I have been an outdoorsman my whole life. I grew up hunting and fishing. I still have the old 8mm home movie of me catching my first fish at 2 years old in Wisconsin with my Uncle Harold, Dad was running the movie camera. I have always tried to promote all aspects of the outdoor lifestyle in a positive way. I check the game department web sites for not just the state i live in, but all the states that i spend time in the outdoors in. I read the news releases. I leave comments on the issues they are requesting public comments on, and I go to public meetings when I can. I talk to my senators and congressmen about the issues relating to the outdoors and let them know my views and what I would like them to do on each of these issues. I am a member of a number of web forums that are outdoors related. i have a blog that is mostly aimed at my outdoor activities and I write recipes regularly about wild game cooking for Clique Clack Food. I also read as many outdoor blogs as I can and post replies to them and I promote many of these blogs on my own blog and through  the web forums and twitter. I spend more time on the internet promoting the outdoor lifestyle than I do actually outside enjoying it. It seems that every day our outdoor lifestyle is under attack from a new direction. There are so many environmental and animal rights groups attacking our outdoor lifestyle in the name of saving the environment or the animals and yet they have no clue what their actions, if fully implemented, would do to the very things they are trying to save.

I grew up in the heart of Western Washington logging country. Every one I knew growing up either worked in logging or in support of logging. Logging is what opened up so much beautiful timber country for everyone to enjoy. It was the logging companies that built all the roads into the mountains. Yes they built the roads so they could go in and log the timber, but after a unit was logged a new patch of timber was planted in its place. An old forest was replaced with a new young one. Trees are like any other crop. They have a finite life span. They grow, they die just like all living things on this planet. If we leave the life cycle of the forests to mother nature the cycle is very slow. It can take hundreds of years for an old forest to be replaced by a new one. If we allow logging to go in and harvest the ripe trees. Use them to produce building materials and paper for our society to use and then replace those trees taken out with new ones that cycle can be accomplished in twenty years. Should logging be monitored and controlled? Yes it should. If there is no control then the old trees will be logged off at a faster rate than the new ones can replace them. This has happened in our history and we need to properly manage the forests as the resource they are. With proper management we can create good sustainable jobs, a healthy thriving industry, and maintain quality habitat for all the forest creatures we care for.

As far as the animal rights groups that want to stop all hunting, I would really like some one that represents one of these organizations to explain to me just how they would suggest the animal populations should be managed. Hunting is the only effective management tool we have to maintain healthy and sustainable herd numbers. These groups are all quick to point out that we should be using science to manage the animals and not money. Well were do they think the money that is being spent on wildlife management is coming from? The federal government, the state governments are not spending their budget money on wildlife management. That is funding by the sale of hunting and fishing licenses and tags. This billion dollar a year industry is the reason we have the vast populations of healthy wildlife in this country. Yes most states do try to maintain a trouphy hunting environment to help draw out of state hunters to their state to pursue game, but this just adds to the management of the wildlife.

I have never met a hunter that wanted to kill every last member of a species, nor have i ever met a logger that wanted to cut down every last tree. Those of us that live an outdoor lifestyle are the true conservationists. We want to maintain healthy forests and healthy  populations of wildlife to continue our lifestyle. Our society has gotten so polarized over the years by our two party political system that we no longer work together as a group to solve a problem ,but try to fight each other over our beliefs. I am as guilty of this as any one else. I have spent too much time ranting against the likes of PETA and Earth First rather than tryingto engage them and work with them to resolve our differences and find common ground that we can work together to improve our society and our planet.

Until we can set aside our difference and focus on the common ground we will never get past this adversarial relationship we have with those that do not live our lifestyle. This will ensure that the battles will continue and the politicians will be able to maintain their power over our country. We as American citizens need to stop this fighting. We need to come together and work together to do what is right for everyone.

If we all pull together we can save the environment, the animals, the country and our planet. If we can not pull together then that task will be left up to what ever political party is in power and their primary goal will be to  save their political power.

It is time we stop fighting and band together. It is time we tell our government leaders enough is enough. We hired you to do a specific job. If you can not do that job then we will fire you and give the job to someone that will.

I have to say I am a bit surprised that it has taken this long for this problem to  occur, but I knew it was coming. And everybody needs to get used to this because it is going to keep happening. Wolves are a predatory animal and they are triggered to attack when they perceive a prey animal fleeing them. A person riding a bike or jogging on a trail would appear to be fleeing. Check out the story here.

The Idaho Fish and Game department will auction off the furs, hides, antlers, and horns collected for the past year. there will be no Wolf hides this year.

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Today was a pretty good day. It was a bit cloudy and threatened rain most of the day, but the temperature was not to bad so I decided to go for a drive in the Owyhee Mountains. I drove up to the Black Mountain Wild Horse Management. Area. I did see a couple of wild horses, but there were some ATV’s running the trails that kept the horses moving so I could nt get pictures of them. I also came across a group of ranchers that were moving a herd of cattle into the area fro grazing. Several riders on horse back herding the cattle along.  If not for the two trucks they used to haul the horses out of the area it would have looked like an old west cattle drive.

I also took this opportunity to fire a few rounds of ammo through my 14 inch Contender 22 Long Rifle barrel, my 10 inch Contender 22 Hornet barrel and my Ruger Black hawk 357 Magnum. I did not do a proper target shooting tes, nor did I even have any real targets. I found some rusty cans and broken cable spools lying around the area I test fired them to use for targets. I intend to do a proper review with good targets from a good solid rest to check accuracy and I also intend to chronograph the  guns at that time as well. i did check my range using my Bushnell Sport 450 Laser Range Finder that I reviewed previously. The range was 25 yards and from a standing position with no rest I was able to hit the rusty cans with no problems. Even with the scoped 14 inch 22 LR barrel which is quite hard to hold steady without a rest. There was still plenty of snow high in the mountains. the roads were also still soft so I was not able to get as high as i would have liked. Last time I hunted deer in the Owyhee’s I saw a lt of sign, rabbits and even some turkey sign. I was hoping to get back to that area but I could not.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game is seeking public comment on their management plan for White Pelicans in the Blackfoot river system in Southern Idaho. The Pelican population is growing and starting to impact the wild Cut Throat Trout populations. Check out the plan here and leave your comments.

Jeff