wood cutting

I have a hard time getting enthused about woodcutting until August or so. At that point it is still hot, but the prospect of September's cooling off and the chill in October are easy to see in the calendar and even feel in the weather. I've been looking more at the calendar recently- the drawing results for the various big game hunts have come in, which tends to firm up fall plans somewhat as various hunts are marked off. This year it wasn't too hard to mark things off. I can't complain, as I drew an elk tag, but that was the only tag of four that I put in for, only one of which was a long shot. Better luck would have meant two elk hunts and a deer hunt. Really good luck would have added antelope to that list. Nevertheless, that calendar gazing made me realize that it is time to sharpen chains, buy a permit, and get some wood stacked!

I try to cut aspen and pinon. The drought of the last few years allowed thousands of pinon here in the southwest to be killed by bark beetles. That heavy, pitch-filled, slow-growing, aromatic wood can be cut with good conscience for the next couple of years until the bug-killed trees are too rotten to burn well. Aspen, while burning fast, burns hot and clean. It is a delight to cut, split, and stack. It grows fast and any decent-sized stand usually has a couple of green blowdowns you can cut up and haul off.

Here around the Southwest mountains, you have to get out early in the day and get your wood cut before the afternoon thunderstorms that gather nearly every afternoon drench you. The rains have been spotty down where I live, but there have been nice caps of clouds over the mountains making it look like they are getting a decent share.

I don't cut wood from necessity. With the high price of gas, I'm not even sure I come out ahead economically. I have an inefficient fireplace and live in an urban area with burn restrictions. Nonetheless, I go through a couple of cords of wood every winter and count myself lucky for the opportunity. The crackle and radiant heat of a fire, not to mention the perfume of aspen and especially pinon in an evening are one of the joys of winter. Laying on the couch with a cat on my chest, a small measure of single malt next to a tall glass of water at my side, and a warm bed of coals glowing as I read a book makes me feel far more rich than bank balance or physical assets would indicate.

Last winter I had a bunch of wood from the year before and only cut once. This year I'm down to a couple of cubic feet, so I'll need to get busy.

P.s.- the best essay on cutting wood I know of is by Aldo Leopold. I'd guess that any reader here is probably well familiar with A Sand County Almanac and has their own opinion on that. Another fine book that mentions wood cutting and burning in a more than trivial fashion is Rick Bass' "Winter", which you all might not have read. If not, check it out.

very cool website

The Forest Service has a bunch of old photos from their files for National Forests around the Southwest. The link goes to the Cibola National Forest photos, links to other forests appear on that page. Hours of time might go by if you check each photo and caption. More than that if you have dial-up. Fun if you like old photos, more fun if you've had a chance to knock around any of these areas!

An old hunt

Back some years ago I noticed that the Valle Vidal unit of the Carson National Forest was sometimes undersubscribed for a couple of cow elk hunts (that is to say, in the lottery for a permit to hunt elk, more cow elk tags were occasionally available than applicants, guaranteeing all those who chose that hunt a permit). The bull elk hunts for that unit all feature long odds on drawing, as it is home to a large herd of elk and only a few hunters are allowed each season, resulting in a very good experience and a good chance at a big bull. In order to give as many people a chance at hunting the unit as possible, you can only draw one bull and one cow elk tag per lifetime.

I had not yet been on a solo elk hunt and was looking for meat to fill my freezer, so I put in for one of those undersubscribed hunts. I duly drew and made a couple of scouting trips to Northern New Mexico. On one of those trips I looked off the road at a sort of basin formed between a mountain and a line of small hills to observe what looked like hundreds of animals a few thousand yards off. A quick check with the binos established that it was elk- hundreds at least. I parked the truck around the corner a ways and hustled back with my binoculars, keeping below the hills until I could sneak up over one opposite the main body of the herd. Trying to divide it into mental thirds, I counted nearly two hundred animals in one third as they drifted up into the timber and out of the morning sun. The air was actually fairly loud with all the vocalizations from the bulls, cows, and calves. In my mind's eye, the sight remains particularly amazing and defies adequate description. Lying in the warm sun smelling dust and elk and grass and a little sage and watching all of those elk eat and tussle and circulate; it struck me as a small taste of what the nineteenth century explorers must have treasured about the west. Mind, too, that this was no national park or herd whose numbers are inflated by winter feeding, these are elk who are hunted each fall and make their own way each winter.

Four months later, I pulled into the campground (all car camping on the Valle Vidal must be done in the two campgrounds) the night before the season and, amongst the wall tents, trailers, and horses of the other hunters pitched my little two-man tent while setting some stew to warm on the Coleman stove. It began to snow right as I began pitching the tent and by the time I had finished it was dark and there was a half inch of snow on the concrete picnic table. I ate my stew huddled in my jacket and crawled off to an early bed. Because my sleeping bag wasn't terribly heavy duty, I wrapped it in a tarp and wore thermals to sleep in. Despite that, I woke in the dark, shivering. Moving around a bit, I was also feeling closed in and, turning on my flashlight to check the time, discovered that it was 11:30 and that the heavy snow had compressed my tent to within a foot or so of my nose, crushing the fly to the vent. I knocked the snow off from the inside, which helped me to warm up a bit, and went back to sleep. Of course, since it was the night before opening day, I was awake only a couple of hours later, then to discovery that the wind had come up strongly and was blowing snow under the fly of the tent, through the vent, and on to me, where it was not melting at all. Hooray for the tarp! Finally, about 4 in the morning, I'd had all I could take and shivered into my clothes and cold boots. My truck had a shell on the back, to I crawled in there and fired up the lantern and stove, which quickly warmed things up. A bowl of oatmeal and some cocoa, stash the lantern and stove, and I was off down the road in the blowing snow to a ridge I planned on hiking, the better to spy for elk in the lee once the sun came up.

I never made it to that spot, though, as my headlights showed the tracks of a large bunch of elk crossing the road in a wide draw, heading uphill. The tracks were, necessarily, very fresh, so I abandoned theory for observation, parked the truck, and waited for shooting light. Once I had it, I started up the shady side of the draw, trying to work my way through the snow covered blowdowns and spruce fairly quickly, while watching ahead in case the elk decided to bed in there, as well as down in the draw and over on the wind-blown open side in case they were feeding. An hour's walk brought no more than the discovery of where two coyotes had stood up out of the snow and began their own morning's hunt, though I could still see elk tracks down in the sage in the bottom of the draw. After another bit, I saw a pair of cow elk standing on the far lip of the draw, butts toward me. I found a nice sturdy spruce and leaned against it as I considered the shot. One of the cows obligingly took nearly a half turn, presenting something closer to a broadside, but the range was right at three hundred yards and a decent wind was still blowing up the draw. As opening morning had barely gotten started, I decided to let the elk get out of sight, then try to catch up to them once again at a bit closer range for a better shot.

The scene of "elk butt disappearing over the edge of the ridge" was repeated a couple of more times as I followed the elk ever higher. My heart rate had gone up at the first sighting of those two cows and it never really came down between the exertion of trying to walk quickly uphill and the tension of trying to move while out-observing a large but unknown number of eyes. One of the things that I treasure about hunting is that when I am following game in this sort of situation, I find myself concentrating on a couple of different levels, from the important yet small (where to put your feet, avoiding making other noise, moving smoothly and slowly) to the obvious (remembering not to look just straight ahead, scanning all around for any bit of elk) to the sheer excitement of pursuit (bull? cow? will I see them first? what will happen?) to many other things, like a sore knee, or keeping an eye on my backtrail so I don't get turned around, to how far it might be back to the truck if I have to pack out. Not to say that we don't think of all sorts of things at once in many different situations, but I never find myself doing it so easily, nor time passing so easily, as when hunting elk or deer.

Finally, I cautiously crested a ridge (head and shoulders only) to see bedded elk a half mile up the mountainside, hanging out in sunny patches while the six-point herd bull wandered amongst his twenty or thirty cows to make sure all was well. I dropped back under the lip and angled up country to get level with them. After a quick thirty-minute trudge, I guessed I was at the right level and eased over the top behind a brushy spruce. Quietly, slowly, and I hoped smoothly stepping along, I moved until I suddenly spotted a bright eye and buff rump only fifty yards ahead. Freezing and looking slightly off to the side (for I am convinced that animals can feel your observation if it is too intent) I watched until I could discern a four point satellite bull. He was hanging around the edge of the herd, hoping to catch some cow off on her own and in estrus in order to leave his mark on the world. Folly of youth! Still, I was about busted and disaster loomed for my morning. Worse, beyond and a little off from him a spike bull also rested. After a few minutes, still not looking right at the young bulls, I edged back in my own tracks. At any moment I expected them to break from their beds and tear through the herd, sending elk everywhere and ending the morning's attempt at this bunch. For some reason, they did not, and I found myself once again below the crest of the ridge and circling quietly upward.

Very shortly, another potential disaster appeared in the form of another hunter, this one on horseback and angling up toward me. We met below the ridge and compared notes- did he have a bull or a cow tag? Bull. Plans? To follow the line he had established. I told him about the nice six-point and the herd of cows, explaining I had a cow tag and my plan to circle above. He said that he'd go back a bit and get his partner, then they'd ride over and look for the bull. Not thrilled, I bid him good luck and continued up a bit further, now pushing myself because the potential for the faster horse hunters to ride right through "my" elk before I could get where I wanted to be loomed large. Turning over the ridge once again, I pussy-footed along through the soft snow and scanned for bedded elk. About to drop over another edge, I looked to my left only to see a medium large cow all by herself, up and eating moss of the base of a large conifer only a hundred yards off. Worried about the horse hunters and preferring a standing elk to one in her bed, a found an offhand stance, slipped off the safety, and drew a bead. Her ribs presented a huge target area and hubris raised its head. Liking the instant result of neck shots, being presented with the back of that area as she picked moss, and feeling pretty steady, I put the cross hairs at the base of her skull, got heavy on the trigger, and drove the bullet above her head and between her ears. The cow jumped back, uncertain where the shot had come from. To my right and in front of me I could hear elk getting up just over the edge of the slope. I quickly chambered another cartridge, settled the crosshairs a third the way up just behind my cow's front leg, and broke a good shot. She staggered and nearly beat my follow up to the ground. Meanwhile, the rattle and bang of the rest of the herd took off down the hill. By the time I had made my way to the cow, she was well gone. I set aside rifle and unloaded pack and began the process of field dressing and quartering. When the first quarter was in my pack it was a bit after one in the afternoon.

I took off down the mountain, happy, watching lowering clouds, and concentrating on swinging along at a good pace. It took just short of an hour to get to the truck. A drink of water, get the packboard for the next load, put the quarter in an open cooler in the truck shell, then back up the mountain. An hour's hard work (not loaded, but all up hill) brought me back to the carcass, where a pair of Clark's Nutcrackers were making themselves free of a hindquarter rather than pursuing the fat intestines and other offal they were welcome to. Now three in the afternoon, with snow starting to fall more seriously, I realized a few thing. One, that four trips (traditional and reasonable for packing out an elk, one trip for one quarter plus other random cuts with the forequarters) would make my last trip well after dark. Two, despite the fact that I was stripped to wool pants, gaiters, and undershirt and was sweating quite freely; it was getting cold as the snow began falling again and faster. Three, I really didn't feel like another very frigid night in an inadequate sleeping bag and a snowy wet tent. Four, if I got home tonight, I could cut meat over the next two days, save two days leave, and perhaps use those days off for something else. Having so reasoned, I loaded a hind and a forequarter on my packboard, covered the remaining quarter and meat with my blaze vest, then creakily swung the load on my back.

Heavy pack loads are interesting. If you have a good pack and have it adjusted well, nothing really hurts. It doesn't feel good, but there isn't any pinching or real discomfort. On the other hand, your stride is shortened and uphill suddenly becomes a lot of work. A long step to avoid a rock or small obstacle isn't wise and doesn't always work. Thus it was no huge surprise, although a seriously depressing event, when I caught my toe going down the steep slope to the broad wash where all this started and slid fifteen feet down the grade on my nose.

Another thing about a heavy pack is that you don't jump right up after something like that to check yourself over. Too much bears you down and with an external frame pack, most of it is dragging your head downhill. Instead, I cussed a moment or three, then carefully worked my feet back directly downhill and below my head. Then it was just a matter or rising to knees and feet, careful not to overbalance backwards, and unzip my trousers to unpack the snow that had gathered in the front part of the waistband. Suffering nothing more than some mud and snow on my person it was down to the truck, another big drink of water, a candy bar, then the trudge back up to the carcass as the light continued to fade under the falling snow. As I was loading the last quarter, liver, and other bits of meat I heard a chirp in the dusk. Looking up, a bunch of elk, perhaps the same I had followed all morning, were filtering their way back up the ridge to timber. Down the hill again, through the increasing snow, to the truck. Back to the campground to bundle tent and covered gear into a messy clump to be piled in the back of the truck among the coolers and quarters, then a change of pants and shirt for dry clothes and off down the road. I hit the highway as the snow tried to overcome my wiper blades and followed a plow up and down the long grades between Questa and Arroyo Hondo. Once there, the snow slacked and the plow turned back while I continued south, drinking Diet Coke, munching cookies and replaying the day, listening while the signal lasted to the smoky-voiced English DJ doing a late night show for KTAO. I was home by two that morning with the hunt cut short but successful and, even more, satisfying. I've been on several solo hunts for elk since then. All have been very good, successful or not. For the next year friends and I ate very well on the elk and I will never forget a morning of near-constant low grade adrenaline, focus warring with wide-ranging observation, and the sight of buffy elk butts cresting one more snow covered ridge.

a bit of Panhandle

I recently made a quick drive across Texas and, on the way back, drove under a storm line while up on the Panhandle. The clouds and rain provided a frame for the setting sun while blowing dust and moisture contributed to the colors, which this photo doesn't do justice. Too bad I didn't manage to catch the electrical storm north of the highway, which featured more lightning than I can ever remember seeing at one time. Cool weather!

Good Old Days

I've added Henry Chappell's "Home Range" to the sidebar. I've avoided linking to a number of really good blogs because you can get to them all from Querencia, which appears there. The latter is where I find entrance to many of my most frequently read blogs and I can't really see replicating their blogroll. However, Home Range is right up my alley in terms of tone and content and therefor gets a separate link. For lots of other good stuff, go to Querencia, scroll down, and hit the links on the left side of the page. They're all good to great.

In any event, one of Chappell's recent posts, which talks in part about the decline of quail across the South and Texas and the decreased opportunities for quail hunting, as well as his thoughts on taking advantage of good hunting that is available, got me to thinking about something which has been the source of more than a few campfire conversations I have been privy to over the years. Specifically, the future of hunting and the good old days. I'd imagine the conversation is one of the most common in hunting camps. I'm not going to start to address the future of hunting, many books worth of material and debate are buried in that topic, but I will offer a couple of thoughts about "the good old days" in the context of my hunting, now.

First, a bit of background. I grew up listening to stories from my father's family and friends about their mule deer hunts in southern Utah- stories of huge bucks under the rimrocks which were made tangible by slides of old hunting camps and sets of antlers on the wall. By then we were hunting in West Texas and there were quite a few mule deer, although they are of the desert subspecies and didn't have the size of the Utah bucks. In New Mexico, a surprising number of garages and houses have a huge old rack up on the wall that dates from the late 50's or early 60's. Today, deer are pretty sparse in this state and coming here from Texas was a let down. Hunting pretty country all day and cutting a single deer track, which already has another hunter's tracks following it, is depressing.

Colorado held on to its deer population where Utah and New Mexico apparently allowed theirs to get shot way down. (Most of what I've read from Game Departments blames drought, not overharvesting. Sorry, too lazy to hunt for links right now but I will say that I personally have a hard time with the idea, as the Fifties were notoriously dry and the Eighties were pretty wet in the Southwest.) When we first started hunting in western Colorado in the late 80's, mule deer were everywhere. Legal bucks (three point restriction in that unit) were fairly hard to come by, but it wasn't uncommon to come across fifty to a hundred does, spikes, and fork horns in the course of a day's hunt. I'd imagine the legal bucks got pretty smart pretty fast and were tucked away in more inaccessible corners than I explored. It seemed like every time you thought "that hillside should have a deer on it" all you had to do was glass for a while to spot one bedded in the oak brush. Elk, on the other hand, were fairly hard to come by. The last couple of years we returned to hunting that unit after a fifteen-year hiatus. I don't know if it is due to the drought of the last seven years or so or Colorado's removal of point restrictions back in the early 90's, but there isn't a quarter of the deer population that we saw before.

Today, however, we are in the good old days for elk. This has been true for most of the 1990's, in my opinion. Areas where I used to see the occasional elk track (and elk are crazy and one seems to wander about anywhere) I now find evidence of regular usage. Not only does their range seem to be still expanding, but hunting opportunities are still pretty good and large numbers of animals means success ratios are quite high for most areas. There is a lot more elk sign (and for us, sightings) in the aforementioned area of Colorado.

I don't know how or when the crash will come, but all natural things cycle and I cannot help but imagine that at some point I'll be telling stories to some disbelieving youngster about all the elk that used to be on this or that mountain. Fortunately, I'll have some photos and racks to make the stories a little more tangible.

The optimist in me says that something else will expand to fill the niche in turn or otherwise increase with the new situation. Maybe the teens or twenties will be the decades of the deer again, or another peak for waterfowl, or upland bird nirvana. Another optimist in me says that maybe elk will be the whitetail deer of the West and things will stay good. The part that grew up on stories from a father and grandfather that saw the big bucks go away and talked to long-time Utahns who had observed the same cycle some fifty years before counsels to enjoy it while we can and remember hard.

Dog

I grew up with dogs. My maternal grandfather had English pointers, two old girls that were retired from hunting before I can remember. My mom had a German shorthair before I was born that fell victim to a rattlesnake. By the time I came along, the folks had a short hair dachshund who cleaned beneath the high chair and taught me not to mess with the dog, at least much. We later added a sweet mutt of indeterminable origin. By the time I was in junior high, the previous dogs had gone on and we had acquired three more, including a couple of vizslas. The first vizsla we got as an adult; he'd been abandoned by someone and came to us as a burly and wild two-year old. He turned out to be a wizard bird dog with a great nose: capable of pinning of covey of blue quail as he literally slid into a point, dust raising around his feet from the sudden stop. He also ate the birds he picked up for the first couple of seasons. He never got over a hard mouth but we accepted the few extra puncture wounds as the price of doing business and finding more birds. The female was a decent bird dog in her own right, though her nose never matched Red's. She particularly loved to fish in small mountain streams, shuttling back and forth between anglers leapfrogging each other to hit the pools and runs. Every so often she'd wade out next to your fly or bait and look intently in the clear water for fish. Of course, finding none with forty-some pounds of bird dog in the middle of the hole she'd give you a quizzical look as if to question your choice of spot. I'll probably always have an affection for red colored dogs after those years.

During the course of completing my education I had no pets, an odd hiatus in life which extended longer than planned or anticipated. Eventually I moved into a house and initially thought to get a dog (a hunting dog, of course), but talked myself out of it. I figured that it just wouldn't be fair to the dog since I was at work for ten hours or better every day. The cat handles long absences and uses the time constructively to take naps and kill bugs. Meanwhile, I got my dog fix visiting my folks and sister (wirehair vizslas) and annual grouse trips with some friends that run pointers.

Now I've reevaluated that stance. Years go by and I'm not looking at any reduction in work for the next few decades. Any dog living with me will have to put up with some long-ish days alone. On the other hand, it wouldn't be the worst life in the world for a gun dog. Regular walks to stay in some modicum of shape and play weekend warrior for the rest of it. Backpacking, trout fishing the creeks, and road trips to scout hunting areas are all pretty dog friendly. Come fall and winter, I generally make several trips to hunt grouse and then hunt ducks most weekends of the season, which lasts a couple of months. Having a dog to hunt with would likely inspire me to try to find some public-land quail not too far away and maybe work up a couple of dove spots.

So, back this last spring I started seriously thinking about the dog thing. I looked into Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, as a Chessie will be best suited for those sub-freezing duck hunting mornings and still ought to find the mountain grouse. A lab or a hunting golden would also work, but Chessies appeal in looks and general breed characteristics. I was pleased to learn that there is a very well organized and active rescue group for the breed, so I've been talking to those good folks about hunt prospects, ideally in a young adult. There have been a couple of glitches in getting the right dog and travel is likely required, but a hunting partner is in my fairly near future. This fall will be even more interesting than usual.

Too young

When the ever-loving bleeding hell did the thing on the left get re-packaged as the thing on the right? The new container is a "convenient weekend size" package of Coleman fuel. I never had a problem with the square-edged can and felt that it was about right for a weekend. Things might get wet and I might have a hard time getting a fire started.

I like Coleman lanterns; I like their sound, I like their smell, I like the thirty second grace period they give you to get in your sleeping bag before the light they provide completely fades, and I love their reliability and the fact that a hundred-year-old design is still going strong.

I love Coleman stoves a bit less, as they are more troublesome to keep running smoothly, but I've never seen a really decent substitute when it comes to cooking in a base camp.

I never thought much about Coleman fuel. It keeps the lanterns and stoves running. I stuck to the brand-name stuff rather than other brands. The cans are sturdy and seal well, I pack them up against the lantern in a protected corner of my truck bed. I don't like this new container, though, or the pricing. What genius thought that round was a good idea? Do truck beds, liquor boxes, or even panniers come in round shapes? What the heck is the deal with 32 ounces being convenient for a weekend? A transparent lie- clearly the copywriter has not sat up late at night with a couple of good friends, too many bottles of wine, a guttering fire and a softly glowing lantern- nor had to cobble together hangover mitigating biscuits and gravy the next morning, coffee and gravy courtesy of the Coleman stove.

I thought I was a little young to be grouchy about changes, but apparently not. Doom.

Pecos

Spent the weekend backpacking in the Pecos Wilderness of northern New Mexico, a place that I've visited pretty much every year for a good while, now. I mostly take short backpacks into the wilderness area and do a bit of fishing and looking around. Like many beautiful alpine wilderness areas, the Pecos is "heavily loved". Even so, it is a fine place to see some of the best mountain scenery in the Southwest.



Got rained on halfway to the first day's goal, something you don't expect in June. A few hours under a tarp watching lightning march up the canyon is just part of the game in July, but a bit of a surprise this time of year. Moisture is always welcome, though, whether rain or the still extensive remnants of this past winters' snow pack, the first good one in a few years.

It is a continual wonder to me how just about every trip outdoors results in something of particular interest. This one brought about a couple of observations outside my previous experience. The first was a recent kill of a snowshoe hare along the trail. The young hare had been hit by an owl or a hawk, from the recency of the kill and the location (an open shoulder of the trail in fairly dense spruce) I'd bet owl. The bird had taken an eye, some meat off the head, and peeled back skin and some ribs to get to the heart and lungs. Prior to this, I hadn't realized that snowshoe hares extended this far down into New Mexico. I'd seen them up near the Colorado border, but never twenty air miles (and three thousand feet in elevation) from Santa Fe. The other was a close encounter with the bighorn sheep that live in the highest country up there. Despite a number of visits to their frequent haunts, I'd never run into the sheep in the Pecos. I've talked to people who have seen them, frequently at petting-zoo range, but never run into them myself until this trip. My previous bighorn sightings have all been at much greater distance and I was surprised at how tall they stand. With their rounded bodies, bighorns appear more compact from a distance than they do up close. Very cool.

Playing with a Querencia theme

Reid Farmer recently put up a photo of himself as a youth with a stringer of nice Ozark trout. Matt Mullenix chimed in with a photo of his own early start. Then Bodio contributed a classy black and white snap of himself as a young man with woodcock and double gun. Who doesn't dig old photos? Since summer is nigh and a young man's thoughts turn to fishing (see the last two posts), I thought I'd treat the subject as a meme and put up one of my own. My maternal grandfather and I, circa approx. 1978, South Texas and a few stock tank bass:

Tie Flying

I started tying my own flies back ten years or so. At the time, I had started fishing the San Juan tailwater in NW New Mexico quite a bit. That section of river flows at a constant 42 F, year round, due to a bottom-draw dam. Given consistent conditions around the year, the bugs hatch and the trout grow at fantastic rates. I learned to throw a two-nymph rig under a strike indicator and split shot and was rewarded with catching many two and three pound trout. The hot flies at the time were a vernille San Juan worm in dull orange (still a must-have for anyone on that river, in my opinion) and the "disco midge". The San Juan worm referred to just above is nothing more than an inch and a quarter of micro-chenille tied to a number 14 nymph hook in two places and brought to a point on the ends. After such a fly is used for a while, the chenille begins to hinge at the tie in points and flops back on itself in the water. At that point, it is useless, as the aquatic worms the lure imitates generally lie straight in the water and the fish won't strike a convoluted worm. These things cost a buck and a half apiece and a decent day's fishing would run through anywhere up to a dozen flies. This situation was not acceptable to a budget flyfisher such as myself. Consequently, I borrowed a vise from my grandad and bought a hundred pack of Mustad no. 14 nymph hooks, a spool of no. 6 red uni-thread, and a package of dull orange micro-chenille - all total about seven dollars, and tied up thirty or forty worms.

A disco midge, although tiny (size 18-24) is also very simple, consisting of an underbody of black or red thread overlain with abutting wraps of clear Flashabou with a thorax of peacock herl or loosely spun dubbing. I learned to tie those pretty quick, too.

Alas, those initial savings have long been consumed in the course of tying many more flies. I took a series of lessons and learned how to tie more complex patterns. All well and good, two and three dollar dry flies could be constructed for pennies. Ninety-nine cent bargain dries could be improved upon, with a little care. Then I got into saltwater fly fishing a bit and had to buy more materials and hooks. A large saltwater fly with eyes can cost well over two bucks just in materials and take half an hour to assemble. The expansion of materials necessary for some of the larger saltwater patterns also led to the over-collection of supplies. I have way too many different colors of bucktail, flash, and synthetic fibers now.

Be that as it may, the economics have subsided into background. While tying will never be an end to itself with me and I'll never name a pattern, it has become an integral and practical part of my fishing. For example, heading up to Alaska for a week's fishing for Coho salmon requires about five dozen flies for the three of us. Since I can tie, a small packet of materials and hooks allows me to knock up a dozen or so of the hot pattern in an evening. I can therefor avoid having to tie an initial batch several times larger than that we carry for the first couple of days. Salmon, strange and wonderful creatures that they are, choose different patterns to strike in different years, perhaps because they aren't seeking to eat? Of course, one really has to wonder what a salmon is looking to do at all, as a fly box for silvers (cohos) looks like box of Christmas ornaments done in poor taste, or as a friend better put it "like sweepings from the dressing room at La Cage".

Laguna Madre

As best I recall, I began fishing the Laguna Madre when I was six, going out with my father and maternal grandfather in the latter's v-hull Invader. We fished out of Port Mansfield and mostly threw popping corks with a two-hook rig off of a three-way swivel underneath. The upper hook was a lead head jig with a Tout tail, the lower was a treble hook holding a live shrimp. Mostly, we caught speckled trout. I remember having to get up in the wee hours, sleeping on the way so that we could be on the water at daylight, and getting to steer the boat on the way in. I also remember the waves seeming much higher and more scary than they could have been in that shallow bay.

The Laguna Madre is a long shallow bay that runs behind Padre Island off the southern part of Texas. It is a hypersaline environment and generally runs shallow, from six feet or so to thousands of acres of flats a foot deep or not much more.

After my grandfather passed away, there was something of a hiatus in my saltwater fishing, just occassional trips, until I spent the summer with an aunt and uncle in Brownsville, Texas. That summer we fished every weekend. The CCA had been at its good works and trotlines were banned. In addition, redfish were a gamefish and no longer subject to commercial fishing. Consequently, redfish numbers were on the increase and the fishing was pretty good. My uncle had a sixteen foot Ski Barge, capable of drifting shallow and running pretty shallow as well. We caught a lot of reds, although proportionally my biggest fish that summer was a 27 1/2 inch trout, probably seven pounds or so. Instead of popping corks and live bait, we threw dark red Kelly Wigglers on 1/4 oz jigheads, for the most part. If the grass wasn't too heavy, we might cast 1/4 oz gold Johnson Sprites. Just at dawn, before the wind came up, we'd throw Zara Spooks or other topwater plugs. The strike from a 24 inch redfish on a topwater makes a largemouth bass look shy and retiring.


Since that summer, I've been fortunate to be able to spend at least a few days fishing with my father and/or uncle in the lower Laguna pretty much every year. It is a fecund body of water and each trip brings a surprise for every few days on the water. Last October brought twenty pound jack crevalle under diving pelicans, mixed in with redfish. A few years before, we ran into mangrove snapper, coming up to chase plugs cast for trout. One fall brought a couple of schools of pompano messing around the surface, allowing me to catch one on a flyrod. Another time, we saw a pod of porpoises herd some reds into a ball and then tear into them, flipping hapless redfish two feet long out of the water to stun them. More recently, five feet of tarpon rolled off our stern, a heart-stopping thrill. Between all that, we drift and cast, trying to catch reds (redfish)-



and trout (spotted seatrout)-



So, very recently I was able to spend a few days out on the bay with my dad. The weather was a bit difficult, rainstorms, wind, and low light, all of which cut down on fly fishing and sight casting opportunities. Nonetheless, we caught some fish, particularly getting into the redfish, and had the sort of good time you can really only have spending hours outdoors in the company of someone with whom much similar time has passed.

urban doves

Seven years ago, I moved into a house in an old (for this sun belt city) subdivision. One of the big attractions to the place is the large, L-shaped patio which is abundantly shaded by two very large non-bearing mulberry trees. Once established, I hung a bird feeder and suet block to see what birds might come around.

Absent a snow storm to push a bit of variety down from some nearby foothills, I mostly see English sparrows, house finches, mourning doves, the occasional rock dove, and, somewhat to my surprise, white-winged doves. I grew up in areas with white-wings but this is at least a couple of hundred miles north of what I knew as their normal range (although the linked page describes them as having been observed as far north as Alaska!). Although I hadn't seen a white-wing up here in twenty years of casual observation, they seem well established. Further, the number of white-wings around town seems to be generally increasing. More interesting still is the fact that over the years a number of the doves on my feeder have made it a habit to spend the winter here. Most northern dove hunters are familiar with the phenomena of the first little cool front in September sending every dove around winging south for Mexico. This trend ought to be even more pronounced with white-wings, as they are a more tropical bird than the mourning doves. However, while the occasional mourning dove will spend the winter, I have a dozen or more white-wings year round.

I have read that the white-wing dove population in Texas has shifted from the lower Rio Grande Valley north to Austin, San Antonio, and other urban environs where they find the trees for roosting and nesting that have mostly gone away as south Texas brush is removed to create fields. I'm not aware of any similar pressure which would cause the birds to head north out here farther west. Regardless, the white-wings have apparently discovered another urban niche and are busily filling it. I have to say I'm pleased with the prospect. Any native species, especially one which not widespread in the U.S., expanding its range seems like a pretty good thing.

Perhaps just as exciting, this spring an Inca dove visited for a bit- the first time I've seen one of those little guys so far north in over twenty years of living here. Maybe global warming is sending these border birds north. If so, I eagerly await the first jaguar sighting in the southern Sangre de Cristos.

deer

I have been reading Richard Nelson's "Heart and Blood: Living with Deer in America" and a couple of Nelson's descriptions of encounters with deer and of deer interactions caused me to think of some of my own encounters with deer. I think any big game hunter who has spent much time in the field probably has at least a couple of stories about having deer walk right up to or right by him, which is an event which ought to make anyone's day. More than that, Nelson's description of deer socialization brought to mind a morning nearly ten years ago.
It was late September and I had taken a sleeping bag, groundsheet, water and rifle up to an unroaded mesa top which consists of large parks interspersed with aspen and spruce. I cold camped a couple of hundred yards behind a small hill overlooking one of two tanks on the mesa and the first gray light found me shivering in the frost and overlooking the water. Soon four mule deer does, each with that year's fawn, made their way down near the tank. Rather than water, they commenced to feed in the swale. After half an hour or so, one of the fawns suddenly straightened up, looked wildly around, the sprinted through the other deer, describing a quick half circle as soon as it got past the outermost, only to stop and nonchalantly resume browsing. All of the others were showing various signs of alarm- a couple had even started to run themselves. I, too, was busy looking for what had spooked the doe. However, as the instigator was showing no more signs of flight, after a bit they settled down and went back to feeding as well. Ten minutes or so after that, one of the does tore off through the group with no warning, bumping one of the fawns in the process, who chased after her. A couple of quick turns, they both stop, pant a moment, and go back to feeding. For the next hour or so, the deer fed around and eventually watered, spicing up their morning with bursts of "tag" which followed some set of rules I never figured out. Periodically, one of the does or fawns would take off and charge pell-mell through the group, sometimes being chased by another, sometimes bumping one of the others, only to suddenly stop and go back to feeding. Maybe it just felt good to run on a chilly morning.

Nelson expresses an aesthetic preference for whitetails, but to my mind, nothing really compares to the blocky grace of a big Rocky Mountain mule deer. Further, although it usually means that I've been busted, I also get a thrill every time I hear the wheezy snort a deer uses to warn of a predator. Those does and fawns described above eventually fed back into the edge of some aspens to bed, while I left them to it and crept back off the hill to circle around the mesa edge, looking for a buck.

recipe

Recipe, or perhaps prescription for the alleviation of general workday ennui:
12 oz. of elk steak, grilled over charcoal 'til warm red in the center
6 oz. of oak leaf lettuce, torn into pieces and tossed with a vinagerette
6 oz. of boiled new potatoes, sliced and fried brown in a bit of olive oil, with fresh ground pepper and salt
10 oz. of Beringer '04 North Coast merlot

1 oz. of Balvenie Double Wood 12yo Single Malt, to tamp all of the above down

digest the above with a familiar and favored book

Play Cowboy Junkies' "Trinity Session" followed by Coltrane's "Ballads"

Note marked reduction of ennui

a couple of things

First off, a bit of a brag or at least some self-congratulation being shared.

I hit a couple of used bookstores last night after work in hopes of finding a copy of Kim Stanley Robinson's "Escape from Katmandu" for a friend who is contemplating a trip to Nepal this coming fall. A bit of light reading to help her get excited for the trip, not that such is really necessary. Unfortunately, that title was not in stock at either store. I used to see it all the time and I've given my most recent copy away. The paperback is getting old enough that it may not be so easy to find. Off to Amazon, perhaps. My current karma must be somewhat good, though, because in the course of a little beyond-the-purpose browsing I found an apparently unread, or at least very well cared for, copy of Prosek's "Trout of the World" complete with the poster in the back. That is nice enough, but was priced at all of $12! I doubt I'll ever come across a deal on that pre-64 Model 70 in 358 Winchester or hit the Powerball, but these little things do quite nicely, thank you. What a lovely book of interesting fishes. The wide variation in the markings of various races of brown trout illustrated therein are truly wonderful.

On to the meat of the post. Which subject is, meat! Specifically, camp cooking. Sometimes when I talk to people about hunting and such the subject comes around to camping I do and the meals which go along with it. Folks are generally surprised at just what I end up cooking or bringing along on the trip. While not the most gear heavy of hunters, quite a few comforts are frequently involved. These include things like a wall tent with a wood stove, a chainsaw for wood gathering on longer trips, folding chairs and tables, and cots when in the wall tent.

Just as importantly, we eat well. What better time to celebrate with good food than when you are out in beautiful country, doing what you most like to do, on occasions when you are most likely to have worked up an appetite? The best bottle of wine I had last year was uncorked on a grouse hunt (it was a Casa Rodena 1998 Cabernet Franc, if you were wondering). On this last trip, dinner the first night centered around grilled redfish and asparagus. For my money, one of the best eating fish is redfish when prepared "on the half shell". That is, you fillet the fish, leaving the skin on, and then grill it with the skin and scale side down. The heavy scales char and protect the meat, which sort of poaches in its own fat and juices. Prior to grilling, sprinkle the meat side with some salt and fresh ground pepper, along with some herbs that go with fish (I like thyme, a little oregano, and parsley along with a bit of dried chive if I have it) and perhaps a little smoked paprika. Some cooks will brush the flesh with melted butter first, but I don't consider that step necessary. Grill the fish over a fairly hot fire to keep from drying it out too much. Bonny Doon Vineyard's Vin Gris de Cigare went along quite nicely. The second night we had to scratch by with elk cutlets grilled very rare and a green salad, along with another favorite, Sandia Shadows' Cabernet Sauvignon (2000), which is a nice cab for those of us who like them a bit tannic and big, but not jammy.

While nice, these meals aren't even trying very hard. For a few years when we gathered in larger elk-hunting camps we would try to do something a bit more fancy on the night before the season opened. Perhaps the most spectacular example of those meals featured large trout, kept whole and stuffed with a dressing of rice and water chestnuts and then grilled. Bacon wrapped nilgai fillets, black bean and shrimp chili, and grilled prawns in mojo de ajo also deserve recollection. I contend that for every backpack meal of freeze-dried or salami and cheese, a hunter or fisher should fire up his Dutch oven or spend some time grilling up something a bit special. For that matter, some of the best times of the hunt or fishing consist of reviewing the day around the campfire, waiting for coals to develop while enjoying a glass of wine and munching on pate or some good cheese.

post script to the last post

Well, turkey season has opened, in my case to mixed results. The first (of two) days spent in the mountains was lost for hunting due to weather. The wind began gusting well before dawn, which renders calling for turkeys futile. We shortened our walk in the woods once the snow began to fall, retreating to the wall tent and the wood stove to watch the horizontal hail, snow, and sleet fall. The second morning dawned quiet and lovely. Unfortunately, gobblers were not sounding off from multiple ridges as they have in some previous years. We had one bird respond to the call from a good ways out. We worked up a bit, but couldn't get another gobble. The likely reason soon became apparent. Another hunter was working along the side of the ridge. I think he was using a slate call, or perhaps a box call that was insufficiently chalked. In any event, he was very bad and the gobbler was having no part of it. We, too, circled around and headed up the next ridge. Unfortunately, the gobblers were silent.

Some observations from the day: elk seem to be doing quite well in the area. Each year for the past seven or so we've seen progressively more elk sign. Mule deer, however, continue to languish. Speaking of creatures who aren't doing all that well, we happened across a particularly large and handsome horned toad, which is always a nice sighting and a bit of a surprise given the snowy day just before. In addition, the recent Southwestern drought has produced a surge in bark beetles afflicting the stressed trees. In turn, you hear and see many more woodpeckers about. This year, a Red-naped Sapsucker and a male Williamson's Sapsucker (new to me and particularly handsome) held still long enough to be identified. Strangely enough, they wouldn't be looking for the bark beetles, I don't suppose. In any event, the woods were full of hammering.

So, then, no turkeys, but a nice bit of time in the spring woods. It could have been much, much worse.

Turkeys

Turkey season is nigh upon us. For those not familiar with hunting, one of the few times the sport is conducted in the spring (at least in the lower 48) is during the spring turkey season. Wild turkeys are found in nearly every state and the various Game and Fish Departments set a spring season to coincide with the latter part of the turkeys' spring breeding period. At that point, most of the hens are on nests and the males (gobblers) are, biologically speaking, surplusage since they do not help to raise the young. The spring season is limited to taking gobblers and the primary method of hunting is to entice the bird into range by mimicking the calls of a hen turkey.

One of the fascinating things about wild turkeys is their amazingly acute eyesight and the wariness with which they approach a caller. Consequently, when hunting turkeys you do best to wear full camouflage and are wise to accompany that with a face net as well. Here in the west, the birds move around quite a bit, adjusting their elevation to the unsettled weather and the progress of the spring vegetation. On top of that, they seem to have fairly large territories and you have to spend some time just hiking around looking for them. The gobblers typically begin to call at first light, so turkey hunting consist of getting up in the dark and then hiking out to an area with birds, then listening for a gobble. Once you hear a bird, you try to sneak fairly close without spooking him, then settle against some bit of cover and begin to call. Once you get a dialogue going, you try to entice the bird within the thirty yards or so which constitute the limit of shotgun range. Frequently, the gobbler will hold up a hundred yards out, trying to get the hen he's hearing to meet him halfway. I'm convinced that birds who have survived a season or two hold up until a hen comes out to meet them as a survival tactic.

I sometimes think that the most intriguing aspect of hunting is the interaction with wildlife. When you hunt, you are not a mere observer but a predator and participant in the lives of both prey and non-prey. Hunts which involve calling the game heighten that participation considerably, whether it is gabbling at a bunch of mallards circling your decoys, chirping at a bull elk that just cut loose with a bugle, or softly yelping at a gobbler who has just shouted that he owns this ridge. When the game responds to your call it is a unique bit of connection with the bird or animal. Not only that, but adrenaline hits your system and your palms sweat a bit. Suddenly, there are a myriad of ways to screw this up- the wrong call, the wrong note, too sudden a move. Meanwhile, the game is moving closer, checking everything out, calling at you and expecting the right response. Every time that happens, whether you find your prey within range or blow the whole thing, you've had a good day.

I have limited hope for this season. We've been in a long drought and turkey numbers in my area have been way down. Last year, I walked all morning to hear a single gobble. I did see some birds, though. The year before I heard no birds and saw only a few. Two years before that, those same ridges echoed with the gobbles of half a dozen birds or more. However, last year featured a wet spring and summer and this winter had a decent snow pack. With any luck, there was a good hatch last spring and a good number of birds made it through the winter to this one. Like many birds, turkey numbers can rebound pretty quickly.

Even with fair numbers of birds, wind is the scourge of the southwestern turkey hunter. The birds don't seem to call or respond to calling when the wind blows any more than a breeze. Unfortunately, the mountains tend to be windy at all times and especially so in the spring. As a weekend hunter who lives a distance from his hunting area I've had whole seasons blown out. Few things are more discouraging than waking at 4 a.m. to the sound of the ponderosa crowns being tossed about by the cursed wind. Pack up and go home or hang out and hope it lays tomorrow morning? An essential piece of gear for a turkey hunt is a good book!

skiffy

I beg the reader's indulgence. This last post has been kicking around in draft for way too long and won't come together. I'm sticking it up anyway, otherwise nothing will get posted for even longer, turning this from a blog to a bleg. Read at your own peril.

The first taste is free.
Now and for a long while probably half of my recreational reading is science fiction or fantasy.
I started reading science fiction because of Boy's Life magazine and Robert A. Heinlein. Back in the 50's Heinlein wrote a series of novels on contract to be serialized in the Boy Scouts' magazine. Much later, when I was a subscriber, a couple of those novels were reprinted in the magazine in comic form. Much like "classic comics", a lot of the meat of the book ("Between Planets") didn't make it into print. Nonetheless, it was a revelation to me. At that point, I had read mostly history and biography as well as juvenile fiction. The latter tended toward boy classics like "Robin Hood" and "The Swiss Family Robinson", "White Fang", "Little Men", Big Red and similar things. A story which began on a passenger liner between Mars and Venus and featuring Venusian lizards was something completely different. Consequently, once the serial ended I hove myself to the library and read what little of Heinlein it possessed. Later, we moved to a larger town with a bigger library and more Heinlein. In the interim, gifts and purchases constituted more Heinlein and I cautiously branched out into reading other authors, most from the Golden Age.

As a long time reader of speculative fiction, I am continually surprised by the disdain many people hold for science fiction/fantasy. The bug eyed monsters on the covers must have scared them away, as I cannot comprehend any fiction reader not being drawn in by the endless worlds, pasts, and futures which sustain the genres. It can't just be a problem with suspension of disbelief, any person who can follow the ridiculous exploits of Jack Ryan and his many compatriots with a straight face should be able to deal with the occasional extraterrestrial intelligence or faster than light travel. Their loss. For that matter, anyone who has not read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels has done himself a grave disservice, as no better collection of humorous novels is currently being written. He's prolific, too, so you have a new book to look forward to nearly every year.

I recently reread Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" after a twenty-year hiatus, having recommended it to someone looking for military science fiction and wanting to check my memory of the book. I am surprised by how timely the novel remains. Further, as a bildungsroman it is top-notch. The awakening (yet always self-deprecating) social conscience of the protagonist remains as appealing as the first day I read the novel.

Heinlein's early work (pre-1970), epitomizes most of the virtues of the genre of science fiction. For myself, two novels remain seminal political novels: "Starship Troopers" and "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress". Several juveniles retain their charm despite discoveries which have rendered any science speculated upon unlikely or impossible. If you want to hook a kid on science fiction, I don't think you can make a better try than by providing a copy of "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", "Citizen of the Galaxy", or even "Between Planets" and standing out of the way.

food stuff

I was over at Michael Ruhlman's blog where there has been a lot of talk about various polities' ban on foie gras as well as the disavowal of that dish by certain famous chefs. The discussion over there got me thinking a bit about food, perhaps helped along by celebrating a warm weekend evening by grilling some chicken out on the patio.

First off, I have no dog in the foie gras fight- the few occassions when I've had foie gras I've enjoyed it, but haven't found it to be all that wonderful, particularly for the price. Good, but not one of my favorite things. On the other hand, this is a dish which has been prepared for a long time and which American producers have only in recent years managed to develop. Also, this is fairly low-hanging fruit when it comes to battles over food. Foie gras is an expensive item associated with the wealthy. Fatty and rich, I doubt that it is very good for you. Not many people like liver and fewer still are likely to ever eat foie gras. Given all that, the contrarian and food enthusiast in me feels like going straight to Hudson Valley and ordering a terrine, just because an innovative American enterprise is filling a niche. Still, that stuff is darned expensive. Perhaps some magret (the breast from a duck produced & fed up for foie gras).

At least you can see the reason for the expense of foie gras and magret. The birds are handled a lot and fed a lot of good feed. For that matter, the operations raising them seem to be fairly small enterprises. If a person is going to worry about where his food comes from, he might do better to be concerned about his inexpensive grocery store chicken. Such a chicken seems like a bit less of a bargain if the bird spent it's life crammed with a half dozen others in a 2x2 cage. I dislike some people's tendency not to want to know where their meat comes from and get a little nervous about the hypocrisy of my own reluctance to contemplate the source of one of my meals. Nonetheless, I enjoy the occasional chicken and I haven't been able to tell any difference in the quality of "free range" and plain old grocery store chickens, at least on the plate. Perhaps I'll come across some grass fed birds one of these days and find them superior.

While magret duck breast is not prohibitively expensive, I prefer wild duck. Wild birds are much more lean than domestic duck and one of my favorite wild meats, although they can be challenging to a cook well. Wild duck is a good base for gumbo, excellent in stir fry, and best for me when roasted rare. I learned the basics from one of my favorite short stories, which originally appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal and can be found in slightly different form in Russell Chatham's "Dark Waters" collection. Prepare a sauce of equal parts butter, Worcestershire sauce, and lemon juice. Rinse the duck well, pat it dry, then put a couple of slivers of the lemon rind in the cavity, or perhaps a wedge of onion. Sprinkle it with salt and pepper. Roast in a very hot (at least 450F) oven, basting with the sauce. After twenty minutes, remove the duck to a warm platter and tent with foil. In a skillet, saute a little shallot or onion which you have finely chopped in a little butter, add the leftover sauce as well as any drippings from the roaster and duck platter. Reduce by 1/3 or so, then carve your duck. If you place the breast slices rare (bloody) side down in the sauce to cook for a minute or so, you'll take that bright edge off for comfort of the squeamish. Serve with rice, bread and a nice red wine.

So, maybe no magret for me. Perhaps a t-shirt from Hudson Valley Foie Gras.

In the meantime, I'll wish the foie gras producers well. Maybe I'll use some morally ambigous chicken for some chicken liver pate:
Simmer 1 lb. of chicken livers in chicken stock or in water to cover with a (low salt) bullion cube. Once tender, drain and place the hot livers in a food processor with 1 stick of butter, 1 t of cayenne, 1 t of curry powder, 1 t of black pepper, 1/2 t of salt, 2 T of sherry, and 3 T of fresh onion. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Use a spatula to transfer pate to a mold (lining it with plastic wrap will save some cleanup) then chill overnight. To serve, unmold and let it warm an hour or so.

Good (especially once you've balanced the seasonings to your taste) and inexpensive.

lotto

I love a raffle. Hope is a wonderful and nearly irrepressible emotion. Anticipation is a close second.

Folks who don't hunt out West may not realize it, but most of us who chase deer, elk, or antelope have to do our planning half a year ahead, even if we live within a few miles of our quarry. I'm not even talking about oh-so-valuable scouting and general familiarity with terrain or game.

No, the reason for such early planning is because almost all big game hunting in most of the western states is limited as to the number of permits available. You cannot just buy a license and go hunting, at least on public land. Each spring, the game and fish departments do a census of the game populations and an assay of the habitat and determine how many permits for the various cervids they will release that year. Hunters are provided with the number of permits released for a given area (generally called a Game Management Unit or something similar) and the number of applicants for permits in that area. Generally speaking, hunts are anywhere from 5 to 10 days long in the rifle seasons and from 5 to 30 days long during the archery seasons. Hunts which occur later and permits for cow elk are generally less popular. Later hunts because the animals are spooked and utilizing remote areas and escape cover to the best of their abilities and cow permits because most hunters dream of getting a big bull, at least once.

Because of the limited availability and high demand for hunting opportunities, each of us hunters enters into a calculus balancing the popularity of an area (usually indicating the game population and likelihood of a successful hunt, or at least the likelihood of seeing game) against the chance of drawing a tag. Some hunts are undersubscribed for good reason- finding an elk, deer or antelope in that region will require a lot of work and even more luck. This is where local knowledge or scouting offers a true advantage. I've had good luck, for the most part, putting in for early cow hunts. Most meat hunters seem to favor the later hunts, when bad weather is likely to push the elk down into more accessible country. On the other hand, my best bet for a bull elk, as far as chance of drawing and likelihood of success, is for a hunt which is largely dependent upon a decent amount of snow to push the elk into a series of terrible canyons a bit lower down. Higher up, they aren't on public land. Lower down, serious country protects them but gives a few of us a shot.

Anyway, a short time back I posted that fall is over. Already it has started again in a small way. Now is when hunters talk to partners, add up dollars, calculate vacation time and likely commitments, pore over game management maps and printouts of past success rates, then make our wishes to find out something about the shape of the next fall.

Y'all keep your fingers crossed for us, especially my bunch. Since my poor sister has decided to throw her hat in the ring, we've gone almost a decade (nearly a decade and a half for me) without an antelope tag.

bobber fishing

I fish mostly with lures and flies, but would not start to claim purist credibility. For that matter, while having a fish strike an artificial lure or fly on the surface is tops for excitement, I find live bait fishing exciting in a quiet sort of way. Sending the real thing down into the water seems like a sure bet. Reality is far from that, but much of the attraction of fishing is anticipation and anything that raised the anticipation level is good.

In live bait fishing, the antithesis of the stereotypical lazy afternoon watching a bobber is the tuna fishing practiced by the sportfishermen out of San Diego. The fleet of charter boats run trips ranging from one day to twelve days or more, seeking albacore, yellowfin, and the occasional bigeye or bluefin (all tunas) as well as wahoo, dorado, and yellowtail. The boats range from thirty-some to over ninety feet long and take anywhere from half-a-dozen to fifty or so anglers.

I've only ever gone on the shorter, one-and-a-half to two-and-a-half day trips made in the summer and fall seeking primarily albacore (the "chicken of the sea"). Depending upon the time of year, those trips have also resulted in some dorado, yellowtail, and bluefin sightings, if not landings. The boats head out in the early evening to run all night down to underwater sea mounts off of Mexico where the albacore use their long pectoral fins to ride upwelling currants to near the surface like aquatic raptors. The fishermen troop aboard with bundles of rods and packs of gear and are checked in, each being handed a clip filled with waxed paper tags imprinted with a number, one through however many anglers on board. All checked in and paid, the boat pulls out and then heads to a bait tender- a series of underwater pens holding live anchovies and sardines, which the bait sellers and crew transfer by the scoop into a large livewell that sits near the stern of the boat. That well stands up from the deck to near chest high. All around the perimeter are a series of shallow wells into which water runs. These are the "hand wells" and are some fifteen or twenty inches long and four or five inches deep. Some boats have a second bait tank up in the bow. Once the bait is loaded, the night captain drives the boat out past Point Loma and heads south beyond the Coronado Islands and down to the fishing grounds. The fishermen all head for the bunks down in the bow to catch a few hours sleep.

Sometime in the early morning hours while it is still dark, the engines change from a steady throb to a low rumble as the boat drifts and the most avid fisherment head up to try a bit in the dark. The captain watches his sonar and depth finder, looking for schools of bait and tuna. Soon the light comes up a bit and the boat begins to troll. Four heavy rods mounted with big Penn reels are clipped to the stern rail and the deckhands set plastic or feather squid and cedar plugs to riding in the wake. Many boats also troll a "boat line", which consists of a rope with a heavy (five pound) weight attached trailed by a very heavy line, all tied directly to a section of strong bungee and then to the rail. That lure follows the boat more deeply and is used as a hand line. The fishermen are assigned to the four trolling rods on a rotation based upon the number they were given on their tags and each rotation spends a half hour waiting for a strike. As the boat trolls, a deckhand sits on a seat up on top of the big bait tank. From there, he keeps a few baits in each of the hand wells and occassionally flips a sardine or anchovy into the wake. Every so often, the captain will mark a school of fish and will take the boat into a tight turn above them while the deckhand flips more bait into the wake. The tuna see the bubbles from the wake and investigate to determine if they are a school of bait. The live anchovies thrown into the wake add versimilitude and the trolled lures further attraction.

Once a fish strikes one of the trolled lures, the cry of "hookup" is raised and the captain kicks the boat out of gear. As it begins to slide to a stop, anglers come boiling out of the galley and from resting places around the stern, grabbing rods and then baiting their hooks with fresh baits out of the handwells. Meanwhile, the anglers on trolling rotation bring in the trolling lures, stowing those rods and getting their own baits into the water while the deckhand chums out more anchovies to try to get the school of tuna in close to the boat.



The boat will turn and drift broadside to the wind, so once you manage to grab a sardine out of the handwell, you either hook it through the vent, gill plate, or its hard nose and head for the lee corner of the stern. There you cast the bait out and start slowly stepping toward the upwind corner, keeping your line as straight in front of you as possible and letting the bait swim freely, leaving the reel in freespool and feeding line out to match the bait's pace. If a tuna takes the bait, you will feel an instant accelleration of the line. When that happens, you wait a short bit, then throw the reel into gear and set the hook. Once you have a fish on, you have the right of way and pass over or under other anglers on the rail. A fish hooked and lost will frequently escape deep, taking the school with it. If you don't get a bit, once you get to the bow of the boat you reel in, release your tired bait, then head down the lee side of the boat to the bait tank to get a fresh bait and cast out once again. By each fisherman keeping his line out straight in front of himself, tangles are kept to a minimum.

For this type of fishing the normal gear seems to be a seven-foot rod with a conventional reel. Typically, albacore call for twenty to thirty pound test line. Hook size is determined by the size of the bait- anchovies call for #1 or #2 hooks, sardines can carry a 1/0 or even bigger. Generally the hook is tied directly to the line without any shock leader. Sometimes a 1/2 ounce rubber-core sinker is added a couple of feet up the line to take the bait deeper.

Once the hooked fish is tired and worked to the surface, a deckhand will gaff it and hoist it on board. It is then dropped into a box to keep it from thrashing about on deck. The deckie takes one of the numbered tags from the lucky fisherman and staples it to the fishes' gill plate. Once a trolling "stop" is over, that is to say the school has left, the anglers all reel in and the deckhands lower the fish into a refrigerated hold where they are cooled by a chilled brine spray. The trolling lures are set out and the search resumes. Occassionally a "kelp paddie" a mat of floating kelp, will be spotted. The captain will troll near it, for such paddies harbor bait and attract dorado, yellow tail, and sometimes schools of tuna.

Trips out of San Diego have resulted in numerous whale sightings along with the experience of seas anywhere from three to fourteen feet. Despite regular mal-de-mer, few fishing experiences have matched the thrill of feeling a sardine become frantic and pick up speed just before the spool on the reel starts to blur as a tuna takes off with it.



Purist credibility will probably have to wait a while.

Afternoon at the club

I recently spent an afternoon at my local gun club. The reason I went out there was to sight a new rifle scope in. For those not familiar with shooting jargon, that is to adjust the telescopic sight so that the crosshairs rest at the point where the bullet will strike at a given distance. This particular scope is replacing an ancient Weaver variable resting on a Remington bolt action .22 (a 541S). When I came up to the range, the bay with the most room had one other shooter, whom I joined. Once set up, I walked over to chat and wait for him to hit a stopping point so that I could go downrange and set my targets. This gentleman was shooting a couple of cap and ball revolvers as well as a pair of short flintlock muskets. I asked him about one (decorated with tacks and brass cut outs, it was pretty clearly a trade gun replica) which turned out to be a replica of a shortened Charleville musket. The other piece was new to him and was a copy of a civilian made ship's musket built on a Tower lock- it was something an 18th Century ship would have carried in its locker. I asked the caliber and load for that and he enthusiastically told me that it was 72 caliber and that he loaded it with 95 grains of black powder. Then he said "you have to try it!"

Not wishing to be rude, I replied "thanks!" and watched with some trepidation as he poured a substantial charge down the barrel, topped it with a felt wad, then proceeded to pound a tight-fitting lead ball down the bore. My trepidation increased a bit when he handed me the musket and then poured a generous-seeming but unmeasured portion of powder into the pan, closed the frizzen, and suggested placing the front sight just to the right of the tang screw in order to hit a gong some thirty yards downrange. Now, this musket had a nice wide brass buttplate, which was good. Nonetheless, a near-golfball had been literally pounded down the bore, giving a fellow raised on modern rifles and storied of bulged shotgun barrels more than a little pause. Further, I discovered last fall that any charge over 90 grains of black powder in my .50 caliber mountain rifle meant a significant amount of recoil. So, all this going through my head, along with the notation that this piece was made in India (and he hammered the ball down the barrel!) I lined up to give it a try.

And flinched my fool head off. I flinched so badly that I almost had time to recover from the flinch and get back on target. I still managed to miss the gong by a good foot, an embarrassing performance to say the least, particularly given that the lock time was amazingly quick given what I'd heard of flintlocks (about like an air rifle, I would say) and the recoil negligable. What embarrasment.

Nonetheless, the afternoon passed pleasantly and I was able to help my fellow shooter pull a stubborn stuck ball later on. The little bit of knowledge and experience picked up at random at the range seems to me to be more typical of that place than not- the shooting community (at least off line) tends to be friendly and helpful. For every jerk, I've run into at least a dozen true gentlefolk, knowledgeable and eager to help or share. The ratio strikes me as more favorable than that life generally proffers.

The rifle that I was sighting in is my primary grouse gun. Here in the Southwest we have mountain (blue or spruce in the books) grouse. When flushed, the birds will fly for some distance and then light on a tree limb. A hunter limiting himself to head shots with a .22 rifle picks no lead from his meat and offers the birds a sporting chance. More sporting still is to hunt them with a .22 pistol. Once again limiting attempts to head shots, collecting grouse becomes very challenging. Sometimes the birds are humiliatingly tolerant of bad shooting. More than once I've made half a dozen attempts at heading a bird strutting back and forth on a horizontal limb twenty yards away, the bird not willing to fly but too nervous to stand still, the hunter increasingly hurried, frustrated, and inaccurate. Since I started off embarrassing myself, I will close in the same vein.

Nearly twenty years ago, my father and I were walking down a shallow draw in SW Colorado one afternoon during elk season. We were about 200 yards apart with a narrow band of quakies running down the center of the draw between us as we headed for steeper timbered slopes further down. Right off my boot toe a large male grouse startled out of the sage, running some ten yards before me then rapidly picking his way toward the bottom of the draw. I slung my rifle, drew my pistol, chambered a round, then proceeded to try to get a decent sight picture of a grey-blue grouse head against grey and grey blue sage. The bird complicated things by never holding still- he never ran really hard, but he never stopped. Finally, as he stepped from behind a clump of sage, I tried a shot. Then another, and another. Steadily we worked our way down the draw, both scurrying through the sage, our progress punctuated by the "pop" of my pistol. At one point, hunting through a pocket for more rounds, I looked up to see my dad watching our progress with his binoculars. Soon, we hit the thick aspens, the bird quickly walking between the white trunks (which provided a better sight picture but more cover) and I heard a "pop" from my left to see my father leaning against a tree making his own try. After a humiliating number of shots between us, I looked up from re-reloading my magazine to see my father doing the same. I had hoped he had quit because he had gotten the grouse. "Do you see the bird?" I asked, only to hear "No, do you?" We searched a bit but he had distanced us and was laying low. He had walked right out of our lives.

more gear

Hunting as art?
Maybe as craft. I'm thinking about the line between ethics and taste in the gear that we use.
Last year I took up black powder for the first time, lured by early elk season and the (illusory, as it turned out) prospect of fewer hunters. I chose to use an Austin Halleck cap lock mountain rifle, which is, generally, a copy of the rifles produced by the Hawken brothers and others for fur trappers and other western explorers. The rifle has fixed sights and, cosmetically, could pass for a 19th century piece of tech from a distance. However, it isn't entirely authentic. The barrel is modern steel, of a length and heft designed for a modern foot hunter rather than a horse riding mountain man, and it is rifled in a twist designed for modern conical hunting bullets. For that matter, I loaded the rifle with a modern black powder analogue to make cleaning a bit easier and corrosion less of a problem. Those choices represent a compromise on my part in a series of aesthetic choices. Within the regulations of my home state, I could have used a telescopic sight on a rifle indistinguishable from a modern bolt action, except for the limitation that powder and projectile would have to be loaded from the muzzle end. Modern muzzleloading rifles have made the sport more popular and extended the range at which the arms are capable of reliably and quickly killing game from 100 yards or less to 200 yards. In addition, stainless steel, along with modern breach designs and ignition systems have made the rifles less subject to corrosion and less subject to misfires.
Over the course of the short season, I didn't see another hunter using a traditional muzzleloader.
I could have gone further, though. First, I could have chosen a flint lock, perhaps more authentic for a mountain rifle and certainly requiring more care in handling and use. I could have chosen a rifle with a barrel designed for a patched round ball, definitely more authentic to the pre-Civil War era and less deadly, particularly at longer range. I also could have used black powder. For that matter, I could have dressed in period dress, buckskins and linsey-woolsey. The latter would have felt too much like play acting to me. As for the rest, I wanted something which a hunter in 1840 would have recognized and even perhaps used and, within that limitation, I wanted the most deadly combination in order to most limit the chance of wounding my prey rather than killing it quickly.
I think that choice is typical of many that I make in hunting. While I admire fine double shotguns and own a perfectly decent over/under, I carry a gas operated semi-auto with a military-type finish and a plastic stock while duck hunting. The gas gun has much less recoil and you don't wince when it bangs off of a rock or takes a dunking. It is a tool, albeit a favorite one. On the other hand, the plastic stock on my primary big game rifle will probably have to go. It is ugly, of course. Practically, it is not that comfortable, a bit noisy, and cold to the touch. I would prefer to replace it with a laminated wood stock. Those stocks are still fairly ugly, so far as grain goes, and they almost as much synthetic (glue) as wood, but they are warmer and quieter than plastic, without being subject to the warping, softening, or as much chipping as wood.
I find the choices people make in how they go about choosing their gear for hunting and fishing nearly always interesting and the contrasts in gear fascinating. I'll end with a couple of thoughts. If one ever wishes to see an example of gear being unable to substitute for practice, head to the San Juan River in New Mexico, a famous and crowded trout fishery, in summer. There you will see guys walking around with a thousand dollars in rod and reel, more in flies and peripheral gear, with little idea how to use them. Next, if you want to have fun getting dirty looks or are just generally in a contrary mood and you are familiar with the San Juan tailwater or are good at tailwater trout fishing, go up there with one of the old automatic reels on your fly rod and proceed to catch fish. The only thing that lessens the fun is that the automatic reels are getting old enough (or enough people are so new to fly fishing) that a lot of folks don't realize what they are seeing. That's ok, there will be a few older fishermen who will whip their heads around when they hear the ziiiiip! of the automatic line take up. Bonus points if you use a fiberglass rod!

On guns and hunting

This is inspired by the whole Zumbo thing and the current flap of "hunters vs. shooters". More specifically, this is inspired by a post at Bodio's Querencia by Matt Mullenix, see here: stephenbodio.blogspot.com/2007/03/more-zumbo.htm.
Before I get right into my thoughts, I'm going to digress. One of my stated goals in trying to write a blog was to improve my writing. As anyone who has ever suffered through correspondence or conversation with me knows, one of my weaknesses is for digression. Nonetheless, I will digress and preface what I say here by noting that anyone reading this should go right to the Querencia blog and read it. Bodio doesn't publish enough books (which can be said of any great author) and doesn't do book reviews for Gray's or Fly Rod & Reel anymore, but you can tide yourself over with topical bits of his writing at the blog. On top of that, his co-bloggers are unusually articulate and interesting, making the whole thing very worthwhile. The blog is particularly good for the naturalist hunter, as the bloggers are extremely well educated and two of them are falconers, a group I hold in considerable awe. Falconry requires so much dedication just to get to the point where you can get into the field to hunt and then injects so many variables into the hunt that I am amazed by those who practice the sport. Without being familiar with the falconry community (my knowledge comes from reading about them) I generally believe that most falconers speak with considerable authority when it comes to the ethics and aesthetics of sport. Bowhunters using self bows and hard core primitive hunters using period gear and dress are the only other groups which seem to me to compare.

In the post referenced above, Mullenix (one of the falconers) offers a view of former Outdoor Life editor Jim Zumbo's recent blog post decrying "terrorist rifles", defined as those with actions based on the AK-47 or M-16 (known as the AR-15 in the civilian, non-automatic, version) and calling for their ban from hunting fields. That post created a storm of commentary and invective on the internet, losing Zumbo sponsorship and, ultimately, his job. Scroll down a bit and I express an opinion on the whole thing.
Mullenix notes that he views the post as mostly expressing an aesthetic point of view that AR and AK or other military-style weapons do not belong in the hunting field. He then includes some correspondence with Bodio regarding his question of "what did Zumbo say that was a big deal?" In the comments, other folks note that this dispute has been picked up by the mainstream media, with predictable inaccuracy or misunderstanding.

As is probably clear from my earlier post, I don't see things the same way Mullenix does. I think that Mullenix's view could be summed up by his question "He [Zumbo] was stating, essentially, an artistic opinion. Right?" Adopting that view, though, I would say that one reason that folks got so upset over the blog is that Zumbo's argument (that "those guns have no place on our prairies and mountains) nearly inevitably leads to the conclusion that "those guns have no place".
Although the Second Amendment doesn't mention hunting, for decades "sporting use" has been used as a measure of the legitimacy of firearms ownership. More importantly, a new "assault weapon" ban, much more sweeping that the version which passed in 1994 and expired in 2004, has been introduced in Congress. See http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.1022.IH:. It leaves with the Attorney General wide discretion to ban manufacture of many firearms and would place limitations on the private sale or transfer of guns it designates "assault weapons". Here is one provision of that bill, a catch all provision placing under regulation "[a] semiautomatic rifle or shotgun originally designed for military or law enforcement use, or a firearm based on the design of such a firearm, that is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, as determined by the Attorney General. In making the determination, there shall be a rebuttable presumption that a firearm procured for use by the United States military or any Federal law enforcement agency is not particularly suitable for sporting purposes, and a firearm shall not be determined to be particularly suitable for sporting purposes solely because the firearm is suitable for use in a sporting event."

It is almost impossible to find a semi-automatic weapon which is not based upon a design for military or law enforcement use or used by either of those groups. Back when most of the semi-automatic actions were designed, the big bucks were in military sales. Even if a pistol or rifle wasn't marketed to the military or law enforcement, it saw use by them.
I will provide an example. Take the Remington Model 8 (http://www.remington.com/library/history/firearm_models/centerfire/model_8.asp), which was designed for hunters. The U.S. Border Patrol bought a few and used them for years, particularly on road checkpoints. Some were used by airmen in WW I before the rapid escalation of the war in the air led to Lewis guns being employed. Under the new bill, a century old, funky hunting rifle, http://www.collectorgrade.com/bookshelf8.html (look halfway down the page), could be designated an "assault weapon unsuitable for sporting use". After such a designation, you would only be able to transfer (that is, give or sell) your great-uncle's old Model 8 to your son or daughter by going through a federal firearms dealer in a recorded transaction, likely paying the dealer a fee for his trouble and paperwork. If your son was under 18, you couldn't do it at all without committing a felony punishable by 10 years in prison. The same thing could happen to the Remington Model 11 shotgun (http://www.remington.com/library/history/firearm_models/shotguns/model_11.asp), also known as the Browning Auto-5 and beloved by millions of hunters, but used by lots of police and, occasionally, as a trench gun. Now, I would hope that the presumption that these two guns are not suitable for sporting use would be easily rebutted. However, I wonder who will invest the money in the lawyers to take the case to an AG who decides to declare them "assault weapons". The manufacturers? I know the Model 8 hasn't been made in decades, I don't believe Browning's humpback (the Model 11) is under production. I know I wouldn't have tens of thousands of dollars to throw at it.
In other words, expressing the opinion that a given firearm should be prohibited from a particular use, particularly when the person expressing the opinion has a significant voice, cannot solely be an artistic opinion given our long-running cultural battle over guns and over hunting. Now, stating that such and such a firearm or technique has no place among ethical sportsmen and that only an ethically and aesthetically challenged dolt would employ such, that will get you a lot of flak but no cries for blood. Well, maybe not.