This Saturday I’ll be heading out to Point Reyes to help a neighbor with the Fall calves. We’ll brand, castrate, and vaccinate and treat the cow herd for parasites. Not many brandings, can you pick up fresh that morning oysters from just across the Bay, in addition to fixing “Rocky Mountain Oysters”.
I’ll look forward to seeing Dexter Roberts, a freelance photographer who is chronicling the ranching lifestyle of rural Marin County. Dexter is always in attendance and was kind enough to send me some photos of when we shipped cattle this last September. It was a brutally hot day, even there along the coast. We sent 2 truckloads of weaned calves to the auction that day.
This weekend’s cattle work is the first step in preparing next year’s calf crop for market by starting their first series of immunizations, and castrating the male calves. Steers are less aggressive and make a better steak in the end. The vaccinations that the calves get this weekend will prepare their immune systems to fight off any viral infections that could reduce their growth in future months.
As I was cleaning out my old photos that had not been put in an album, I came across a stack of photos from my days at the University of Idaho. Among the pictures of my fraternity brothers and events, I found a photo of a successful hunt.
The photo was from a Sunday evening in November after I had returned from Thanksgiving break. I was one of three guys who got in Saturday despite the snowstorm that cleared out Sunday morning. Jeremy McNeal, Brad Warr and I all conspired that Sunday on our plans for the last day before classes resumed. We all still had unfilled deer tags and there was a couple of days of the whitetail season left. With a fresh blanket of snow on the ground, we loaded up in my 1977 GMC and drove out of town to a logging deck where we started walking softly through the powder.
Brad and I went East while Jeremy went West, just following skid trails hoping for a fleeting shot to fill our either sex tag. Fresh red meat was a scarce commodity in our house of 60 guys and a venison barbecue was always welcome, no matter the time of year.
We had started hunting in the late afternoon, and I was working a skid road back towards the truck. Deer tracks from does and fawns were evident, but I had not seen any animals. Suddenly I heard a shot ring out back towards the truck. Just a single muffled shot. When I reached the truck I began to follow Jeremy’s tracks and ran into him a few minutes later, bloody handed and grinning. He recounted the story that he was following a skid trail and was immersed in a set of bobcat tracks that followed the same direction. He looked up and a buck jumped to his feet out of his bed, and stared at him no more than 30 yards away. His shot from the .300 Winchester Mag (I remember because I lent him the shells), took the buck through his left eye and dropped him in his tracks.
We got the buck loaded up just before dark, and made it back to the fraternity house just as many of the brothers were returning from Thanksgiving with their families. Brad was kind enough to snap the photo for us
Bar none this was the biggest buck killed by any of the members of the fraternity. The buck had 10 long unbroken tines, and a rut swollen neck. Since Jeremy was my roommate, I got the chance to stare at that beautiful symmetrical rack over the next semester, and think about my unfilled deer tag from that season.
What really made me stop and think was the date on the photo. It was 15 years ago. I am not used to thinking about my hunting experiences in that long of a time frame. But I suppose more and more of my hunting stories will begin to reach that double digit age. That is despite the fact that many of my hunts are a new experience for me and I feel like I am still learning.
Since then, Jeremy has settled in the area not far from where he shot that buck. Someday I hope we can get together and hunt the skid trails of Northern idaho again.
On this Day of Thanks, I just want to wish you and your friends and family all the happiness possible. As we examine our life and career and time in the outdoors, we should be thankful for all the litle things that we might take for granted for the rest of the year. For me that is;
A family who is supportive of the time and money I spend hunting. With the girls at home, the cows get fed. They even indulge me by watching hunting on television, and spotting bucks and turkeys as we drive around. My father, grandfather and uncle nutured me as a young man and made me “toughen up” when I wanted to quit. That lesson in toughness has been as much a part of my drive as anything.
Good health. I have been able to spend time on some majestic and beautiful country because I have been healthy enough to train in the weeks and months leading up to the hunt. I have friends who I hunt with who have had health scares and I am thankful that they have come out of them OK.
A supportive network of friends in the hunting community. Between my fellow Pope and Young measurers and the folks at Sage Creek Forums, fellow bloggers, and my hunting partners, I am constantly reminded that we all share a common love of the outdoors. When I feel I am faced with a monumental challenge, their love and support has given me the courage and confidence to tackle the project.
So I wish each of you a Happy Thanksgiving, and hope you are as blessed as I have been..
Preliminary results of an ongoing state and federal effort to monitor for grizzly bears in the northern Bitterroot ecosystem of Idaho and western Montana produced no photographic evidence of grizzly bears in the area.
But test results on hair samples won’t be available until next spring.
The Bitterroot Subcommittee of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee initiated the survey after a black bear hunter mistakenly killed a grizzly bear in Kelly Creek in September 2007. The survey area included Kelly Creek, a large area of the Clearwater and St. Joe River drainages and adjacent areas along the Montana-Idaho state line.
Sampling ran from July 7 to September 6. Automatic cameras were placed at 51 of 68 lure sites, collecting 408 photos of animals, including 84 black bears, five coyotes, 22 marten, seven wolves, one mountain lion, 177 deer, 33 elk, and 54 moose.
The survey also will analyze DNA from 420 bear hair samples left on a single strand of barbed wire at each of the 68 lure sites, where scent lure was used to attract animals in remote, off-trail areas.
Because the area surveyed is so large, the survey can document the presence of grizzly bears only if they are detected in photos or through DNA samples. But the survey cannot confirm absence of grizzly bears in the area.
Recreationists are encouraged to report potential grizzly bear sightings in the Bitterroot Mountains by contacting their local U.S. Forest Service office; or Idaho Fish and Game; Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks; or U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 406-243-4903. Forms are available at http://fishandgame.idaho.gov/apps/grizz_report to report online.
For information contact Chris Servheen, with the Fish and Wildlife Service at 406-243-4903 or Dave Cadwallader, with Idaho Fish and Game at 208-799-5010.
Our buddy Rich who is a hard core do-it -yourself bowhunter coined this term that made me chuckle. Do you ever seem to lose something while in the woods every time you go out? I do. My first turkey hunt I became so rattled that I dropped a roll of camo burlap that formed a semi-blind when I would set up. I never found it again, and every turkey I’ve killed since has been without a blind.
The list is long. I have two pairs of Youngstown gloves that are missing the right hand one. The gloves are in the mountains of Western Wyoming. Apparently having a cold right hand increases success on mule deer? a three point buck and a 5×4 were the result.
This last Wyoming Elk hunt (2008) I lost an arrow, broadhead and all that had nocked on my string. Somewhere on that ridge we walked up three times that week. Between gathering up the decoy and finding a spot to call I dropped it to the tune of probably $25-$30. But the next day at 7:30 I DID have a dead elk. i know my sacrifice worked.
In 2006, I left a Hoochie Momma elk call somewhere in the Central Oregon desert. I connected on my first elk that year, but the next year I never drew my bow. Come to think of it, I didn’t lose anything that year.
Rich donated an Elknut Lil’ Chuckler bugle tube this past elk season to the Elk gods in Wyoming. So did Greg, an Oregon Bowhunter. Both of these guys are accomplished hunters in their own right, and came up empty, so evidently the Lil’ Chuckler doesn’t thrill the hunting gods. Perhaps dropping a mouth reed with it would have done the trick?
So if you are having trouble getting outfitted for your western hunting adventures, just follow Rich and I through the hills. We seem to re-distribute the wealth pretty well…And I think that is what pleases the “hunting gods”.
When my uncle told me that he saw a bull elk swim across the Snake River while Fly fishing after filling his 2007 elk tag, I didn’t believe it. But with close examination in the center of the photo he snapped on the left, you can see the vague tan shape of an elk stepping out of the river.
Tom Sorensen wrote of a similar incident in his post “Elk on a Fly”. I guess that goes to show that elk are where you find ‘em…
It also brought to mind the image of two elk who were sillhouetted by the flames of a fire on the Bitterroot river in 2000. The caption accompanying it reads:
A pair of cow elk take shelter in the East Fork of the Bitterroot River near Sula Aug. 6, 2000. The photo was taken with a digital camera by John McColgan, a fire behavior analyst with the Alaska Fire Service, and it quickly became the image of the 2000 fire season in Montana.
any Western aficianado remembers this line from the western Miniseries “Lonesome Dove”, from the book written by Larry McMurtry. On a ranch in Bonney Texas, Mike Viera has an unusual relationship with a feral hog that he raised from birth.
From what I can see “Squeaky” thinks she is a cow dog. Watch the video and tell me you don’t agree….
Last week we saw a proposal in Idaho, and now we see that Colorado will be raising their prices as well. Ihave no doubt that the inflationary pressures affect wildlife departments just as it affects other businesses and consumers
A friend in Colorado Forwarded me this story from the Grand Junction Sentinal.
Nonresident big-game hunters will pay more for a license next year after the Colorado Wildlife Commission Thursday adopted higher prices for out-of-state big-game fees.
Nonresident hunting-license prices are tied to a 2008 Consumer Price Index, which this year jumped 3.7 percent from last year’s level. Bull elk licenses will rise from $525 to $545, all deer licenses go from $315 to $325 and pronghorn tags increase to $325 from $315.
Other nonresident price increases include moose, mountain goat and Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep to $1,825 from $1,760. Nonresident hunters are not able to purchase a desert bighorn sheep hunting license.
Nonresident licenses for bear, mountain lion and cow elk will be $250.
The Division of Wildlife gets more than half ($53.8 million) of its $95 million budget from the sale of deer and elk licenses. Nonresident elk and deer hunters contribute $45.5 million of the $53.8 million.
Shotgun stocks go through much abuse. When you have a 66 year old gun, chances are it has been used a fair bit and it shows. I received an email from Don, an archery friend who is quite a talented woodworker with his latest project.
This is Cindy’s step-dads 1942 Ithaca model 37 12g. pump shotgun that Barb gave me several weeks ago. The metal was heavily pitted, most of the bluing gone, the wood scared, and I decided to try to restore it, or at least improve on it. I started sanding the pitted barrel with 80-grit emery, and ended up with fine steel wool. Much the same with the rest of the metal. Then a rebluing job, just OK.
A gun stock is always made from tough, hardwood, and never a soft wood like redwood. So, as a challenge, I took some redwood burl, carved the stock, bored a 3/4 inch hole through it and reinforced it with a steel pipe. Lots of fun fitting it to the gun. I then placed the finished stock and fore grip into a large ziplock bag, poured thinned down automotive catalytic urethane into it, and pulled vacuum on it for awhile to get it deep into the wood. After many coats, the wood was done and I assembled the gun. I wasn’t sure that the stock would hold together, but went to the trap range and put 150 rounds through it. Works great and the wood got a lot of attention. I’m debating checkering it, but my friends don’t want me to.
The Denver post reported that elk droppings have been linked by genetic testing with the E. Coli infection that made eight children in Colorado ill. The Story on Denverpost.com
In the town of Evergreen, elk, and consequently their droppings are all over the athletic fields and lawns. Officials have issued a warning to students not to eat outside and to wash their hands after being outside.
Personally I think that today’s suburban children have not been exposed to ENOUGH pathogens. We have become such a clean society with out anti bacterial gels and rigorous hand washing, that children have no exposure to microbial pathogens, and do not develop a beneficial microbial population that can combat intestinal disorders.
My three sisters and I grew up on the Family farm in close proximity to dirt, animal waste and animal secretions such as saliva, mucous and blood. When it came time for my sister to do lab work for her masters degree on Cryptosporidium (a pathogenic bacteria), she was the only student in the lab not to develop a digestive upset. Why? she was exposed at an early age and her digestive microbial population developed to resist pathogens such as Crypto.
We see it all the time in third world countries where local inhabitants can drink water that would sicken us in an instant. It is all about exposure. So get your kids outside at an early age so they can develop a natural immunity. Camping and hiking and hunting and fishing all will help expose them to bacteria good and bad. Just try to keep the elk pellets out of their mouth….
