by Ty Churchwell

There is innate wonder in a boy, in any boy. We look at a mountain and wonder if it can be conquered. We see an old oak tree and wonder how high we can climb. For whatever reason, boys just need to be the masters of their environment, to be victorious over challenges.

As we approached Hermosa Creek for our first day of fishing, I could see the wonder in this boy’s eyes. It was unstoppable and his attention was not on the trail at our feet. A creek lay off to our right and it was surely loaded with trout, hungry trout.

Alex is the son of my childhood best friend and I adore him. Actually, both of them. He is his dad.  In him I see that toe-headed kid I rode bikes with in 1975. This would be our first day ever fishing together. Silently, I was as excited as Alex.

After a short hike, Alex and I found a spot alongside the creek to sit down and rig up his new rod, his parents going off on their own quest. Thankfully, I was assured his aunt and uncle in Denver had begun his fly-fishing career with solid instruction. It only took a couple of false casts for me to see Alex was well trained. There was determination written on his face.

It was July on a high-mountain creek in SW Colorado. The air around us was full of mayflies, spruce moths and the aroma of the high country. Just ahead of us, there was a bend in the creek below some riffles that bled out into a deep pool. A couple of small brookies shot up into the deeper water as we approached as stealthily as we could.

Had the bigger trout at the head of the pool been alerted to our presence?  Could Alex fool them to the surface?  A large yellow Stimulator was our choice, to imitate the moths.

“We’ll give those trout something they can’t refuse”, I prophesized to Alex.  He agreed.  I pointed my rod tip to a particularly sweet spot and asked Alex, “See that spot there?  That’s your target, that’s where the big boy is.”

Alex sighed, ready, his hat turned around for battle. He stripped off some line, tossed his fly and line behind him and pulled them into the air with a pro’s touch.  After a handful of false casts, the fly was set on the water, in the perfect spot.  “Nice”, I said.  That yellow Stimi was not on the water for two seconds when a big brookie shot up from the depths and hammered Alex’s bug with hungry intention. In the blink of an eye the trigger finger was employed, the rod tip came up and the line went tight.

He had conquered, with authority, and the wonder surely turned to, “Is there another, bigger trout around the next bend.”  It’s a wonder that will follow him all the rest of his days.  It does me.

by Mark Bagett

“I’m-getting –too-old-for-this…”

My utterance had a strained, staccato cadence and was laced with enough expletives to warm even the most frost-stung ears that morning. The little paint filly had taken a half-dozen deceptively quiet steps and then all but broke in half, jumping and firing at a much faster pace than I could begin to process. I took little consolation that our diminutive rodeo was set in a lush (read soft) mountain park rather than the trailhead parking lot; that much had been by design.  Because, well, I’m getting too old for that.

Too old for indulging the creative imaginations of green-broke ponies, perhaps, but certainly not for clawing my way into a comfortable saddle and trotting deep into the backcountry. How I managed to avoid a new role as a human yard dart that morning remains a mystery, but I can tell you it wasn’t through any measure of elegance—a notion I’m sure the gent who was with me that day would quickly affirm. At any rate, as abruptly as she started, the little filly decided she’d warmed up enough and settled into a smug walk, so my biologist pal and I pointed our steeds into the bowels of Oregon’s North Fork John Day Wilderness.

Our goal that day was to scout a potential trail to horse-pack supplies into a crew that was working their way up the wildest reaches of the North Fork John Day River, performing native salmon surveys.

Though there was a time I rather enjoyed starting colts, riding young horses has typically been more a function of affordability than preference for me.  But that morning I began to realize that if I hoped to continue jostling cattle and enjoying the wild places I love from the back of a pony, I’d better think about digging a bit deeper behind my Ws and adjusting my equine program to feature well-broke (hell, even bomb proof) horses. And someday I will.

Transition often doesn’t come easily but it nonetheless comes for everyone at some point.  While motorized recreation remains ever popular among younger and family-aged participants on our public lands, yet another very interesting demographic has emerged over the past couple of decades. These are the retirement-age and older outdoorsmen who have spent the better part of their lives in the woods or wild places; the types who once thought nothing of spending three days on a bull elk track with nothing more than their rifle and a rucksack. More significantly, they were some who grew most concerned 30 to 40 years ago when new roads were stacking up our mountainsides like laces up a logging boot.

Nowadays these folks, or many of them, have transitioned to ATVs or UTVs to keep them connected to their favorite haunts, and they’re looking to some of the same road infrastructure they once bemoaned to make that happen. From a sportsmen’s perspective, these are among the ambassadors we should be recruiting to represent us in our forest travel management talks. They’re not thrill riders or ground slashers. They are keenly aware of the impact that high road densities can have on fish and wildlife populations, and they are vested in maintaining suitable access.  For more along those lines, be sure to check out the coalition, Sportsmen Ride Right and then share that information with the transitioning outdoorsman you’re thinking of right now.

Me, I’m still aiming for bomb proof.

]]> http://www.oursportingheritage.org/green-broke/feed/ 0 http://www.oursportingheritage.org/welcome-to-the-summer-blog-series/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=welcome-to-the-summer-blog-series http://www.oursportingheritage.org/welcome-to-the-summer-blog-series/#comments Mon, 10 Jun 2013 13:00:48 +0000 ssherard http://www.oursportingheritage.org/?p=995 Continue reading →]]>

We’re feeling masochistic again over here at the Sportsmen’s Conservation Project.

What started as an experiment in blogger-ry is now in it’s second season. More than 30 sportsmen from around the west will be sending in their dispatches from the field: an outdoor blog full of deep thoughts, light-hearted stories, and more than it’s fair share of bullsh … well, fish tales, anyway.

We ask you to join us this summer – link, re-post, like or re-tweet. Our game is conservation, but we’re not above telling a story or two along the way.

Join us at oursportingheritage.com.

And if those reasons aren’t enough, here are three more:

1. We may look rugged, but we’re artists at heart

Spend enough time in the stillness of the backcountry and you’ll find that words start to take on an importance we don’t recognize in the noise of modern society.

2. Sportsmen are some of the best story-tellers

If you fish or hunt, you know that half of the journey is the story that comes out of it. There’s a legend in the SCP about a non-stop joke-telling session that went on for almost four hours without interruption. If those credentials aren’t enough, then you’re expecting too much.

3. You can’t conserve if you don’t connect

We are not high payed lobbyists sitting at pricey desks in D.C. We live in the places we protect. We hunt them. We fish them. They are part of us. And we want to share those stories with you.

By Garrett VeneKlasen

“All in favor of the monument?”

“All opposed?”

I haven’t had much faith in humanity lately. I don’t think many of us have. The tragedies of late haven’t helped my faith in my fellow man. And as the father of a beautiful six-year-old girl, I’ve felt my usual cynicism dip even deeper.

It was hard to get out of bed this past Saturday. But the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, and Congressman Ben Ray Lujan, were coming to Taos to hold a public forum on a proposal to designate the Rio Grande del Norte a national monument.

The Rio Grande del Norte is about 236,000 acres of BLM land and contains some of the most spectacular lands and public hunting and fishing habitat in all of New Mexico. Wild trout, game herds … majestic country … it’s a place that speaks to the sportsman’s heart.

Secretary Salazar and Congressman Lujan were both humble and gracious that morning. They weren’t politicians, just two middle-aged men at a loss for words or answers.

It was a standing-room-only event with nearly 200 citizens in attendance. Democracy was alive and well that morning.

There was a troop of mixed-race Boy Scouts standing proudly in the back of the room. Grazing permittees stood shoulder to shoulder with environmentalists. But it didn’t stop there. There were tribal elders and eleventh-generation Norteños, a smattering of newly settled out-of-state folks who moved to Taos for the beauty of the land and diversity of the community. There were conservative Republicans and far left-leaning Democrats, old-school Catholics and new age spiritualists, wealthy folks and not-so-wealthy folks. Private landowners, county officials, business owners, outfitters, hunters, anglers, bikers, birders, rafters, ranchers, hippies, cowboys and veterans all showed up in force.

For a brief moment, we put our differences aside and were a true community in the greatest sense of the word.

Amazingly different people came together to speak on behalf of protecting our beloved Rio Grande and its surrounding lands. There were moving speeches about spirituality, connectedness,  ecological diversity, mental health, cultural preservation, community, mindfulness, self-reliance, independence, truth, beauty, joy,  grace and hope. Some were even moved to tears. I know I was.

And it seemed that the collective message that rang out loud and clear was this; that without preserving and protecting our public lands and having access to them, the people of northern New Mexico would fall out of step with the natural cycles that have defined humanity’s existence and New Mexican culture for millennia. That if we were to lose our vital connection with nature and the land, we as a community would be in danger of losing our sense of self and humanity.

In the weeks to come there will be much discussion on topics that will no doubt divide us more than they will unite us—perhaps some of the answers lie in our ties to the land, I don’t know. But I do know, that on that morning, we as a community put aside differences, and gathered for something, instead of against something. That alone gives me a tremendous amount of hope.

It’s dark and snow is pounding the frozen October pavement on Route 30 outside of Soda Springs, ID. After 12 hours behind the wheel, I’m crawling up Fish Creek Summit, squinting to make out the faint lines in the snow and I know I’m beat because I answer a question no one asked me. “Damn right it’s worth it,” I say out loud. “The first day of bird school starts early tomorrow.”

First, let me be clear. I didn’t grow up in the West. Nor did my family have access to endless  tracts of public lands to hunt, fish or hike. My brothers and I spent our Midwestern summers pedaling our shiny BMX bikes to and from the local pond lifting sunfish after sunfish from the water all while scanning the surface for an elusive giant snapping turtle.  Not that I’m particularly proud of it, but many squirrels and birds also fell victim to our pellet guns trained on the power lines near our home in those days.

That was our hunting.

After a childhood spent in the heartland of our fair country I feel as though I’m in serious need of catching up out West. I don’t know what it takes to hunt a wild pheasant but I have no problem trying to learn. Enter what I’m now calling my own personal bird school.

Bird school is not something one signs up for online. It’s certainly not advertised in the back of a sporting magazine. You won’t find a brochure pinned to the bulletin board in your local sporting goods store either. It is found in conversation with a good friend.

How do you know where the birds are holding? How do you identify the birds? What’s the best way to hold the gun? Will you show me how to clean and prepare the bird for cooking? Can I borrow some equipment?

With dogs and equipment loaded up day one begins bouncing down familiar roads sipping coffee. Walking side-by-side with my good friend and instructor for the week I glance over to mirror his movements through the pungent waist-high sagebrush. The dog successfully flushes a covey of Hungarian Partridge as I take aim and miss. They hover over to the next hillside and I lose sight of them. Excitement quickly turns to frustration as the day progresses and the scenario plays itself out in multiple locations. I’m feeling humbled.

Slowly, I’m realizing that this is not easy. I keep telling myself that bird school success does not hinge on harvesting a bird.

The second day plays itself out much like day one. We’ve walked for hours through just a small portion of southeastern Idaho’s public land in search of birds. I’m tired. Around mid-day we head home for a sandwich and a nap. I wake knowing I’ve still got time to fit in a little hunting before the second day comes to a close. Boots laced up I slip out the door without the guidance of my trusting instructor or his eager dogs.

This time I want to hunt alone.

Ten minutes into the hike I unexpectedly flush a Sharp-Tail Grouse. Thoughts of the last two days quickly flash through my head. I take aim and shoot. The bird falls gracefully to the ground on the first shot. Success. With the light starting to fade I tuck the grouse carefully into my vest and head for home. I find myself unable to hold back my smile as I pull into the driveway eager to show off my first bird.

The next couple of days are spent hiking high ridge lines in search of chukar and back down to pheasant territory in sagebrush-filled fields on some of Idaho’s Access Yes! land. As we hop out of the truck to hike for the last time it dawns on me how fortunate I am to spend a week with a good friend on vast tracts of our unbelievable public lands.

About ten minutes into my 9-hour ride home I’m already planning next year’s trip in my head.

Call it continuing education.

Joshua Duplechian is a Communications Specialist with the Sportsmen’s Conservation Project. As a recovering Midwesterner he now spends his time being mediocre in too many hobbies. Wife, child and old dog are his partners in crime. 

To the Congressional members making life difficult for sportsmen (you know who you are), it seems that at the very least, you and I have a misunderstanding.

As a sportswoman who hunts and fishes on public lands, you have been relentless this week. You killed a fully funded bill (The Sportsman’s Act) that would have increased much needed access for hunters and anglers. You’ve supported cutting conservation funds. And then there was that threat to sell public lands all to fix a debt that is apparently so great that we must sell the very soul of our country to pay it.

Certainly, there are better ways?

Maybe it’s all that post-election pent-up partisanship, but suddenly you have become the Ghostbusters’ Stay-Puft Marshmalllow Man bent on destroying the city. Only in this version, you are still you and the city is my backyard—the places I love to hunt and fish.

What gives?

I suppose you think I should feel grateful you have saved our country from “out-of-control spending.” But I don’t.

I can only reckon that the reason you work so hard against these things—these things I and millions of others so love—is because you have not experienced them.

Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to stand in the middle of a river with a fresh-from-the-sea steelhead on your line, reel screaming, as you watch your entire fish-less week flash before your eyes and feel your stomach drop to your butt and utter a prayer… “Please, God let that knot be tight…”

Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to walk up on your dog that you trained with your very own hand as he stands at attention, tail feathers flapping in the wind as a pheasant comes screaming out of the brush, shooting like a missile into a cloudless sky.

Maybe you don’t know what it’s like to contemplate life—your very existence—on a cold rock overlooking a whole mess of mountains.

It’s really the only explanation I can come up with for you being able to tell me with a straight face that sportsmen don’t matter—that moments like these don’t matter—that my kids won’t be able to experience the same amazing wonder I have on our public lands.

Like I said, perhaps you Congress people and I just have a misunderstanding. So to clear it up, let me just say this: Sportsmen and women are immensely important. We care for the land, the fish and the wildlife. And we remember those who don’t.

Tell your Senator to pass the Sportsmen’s Act!

Lost and Found

Lately, when I wake up at 4a.m., it’s to lull our son back to sleep for another couple hours.

This year, my first tag was for early season antlerless deer out in the scrub country between the mountains and desert in southwest Colorado – the corner I call home. It was still hot after a dry summer, and my scouting trips were telling me the deer were somewhere else, most likely somewhere that looked a little less scorched.

Usually when scouting I have an arrow like focus on reading the country and figuring out where the animals were. But this year, that focus had been replaced by steadily drifting thoughts of my son and wife at home: preparing meals, reading books, building forts, laughing off another fall, sharing all of the small moments that add up to a life together.  I was missing more of them with every day and night I was out.

As I left the house well before dawn the first morning of the hunt, I listened one last timefor the telltale murmur signaling that our son was about to wake, then slipped out in to the cold, turning my thoughts toward the land and what it might hold.

Once I was hunkered down in the sage glassing the familiar feeling of being on the hunt returned. At first light a red-tail called from high up in a long dead cottonwood. Coyotes and jackrabbits emerged and tested the air with cautious noses.  I even caught a glimpse of a lonely looking deer in the distance.

I had moments of singular focus that morning. But often I was distracted by thoughts of home.

Then I did something I had never before done. I weighed my desire to fill the freezer and the other tags I would be hunting later this season against the growing realization that I didn’t want to spend a large part of the fall away from my young son, and I hiked back to the truck and went home.

A few weeks later I was out again, this time hunting closer to home and with only a few days allotted to fill my next tag.

I had been stalking a small herd of deer for the last half hour, circling to stay with the wind and intercept their steady path as they browsed toward a bedding area.  I crawled slowly on my belly through the grass as the dark blue bled from the sky and the first glint of starlight appeared high above.  As I drew a bead on a small buck about to disappear into the trees and gently pulled the trigger, I thought about all of the venison we would feed our son this winter, about the hunting stories he would grow up hearing and eventually living, and about how remarkable it is to live somewhere I can search more spots than I can count for game and most likely find something in one of them.

In the end, we all have to find our own balance.  As I said my prayer over the deer I had killed, I thanked him for feeding my family, for being part of the circle of life that we sometimes forget we belong to, and for helping to remind me how important it is to strive to live a life that respects our commitments and our place in a community of people, animals, and territories much larger than ourselves.

Matthew Clark is the SCP’s backcountry coordinator for the southwest corner of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and the Dolores River basin.

Adjustment– Steven Brutger

Hunting and fishing have been a constant in my life. But when I moved from Montana to Wyoming a few years back, it came with a sudden shift. With a move came new territory – the disruption of routines and familiar ground.

At first I lamented the change. Even calculated change can be painful. But I soon realized I needed to move on.

And so began my transition from one sportsman’s paradise to another.

I now look forward to the two days a year I hunt sage grouse. Why? Because sage grouse live in gorgeous country. Because sage grouse are in season. Because my dogs don’t care that sage grouse are slow or barely edible.

Or this summer’s adjustment. Drought had made the local trout streams too warm to fish. With nothing else to do I checked out a reservoir that most people don’t even notice as they speed past on the highway. It was full of carp. The challenge and eventual pull of the golden ghost satiated my need to fish during an otherwise smoke filled inferno of a summer.

Where I live being a specialist is limiting, but if you are willing to branch out you get rewarded in surprising ways.

My brother, on the other hand, has yet to adjust. Growing up my brother hunted and fished more than most. At the age of twelve he was on the Mathews pro-staff and had a bow engraved with the moniker “Lil Killer.” Now he lives in Princeton NJ and is pursuing a PhD in political science.  On the phone he recently confessed that he was  desperately missing the chance to hunt or fish.

All good brothers are full of advice, since moving back out West seems impractical for him I shared the Western version of therapeutic advice: I told him to suck it up and make the most of it.

As it turns out, he has a canal nearby that may potentially hold bass. And then there’s the ocean, which an acquaintance of his makes the trip regularly to fish for stripers. My guess is there are also some grouse woods in the area where he could give his golden retriever a chance to chase something other than tennis balls.

It’s been a hard realization to come to, but without unlimited time or an unlimited budget the life of a sportsmen tends to be driven by opportunity – not habit. Take advantage of what is available where you live.

We’ll see if my brother can make the adjustment.  It’s a hard adjustment to make, but I’m guessing the new birthday fly rod on it’s way to New Jersey will help. Hopefully it will help ease the burden a bit.

–Steven lives in Lander WY with his wife, 2 children and 2 black labs.  He is constantly torn between hunting big game, chasing birds, grabbing the 5 weight for trout, the 8 weight for carp, or daydreaming about some farfetched adventure.

Fly fishing was not a catch and release concept as it applied to my life.

Oh yes, when applied to angling, I believe and practice this concept quite religiously as an adult. But the art – the vice – of fishing, never let go of me.

It happened gradually. My Dad would not just let his five boys stay at home on weekends and watch the tube. Instead, he had us out helping him carve figure four deadfalls for rabbits, or getting as close to drowning or smacked by lightning as we possibly could without actually doing so.

Sometimes these family outings involved fishing. Usually, some type of homemade vessel was in the mix, and added to the anticipated and unforeseeable outcome of each trip.

The seed was planted and cared for well. Any interest in outdoor pursuits of any kind were well received by Pop. Mom played along even when we would bring the outdoors inside, turning the house to splinters while whittling full sized canoe paddles from choice pieces of driftwood.

And so an obsession was born.

To be precise, this was not a sport of instant gratification. It was angling with flies tied out of what was handy, and to an eleven year old that vowed to fish this way or never fish, there were mountains to climb.

The feathers and fur were no issue. They strutted  and slinked around the yard every day. The hurdles were the tools and the hooks. Long nights in the workshop finally gave up a very crude vise that didn’t really hold much for long, a bobbin that cut through my thread, even though it was just Mom’s sewing thread, and a pair of brass welding rod turned hackle pliers that miraculously has outperformed any I’ve used since.

When long, dark nights of winter cast it’s cold blanket over my young life, the tying brought me just close enough that I could see hear smell everything that angling was.

When I grew up I realized what an effect my angling and tying had on my life. It was way more than just fishing. The hunt for fresh cdc, perfect bronze mallard, new ringneck pheasant skins, or whatever it was that time, imprinted on me the value of such stunning sunrises most people miss. The worth of a forest thick enough to hear every footfall of every wild thing. The open country of western plains many call ugly and worthless, become masterpieces in the dearest galleries of the mind.

And to what end? Fishing. The game of wrapping a hook with fluff sometimes taken from a milkweed seed, a flashy feather from that pesky cedar waxing last winter, and tying it to the line, to be whipped around and finally laid out in the swirl of rapids and riffle, to be drifted with delicacy and convincing deception, to the hope that is the chomp of the ultimate prey. That end.  That one flash and splash, that brings the dance to the hand, and thrill of accomplishment to the wielder of the floppy wand.  All this is the game that has my life in a vise.

Charles Card is the SCP’s Northeastern Utah Coordinator. Charlie is an avid sportsman and resides in Dutch John, Utah, the gateway to trout fishing on the Green River below Flaming Gorge Dam.

Hunters Connected by Time

 Observation one. The criteria for a good hunting area are defined by measurable variables – location, habitat and the ability of a place to meet not only the needs of wildlife, but the needs of the hunter. 

Observation two. Those criteria have been established over a long lineage of hunters, stretching back thousands of years.

Observation three. At heart, I am a biologist. I think like a biologist. I write like a biologist. I hunt like a biologist…

1. After 50 years of hunting and exploring I have come to the better understand and appreciate that as a hunter I am in the company of a long legacy of hunters.
1. The time spent in the field to scout for big game, develop hunt plans and conduct the actual hunt are all intrinsically linked to a long linage of hunters.  The days spent scouting and hunting only substantiate the fact that kinship can be found through discoveries of evidence.
1. Case in point: Old rusted casings or paper shotgun hulls … fun to imagine how long they have been sitting in that spot.
2. Once, while scouting for pronghorn in northwestern Nevada, I approached a prominent vista. Due care was taken not to skyline or draw attention and once on site I used all the cover available to break up my outline and establish a comfortable spot to set up my optics.
1. Glassing commenced. Once it was completed to my satisfaction, I noted I was in the middle of a lithic scatter or obsidian chipping site used to develop projectile points by Native Americans.
1. Case note: Obviously this exact site had been used for thousands of years to search for game across the landscape and plan a stalk and hunt.  With inches of obsidian chips at ones feet, it only conjures the imagination to wonder how many hunters scouted from this same location and produced arrowheads at the same time.
2. Hunters, over the millennium, are drawn to key habitat types that support all the requirements of big game species and preferred camping locations through the various seasons.
3. Many of these sites, on both private and public lands, have been developed or compromised in some fashion. These prime hunting grounds are special today for the same reasons they were special to the Native Americans. The development of public lands and uses thereon need to be accomplished in such a manner so as not to lose these valuable and traditional hunt areas.

Final observation: One takes pride in selecting such an area. Such selection comes with feelings of validation. Connection. Wonder.

James Jeffress joined TU in early 2009 as the Nevada Backcountry Coordinator after a 31-year career as a wildlife biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.