedding water again. You need to be careful what you use to re-waterproof it, though. Some waterproofers will get the water to roll off it, but they’ll also seal up the pores that make it breathable. If you’re going to do that, you might as well just cut a couple holes in a garbage sack and carry that around. It’ll be even more waterproof, and it’ll probably weigh less. But if you use this stuff called ReviveX, you’ll get back the old breathability as well as the waterproof characteristics your garments had when they were new. It’s a bit of a process, but it’s worth it. You first need to wash your jacket, pants, or whatever you’re trying to re-waterproof. Don’t wash it in regular detergent, [...]
In my days in the mountains, I’ve seen some horse wrecks that probably should have turned my hair gray prematurely. I’ve had horses go lame on me deep in the backcountry. I’ve been awakened in the night to the sound of thundering hooves receding down the trail toward the trailer. None of those situations do much to give you a lot of confidence in horses as a means of mountain travel. But for every tight spot my horses have put me in over the years, there are fifty good things horses have done for me. First of all, they can carry a lot more weight than I can. Camp is a much more homey place when the horses bring it in on their backs. Our wall tent would fill an entire backpack. And the stove we put up inside it to keep us warm on cold October nights would be too heavy to carry more than a few miles, even if it was all you were packing. But a tent stove is just a heater if you don’t have any food to cook on it. The horses have also allowed me to go farther into the woods than I could [...]
Being prepared for the worst is never a bad idea. However, if you carry everything you might need for any emergency, you won’t have room for your tent or sleeping bag. A first aid kit needs to be light and compact, or it’ll be one of the first things you toss out of the pack when you’re looking to shave weight or make more room. And that kit won’t do you a bit of good when you’re out in the field bleeding to death if it’s back at the house, next to the big lantern and the extra can of white gas. You can buy a first aid kit that’s pre-packaged and ready to go, or you can put together your own. There’s nothing wrong with either way, but most of the experts like to make their own. The store-bought kits tend to have more than you’ll need in them, and even some things you don’t have the faintest idea how to use. That’s another argument for compiling your own kit. If you put it in there, chances are, you know how to use it. My own first aid kit is fairly simple: an Ace bandage, a couple of squares [...]
There are a lot of electronic earmuffs and earplugs on the market, and most of ‘em are worth every penny you’ll spend on ‘em. The best ones are generally more expensive, but you don’t have to sell your first-born to get a good pair. Electronic muffs are also known as active sound suppression. They’re active because they let the quieter sounds come through, but at a certain decibel level, they dampen the louder noises. That makes it possible to talk to your shooting partners without having to take off your ear protection. The Walker’s Game Ear is one of the pioneers of the active sound suppression ear protection, and they can be pretty pricey. The nice thing is that they’re custom-molded to your ear, and since they’re earplug-style rather than muffs, you won’t hit ‘em with your gun stock. However, since they’re made for one ear, you have to buy two of ‘em to get the full effect of the hearing protection. You can spend anywhere from a hundred and fifty to four hundred dollars for each one. SportEar makes some nice active earplugs, too. They’re priced by the pair, but you can still expect to pay four hundred fifty [...]
Last week, I tossed my mountain bike in the truck to go get some exercise. I’m hoping to be in good enough shape to get through my elk hunt without going into cardiac arrest, and riding a bike is part of my exercise regimen. I got to the trail I had planned to ride, but when I pulled my bike out of the truck, I realized the trip was a waste of time. I had two flat tires on my bike. It reminded me of a time I didn’t get the advanced warning, though. On the way back to town, I recalled a bike ride with my wife and kids that didn’t go smoothly. Back in those days, I often towed my kids along on my rides in their little bike trailer. On that trip, my wife went with us. She had been pretty good about encouraging me to get in shape without actually nagging me, and for that I was grateful. But it was kind of getting on my nerves that she was pedaling along with what seemed to be absolutely no effort whatsoever. There I was, huffing along, dragging an extra sixty pounds, and there she’d go, zipping [...]
I’m a horrible fisherman, at least when it comes to fishing in Wyoming. When I fish in other states, I do fine. But I can’t catch a fish to save my life in my native waters. That’s OK, though. I don’t eat fish very often, so I’m a catch-and-release fisherman by rule. If I don’t catch any, I don’t have to worry about taking them off the hook. My inability to catch a fish saves a lot of time. My boys usually fish circles around me. While I’m busy casting and reeling, the boys are pulling fish after fish off their lines. My wife usually does, too. It wouldn’t bother me, but all three of them see fit to rub my nose in the fact that I’m the guy who writes about fishing all the time, but they’re the only ones who ever catch any fish. But their luck hit a wall a few weekends ago. We went up to Mirror Lake in the Snowy Range to do a little fishing. When we walked up to the crystal-clear water, we saw 10 or 12 little cutthroats zipping around in the shallows. I figured we could entice a couple of them [...]
I’m not afraid of a little hard work. In fact, I enjoy it. It gets me moving, keeps me somewhat in shape, and most hard-work tasks come with the reward of being able to look at what you’ve done and get a feeling of accomplishment. That’s certainly the case with cutting firewood. But in addition to all those other benefits, cutting firewood comes with a few more perks. First of all, you get to go to the mountains to do it. We tend to go to new places every year to gather firewood, so we get to see new country each time we go. You don’t often see many critters when you cut firewood, because the chainsaw tends to deter elk, moose, deer and other wildlife from venturing anywhere near you. But we almost always get to see at least a few wild animals on the drive up or on the way back home. It’s also almost always cooler up in the mountains than it is down in town, so you get to escape the heat for a little while – which is good, because you heat yourself up pretty good while you’re cutting and hauling logs. A couple of [...]
If you haven’t completed a Cutt-Slam yet, now’s the time to get it done. The Cutt-Slam is like other grand slams in the hunting and fishing world. It requires you to get one of each of four different subspecies of a certain type of animal. In this case, the four subspecies are Wyoming’s native cutthroat trout. In our state, we have Bonneville, Colorado River, Snake River and Yellowstone cutthroat trout. The trick to it is that you have to catch them in their native waters. Generally speaking, you can find Yellowstones in most of the northern half of the state. Snake River cutthroats live in and around the Snake River on the northern part of the west side of Wyoming. Bear Rivers are also found around their namesake on the southern end of a narrow strip on the western border. And Bonnevilles hang out on the southern part of the drainages west of the Continental Divide. You can complete a Cutt-Slam in a summer, but doing it in a day can be a bit of a whirlwind. And you have to be a better angler than I am to accomplish it in one shot. But Al Langston and Chris Madson [...]
My high school class met in Riverton over the weekend, and even though it’s not that far to go, I ended up not going. I told myself it’s because I just have too much to do. Hunting season will be here before we know it, and I need to get ready for that. I’ve been spending all my spare moments practicing with the bow, re-waterproofing the tent, breaking in new hiking boots, and locating all my gear. On top of the hunting season prep, we’re in the middle of building a new barn. That means I need to get everything that’s going to go into that new barn laid out so it’ll be ready to move in when the barn gets done. That in turn means I need to reorganize my shop, and that’s good news for my hunting gear, because I’ll finally be able to keep it in a spot where it’s not buried under piles of horse tack and yard equipment. I tried to tell myself that there would still be plenty of time to get ready for hunting season if I took a weekend off, because antelope archery season doesn’t start until Aug. 15. But right on [...]
Everything’s all wacky this year. You can’t watch the news without raising your blood pressure, and the election insanity is starting up again. I hope life gets back to normal soon. But in the meantime, it’s important to take some time to recharge. No matter what we’re doing during these crazy days, we all need to just sit still for a few minutes and relax. Better yet, go outside to do that relaxing. Sit on the back deck, or maybe cruise up to a campground in the forest. Park it on a stump in a meadow. And just watch the grass grow for a little while. You probably won’t get to sit there for long. There’s just too much to do. If you’re at home, there are all the chores that still need to get done. If you’re up in the woods, you probably need to get supper on the fire or finish getting the tent set up. But the week is finally over, and it’s summertime. Take at least a half hour to just … be. And there’s no better time to do that than the thirty minutes before the sun finally sinks behind the western horizon. It’s a [...]
I can’t stand heat. I’d rather be cold than hot. Part of it is just how I’m wired. I just don’t do well when I’m overheated. If I’m doing any kind of exercise, I sweat like crazy. Heck, I even sweat playing cards. But part of it is the fact that if you’re cold, you can always put on more clothes. If you’re in the woods, you can build a fire. But when you’re hot, there are only so many clothes you can take off. And if you’re in the woods, heat is often accompanied by biting insects, and there are some parts of my anatomy I’d rather not be a smorgasbord for deer flies. Speaking of the woods, that can be a good place to go to get away from the worst of the heat. The mountains can still be hot, but it’s generally cooler in the backcountry than it is down in town. If you’re a typical Wyoming person, you probably don’t have air conditioning in your house. My office at my day job has A/C, and it’s spoiled me. When I’m at home in the summer now, I spend most of my time downstairs where it’s 20 [...]
If you’re really adventurous, you might add some spice to a tubing trip. My friends Blair and Val introduced me to the fine art of river tubing when I was in high school, and looking back, it’s a wonder I lived long enough to graduate. The Wind River winds behind my parents’ house in Riverton, and where it curves under a cliff, Blair, Val and I found a new way to cool off on hot summer days. We bought some old, patched-up inner tubes from a local tire shop, added some air and headed for the river. It wasn’t long until Val had a bright idea. He suggested we stack all the tubes on top of each other, then set this three-decker donut adrift over the deepest pool under the cliff bank. One of us would climb up the cliff a ways, then jump off onto the tubes. The idea was that the tubes would spring us up like a diving board, and we’d bounce out into the water. It sounded like a good idea at the time. And apparently, I’m the stupid friend in the group, because I went first. I meant to land on the tubes like I [...]
I built a shooting range in my yard when I first moved to my house. I set the backstop up at the bottom of one of the hills in my pasture, and I could shoot down at it from the top of another hill 100 yards away. It wasn’t ideal, though; the backstop hill was full of rocks, so ricochets were a big problem. I found a pile of 6×6 timbers and I lined the backstop area with those, and that worked until the cows started kicking rocks down from the top of the hill onto my ricochet-preventing timbers. I finally quit being lazy and rebuilt my backstop farther out in the pasture, where there was another good hill to serve as a berm. From this new spot, I could move back to 600 yards. Much better. I stacked those 6×6 timbers to stop most of the bullets, and the ones that went through would be caught by the hill. I thought it was perfect, but then I shot at it. The timbers stopped most of the shots, but the ones that went through ricocheted off the rocks in the berm. Not good. I added another layer of 6x6es and [...]
On our trip around Wyoming last month, we saw all sorts of wildlife, including grizzly bears, black bears and wolves. But we didn’t see any moose. That was disheartening for me. I know moose have been having a tough time in that area lately, due to a number of factors. They’re being hit hard by diseases, parasites, drought, tough winters, and predators. No single cause is completely to blame, but taken together, all these factors have put a serious dent on what used to be the biggest moose population in the state. As we approached Yellowstone, we saw more and more billboards put up by wolf advocates pleading for wolves to be returned to the Endangered Species List. There are several groups who would like to see protections returned to these apex predators to ensure their continued survival. But returning the wolves to the Endangered Species List will actually have a negative impact on them. There are a number of reasons for this. First and foremost, the longer they’re federally protected, the more they’ll be resented by the people who live where they’ve been reintroduced. Wolf survival depends on a positive – or at least a grudging neutral – relationship [...]
In 1995, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department introduced a preference point system for moose and bighorn sheep. Every year, when you apply for a license and fail to draw, you are awarded one preference point for that species. If you decide not to put in for the draw, you can buy a preference point. If you don’t put in for a license and don’t buy a point for two years in a row, though, all your accumulated points are erased. The same is true if you move out of Wyoming and then come back. When you move, you go back to zero. And when you come back, you have to live here for a full year before you even apply as a resident again. It’s not a full preference point system, though. There’s a 25% random chance provision, meaning a quarter of the licenses are doled out strictly based on chance, giving those with fewer than the maximum points a shot at drawing a tag. The system has worked well for nearly 30 years, as long as you’ve kept up with the draws. If for one of those reasons you lost your accumulated points, or if you drew a [...]
I had grand plans to hunt a couple of new areas this year. I’ve scouted those areas, bought new maps that cover them, and come up with schemes to ambush the game I was planning to hunt there. But fate had different ideas. None of us who put in for those areas as a party drew. We all ended up with general elk and deer licenses. So that means we’re all going to have to hunt an entirely different area this year. The good news is that we have an area picked out that is general for both elk and deer, so we can hunt both in the same place. It’s also fairly close, so if we don’t get our tags filled when we go out in the archery season, we’ll probably be able to go back during the rifle season and try it again. But we’ve put a lot of effort into hunting those limited quota areas. We’ve already spent quite a bit of time up there checking things out, mapping out some likely places to find game, and picking out some places to set up camp. We were all optimistic about drawing, so we didn’t even consider any [...]
I applied for limited quota elk and deer licenses this year. It was the first year I’ve remembered to apply in probably the last five or 10 years. Most years, I’ve ended up getting a leftover antelope license at the last minute, and I’ve hunted general areas for deer and elk. This year, I had grand plans to hunt a specific area for elk and another for deer. The areas I was hoping to draw have good numbers of nice bulls and bucks, and they’re pretty easy to get to. The general areas I normally hunt have plenty of critters, too, but there are often quite a few other hunters around while I’m up there. Also, if I get back into the places where the elk and deer can be found, it’s a long, hard trip back out if I get something on the ground. I have a few friends who hunt the areas we put in for this year, and they’ve gotten both elk and deer in those areas in the past. When they’ve gotten their animals, they’ve been able to pack them out with relatively little effort. It’s still work, but it’s not nearly as much work as [...]
We built a new bar in our basement several years ago. I’m not entirely sure how long ago we built that bar, but it’s been quite a while. I’m embarrassed to say we got it almost complete, but there’s been one important component of the bar that hasn’t been finished. For all these years, there’s been a gap in the corner, at the end of the counter, where a bar fridge should be. I didn’t want to settle for just any fridge. I’ve been holding out for one that looks good, holds more than a typical bar fridge, and keeps beer at just the right temperature. I finally found that fridge last week, and it was my family’s Father’s Day present to me. Unfortunately, we had to go all the way to Boulder to pick it up, so that meant I had to scrap my plans to take the kids fishing. I was OK with skipping the fishing this year. My boys and I just went fishing the weekend before, and I even caught some fish on that outing. I figured if we went fishing again so soon, I’d be pushing my luck, and I probably wouldn’t catch any fish, [...]
Fishing season is finally here. The die-hards have been hitting the water for the last several weeks, but now even a lot of the higher country is free of ice. Be careful, though, because the really high country is still covered with several feet of snow. In some places, the snowpack is well into the double-digits. If your favorite fishing spot is one of the places still sitting under a blanket of white, now’s a great time to find a new one. Pack up the camping gear and grab a handful of topos, and then go exploring. There’s plenty to do this time of year, even if you don’t want to go fishing. You can just go for a hike, or maybe dust off your GPS receiver and log on to geocaching.com. Plug in the coordinates to a few geocaches in your area and have some fun while you’re working on your orienteering skills. If you’re looking for a little more of a challenge, you can log onto letterboxing.org, which is similar to geocaching, but most of the directions to letterboxes are written in a way that makes you use a map and compass, rather than a GPS receiver. If [...]
My dad gave me a Brunton ADC Summit a few years ago. The ADC is a handheld weather station. ADC stands for Atmospheric Data Center. You can strap it to your backpack or wear it around your neck, and with a glance it’ll tell you the speed of the wind, the temperature, the barometric pressure, and a bunch of other weather-related information. I loaned it to a friend who was preparing to hike 100 miles in the middle of the winter a year and a half ago, and even though my friend eventually made it home, my ADC did not. John was highly apologetic for not being able to give it back to me, so he sent me a new one. He gave that ADC a much more aggressive test than anything I’d ever done with it. When I had it, I used it to find the temperature and the current speed of waters I was fishing, wind speeds up in the high country, and to find out if the weather was about to change for the worse while I was camping, hunting or hiking. Even though I used it a bunch on photo shoots in the winter up in [...]
It’s time once again for the reminder to be careful what you wish for. I took my family to Yellowstone National Park a couple of weeks ago, and I commented several times about how dry it seemed. I even said out loud that it would be good to get some rain. Well, they got it. They got more of it than they could handle, unfortunately, especially around the northern loop of the park. There’s aerial footage of the Gardner River absolutely blasting through its channel, and the North Entrance Road, or what’s left of it, runs along that waterway. After Monday’s flooding, there are large sections of that road that are just gone, including at least one bridge. There’s no telling how long it’ll take crews to rebuild that road. It’s not exactly in an easy area to build a road to begin with. The northern reaches of the park seem to be the hardest hit, with the roads to both the north entrance on the way to Gardner, Montana, and the northeast entrance, to Cook City, Montana, being washed out in several areas. But the flooding caused problems on the roads throughout the park, and all five entrances to [...]
While thinking about some of the wisdom I’ve gained from experiences in the outdoors, I thought of the most obvious piece of wisdom first: Don’t eat yellow snow. But some of my wisdom has been even harder-earned. I’ve learned to never go into the field without a spare compass. After sitting on the only compass I had with me on a trip into territory new to me, this piece of wisdom is bought and paid for with sweat and a pair of hiking boots. Speaking of boots, it’s wise to break in new boots and clip your toenails before hiking 30 miles in those boots. To neglect either is to doom your new boots and socks (as well as your toes) to the scrap heap. Some lessons I learned for the most part at someone else’s expense. For instance, I learned from John Whipp that down sleeping bags with nylon shells and tent stoves don’t make good bedfellows. My dad’s collapsible wood-burning tent stove consists of a fire box, an oven and a metal shelf. Though the shelf stays much cooler than the other parts of the stove, it still gets pretty hot. There are two legs coming off the [...]
If you’re wandering around the woods, doing everything you should do to keep from startling a bear, chances are you won’t see one. But even the best precautions don’t always work. Say you’re whistling as you walk, talking to your hiking partners, or even wearing bear bells on your hiking boots. You hang your food far from camp, and you cook at least a hundred yards from your sleeping area. You don’t wear the same clothes to sleep or hike that you wear when you’re cooking and eating. You’re doing what you can to avoid a bear confrontation. But there’s still a chance you might come upon a bear that doesn’t hear you coming. Now what do you do? If you startle a bear while you’re hiking, the first thing to do is to watch its body language. A stressed bear will pace or pant and swing its head. It might also huff or woof, and it may snap its jaws and slobber. Get your defenses ready. Pepper spray is the most effective defense you can find. But make sure your can of spray is no older than two years old. It might work if it’s three or four years [...]
There’s a common perception floating around that grizzlies are aggressive defenders of their territory that will maul or kill a person if the bear is startled or threatened. It’s also commonly believed that black bears are skittish and shy and will run from trouble rather than stand and fight. These generalities can lead to trouble. These are wild animals, and they are unpredictable. But there are steps you can take to avoid causing a bear to turn your head into a canoe. If you’re going hiking, camping or hunting, research the area you plan to visit. Special rules apply to areas where grizzlies tend to be found in relatively high numbers. These rules can include hanging your food and other items that attract bears 10 feet off the ground and four feet out from any vertical support. The use of bear-resistant containers is required in some areas. And in all grizzly use areas, dogs aren’t allowed to run off leash. When you get done cooking and eating, bag your garbage in a sealable bag and hang it in the storage area. This storage area should be at least 100 yards from the sleeping area. The same goes for the cooking [...]
If you’re at all serious about camping, you can spend a small fortune – or even a large one, for that matter – on camping gear. Every time you head for the hills, you evaluate all your equipment, and even some of the newest goodies can come up lacking. There’s always something lighter, stronger or easier to use on the market. There are tents that set themselves up. All you have to do is take them out of the bag and throw them into the air. When they land, they’re ready to be lived in. There are backpacks that weigh whole ounces less than the one you’re currently lugging up and down hills. Cook kits that weigh less than a postage stamp but could be used as heat shields on the SpaceX Rocket. There’s always something in the catalogs and on the store shelves that’s better than what you have, but it all comes with a price tag. A while back, a salesman showed me the latest, greatest thing to happen to camping. It was a stainless steel camp stove and oven. This thing looked like a miniature kitchen range with two burners on the top, and underneath the burners, [...]
I love introducing my kids to the things I got to experience the first time with my dad. Things like fishing, hunting, hiking and camping were some of the best things my dad taught me how to do. Even better, there are so many different ways you can do those activities, when we went on our second, third, fourth, and later adventures, they still seemed like doing them for the first time. My dad seemed to get just as much joy out of those things as I did. And now that I have kids of my own, I realize Dad probably actually had even more fun on those trips than I did. But it’s unfortunately not the same for every activity I introduce my kids to. Recently, my oldest son got a summer job cleaning horse stalls. He needed a little help getting it done the first day on the job, so he called me to see if I could come give him a hand. I got the joy of teaching my kid some of the time-saving and effort-reducing tricks I’ve learned over almost 40 years of picking up after horses, and even several years of cleaning pens for money [...]
This day has become the unofficial beginning of the summer, even though it won’t truly be summer for another month. But the weather is getting nice enough to get away to the hills, and the extra day off gives a lot of people the time they need to shake off the winter blues. You may have already spent your three-day weekend out at the lake – possibly enjoying the extra elbow room compared to years past, because only Wyoming residents are allowed to camp in our state parks this year. Or maybe you spent the days camped deeper in the backcountry, though it’s still pretty chilly for that. Fishing is always a popular activity on Memorial Day. I think there are several reasons for that. For one thing, it’s easy. Unless you’re planning a multi-day fishing trip, you don’t have to work out a place to camp, figure out what you’re going to do for meals, and all the other considerations. All you need to do is throw a few rods and some tackle in the truck, and find a stretch of water that might have some fish in it. And there are just about as many ways to fish [...]
If you get Monday off for Memorial Day, take some time to pay tribute to those who have died for our freedom. It’s a day that was originally called Decoration Day, way back at the end of the Civil War. It was celebrated on May 30, 1868, and that date was chosen intentionally because it was not the date of any particular battle. Decoration Day started as a day to remember those lost in the Civil War, but during World War I, it evolved to be a day to remember all those lost in all wars. The surprising thing is that it wasn’t an official federal holiday until 1971, even though it’s been celebrated across the country for well over a century. This weekend, and especially Monday, give some thought to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. It’s been expanded to honor all those who have fought for our country, whether they were wounded or not. Our military personnel sacrifice a lot to protect our freedoms, and they deserve our thanks. There are many ways to honor our veterans on Memorial Day. You can visit cemeteries and put flags on graves; worship at your church; attend memorial celebrations; or [...]
I took my boys to the Ron Thon Memorial wrestling tournament a few months ago up in my old hometown of Riverton. While I was in town, I stopped at a gas station and went inside to get some snacks and drinks for the trip back to Cheyenne. They were playing the local radio station over the speakers in the store, and while I was in there, The Great Outdoors came on. I chuckled to myself as I picked out a root beer and some Dot’s pretzels, and I stepped up to the counter. The young lady behind the counter asked me a question, and I responded. I don’t remember what she asked or what I said, but I must have replied with more than just a “yes” or “no,” because the lady stopped scanning my goods and looked up at me. She said, “wow, you sound just like that guy on the radio.” For a minute, I didn’t know what to say. I just stared back at her for a second, then for once in my life, the perfect response came to me at the right moment. I told her, “I get that a lot.” When my boys were [...]
It’s great to have a souped-up, high-zoot, winch-equipped monster truck for hunting and fishing. And there are times when a really good four-wheel-drive system is absolutely necessary. But maybe even more important than the type of vehicle you’re driving is the tread pattern on the tires underneath that rig. I’ve long been a fan of the Cooper Discoverer S/T Maxx. They’re a great all-terrain tire that rolls well on the pavement, but still gets good traction in mud, snow and ice. I have yet to find another tire that gets better traction on such a wide variety of conditions, and still runs for 30,000 miles or more. I generally get about 35,000 miles out of a set of Discoverer S/T Maxx tires. My curiosity was piqued a while ago at the Rocky Mountain Driving Experience, though, when representatives from BF Goodrich brought their T/A KO2 tires. These are the tires their Rally and Baja drivers are taking through some of the roughest terrain on the planet. They had a couple of their drivers at the event, and they swore by these treads. I’d love to get my hands on a set and test them out on my driveway. In a [...]
There’s truly something cathartic about the repetitive motion of casting a fly. The trickle of the water over rocks has healing powers of its own, and catching the occasional trout lends a feeling of accomplishment that further enhances the catharsis. That’s all just a fancy way of saying if you’re worried about any of the new strangeness that hasn’t really gone away after the pandemic, having to go back to work in the office, sick of high gas prices, or anything else, you need to go fishing. And gas prices aren’t the only thing that’s gone up. Just about everything has risen along with it. It’ll still be a while before things get back to the way they were before the pandemic, and I think we’ll need to get out there on the water at every opportunity in order to keep ourselves sane. It might still be hard for you to get away. Ever since all this weirdness started, there have been a lot of businesses that are short on help. If your company’s in that boat, it might be hard to get more than a couple days off. Or you might have to settle for short trips to places [...]
My dad taught me the value of a good set of tire chains at a young age. I was probably eight years old, riding along with my dad on a spring bear hunt, and we got mired in the mud on a forest road outside of Pinedale. Dad looked over at me and said, “This is no problem. I’ll just get the chains on and we’ll be out in no time.” Unfortunately, he had washed out a winter’s worth of accumulated hay, trash, sticks, firewood chunks and other debris before our trip, and the chains didn’t make it back into the tool box. Worse yet, neither did the tow chain. We dug for a while, hoping someone would come along with a logging chain, and finally, someone did. That guy already had his chains on his tires, so it didn’t take much to get us out of the soup. But from that day on, neither dad nor I went anywhere without double-checking to see that we had all our chains in the truck before we left the garage. That’s why the first thing I got for my new truck was a set of tire chains. I probably should have gotten [...]
I never thought there was such a thing as weather too bad to go shooting. But as I get older, and now that I own some acreage of my own, it turns out there is such a thing, and for a number of reasons. First of all, I’m getting too old to freeze my fingers off, trying to wedge another cartridge into the magazine of my old Model 94 Winchester. The spring on the magazine cover is extremely tight, either despite or because it’s over 100 years old. When my fingers get cold, they feel like they’re going to break right off when I try to cram a cartridge in there. And that’s one task you simply can’t do with gloves on. Then there’s the moisture factor. When it’s nasty outside, I really don’t want to have to walk all the way out to my range. I prefer to drive over there, keeping my guns safe and dry in the vehicle as I go. But when it’s this wet out, the truck leaves deep ruts through my pasture. These ruts become rivers when it rains, and with every downpour, more of my land washes down the hill to the neighbor’s [...]
I don’t get the chance to go home to Riverton much anymore. The day job tends to get in the way, and the kids seem to be in every activity that’s offered. Our weekends and evenings are completely packed with stuff we need to do. But that doesn’t keep me from thinking about what I could be doing down on the Wind River behind my parents’ house this time of year. I used to spend every free minute I had down there, regardless of the time of year. But the spring was always my favorite time to head down there. Before the water got too murky with runoff, I’d wander down there with my bow and try to get a few carp with my bowfishing rig. Sometimes I’d take the fly rod or the spinning rod and try to catch a brown trout. When the water turned the color of chocolate milk, I’d explore the banks or the draws farther from the water, looking for animal tracks. My dad taught me how to cast tracks, and we had a collection of fox, coyote, muskrat, raccoon, and deer tracks. Once in a while, we’d even see the critters that left the [...]
Winters here are pretty mild. Sometimes they’re awfully cold, but for at least the last decade or so, they haven’t been bad at all. But we’re a little over a month into spring, and that’s when it starts to get ugly. Even in May, snow isn’t unheard of around here. Neither are freezing temperatures. Last weekend was a case in point. But it’s not the cold, the snow, or the mud that makes us tough. It’s the wind. I’m convinced that the legendary fly-fisherman Jack Dennis wouldn’t have been as good as he is if he had spent his formative fly-fishing days in a state with less wind than Wyoming. After practicing for so long in 50 mph winds, I don’t think anything phases him anymore. I’m no Jack Dennis, but I escape cabin fever by heading to Curt Gowdy State Park in the spring and do my best to get my flies in the water. Once in a while I get a good wind from my back and don’t have to worry about the cast. All I have to do is flip the fly into the air and fly it like a kite until the wind recedes enough to [...]
I love to fish, but I’ll admit I’m not very good at it. In fact, I’m absolutely horrible. It doesn’t matter what I use for a lure – fish just don’t want whatever it is I’m throwing. You’ve probably seen the bumper sticker proclaiming Fish Tremble at the Mere Mention of My Name. Well, in my case, fish laugh themselves into a stupor. I still try to get out to the streams, rivers and lakes whenever I can for a good dose of humility and humiliation. But I’ve found an activity I’m a lot better at, and I don’t have to go very far to do it. When I was working at the newspaper in Cheyenne, I found that I do OK with a camera. I’m not great, but if I do say so myself, I luck into a decent photo every now and then. Through trial and a whole lot of error, I’ve learned a few things about photography. The first thing I’ve learned is that it’s a great excuse to get outside for an hour, a day, or even a whole week. And when I get really lucky, I can even pay for a trip with the pictures [...]
You just about can’t go to the shooting range anymore without seeing someone shooting an AR-style rifle. It’s not that they’re more common than more traditional hunting rifles – only about 20 percent of gun owners have an AR. But it seems the people who own them just might shoot them more often than other types of rifles. That’s not surprising. They’re a lot of fun to shoot. They also have a whole lot less recoil than traditional rifles. It’s actually a pretty ingenious design. The rifle uses some of the recoil to load the next round, and a spring in the stock absorbs a little more of that kick. That right there is one reason I’ve started to decide ARs are OK for hunting. I’d rather see a person who practices a lot with an AR take a shot at a deer than watch a guy who hasn’t put a round through his bolt-action Winchester in 10 years try the same shot. But that lack of recoil is also a source of debate. Since they don’t kick much, they’re much easier to line up for another shot. Does that take the “fair” out of fair chase? Or does it [...]
Most people try to avoid getting lost in the woods. I’ve long thought my dad’s goal was just the opposite. Every time we headed out into the wild, Dad would get us lost. Never horribly lost. He always had us back at camp or the truck by midnight. Some of those trips, we wound up schlepping along in the dark for quite a while, but we never had to spend a night in a lean-to or a space blanket. But he would get us away from where we thought we should be on the map. Sometimes, we couldn’t even find where we were on the map. Nobody can get lost that often unless they’re trying. When it first became clear that a trip to the woods with dad meant a chance to practice my survival skills, I thought Dad was just enjoying the scenery too much. I figured he was just so immersed in the animals and plants he was seeing that he eventually stopped worrying about where he was going. But then, after several years of this happening on every trip, I decided he was doing it on purpose. He may have been trying to teach me to use [...]
I’ve made no secret on this radio show about my frustrations at the trap range. Just when I start to think I might be finally getting the hang of it, I step up to the line and miss more clays than I hit. My partners on my trap team have offered advice to help me improve my scores. They’ve tell me to keep my head down, follow through, and other things I should be thinking of while I’m shooting. This advice is welcome. I’ll take all the tips from my teammates they’ll give me. Other people I meet or hear from on email will give me tips, too, and again, I appreciate the help. Now, if I could only remember all that good advice when I shoot. It seems like it all just falls right out of my head as soon as I yell, “Pull!” But there’s one place I really don’t need advice from, and that’s Facebook. But the other day, I logged on to the social networking site, and right there at the top of the news feed was a “suggested link” to a page that promises to help people improve their trap shooting skills. That’s just a [...]
A while back, I bought a Kel-Tec PMC-30. It’s a sweet little .22 Mag semi-auto pistol. I got it so I could have something I could carry with me in the woods to shoot grouse or just take plinking. I was interested in it because it’s a .22 Magnum, rather than just a .22 Long Rifle. I figured that would make it a little more versatile. And I was also interested because it is a semi-auto with a large magazine capacity. It would be great for plinking, because it holds 30 rounds in each mag. But the first time I shot it, it failed to load the next round after just about every shot. It got really frustrating very quickly. I thought about selling it, but instead, I just stuck it in the back of the gun safe and forgot about it for a while. But a few weeks ago, I talked to a gunsmith about it. He noted that I probably hadn’t even fully broken the gun in yet, so it should get smoother after I put a couple hundred more rounds through it. He also recommended using the speed loader to make sure each round is properly seated [...]
So many things we like to have for running around in the outdoors involve tires. That’s good in that it allows us to get our gear out there to where we like to spend our time, but it’s bad in that it means so many toys we acquire come with parts we have to repair or replace more often than we’d like. I don’t know why I did it, but the other day, I counted up all the tires I have to air up, rotate, and replace every few years. I probably shouldn’t have counted. I was better off not knowing. Granted, some of them, like the ones on the four-wheeler, are relatively inexpensive. But trailer tires are crazy right now, and I have 14 of those. And at this very moment, more than half of them are in desperate need of replacement. The grand total number of tires, not counting the little ones on things like the dolly or other small tires for yard equipment and stuff like that, comes to 58. I know there are a lot of people who have way more than that many tires slowly rotting away under their equipment, so I shouldn’t complain. But [...]
We’ve had a bunch of coyotes coming through our property lately. And I don’t mean just cutting through the corner of the pasture in the back 40. I mean they’ve been coming right through the middle of what passes for our back yard. If it had just been a one-off thing, I wouldn’t have been too concerned. But this has been a regular occurrence. After about the fifth time I saw one trotting past the sliding glass door, I ran to get the coyote gun and dissuade that critter from coming so close. But by the time I got the gun and got back to where I could do something with it, that coyote was long gone. Not long after that, my wife called me when I was on a trip out of state and told me she’d just seen four of them in the back yard. I obviously couldn’t do much about it then, and she said she’d had the same difficulty getting gunned up in time to take a shot. So I decided to try to figure out if there’s a pattern those coyotes are following. I can’t just sit at the back door with the Stag-10 6.5mm [...]
I’m sure there are better times of the year to go bowfishing for carp. Many of the experts say late summer is fantastic, when the water’s lower and hotter, and the fish are snagging cottonwood seeds off the surface. But when I was a kid, I couldn’t wait that long.
There was a deep trough in the Wind River behind my parents’ house, and it tapered to a wide, shallow riffle on both the upriver and downriver ends. When the runoff was at its peak, the riffles were deep enough for fish to get through pretty easily, but if you caught it on a lower flow, there’d be plenty of carp in that trough. And they couldn’t get out.
My buddies Josh and Blaine and I would tromp down to the river in shorts and old tennis shoes, packing our bows and bowfishing reels.
Early in the spring, that water was darn cold. But to get the carp out of the deep stretch, we had to wade. We usually took turns spooking ‘em out, but we all had blue legs from about mid-April through the end of May.
And carp are smarter than they look. We picked off the slower-witted ones early, but the brighter ones would turn around before they got into the shallow water and duck between our frozen legs to take refuge in the depths again. We had to modify our techniques in response.
Bowfishing wasn’t just a waste of time. We figured out that you have to shoot below where the fish deeper in the water seem to be if you want to hit ‘em, and that came in handy when we took physics our senior year. I actually did my term paper on reflection and refraction, and bowfishing figured prominently in the examples. So go do some physics experiments of your own this spring and summer. Strap a reel on your bow and do a little bowfishing. You’ll be hooked – or should I say arrowed – in no time.
Now is not a great time to sight in a rifle. It’s just too windy. That wind will affect the flight of your bullets, so if you sight in now, your shots will be off when the wind dies down. And I’m optimistic that the wind will eventually die down.
So while you can’t go to the range, take all your guns out of the safe and give them a good, full-service scrubbing.
Well, for safety’s sake, maybe just pull them out one at a time. Check that each one is unloaded, and make sure there’s no ammo in the room with the gun you’re cleaning. Then break each gun down, and clean it thoroughly inside and out.
For the barrel, my favorite cleaning products are the BoreSnake and SwabIts. Both of these provide a thorough cleaning, and they’re much easier to use than patches. SwabIts are one-time use mops for your barrels, and BoreSnakes can be used over and over. I actually use both. I run the BoreSnake through first, then I shine it all up with the SwabIts.
When you’re done, give the moving parts a bit of lube. Not too much – just a drop here and there. Everyone has their favorite gun lube, but I’m kind of partial to BreakFree and CorrosionX.
And while you have your guns out, if you don’t already have one, take the time to put together a gun inventory. Or update the one you already have, if you’ve added guns to your collection. Get photos of each gun, including the serial numbers, and put together a file that has the make, model, and serial number of each of your guns. If you have bills of sale or receipts, put those in there, too. Then get digital copies of all these records and make a couple backups.
Hopefully we’ll be back out at the range practicing our shooting and getting those guns dirty again soon.
When the wind kicks up above 30 miles an hour, I spend more time indoors reading. I’ve gotten pretty efficient at my outdoor chores, like feeding the horses and filling water tanks, because I either have to do it quickly while there’s a lull in the wind, or because if I stay out in that wind too much longer, I’m going to go insane.
So I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Among the articles I have read recently was one claiming to list the six best .22 rifles on the market. I was in complete agreement with the author at the beginning of the story, when he said everyone should have a .22 rifle. In fact, everyone should have several .22 rifles.
He also pointed out that for most of us, the first rifle we owned was a .22. Technically, my dad owned the .22 I grew up with, but he bought it specifically for me to use, and for all intents and purposes, it was basically my rifle while I was growing up. I learned to shoot very well with that rifle, and when I visit my parents, I can still drive tacks with that old rifle.
The article lost me quickly when it started rating the best .22s on the market, though. Yes, all six of the rifles it mentioned are very good .22s, but they’re not, in my opinion, the best. It listed the Ruger 10/22, the Henry Lever Action, the Marlin Model 60, the Mossberg 802, the Browning Buck Mark Rifle and the Savage B22 Precision. Yes, all great .22s – though the Browning is really just a long pistol with a stock.
But the best .22 rifle? The very best .22 rifle ever made? That’s the one you grew up with. It doesn’t matter who built it or what name it carries. The one you had growing up is without a doubt the best .22. Period.
I know Wyoming’s windy, but this is ridiculous. I can’t recall a spring that has had as much constant wind as we’ve seen this year.
But if you can stand the wind, or if we ever get a calm day, take some time off. The fishing’s excellent throughout Wyoming, and the shorelines are less crowded on the weekdays. You’ll probably be able to find a good spot to drop a line on the weekend, too, but you’ll have to walk a little farther from the road.
If you’re after the big one, this is the time of year to go after it. Reports of very large fish have been flooding in from a number of public fishing areas around the state. Most waters haven’t been stocked with the smaller trout yet, so the survivors from last year are all you’ll find under the surface.
To get them, you’ll have to go deep with your lures. Take up a spot downstream from where you think the fish will be hiding. Deep holes, undercuts along the bank and driftwood tangles provide shelter for trout. Tie a nymph on your tippet and cast it toward the hole. Try to drop it upstream of the hole so it will sink to the bottom before it gets to the riffle where you think the fish are hiding.
Midges are good bets, too. You can use a midge as a dropper behind an attractor pattern. For the attractor, try a rusty scud. Tie a No. 18 midge to the bend in the hook of a No. 12 scud with about a foot of tippet material. Cast the flies upstream far enough that they’ll sink to the bottom and drift through the run.
Streamers often work well this time of year, too. Cast streamers slightly upstream and across the current. Strip them across the flow as they drift down, or through slow pools upstream of where you’re standing.
Get some fishing time in for yourself. You deserve it.
They say it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and that you can make a sow’s ear into a silk purse. I don’t know about the second one, but there may be some truth to the first. This constant wind we’ve been dealing with is a whole lot of miserable. But it has given me the time I needed to get a whole lot done around the house.
I cleaned up my home office, which was an absolute necessity, because my day job has me working from home two days a week. If I hadn’t cleaned up the office, I’d have had nowhere to work.
While I was cleaning up the office, I cleaned up the bar, too. That was another stroke of good fortune. Now I have a place to have an adult beverage or six at the end of a long day working. And I only have to walk three steps to get from my desk to the bar.
But it’s given me the time to do some other much-needed chores, too. It’s allowed me to sit down and crank out about 30-dozen flies to replenish my supply for fishing. Granted, I’m not much of a fly-tier, so they’re all very basic patterns. You’re not going to find many parachute Adamses or Royal Wulffs in my vise. About the most exciting I get is a pheasant tail nymph.
I’ve also sharpened every knife I own at least once; cleaned all my guns; and re-waterproofed all my tents and hunting jackets. If I were a reloader, I’d probably have enough ammo stocked up to invade North Korea.
I hope you are finding productive ways to survive this wind, and I hope it calms down out there soon. It’ll be good when can all go back outside without fear of blowing to Nebraska.
My friend Ken Keffer wrote a fascinating article for The Nature Conservancy’s blog, Cool Green Science. He focused on some of the myths that have surrounded bird migrations in years and centuries past, and some of them are really out there.
For instance, Aristotle may have been a wise man and a deep thinker, but he missed the mark when it came to explaining where redstarts go in the winter. He postulated that they transformed into robins, because while the redstarts disappeared at a certain time of the year, robins were still around.
And Ken pointed out that the 17th century scientist Charles Morton had an even more bizarre explanation for where some birds went in the colder months. He insisted that they migrated, but he was off on the destination of that migration by about 240,000 miles. He was convinced they left us and went to the moon.
And not even that long ago, it was believed that hummingbirds migrate by catching rides on the backs of geese. The truth is maybe even more surprising, though. Some species of hummingbirds migrate even farther than geese do, and these tiny birds cross the Gulf of Mexico in a nonstop flight.
Ken dispels a few other myths that are still with us, too. He notes that many people still believe that leaving your bird feeders out will cause birds to stay put, rather than migrate. The thought is that available food will make them stay where that food is, but the ingrained instinct to migrate is more powerful than a feeder full of seeds. Don’t worry about pulling your feeders in the fall – the birds will migrate when it’s time to go.
That Cool Green Science blog often has really interesting topics about the natural world. Check it out next time you can’t get out to explore the natural world first-hand.
I don’t know why I lived with the substandard sights that came on my Glock 22 for so long. They made it hard to acquire the target, and the front sight was less visible than I’d like. I often found myself working to keep my focus on that front sight.
HiViz sights come in a bunch of different combinations, and they make sights for handguns, rifles, shotguns and more. They actually got started with front beads for shotguns, and they still offer the shotgun sight that started it all, and they still make them in Laramie.
I looked at what they had to offer for hunting rifles, tactical rifles, and shotguns, but what I was really on their website for was handgun sights, so after I looked at all the possible options for my other guns, I found my focus and looked at what the possibilities were for my Glock. Handguns are much more specific than rifles, so HiViz makes different sights for just about any handgun you can think of. They have a whole Glock section, which made it a lot easier. But there were still a lot of options even within the sights made specifically for my Glock 22.
They have fiber optic, which transmit available light, and they also have their H3 line, which uses Tritium to create a small amount of light internally, so they will still be visible in the dark. I opted for the H3 sights, and then I needed to choose between green front and rear sights or orange rear and green front. And once I settled on green front and rear, I could choose a white ring around the front sight or an orange ring. I chose the white ring.
They were easy to install, and they really pop when I bring that Glock up. They’re a huge improvement over the original sights, and they’re made right here in Wyoming.
Shooting is one of those skills that doesn’t get better if you don’t practice it. You might be OK to take a deer or elk home from the woods with just a little bit of practice before the season starts each year, but to really keep your shooting sharp, you need to practice all year long.
But if you don’t have something to shoot for, pardon the pun, it’s hard to keep yourself interested in dragging yourself and all your gear out to the range a couple times a month, let alone a few times each week. But if you start shooting competitively, you’ll have more reason to stay in practice.
There are a lot of competitions out there for shooting. There are three-gun matches, cowboy action shooting, trap and skeet leagues, and many others. Any of that is great for keeping your skills sharp. But the Civilian Marksmanship Program might be the best for working on the fundamentals of shooting. And it’s free to join, though the matches will require an entry fee.
Just do an internet search for Civilian Marksmanship Program, and you can register yourself to get a CMP number. That number tracks you through all the CMP matches, and they’ll keep track of your progress and send you awards for various levels you achieve. They have air rifle and air pistol, smallbore and even military matches you can compete in. They all help you with the fundamentals that are common to all types of shooting, from hunting to personal defense. And the more you practice for those matches, the better you’ll be when hunting season comes around again.
And the bragging rights and the sense of accomplishment it gives you to improve your shooting don’t hurt, either. Get involved in some shooting competitions, and get to practicing.
I apologize for veering off the normal topics of this show, which are hunting, fishing, camping, and other stuff related to the outdoors. But country music has its roots in the places where hunting, fishing, shooting and generally enjoying the outdoors come from, so maybe there is some connection here. At the very least, I have a feeling there are a lot of other people like me, who like to hunt, fish, camp, hike and shoot, who also feel the way I do, and it’s time we stand up and say something about what’s been happening to country music.
Yes, I realize this is still a stretch, but what made me think of it is Blake Shelton’s latest song. It’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard on the radio. The song is called “Come Back As a Country Boy.” The sentiment is nice – he says when he dies, he wants to be reincarnated as one of us, a guy who lives far from the city and has the opportunity to hunt and fish and whatever else out in the wilds. But it’s just a dumb song. Stupid lyrics, uninspired music, and don’t get me started on the bizarre video he made to go along with it. It’s just another example of the country music industry making us look bad.
Then there’s Florida Georgia Line. Again, they talk a lot about getting out in the woods and doing outdoorsy stuff, but I think I’d rather listen to stray cats fight than listen to one of their songs all the way through. How did they even get a record contract, let alone find a way to attract so many fans? They’re like the Alabama of the 2000s – horrible music that somehow has a huge following.
The only good country music anymore is by singers like Carrie Underwood, who happens to be a vegetarian. How is that even possible? You should be required to eat meat if you want to sing country music.
Oh, well. I guess I’ll just listen to all my “oldies,” from back when country music was good.
My youngest son has been participating in the NRA’s junior shooting program for a few years, and he’s working on the Distinguished Expert award. That’s the highest award the NRA gives to civilians, and it’s a difficult feat. To earn it, a kid has to go through fourteen lower levels, all with more difficult scores. They shoot in three different positions – prone, kneeling, and standing. And standing is completely free-hand; they can’t even use a sling.
The group Logan shoots with sometimes goes to competitions, but Logan usually has track, wrestling or cross-country meets that make it problematic for him to participate. He’s wanted to try some competitions, because he wants to see how he stacks up against other kids who shoot air rifles at that level, but we haven’t had the chance to go to one until now.
He had a weekend free of track, though, so we went up to Casper for a Civilian Marksmanship Program match. We showed up with the air rifle and shooting suit he borrowed from his shooting team, but we realized we didn’t have the shooting mat, kneeling roll, or other equipment needed for these events. We looked up and down the shooting line, and all the other kids had all that gear. I started doing some quick calculations in my head, and I realized that if we’re going to do this seriously, Logan’s going to need about $8,000 worth of shooting gear – and that’s not even counting the rifle. A good precision air rifle would add about $4,000 to that total.
I might be in trouble. Logan took third place, and I could tell he was excited by the prospect of doing more of these competitions. I might have to pick up a third or fourth job to support his shooting habit, but I’m OK with that.
Go take a hike. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I just mean you really ought to take advantage of the change in weather. We still have to watch out for the occasional spring snowstorm, and probably more than a few raindrops. But if you can find some time to get away when the wind isn’t blowing 50 miles an hour and the sun’s shining, drop everything else and just get out there.
Maybe it’s the season that does it to me, because I get this way every year. It probably has something to do with the new buds on the trees, the green grass poking up through the dead, brown stuff, and the flowers popping up everywhere. I just want to get out there and see everything waking up.
One word of caution, though. If you take a hike in the woods, take care to not startle any bears. Both black bears and grizzlies have been coming out of their winter dens over the last several weeks, and there are probably a few more late sleepers emerging all the time. The males tend to come out earlier, and the females with cubs join the land of the living a little later. They’ll be hungry and possibly a little cranky until they get their fill, which might take weeks. If they find a good food source, they’ll stay near it and guard it, so you don’t want to bumble into that situation. Make noise while you walk, and carry a fresh can of pepper spray.
Keep your eyes and ears open on your hike, too. I used to carry field guides with me so I could identify flowers and birds I hadn’t seen before, but that seemed to slow me down. Now I pack my camera everywhere I go, so if I see something new, I can take a picture and figure out what it was later, when I get back to the house. That allows me to go farther in the same amount of time, and it lets me extend the enjoyment of my walk long after I have to get back to the real world.
Throw some extra clothes, good rain gear, plenty of water, and a camera into a pack and get outside this spring. There’s plenty to see. Go see it all.
It’s my wife’s birthday today, and I want to wish her the happiest birthday of her entire life. It’s the least I can do. Really. I can’t get her a present, because I’ve spent all our money on hunting licenses, fishing tackle, GPS receivers, guns, bows, tents, and other gear. Granted, that stuff’s all absolutely essential, and I actually got some of it for her, whether she knew she needed it or not. But it just doesn’t leave much left in the billfold for the other things she probably wants.
I always feel sorta bad this time of year when I realize there’s only a buck or two in my checking account. I’d like to send her off somewhere for a nice, relaxing day at a spa, where they do all that mysterious stuff. She’s surrounded by guys here at home, and I think she might like to have a few hours in a place where people aren’t belching, breaking wind, tracking mud across the floor and generally being pigs.
I used to think she encouraged me to get outside and go hunting or fishing just to get me out of her hair for a while, but after more than 20 years of marriage, I realize her reasons are a lot more selfless. She actually wants me to do stuff I like to do. Sure, I need to mop the kitchen floor after I track mud across it, I need to clean the sink after I fill it up with pheasant feathers, and I’m supposed to vacuum my dog’s hair up off the rug every few days, but that’s a pretty good deal, considering I also get the best wife in the world out of it.
But today’s her day. She has to work today, so I’ll try to give her another day just for her in the near future. Maybe I can delay buying a case of ammo or something so I can send her off to that spa. If she’s not excited about having cucumber slices stuck on her eyes, maybe I can just take the kids somewhere so she can spend the day riding her horses. And when the boys and I come home, we’ll try not to track mud across the floor. Happy birthday, Amy!
I’m more excited for the wild turkey season this year than I’ve ever been before. Up until now, I’ve always had a little bit of trepidation mixed in with the excitement. I was nervous about going, because I hadn’t learned how to call the birds. Most people I hunt with carry five or six different calls every time they go out after the birds. Some have more than a dozen, and they know how to use them all. But until recently, I hadn’t mastered even one of them.
A few years ago, I was the winning bidder on a turkey hunting vest at the NWTF banquet, and the vest came with a call in every pocket. I should have learned how to use them then, but I kept putting it off.
There were box calls, diaphragms, slates, and even a crow call to use as a locator. It’s still not the setup some of the die-hard turkey hunters I know use, but it’s not bad for a neophyte like me.
But for the past month or so, I’ve been practicing my clucking, purring, plucking and cutting pretty much non-stop. My wife’s getting a little edgy, and she’s having a harder time masking her homicidal glares than usual. The kids are acting pretty jittery, too. Our youngest was making turkey sounds in his sleep the other night. And the dog is completely confused. She doesn’t know whether to try to flush the bird, sit at heel, or flee from the room. I should probably do my practicing well away from the house, but it’s just been too chilly at night to do that, and evenings are the only time I have to practice.
So the family’s just going to have to hope I get a turkey early this year. And to do that, I need to get good with the calls. To get good, I have to practice. I just hope the family doesn’t kill me in my sleep before I get to go hunting.
The people who forecast the weather usually do a darn fine job of it. They say it’s going to snow, and it snows. They say it’s going to be sunny, and it’s sunny. They might be wrong about the amount of snow or rain or sun sometimes, but usually, they’re pretty darn close. A lot closer than I could be, that’s for sure.
But once in a while, they’re really wrong. A while back, for example, the kids got out of school for a blizzard that never hit. A blizzard requires two things; wind and snow. We got the wind, but no snow to speak of. Yet the kids got a snow day anyway.
But it’s not what was called for but didn’t materialize that bothered me the most. No, the problem was what we did get.
With all their meteorology training, why can weather predictors have so much trouble accurately predicting snow, rain, hail, sunshine, clouds and mud, but be right on when it comes to wind? It’s just freaky.
Yes, it is Wyoming, and I suppose any fool could be right nine times out of 10 if he said, “I think it’s going to be windy today.” But it’s not just a factor of wind versus no wind. No, they actually get the velocity pegged, too.
Maybe there’s some strange weatherman Voodoo going on, and by predicting, say, a 30-mph wind, they’re actually calling for it. If you’re a meteorologist, humor me. For the next few weeks, no matter how strong your suspicions are, DO NOT predict any wind. If you’re wrong, you’ll only be wrong for a couple of weeks. If it doesn’t work, you can go back to weather forecasts as usual. But if we don’t get any wind, we’ll know that when you warn us about gusts and gales, you’re actually inviting it.
Then again, maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part. I would like to be pleasantly surprised about the wind just once. Or maybe twice.
There’s always something to see out in the woods. Even if you don’t find what you originally went out there to find.
Some years, wildflowers are starting to appear by now. That’s certainly not the case this year – at least not where I went last week. But I figured there would at least be some wildlife to take pictures of. Unfortunately, all I saw were some robins, some ravens, and a few geese flying over far overhead.
But then I looked down. On the snow everywhere around me were animal tracks. Deer tracks, mouse tracks, grouse tracks, rabbit tracks, and squirrel tracks. It was pretty cool to see the wildlife super highway laid out right in front of me. Most likely, those animals had all been there at different times, but a few of the trails looked like they were going toward each other, then veered away suddenly, as though their makers had seen each other and altered their routes.
But then I ran across a new set of tracks that really got my attention. They were shaped like small dog prints, but they didn’t have claw marks. They were bobcat tracks.
I followed them for several hundred yards, then I lost them when they left the snow and went into the leaves. There was an area of roughed-up leaves, though, and then the tracks continued in the snow again. This time, there were also patterns that looked like paintbrush strokes along with the bobcat tracks. I think the cat had caught a grouse or a rabbit, and then had dragged it off to dine on it in a more protected area.
Keep your eyes open out in the woods. Watch for wildlife, but don’t forget to look down. Sometimes the animals you don’t see leave a more interesting story than the ones you do see.
I thought I had a great idea for Valentine’s Day. It was a gift that took planning, perseverance, and a good bit of skill. Not only that, it was something that would be useful, decadent and unique. Apparently the unique part is what got me in trouble.
I mean, seriously, not everyone can go out into the field, sit for several hours without moving, endure a cottontail in distress call long enough to drive most people crazy, and come home with enough pelts to piece together a heart-shaped red fox fur blanket. Thoughtful, romantic and functional, all at the same time, right?
Apparently, wrong. It’s a good thing I didn’t actually succeed in getting enough foxes to make one. As a matter of fact, I didn’t get any foxes. But I tried, and I was under the impression that it’s the thought that counts. When I told my lovely wife that’s what I had intended to give her for Valentine’s Day, she laughed. It wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for. Lord knows what her reaction would have been if she’d opened a box and pulled the fox blanket out of it.
I really thought that blanket would have been perfect. It would have been pretty, like a Valentine’s Day present should be, and it would have been functional. Not only that, it would have shown her on a primal level I was the manly man she wanted, because I’d have proven I had the skills needed to hunt and gather the things we need for our proverbial cave. Maybe the fact that I had shown I DON’T have those skills is what she was laughing about.
There was some good news in this Valentine’s Day fiasco, though. When she saw my dejected look brought on by her laughing about my idea, she gave me a big hug and said, “If you’d given me a nice, fuzzy fox-fur blanket, I wouldn’t need you to keep me warm, now, would I?”
At least I have a little time to come up with a Plan B.
I have never had good luck ice fishing. Well, let’s be honest, here. If you’ve listened to this show for any length of time, you know I don’t have much luck with fishing in general. I do love to fish, but I must not hold my mouth right, because I almost never catch anything.
And when I try to go ice fishing, my luck turns from bad to worse. I almost always have something go horribly wrong. The very first time I ever went ice fishing was in high school. I went with my girlfriend at the time, whose dad was a biologist for the Game and Fish. He took us out on the ice with his four-wheeler, and we got all the holes drilled and tip-ups set, and we sat there staring at the ice for an uneventful hour. Seeing our boredom, my girlfriend’s dad asked us if we wanted him to pull us on the sled with that four-wheeler for a bit.
We thought that sounded like a great idea. My girlfriend suggested I sit in the front of the sled, probably to block all the snow kicked up by the four-wheeler, and she sat on the back. Her dad took off around the ice, veering one way and then the other. Each time we swiched directions, I slid a little farther back on that sled, until one big turn, when I lost my grip for a moment, slid back into the girlfriend, and ejected her right out the back of the sled. She slid on her bum across the ice like she was on a luge track. It was funny – until it wasn’t. She shrieked, so we went running over to her. She had slid right down the length of a seam of ice that had pushed up, and it was razor sharp. It had sliced her all the way up her right leg, from her calf clear up to her belt.
That ice fishing trip yielded zero fish, but what I expect was a whopper of a hospital bill. I seem to recall she said they put more than 30 stitches in that leg.
And no, she never asked me to go ice fishing with her again.
I finally had the redneck weekend I’ve been needing for a long time. It all started out with some four-wheeling. Granted, that part of the weekend wasn’t by choice. To get anywhere from my house, for the time being, I have to put the truck in four-high, hit the gas, and do a little praying. We still have a hefty amount of snow on the driveway from the last storm, and it’s pretty crusty and sticky now.
Once I got home on Friday, though, I figured I’d just stay put until I absolutely had to leave again. That wasn’t much of a problem, because there’s plenty to do at my place, especially if you’re up for a little redneck fun.
The first thing I did to stave off cabin fever was to load my trusty .22 rifle and check the woodpile for rabbits. It didn’t take long to scare one up, and two more popped out a few minutes later. Skinning and cleaning those rabbits killed a little more time, and so did building three stretching boards to tack the hides to.
But before I can stretch those pelts out, I had to soak them in salt water. That’ll make the hides soft and pliable, and after they’ve soaked for a few days, I’ll tack them up to stretch.
But that wasn’t quite enough redneck for me, so I sharpened most of my knives. My wife needed some help on a project she was working on, so I brought one of those freshly sharpened knives over to help her out. I promptly slashed deep into my left thumb, thereby ratcheting up the redneck level. And in keeping with the theme of the weekend, instead of going in for stitches, I superglued that sucker.
I capped off the redneck weekend with a little target practice. I mixed up some .22 Tannerite targets and tacked them to some particle board. Judging from the splinters left of the particle board, the .22 version of Tannerite is no less Tanneritelike. Hunting, four-wheeling, and blowing stuff up certainly made for a great redneck weekend.
I was awakened Saturday night to what sounded like a tiger fighting a wolf right outside my bedroom window. That’s what it sounded like in my sleep-addled mind, anyway, but as I came to consciousness, I realized it was a cat sitting on my window ledge, growling, hissing and spitting at a coyote trying to get said cat.
I went through the garage, knowing the door out the back of the garage would put me right on top of those squealing, shrieking animals, and the door wouldn’t make enough noise to startle them. But as I was moving toward the back door of the garage, I walked past both our cats, who were looking at me like, “hey, what’s with all the ruckus outside?”
Apparently, the coyote had kicked up a feral cat out on the prairie, and he’d treed it on my bedroom windowsill. If they hadn’t been making such an awful racket, I’d have been tempted to let nature take its course.
I opened the door about the same time someone turned the back porch light on, and the light and the opening door caused both the coyote and the cat to forget about each other for a moment, and they both took off running – in the same direction. I have no idea how long they ran together, but neither one will likely be back anytime soon.
But the whole episode got me thinking maybe I should get a night vision scope for the coyote rifle. You can get a pretty decent digital version for less than $1,000 now. That would give me a better chance of making absolute sure a gutsy coyote – or skunk, raccoon or other critter – would not be back to harass my domestic animals.
The one thing keeping me from getting a night scope, though, is that to see what it will show you, you have to be pointing your gun at whatever it is. Maybe I’ll stick with the Maglite for now. It’s safer, and it’s a heck of a lot cheaper.
One of my young friends did his 4-H presentation on how to sight in a scoped rifle the other night. He did a good job explaining how the windage and elevation adjustments on his scope move the crosshairs a quarter inch per click at a hundred yards. He also did great telling us how he made those adjustments, took another shot, made more adjustments, and repeated the process several times. He showed his final target, which had a clean little hole dead-center in the bullseye, and I was pretty impressed with his determination.
But after the meeting, I told him how I sight in my rifles now. I learned the one-shot sighting in method from a guy I know who hunts large African game with a .458, and he really isn’t interested in shooting it more times than is completely necessary. I admit I thought he was pulling my leg, but then the guy who owns one of my favorite gun shops told me he uses the same method for sighting in.
I don’t shoot anything anywhere near a .458, but with ammo as hard to get as it’s been lately, I thought the one-shot sight-in sounded like a good idea.
To do it right, you need either a pretty good gun vise or a bunch of sand bags. Lock the rifle into the vise or prop it in the sandbags so it absolutely cannot move. Fire it at your target without moving the gun, then all you have to do is adjust the scope so the crosshairs fall directly on the hole you just punched in the paper.
That’s all there is to it, as long as you don’t move the rifle even a little bit between the time you fire it and when you’re done adjusting the scope. If you want to check to see if it’s on target, just move the vise or the sandbags so you’re aiming at the bull, and fire another round.
If you did it right, you should knock the center right out of the bull.
Then you can use the rest of your ammo to just have some fun shooting.
I have a really good rifle that’s not hitting where I aim it. It’s frustrating, because the gun should be knocking the center out of the bull. But it’s not the gun’s fault. If I were shooting it offhand, I’d say the fault is probably mine. But I’ve been shooting it from a solid rest on a bench, and not even from very long distances. The problem comes when I shoot it at distances farther or shorter than the range I sighted it in for.
I noticed the problem when I sighted it in for 100 yards, then moved out to 200 yards to see where it was hitting. Turns out, it was hitting a smidge high and about an inch to the left. So I sighted it in for 200 yards, and then I moved in to 100. Now, it was hitting a bit low and to the right. So I flung some lead at a 300-yard target, and sure enough, at that range, it was high and left again. It was driving me nuts, because it was dead-on at 200 yards. And I mean dead-on.
I haven’t tested it yet, but I’m pretty sure I know what the problem is. That rifle’s an old, pre-64 Winchester Model 70, so it shouldn’t be missing what it’s aimed at. I’m almost positive the problem is in the cheap Weaver scope sitting on top of the gun.
It’s the classic problem of mounting crummy optics on an otherwise perfectly serviceable rifle. It doesn’t matter how fancy, how expensive, or how customized your gun is. If you put an inferior scope on it, what you have in your hands is an inferior piece of junk. The gun’s only as good as the scope you’re looking through.
I have a Ruger that has a pretty good scope on it, but I could sure stand a nicer one on that rifle. So I think what I’m going to do is put the Ruger’s scope on the Winchester, and then upgrade the Ruger’s optics. The Ruger is my go-to hunting gun, so it deserves the best scope I can buy. And the best part is that I’ll get to go to the range again to sight in two guns, not just one.
If you’re feeling the effects of cabin fever, throw the .22 in the truck and head out to the rifle range. If you don’t have a rifle range in your area, you can go set up on a chunk of public land. Just choose your shooting site carefully, because you don’t want to endanger any other land users or make a lot of noise near where other folks live or play. And when you get done, you’ll need to pick up all your spent brass.
Once you find a place to shoot, just get to shootin’. Paper targets are the easiest way to go, but if you have ‘em, it’s more fun to shoot at those steel silhouettes. If you go for this option, be doubly sure of your backstop and other safety features, because you’ll get ricochets on just about every good shot.
Shooting a .22 is just plain fun, if you do it safely. The ammo doesn’t cost much, and the recoil won’t leave you sore at the end of the day. You can work on shooting from all different stances, and you can practice from a variety of different ranges. It all works to make you a better shot, and you’ll have plenty of fun while you’re doing it.
As I said, the recoil from a .22 shouldn’t cause you any trouble. But if you’re showing youngsters how to shoot, be careful that you don’t push them too hard. The recoil might not make ‘em jump, but they could still develop a flinch from the report. If you start to notice them flinching, call it quits for the day and try again another time.
But if nobody’s getting’ jumpy, keep at it. If you have more than one .22, use ‘em all. Shoot the bolt-action for a while, then switch to the lever. Pick up the semi-auto and see how well you do taking as little time to aim as possible. But just be sure to keep safety your No. 1 priority. Don’t get to shooting too fast that you can’t keep track of everything around you.
The more you practice with your .22, the better you should do when you move up to your center-fire rifles. Pick up a couple of bricks of bullets, and run ‘em through your .22s. Then, when fall comes around, see how much better you’re shooting.
Yesterday I talked about the importance of locking up your guns. If it’s not secured on your person, it should be locked up. And I urged you to get a safe you think is about twice as big as what you currently need. There’s a reason I said that.
I have a Big Daddy safe. It is exactly what it claims to be – it’s a big daddy. There’s a ton of room in there. But it turns out there’s just not quite enough room.
For one thing, it’s not as tall as I’d like it to be. I’m a bird hunter, and I have some pretty long shotguns. And last year, I got a sweet Weatherby rifle with my lifetime membership to the Muley Fanatic Foundation. That .300 Winchester Mag has a muzzle brake on it that makes it even longer than my shotguns, so it has to go in the space where the barrels of the longer guns can stick up through the top shelf. But I’m running out of room in that area of the safe.
The big problem is that I’ve been forced to store other stuff in the safe that isn’t firearm-related. That was one of the conditions of getting the safe. I had to agree to put the wedding photos, house documents, and other important papers in the safe. Because of the intricacies of fire protection in safes, that means all those documents and flammable papers need to go inside a fire box before they go in the safe. That fire box takes up even more room. So my gun real estate in the safe is compromised.
It has a sweet door organizer that holds all sorts of handy stuff, but I might be able to get rid of that and replace it with a door rack to hold a few of the guns that don’t quite fit inside anymore. Either that or get another safe.
That’s where I’m leaning right now. That’s a tricky subject to bring up with the wife, though, especially when she thinks I already have enough guns, as though such a thing were possible.
Wish me luck – I have the added challenge of convincing her the auxiliary safe should go in our bedroom. This might be a bit of a hard sell.
Lock up your guns. All of them. Lock them up in a good safe that can’t easily be cracked. If you have a home-defense gun you like to keep handy, lock it up, too. You can get lock boxes that open immediately only to a person wearing a special ring, or ones that recognize your fingerprints. If you don’t trust that, there are lock boxes that have quick and reliable keypads that also open immediately.
But all of us who own firearms need to be responsible with our storage of those guns. Too often we hear about criminals who break into someone’s house and steal guns, then use those guns to commit crimes. Or kids who get ahold of unsecured guns and accidentally create a tragedy. I hate hearing about those incidents, first and foremost for the people involved, but secondarily because it gives the anti-gun crowd more ammo to use to try to get us to give up our guns.
Get yourself a safe. Or several. When you do get a safe, make sure you get a good one. You don’t want one that can be easily picked. That doesn’t do you any good. Or one that can be pried open with a screwdriver or a crowbar.
One with a good fire rating is a plus, but having spoken with people whose houses have burned, I can tell you even the best fire-rated safes don’t completely protect your firearms. There will be some damage, unless the fire gets put out quickly. Spend your money on a safe that is secure from unauthorized tampering, and worry about the fire protection second.
And then there’s the size. Get the biggest safe you can possibly afford. It’s like building a barn. You will always need more room. No safe will ever be big enough. But if you get one that’s about twice as big as you think you need now, it’ll work for a while. You can always get another one later, right?
But please, lock up your guns. Protect your guns, your family, and your rights.
I looked out in the pasture a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a pretty nasty snowstorm, and I watched about 250 Canada geese hover a foot over the ground right out in my pasture for a few minutes, before they slowly moved on. They barely gained any altitude as they went – just enough to get over the fences, and then they disappeared into the snow.
As they were going, more geese came in right behind them. This group did the same thing – they hovered over my pasture a bit, then they moved on. Three more flocks followed after them, but all the geese eventually left without touching down.
It got me to thinking I wouldn’t have to go far to hunt geese. I could probably throw out a few dozen dekes right in my back yard and wait for some smaller groups to peel off and come see what was so interesting down on the Bobwire-S ranch. We get some incredible flocks of geese coming through our area this time of year, but they generally pass over us at high altitude on the way to the neighbors’ big crop strips. Those geese that got caught in that snowstorm were just momentarily discombobulated.
It’s unlikely I could lure those big flocks in. Generally, large flocks only decoy to enormous spreads, unless you’re set up in the spot they were intending to go. But I’ve had luck pulling smaller batches in from the edges of those big flocks in the past.
Unfortunately, I’m going to have to wait until next year to test my theory. I missed the closing date for Zone C2 of the Central Flyway this year. But it gives me time to get a couple dozen Bigfoot decoys ordered, so I should be ready for those geese next season.