Summer 2022 Issue of Backcountry Journal by BackcountryJournal

BACKCOUNTRY

JOURNAL

The Magazine of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers

Summer 2022

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

COMMUNITY It’s not necessarily the things we do; it’s who we do them with. Sure, our access and conservation efforts were the impetus for our organization’s formation. They continue to drive us today. But since the first campfire, BHA has been about the people – individuals who not only make the work happen but who have fun while doing it. Rendezvous epitomizes this sentiment. It’s a gathering like no other that stokes the fire and fills the bucket. The conversations that were experienced, bonds that were forged, and plotting and scheming that happened into the wee hours lie at the heart of who we are. Thank you to those who joined us in Montana for a memorable event. So many moments stand out. The Field to Table Dinner was hosted at the Teller Wildlife Refuge south of Missoula. Our chefs prepared amazing appetizers, entrées and desserts. Jamie Carlson and crew mixed up killer beverages. And thanks to the generosity of Ray Penny at G&H Decoys, we nearly doubled from last year the funds raised. Huge thanks to Randy King, Jaime Teigen, Shannon Waters, Adam Steele, Nathan Parrish, Justin Townsend, Riley Egan, Zoey Osborne and Hannah Nikonow … the food was out of sight! To the college kids who helped serve and the volunteer chefs: I salute you. We couldn’t have pulled it off without you! Cheers to my camping mates Seth Trokey, Tim Brehmer and Drew Kazenski. It was great to hold down the southeast corner of Camp 1 again. Keenan Adams, you were missed, but your praises were sung. Eddie Nickens: You once again braved sharing my Seek Outside teepee with me … oh, the stories you could tell. We hosted the largest-ever gathering of BHA corporate partners in support of public lands, public waters and public wildlife at this year’s Rendezvous. Thank you! Not only did you weather the wind, but you all jumped into action as tents attempted to blow away, aiding your fellow vendors. Tasty sausage from Walton’s and cocktails from Vortex were definite crowd pleasers. Having DeMarcus sign my fishing regulations – he starred on the cover – was super rad. The Backcountry Brewfest returned to great fanfare as we welcomed Missoulians to join us on the banks of the Clark Fork River. BHA Operations Director Frankie McBurney Olson summed it up in one word: “Insane!” Thanks to the volunteers who stepped up and helped pour beer. Later that night we walked to the historic Wilma theater and were wowed by one of the finest lineups of storytellers ever assembled. Tyson Running Wolf, Brandon Dale, Zsakee Lewis, Mark Kenyon, David Wise, Clay Hayes, Trevor Hubbs and Rue Mapp … thank you for an inspiring evening. For those who couldn’t make it: This year’s Campfire Stories will soon be up on the BHA YouTube channel for your viewing pleasure. Celebrating our community on Saturday was a highlight. While we could and should give out more accolades, our award

No doubt, memories were made Saturday night at the bonfire. Photo by Aaron Agosto

winners were deserving and had inspiring words for the rest of us. Minnesota dominated the hardware, including a repeat win by father-son duo Greg Kvale and Pete Kvale in the Wild Game Cookoff. The Minnesota flag paraded around the late-night bonfire will be etched in my mind forever. I’ll leave you with one of my fondest memories … no, not giving North American Board Chair Ted Koch a haircut for conservation … though that was definitely up there. Instead, it was a relatively quiet moment that happened by chance. In a cataclysmic meeting of the brain trust of BHA at the Saturday evening bonfire, former longtime North American board member David Lien, the most recent Aldo Leopold winners Jared Oakleaf and Liz Lynch, and I were reminiscing when Stevens Point College Club Chair Harrison Stasik joined us. In that moment we spanned the first Rendezvous in Missoula to our most current. We had our sage wisdom and youthful exuberance on full display. We had the heart of BHA in our hands with the glow of the fire on our faces. These and other moments are what this gathering of our community is all about. For those who couldn’t make it this year: We missed you. For those who came: Thank you for being who you are. Mark your calendars now for North American Rendezvous 2023 … March 16-18. We’ll be back in Missoula but at a new venue … the Missoula County Fairgrounds. On-site camping options will still be available, and for our vendors in particular … we will be offering an awesome indoor space. Let us all continue to spread the good word on public lands, public waters and public wildlife. Together, our growing community will carry the day, one fire at a time. Onward and upward,

Land Tawney President and CEO

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 3

SHORT

“AS FOR ME, I AM TORMENTED WITH AN EVERLASTING ITCH FOR THINGS REMOTE.” – HERMAN MELVILLE, MOBY DICK

THE VOICE FOR OUR WILD PUBLIC LANDS, WATERS AND WILDLIFE NORTH AMERICAN BOARD OF DIRECTORS Ted Koch (Idaho) Chairman J.R. Young (California) Vice Chairman Jeffrey Jones (Alabama) Treasurer T. Edward Nickens (North Carolina) Secretary Dr. Keenan Adams (Puerto Rico)

Ryan Callaghan (Montana) Bill Hanlon (British Columbia) Hilary Hutcheson (Montana) Dr. Christopher L. Jenkins (Georgia) Heather Kelly (Alaska)

STAFF Land Tawney, President and CEO Tim Brass, State Policy and Field Operations Director John Gale, Conservation Director Frankie McBurney Olson, Operations Director Katie McKalip, Communications Director Rachel Schmidt, Innovative Alliances Director Chris Borgatti, New York and New England Chapter Coordinator Travis Bradford, Video Production and Graphic Design Coordinator Veronica Corbett, Montana Chapter Organizer Trey Curtiss, R3 Coordinator Katie DeLorenzo, Western Regional Manager and Southwest Chapter Coordinator Kevin Farron, Montana Chapter Coordinator Britney Fregerio, Controller Chris Hager, Washington and Oregon Chapter Coordinator Andrew Hahne, Merchandise and Operations Aaron Hebeisen, Chapter Coordinator (MN, WI, IA, IL, MO) Chris Hennessey, Regional Manager Ace Hess, Idaho and Nevada Chapter Coordinator

Tom McGraw (Michigan) Ben O’Brien (Montana) Michael Beagle (Oregon) President Emeritus

Jameson Hibbs, Chapter Coordinator (MI, IN, OH, KY, WV) Trevor Hubbs, Armed Forces Initiative Coordinator Chris Hunt, Digital Media Coordinator Josh Kaywood, Southeast Chapter Coordinator Jacob Mannix, Alaska Chapter Coordinator Kate Mayfield, Office Manager Kaden McArthur, Goverment Relations Coordinator Jason Meekhof, Events and Special Projects Coordinator Josh Mills, Development Coordinator Erin Nuzzo, Grants and Annual Giving Coordinator Devin O’Dea, California Chapter Coordinator Rob Parkins, Public Access Coordinator Thomas Plank, Communications Coordinator Kylie Schumacher, Collegiate Program Coordinator Ryan Silcox, Membership Coordinator Joshua Stratton, Great Plains Chapter Coordinator Brien Webster, Program Manager and Colorado and Wyoming Chapter Coordinator Zack Williams, Backcountry Journal Editor Interns: John Copriviza. Haley Erickson, Brady Fryberger, Jenna McCrorie, Keegan Shea, Clay Vernon, Faith Wells

Contributors in this Issue

BHA HEADQUARTERS

Cover Photo: Black houndsmen have a storied tradition in the South. Read “Fathers and Sons and Swampers” by Jonathan Wilkins on page 54. Photo by Marianne Nolley. Above Image: Elliot Elisara, Boundary Waters, Minnesota, 2021 Public Lands and Waters Photo Contest

P.O. Box 9257, Missoula, MT 59807 www.backcountryhunters.org admin@backcountryhunters.org (406) 926-1908

Raven Aäe, Andrew Amen, Beau Badon, Jack Ballard, Thomas Baumeister, Amber Casey, Pat Casey, M. Robbins Church, Cooper Ferko, Michael Garrigan, William Griffith, Bert Lindler, Daniel Majerus, Dudley McGarity, Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley, Marianne Nolley, Rory O’Hanrahan, Rachel Owen, Erik Petersen, Ron Rohrbaugh, Lt. Col. Andrew Ruszkiewicz, Wade Truong, Barry Whitehill, Jonathan Wilkins

Backcountry Journal is the quarterly membership publication of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, a North American conservation nonprofit 501(c)(3) with chapters in 48 states and the District of Columbia, two Canadian provinces and one Canadian territory. Become part of the voice for our wild public lands, waters and wildlife. Join us at backcountryhunters.org

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YOUR BACKCOUNTRY

Pennsylvania Backcountry Resurrection

Photo: Michael Garrigan

BY MICHAEL GARRIGAN The sun has yet to reach me back in this hollow. The sound of diesel trucks braking down the mountain has long since been replaced with warbler chatter and the susurrus of the stream carving its way through thick rhododendron and knotweed. I’ve hiked a few miles up an abandoned rail line that once smoked out these woods as it cut through, burdened with logs. I’m here to see the headwaters of this tributary, to see how long the orange lasts, to see where the old water begins. I pass rusted out mining machinery and brick culm piles slowly decomposing into new soil, melding the industrial past of the Pennsylvania woods with native and invasive flora. I find the elders of these woods, the survivors – brown and brook trout that dart under schist ledges when they see my shadow. This stream empties into another, as streams do, but the main stem is burnt orange with acid mine drainage. Decades ago it was dead, just a wild run of sulfuric acid and iron oxide – the result of decades of anthracite mines and resource extraction. Now, it’s undergoing a rewilding. The brook trout are natives that held on tight to the headwaters. The brown trout have become wild, stream-bred descendants of stocked trout; somehow they figured out a way to live in both waters, moving up and down freely from the polluted main stem to its resilient source. Sure, I’m fishing, but mostly I’m exploring, tracing the outlines

of the naked anthracite ridges and looking for rusted artifacts of the mines and logging operations that defined this watershed for decades, trying to map out this post-industrial wild. It’s cold, so I stop and build a little fire to warm up while I listen to plunge pool psalms. Pennsylvania is home to almost 3.8 million acres of state parks, forests and game lands. It’s also home to all 514,000 acres of the Allegheny National Forest. Within those four-plus-million acres of public land, there are countless wild areas and rivers where “development or disturbance of permanent nature will be prohibited, thereby preserving the wild character of the area.” But one does not need to go to these specific wild areas to get lost in the Pennsylvania public lands backcountry. Follow any of the countless trails (some of the more famous ones are the Mid State Trail and the Black Forest Trail), gravel roads or dirt tracks and you’ll eventually find yourself where there are more ravines than roads, more elk than people, more trout and thistle than trucks and Sheetz convenience stores. The Pennsylvania public lands are truly multifaceted and easy to get lost in. Biking, hiking, hunting, fishing – no matter where you live in the state, you are no more than an hour or two away from some sort of public land large enough to explore the backcountry. Many people bypass this state on their way out west or north to the big-name places where the mountains are taller, the peaks more pronounced and the wildernesses more defined. They can’t get past the fact that much of the public land in PennsylvaSUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 7

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Photos: Michael Garrigan

nia was once logged, watersheds. mined or used in Once the fire burns some way for redown, I follow the source extraction. It’s river back downpost-industrial wilstream, swinging a derness. black woolly bugger However, even in as I go. Trout give that rusty decay, even reckless chase – easy in those backcountry food in this water that places cut through only hatches midges with a pipeline or – through the orange fractured by a frackslurry until their deing pad, there is a wilsire catches up with derness that affords their prey, and I easily anyone the chance release them. to lose themselves in Sculpins and cenEach stream starts somewhere. Each piece of pursuit of trout, deer, tral stonerollers are the wilderness begins as a seed. This is my turkey, elk and bear. meals that feed this Pennsylvania backcountry – tattered and For example, take the particular resurrecQuehanna Wild Area tion. Each stream starts scarred, sacred and wild. and its nearly 50,000 somewhere. Each piece acres of protected state forests and game lands open to hunting of wilderness begins as a seed. This is my Pennsylvania backcounand fishing. This plateau along the Allegheny Front is home to try – tattered and scarred, sacred and wild. With us, it will grow wild trout streams, a minimum-security boot camp, miles of into a new ecosystem to enjoy and protect. Without us, it’s just backpacking trails, a decommissioned nuclear reactor, a jet-engine diesel trucks and bulldozers. testing facility, reintroduced elk and one of the largest stands of white birch in the eastern United States. It was once surrounded BHA member Michael Garrigan writes and teaches along the by a fence to keep the tested jet engines from flying out of range. Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. He is the author of the poetry Now it’s one of the biggest wild areas in the state with endless collection “Robbing the Pillars” and was an artist in residence for The amounts of backcountry hunting and angling to explore. Some Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in 2021. of the streams still suffer from acid mine drainage, but thanks to efforts from conservation groups, trout are returning to these

125 YEARS OF UNFAILING GOODS

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 9

FILSON.COM

BACKCOUNTRY

JOURNAL Summer 2022 | VOLUME XVII, ISSUE III

FEATURES FATHERS AND SONS AND SWAMPERS by Jonathan Wilkins

A FAREWELL TO FISH by M. Robbins Church

MY WHY by Amber Casey

10 MONTHS, 110 MILES by Rory O’Hanrahan and Barry Whitehill

WET SHOES by William Griffiths

FANGS, AND THE DAMAGE DONE by Cooper Ferko

Photo: Travis Bradford

10 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

DEPARTMENTS 03

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

YOUR BACKCOUNTRY Hoosier Grouse by Dr. Brian Stone

FIELD TO TABLE Pan-Roasted Ptarmigan by Hank Shaw

INSTRUCTIONAL After the Point by Scott Linden

BHA HEADQUARTERS NEWS

FACES OF BHA Catherine Danae Elser, Prospect, Pennsylvania

BACKCOUNTRY BOUNTY

KIDS’ CORNER Going Fishing by Penelope Gall

Use the Wind for Waterfowl by Homer Raymundo 52

DEPARTMENTS 22 CHAPTER NEWS 03 07

12 17 19 21

In Depth: Paying It Forward by Joel Gay 37 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE In Depth: Alberta Chapter Fights for Wild Places YOUR BACKCOUNTRY by Neil Keown Pennsylvania Backcountry Resurrection Rende Recap 40 by Michael Garrigan 33 ARMED FORCES INITIATIVE BHA HEADQUARTERS NEWS In Defense of Public Lands and Waters Col. Andrew Ruszkiewicz and Luke Weingarten FACES by OFLt.BHA Rachel Owen, Wade Truong, Fredericksburg, VA 37 HUNTING FOR SUSTAINABILITY 48 R3: The Why BACKCOUNTRY BOUNTY by Trey Curtiss KIDS’ CORNER Summer Scavenger Hunt! 88 by Maclean and Schafer VandeVoort

CHAPTER NEWS BHA’s New England and New York Chapters Unite to Advocate for Striped Bass Recovery by Christopher Borgatti

COLLEGE CLUBS Building Bridges by Col. Mike Abell

PUBLIC LAND OWNER The North American Grasslands Conservation Act by Bethany Erb ARMED FORCES INITIATIVE Modest Land Mule Deer The Sikes Act by Brad Trumbo by Lt. Col. Andy Ruszkiewicz 87 BEYOND FAIR CHASE INSTRUCTIONAL What Do We Owe the Individuals? Mountain Fit: Ellis The Four Gremlins of Durability by Corey by Raven Aäe 88Backcountry HUMOR Hydration All in a by Jack BallardMinute by Jill Grenon McMurray PUBLIC LAND OWNER 91Privatizing END OF THE Public ElkLINE by Thomas Baumeister OPINION Better Than a Cup of Coffee or a Reality TV Show by Kip Kruger

BEYOND FAIR CHASE In or Out of the Fishbowl? by Ron Rohrbaugh

HUNTING FOR SUSTAINABILITY The Road to Hunter Mentorship by Daniel Majerus

FIELD TO TABLE Spicy Curried Walleye by Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley

COLLEGE CLUBS For the Love of the Dog by Beau Badon

END OF THE LINE Prince of Wales Island, Tongass National Forest, Alaska Photo: Ben Matthews, read “Into the Mystic” on page 58

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 11

HEADQUARTERS NEWS

Photo: Andrew Amen, 2021 Public Lands and Waters Photo Contest

BHA AND CONSERVATION PARTNERS CELEBRATE BIG POLICY WINS MAPLand Act This spring both the House of Representatives and the Senate took action to pass the Modernizing Access to Our Public (MAP) Land Act into law with overwhelming levels of support – a vote of 414-9 in the House and unanimous support in the Senate. The MAPLand Act will fund public land management agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Reclamation and Army Corps of Engineers, to standardize, compile and release digital map records to the public. This publicly available information will include the open or closed status of roads and trails on public lands, vehicle-use regulations and boundary details among others. With tens of thousands of paper records held in these agencies’ filing cabinets, the increased opportunity for the public to use them digitally is tremendous. Currently, more than 16.4 million acres of U.S. public lands are landlocked – surrounded by private lands – and inaccessible. Information made available through the MAPLand Act will allow hunters and anglers to discover new opportunities on public lands and waters.

Recovering America’s Wildlife Act In April, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works voted to report Recovering America’s Wildlife Act (RAWA) to the full Senate with a strong bipartisan vote of 15-5 in a committee with evenly divided partisanship. This legislation continues to move forward with significant momentum in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, after its bipartisan committee vote in the House Committee on Natural Resources earlier this year. RAWA would create nearly $1.4

billion in annual, dedicated funding for state and tribal wildlife management agencies. In doing so, it would provide critical support for conservation work, enhancing fish and wildlife habitat and boosting America’s outdoor recreation economy. The management of at-risk species under science-based wildlife action plans is beneficial for all fish and wildlife, including game species. Now both chambers of Congress must take up this legislation on the floor and pass it with haste.

New Mexico Stream Access The New Mexico Supreme Court recently issued a ruling strongly in support of public access to the state’s waters, when it unanimously struck down a regulation allowing landowners to close access to streams running through their properties. The BHA’s New Mexico chapter, along with the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and the Adobe Whitewater Club of New Mexico, filed suit in 2020 asking the court to nullify the regulation as unconstitutional. In March, the court agreed. The decision not only strikes the so-called Non-Navigability Rule from the books; it also voids closures on five New Mexico streams adopted previously. “This decision by the state Supreme Court is great news for anglers, boaters and others who use our public waters in New Mexico, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise,” said BHA’s New Mexico Chapter Policy Chair Joel Gay. “In 1945 the Supreme Court said the same thing – that these waters throughout the state are everyone’s to enjoy for recreational use. We don’t know how that constitutional right got lost, but for decades we have been told otherwise. Our chapter thanks the state Supreme Court for setting the record straight – again.”

LATEST ON THE PODCAST & BLAST In Episode 127, Hal sits down with Florida Gulf Coast writer, naturalist and advocate Jack Rudloe. Jack is one of the orneriest watermen on the Florida Gulf Coast, a time- and sun-honed fighter for clean water, intact forests and wetlands, and the myriad salt and freshwater life that depends upon it all. He is a world-renowned scientist and researcher, a commercial harvester of sea life, an unparalleled educator 12 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

and the author of nine books and hundreds of articles. The Bankhead National Forest in Alabama is an island of rare plants and wildlife and old growth trees in a state where coalmining and industrial forestry and now the sprawl of cities have radically altered the landscape. In episode 129, come with us to Moulton, Alabama, and meet native son Joseph Jenkins, a biologist and herpetologist, hunter and angler, who is working to save two of the most imperiled and least known creatures in the forest: the flattened musk turtle and the Black Warrior waterdog.

HEADQUARTERS NEWS

NEW STAFF AARON HEBEISEN Chapter Coordinator (IL, IA, MN, MO, WI) Aaron Hebeisen grew up in rural east-central Minnesota. His lifelong passion for wild animals and an outdoor lifestyle led him to a bachelor’s degree in animal ecology from Iowa State University. Serving in positions with the MN Conservation Corps, Minnesota DNR and USDA in wildlife disease research cemented his excitement for protecting and teaching about the natural world. Aaron has been a BHA member since 2016 and served for five years on the Minnesota chapter board. He now lives in southeastern Minnesota with his wife, Olivia, and gets out in the field as often as possible. JAMESON HIBBS Chapter Coordinator (MI, OH, WV, KY, IN) Jameson Hibbs is an Indiana native, growing up in a rural neighborhood near Terre Haute. He attended Indiana State University and obtained his bachelors’ degree in parks and recreation management, where he fostered a deep and broad love for outdoor recreation. Jameson has been an active member of the Indiana Park and Recreation Association, sits on the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s Indiana chapter committee and serves on various tourism boards. He has assisted as an hunter safety instructor for the past three years. It’s very important to Jameson to help secure the future of public lands for his daughter and ensure excellent opportunities exist for future generations.

SPRING ISSUE CORRECTION In Jon Osborn’s article, “Explosive Bliss,” featured in the spring 2022 journal, the editor – not the author – mistakenly identified the Pigeon River Country as being in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It’s actually in the northern Lower Peninsula, and the editor should have known that since he’s from Michigan!

BHA’S 2022 AWARD RECIPIENTS

BHA’s Collegiate Club members throw their hats into the air to celebrate their graduations.

BHA’s annual awards honor unequalled commitment, tireless effort and ongoing dedication to public lands and waters, fish and wildlife and hunting and fishing. BHA’s Sigurd F. Olson Award recognizes outstanding effort conserving rivers, lakes or wetland habitat. The 2022 Olson award was presented to Lukas Leaf and Spencer Shaver, longtime advocates for the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota. The Aldo Leopold Award honors exceptional work and dedication to the conservation of terrestrial wildlife habitat. Liz Lynch, a BHA Wyoming chapter leader from Jackson, is the recipient of the 2022 Leopold award. The Jim Posewitz Award acknowledges outstanding ethical behavior in the field and the education of the outdoor public on the importance of ethical behavior. The winner of the 2022 Posewitz award is Mike Woods, of East Providence, Rhode Island. BHA’s Rachel Carson Award honors young leaders for outstanding work on behalf of hunting, angling and conservation. This year’s winner, Mateen Hessami, is a longtime BHA college club leader, having served as president of the club at the University of Montana before taking on leadership of the club at the University of British Columbia Okanagan, where he is attending grad school. 2022 saw BHA launch a new award, the AFI Volunteer of the Year. The winner was nominated and chosen by their fellow volunteers based on the positive impact they have had on BHA’s Armed Forces Initiative, the military community, and the United States of America. This year’s AFI honoree is Marty Bartram from the great state of North Carolina. The Larry Fischer Award honors the memory and contributions of a longtime BHA board member by recognizing exceptional dedication by a business to BHA’s mission. The 2021 Fischer awardee is Traeger. The Ted Trueblood Award is bestowed by BHA for outstanding communications on behalf of backcountry habitat and values. The 2022 Trueblood award was presented to journalist Rob Drieslein, editor and publisher of Outdoor News, a suite of outdoor publications that are published in states across the Great Lakes region. The George Bird Grinnell Award honors the outstanding BHA chapter of the year. BHA’s Arkansas chapter was presented with the 2022 award. Lastly, the Mike Beagle-Chairman’s Award, named after a BHA founder, is given to an individual who shows outstanding effort on behalf of BHA. The 2022 Beagle award winner is Joel Webster, of Missoula, Montana, a former co-chair of BHA’s North American board who is the vice president of conservation at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 13

THANKS FOR ATTENDING RENDEZVOUS! Jaime Teigen of Burch Barrel (left) and Outdoor Afro Founder and CEO Rue Mapp (right) enjoy the bounty from the Wild Game Cookoff.

Brandon Dale and Zsakee Lewis present during Campfire Stories.

BHA President and CEO Land Tawney fuels Saturday night’s closing bonfire.

Chef Justin Townsend serves up rattlesnake during the wild game cookoff.

Another outstanding gathering of Public Land Owners is in the books. From the Field to Table Dinner to seminars from Jonathan Wilkins, Clay Hayes and many others, to Brewfest and Campfire Stories, bonds were formed among BHA members from far and wide. And memories were made. Our sincerest thank you to all who attended and supported the event, from members to corporate partners. Visit BHA’s social media pages and blog to recap more of the great event and find the details for next year’s Rendezvous. See you next year!

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Photos: Aaron Agosto. Thanks for your help, Aaron!

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Project Aspen Our shared land. Our responsibility. It’s up to you to make sure places remain where you can barely be seen. Contribute to Backcountry Hunters & Anglers’ Project Aspen to form the regenerative root structure supporting public lands, water, wildlife and hunting and angling in the future: backcountryhunters.org/projectaspen

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FACES OF BHA

Capital Chapter Board Members

WHY ARE YOU BHA MEMBERS? We’re members of BHA because America’s public lands represent opportunity and equity. Having access to wild places, near and far, allows us to experience things that would be out of reach otherwise. It allows us to dream, aspire and wonder. It keeps our sense of adventure alive, limited only by our commitment, not our finances. We’ve had some of our most memorable experiences on public land. It’s given us more than we expected; it’s a national treasure, a birthright that should be cared for, protected and guarded. The outdoors has shaped our lives and given us both a lot of peace, and we hope every generation gets to have the same experience. Our lands and waters have nourished us both physically and emotionally, so it’s important to us to do our part to protect and expand these opportunities. We want everyone to have the same opportunities we’ve had. THE CONNECTION TO THE FOOD YOU EAT IS WHAT BROUGHT YOU BOTH INTO HUNTING. HOW DO YOU SEE THAT CONNECTION AS BEING A GATEWAY TO CONSERVATION? Food is one of the few things we all have in common. If you want to find things that separate us you don’t have to look hard, but at the end of the day, we all have to eat. This commonality is a good starting point for having conversations about resources and the places that they come from. Things need to be valued to be protected. At its core, that’s what conservation is: we’re protecting wild places and wild animals because they have a value to us. If you don’t come from a traditional hunting background like us, or know nothing about hunting, fishing or conservation, it’s easy to not see the value in these places. But if you have a taste of something delicious, and it’s paired with a story, it immediately has value.

Photo: Muddy Shutter Media

THE CHESAPEAKE BAY AREA IS HOME TO YOU BOTH. WHAT DO YOU FIND IT SO SPECIAL? WHAT THREATS SHOULD CONSERVATIONISTS KNOW ABOUT? The Chesapeake Bay is one of the world’s largest, most productive estuaries and habitat for all kinds of life – deer, ducks, fish, shellfish and people. The marshes and waters are a nursery for just about every species found in the Mid-Atlantic, and the hunting and fishing here is spectacular. But the Bay has many challenges. An increasingly extractive commercial fishing industry for menhaden (the foundational forage fish in our area) has been decimating stocks and removing a vital link in the food chain for other species in the Bay. We struggle with upstream water quality issues as well; as the pace of development ramps up in places upstream, the Bay feels the effects. Nutrient and sediment runoff have taken their toll on the grass beds that are vital to migrating ducks and geese, as well as the fish and crab populations. Balancing the needs of a rapidly growing urban area with the health of the Bay is an urgent and critical challenge.

YOU BOTH GENEROUSLY SHARE MUCH OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE ON HUNTING AND COOKING. WHAT GOALS DO YOU HAVE FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HUNTING AND WILD FOOD COMMUNITIES? We want people to have a resource to try new things, ask questions and maybe learn a thing or two. We would love to see a cultural shift away from viewing wild foods as inferior, to seeing them as the premium ingredients that they are. Our society’s view on food has become very narrow, efficient and convenient. We have more than we need, so we have no problems wasting so much of it. Wild food is the opposite of that; it’s hard earned, diverse and rarely efficient. It’s a reminder that food wasn’t always easy to come by, and that it shouldn’t be taken for granted. IF YOU HAD TO PICK ONE, WHAT WOULD YOUR FAVORITE WILD GAME DISH BE? That’s a tough question! So many of the meals we love are contextual: goose sausage and hominy after a day in the blind, fried softshell crabs after a day fishing the Bay, fried turkey on a warm day in the spring. But if we had to pick one thing that we both love to eat, it would be tartare. Sika deer in particular, it’s got so much depth of flavor; one of the best ways to enjoy it is not cooking it. We love it because it reminds us of where we hunt them – the smell of the salt marsh, the sounds of the waves on the beach, the eerieness of morning fog obscuring the beetle-killed pines and the sounds of a tiny elk bugling in the distance. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 17

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BACKCOUNTRY BOUNTY

Hunter: Scott Peckham, BHA member Pack team: Bill Aney, Mitch and Mackenzie Byrnes (all BHA members) Species: elk | State: Oregon | Method: Archery Distance from road: four miles | Transportation: foot

Anglers: Eli Hitzhusen, Greg Hitzhusen, BHA members Species: northern pike | Province: Ontario (Quetico Provincial Park) Method: spin | Distance from nearest road: 25 miles Transportation: canoe and foot

Email your Backcountry Bounty submissions to williams@ backcountryhunters.org or share your photos with us by using #backcountryhuntersandanglers on social media! Emailed bounty submissions may also appear on social media.

Hunter: Jason Wojciechowicz, BHA member | Species: whitetail State: Pennsylvania | Method: recurve | Distance from nearest road: two miles | Transportation: foot

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 19

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Summer

KIDS’ CORNER

Scavenger Hunt! By BHA members Maclean and Schafer VandeVoort

FIND IN NATURE

RESEARCH

A cool rock

What is the closest national park to you?

A tree with leaves (deciduous), and identify it

What is the closest state park to you?

A tree with needles (coniferous), and identify it

What is the closest national forest to you?

Three flowers of different colors, and identify them

What is a top safety tip to keep in mind when going outdoors in your area?

Lay on the ground and look at the moss, grass, and bushes from a different angle; name three things you have never noticed before

What is a top safety tip to always remember when playing near water?

FIND IN A BOOK, MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER

ASK

An advertisement that uses an image from nature

Your parents/guardians about their favorite memory of being outdoors with they were a kid

A product that has something from nature in its name

To see a favorite photo of you outdoors when you were little

Three items that would be useful outdoors

Bonus: Call your state fish and game agency and ask to speak to a professional (biologist, game warden, leadership) and find out what the favorite part of their job is.

SHARE A fun fact about your state bird with a friend Your favorite memory about being outdoors with a relative

Photos:istock/Macrovector, Rachel Schmidt

A skill used in the outdoors with a friend

Maclean and Schafer VandeVoort are the sons of BHA staffer Rachel Schmidt. Maclean loves to spend time with his friends playing games, cooking and hitting the gym. When outdoors, he loves being on the lake, floating on rivers, and traveling to experience new places and people. Schafer spends nearly all his free time outside. Usually he is pursuing his ultimate passions of skiing and mountain biking, but he likes to get out hunting and is excited to have drawn his very first special tag for mule deer this year. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 21

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CHAPTER NEWS

BHA’s New England and New York Chapters Unite to Advocate for Striped Bass Recovery

Photo: Chris Borgatti

BY CHRISTOPHER BORGATTI

galvanized to provide recommendations to protect these fish up and down the coast. The Atlantic striped bass is arguably the most iconic fish among Much of the plan rested on protecting the 1982 year class, East Coast recreational anglers. It’s been called the “everyman’s which was one of the strongest year classes in some time. Over fish.” And for good reason; no matter what the approach of the next decade, these fish would provide the foundation from the angler – whether it be tossing flies, walking a surface plug, which the population would be rebuilt, ultimately being declared twitching a swim bait, slow retrieving a soft plastic lure, bouncing fully recovered in 1995. Following the recovery, the fishing up a jig, ripping a metal spoon or lobbing a sinker and bait – if the and down the coast was incredible, and the conservation success water is salty, there is a good chance a story of the striped bass was celebrated “striper” can be caught during the right by many. Striped bass aren’t just an time of the season. Unfortunately, beginning in 2005, iconic fish; they were, at For many anglers, it’s a season-long the stock began to steadily decline again least for a time, an iconic quest to be at the right place at the and is now drawing closer and closer to right time. When the stars align, the record lows. Good fishing can still be conservation success story. bite can be spectacular, especially when had, but not like it once was. stripers are busting through schooled up baitfish. Casting into Since the first fisheries management plan (specific to striped the melee of jumping baitfish and churning whitewater often bass) was put in place in the ’80s, the management was ultimately produces a fish on nearly every cast. While other times, they seem formalized under the direction of the Atlantic States Marine to refuse everything thrown at them, not giving the most perfect Fisheries Commission, and over time a number of amendments presentation of a fly or bait even a passing glance. But, when the have been made to the plan. Presently, the FMP is being managed hook is set, you know it! When a striper makes a run, the powerful through Amendment 6, which was put in place in 2003. thump-thump-thump of their caudal fin is unmistakable, and it Responding to certain factors indicating overfishing and a decline is just one of the many things that will have you coming back for in the stock, there have been a half dozen tweaks, or addenda, more, day after day, season after season. since Amendment 6. Striped bass aren’t just an iconic fish; they were, at least for Unfortunately, these updates in management have done little a time, an iconic conservation success story. Several factors to change the direction of the overall stock of the fish. Given the including overfishing and critical spawning habitat degradation need to rebuild the stock, and having a better understanding of through the 1970s led to the collapse of the stock by the early ’80s. the fishery’s dynamic nature since Amendment 6 was enacted, Recognizing the significant social and economic value this fishery ASMFC’s Striped Bass Board initiated steps in the summer of provided, the fishing community and state fisheries managers 2020 to develop an Amendment 7 of the FMP. At that time, both SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 23

Photo: Chris Borgatti

the New England and New York BHA chapters came together to work on this issue. Independent of one another, the New York and New England chapters began exploring coastal- and ocean-related issues around 2019. Prompted by a blog post on the BHA website written by New York chapter leader and fisheries expert Charles Witek, the two chapters began conversations on how they could join forces to advocate on behalf of striped bass and call for the ASMFC to put forth the best FMP possible in Amendment 7. In an effort to build momentum and create greater awareness of the issue for the BHA community, BHA’s (former) Public Access Coordinator Rob Parkins hosted a web-based panel discussion event, “State of the Stripers – and the Fight for Recovery,” which included Charles Witek, Martha’s Vineyard fishing guide Abbie Schuster, American Saltwater Guide’s Association Board Chair Peter Jenkins and myself. Carrying the momentum from State of the Stripers, the real work began. Organized by New York Board Member Michael Poulopoulos and New England Chapter Chair Michael Woods, the first step was to comment on the ASMFC’s scoping document, referred to as the Public Information Document. The PID consisted of a series of issues put forth by the Striped Bass Board that would be at the core of the future FMP. Members from both chapters grappled with each issue and authored formal comments, which ultimately called on the ASMFC to take the steps necessary to recover the stock and manage for future abundance. We formally submitted our position on the PID in April 2021 and used it create an action alert that was shared with the BHA membership in New England and New York. The response was outstanding, with BHA members and friends generating more comments than more established conservation groups in the fishery space. From the comments and input that were generated in PID process, the ASMFC published the Draft Amendment 7, which offered a complicated menu of options on each of the main issues central to the FMP. In terms of this entire process, navigating these options was far and away the most complicated aspect to date. The lion’s share of the lifting was completed by Michael Woods, who painstakingly broke down each option and the possible ramifications of each one if selected. From there, Charles Witek, the New York chapter’s John Barone and myself kicked around the options until we arrived at the selections we felt would ultimately serve our goal of recovering the population and maintaining it once achieved. After approval by the New England and New York boards and additional review from other HQ staff, the position was formalized in March 2022. The final push of the Amendment 7 process is where we really hit our stride as organization. The aforementioned individuals as well as other chapter leaders offered testimony at 10 different

public hearings held by the ASMFC and state fisheries agencies on the draft amendment. In addition, BHA’s Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Capital and North Carolina chapters all joined New York and New England in signing the formal comments. Finally, the greater BHA community came through in a big way, with hundreds of members submitting comments using our action alert on Amendment 7, while others took the time to submit their own individualized comments using the information we provided as a template. The fight for striped bass is far from over. By the time this article is published, the ASMFC Striped Bass Board will have met and should have formally updated the FMP. As was mentioned earlier, this process was very specific in the options available to address the decline in the population of striped bass. Simply put, the menu wasn’t complete. There are other steps that could be taken and would go a long way toward recovering striped bass and maintaining the population for future generations of anglers. The fight continues. Christopher Borgatti is the chapter coordinator for New York and New England. He would be lying if he didn’t admit proximity to striped bass was a driving factor in choosing where he lives. Editor’s Note: An upcoming episode of BHA’s Podcast & Blast will discuss this topic further and feature guests Chris Borgatti and the recent recipient of BHA’s 2022 Jim Posewitz award, Mike Woods, of the New England chapter.

Chapter News & Updates

26 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

CHAPTER NEWS ALASKA • • •

The Federal Subsistence Board closed approximately 11,300 square miles of public lands to moose and caribou hunting by non-federally qualified users. BHA strongly opposed this closure. The Armed Forces Initiative club on Kodiak Island is now official. The chapter hosted a booth at the Great Alaska Sportsman Show.

ALBERTA • • • • •

Successfully advocated against coal mining in the Eastern Slopes, halting further development. Created a new Indigenous Committee to focus on reconciliation and DEI principles on a broad scale. Held a board strategic planning getaway to chart the path for the next one to three years. Recruited a communications lead to bolster our online presence. Sent three letters to the government concerning bighorn sheep management, public land access (grazing leases) and creation of a new wildland provincial park.

ARIZONA • • •

The chapter competed in the wild game cookoff at the inaugural Southwest Regional Rendezvous and finished first. We held a meeting with the National Forest Foundation’s Southwest Region to talk about possibly partnering on conservation projects in the future. Board members met with state legislators to discuss why we disagree with a resolution opposing the 30x30 initiative.

• •

COLLEGIATE PROGRAM •

•

The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has just approved a 10year management contract for Pine Tree Research Station, with a five-year renewal option. This is a huge win for those who rely on Pine Tree to hunt and fish and for our entire chapter in defending and securing public access to a previously threatened parcel. The inaugural Black Bear Bonanza was an overwhelming success and set the stage for future events. The day’s activities featured Clay Newcomb’s bear-grease rendering demonstration, an owl hoot contest, a live recording of Clay’s Bear Grease (Render) podcast and a panel of bear biologists from Arkansas and Missouri. The day-long event welcomed over 400 people and raised over $12,000 in raffle prizes.

• • •

• •

Rallied members and the public to speak up and comment on proposed hunting regulation changes and met with biologists and decision makers, promoting science-based decision-making and meaningful stakeholder consultation. Collaborating on WildCAM camera trapping project – a study on deer and bear behavior in highly disturbed landscapes. Region 1 members held a successful family fun shoot at a local range with support from local businesses to help pass on skills to young and new shooters.

CALIFORNIA • • •

Spearheaded opposition to the proposed black bear hunting ban, including submission of an extensive review of bear research and the impacts of hunting. The chapter provided comment on bills/actions pertaining to the age restriction for youth license, protecting funding for wildlife, land acquisitions and the continued closure of public waterways. Held a fly-fishing campout at Piru Creek, pint nights in Fresno, Long Beach and San Diego and a catch-and-cook competition with partners in Monterey.

CAPITAL REGION •

The Capital chapter worked with members and conservation partners to successfully advocate for Sunday hunting on public lands.

We helped defeat a bobcat, lynx and lion hunting ban (SB-031) introduced in the state Senate, and we’re working to pass a wildlife crossings bill. The chapter is offering a $500 reward for reports or information leading to a conviction of anyone responsible for illegal trail construction on public lands. New chapter leaders include Bill Dombroski (assistant regional director-Boulder County), Scott Heatwold and Derek Pankratz (communications committee) and Dave Deschenes (habitat watch volunteer: Pike-San Isabel National Forest).

FLORIDA •

Our chapter R3 chairman and resident wild game food expert, Adam Steele, will be attending Rendezvous to help prepare this year’s Field To Table Dinner.

GEORGIA • •

BRITISH COLUMBIA •

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point hosted its inaugural “Beer & Gear Bash,” raising crucial funds for the club and program. With a total of nearly 200 RSVPs and 20-plus partners, the event was one of the program’s most successful in its history! Shoutout to Harrison Stasik, Adam Nyhus and Jeffrey Edwards, who put in hours of time and effort to make it happen. Three new Hunting for Sustainability workshops were hosted this spring, focused on learning to hunt turkeys in North Carolina, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The program hosted these with the help of our partners at Opportunity Outdoors and Modern Carnivore.

COLORADO

ARKANSAS •

The chapter sat as a stakeholder for the Maryland DNR regulations for the 2022-23 hunting and trapping seasons. We are excited to announce that the Capital chapter will be hosting this year’s Muster in the Mountains, July 22-24, at Devils Backbone Basecamp in Roseland, Virginia.

The Georgia chapter submitted comments to the Georgia DNR on proposed changes to next year’s turkey season that have the potential to negatively impact public land hunters. We encouraged members to submit comments to the National Park Service on the creation of a new national park in Georgia; while we are in favor of the creation of a new national park, we strongly oppose reducing public land hunting and fishing access to create the park.

IDAHO •

• • •

Supporting LWCF-funded BLM projects in three key focal areas in eastern Idaho and one in the Treasure Valley that are critical for migrating and wintering big game, including deer, elk, moose and pronghorn. The 2022 legislative session in Idaho wrapped up in March. The chapter tracked a number of bills, providing written and in-person testimony. The chapter joined a coalition working toward restoration of the Priest River in North Idaho. Held annual Beer, Deer & Gear sale at Highlands Hollow in Boise.

ILLINOIS •

• •

The chapter attended the Illinois Deer Classic in Peoria and hosted a pint night. Relationships were built with the Illinois Recreational Access Program and Scholastic 3-D Archery. Thank you to Burch Barrel, Hardcore Hammers and onXmaps. Members helped place fish structures at Lake Shelbyville. Thank you to the Army Corps of Engineers and Lake Shelbyville Fish Habitat Alliance. Illinois river access laws are currently under review, and we recommend members speak to their legislators about public access. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 27

INDIANA •

• •

The Indiana chapter hosted Sportsmen’s Luncheon at the Capitol, along with Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited, Indiana Conservation Officers FOP Lodge 201, Indiana State Trappers Association, Indiana Wildlife Federation and the National Wild Turkey Federation. The Indiana chapter had a booth at the Indiana Deer and Turkey Expo in February, and a pint night was also held at Half Liter BBQ. The chapter held a public lands pack-out and pint night at Wabashiki FWA, partnered with Indiana State University Nonprofit Leadership Alliance.

MISSOURI • •

•

The chapter hosted a stream cleanup on Wilson’s Creek, where we collected sixteen 33-gallon bags of trash. The chapter hosted several events, including two pint nights and, in partnership with the Arkansas and Oklahoma chapters, the Black Bear Bonanza. Follow us on Instagram at @missouri_bha or our FB group to stay up to date. The chapter voiced opposition to HRJ 134, which sought to give the legislature control of the conservation department’s budget. Know of concerning legislation? Contact us at missouri@backcountryhunters. org.

IOWA

MONTANA

•

The chapter gained many new members at the Iowa Deer Classic and urged support for Iowa Water and Land Legacy funding to invest in public lands/waters and to defeat a proposal that would reduce incentives for public land. The Iowa chapter is hosting a “Learn to Fly Fish & Float Tube” event with Lyon County Conservation at Lake Pahoja, May 21. The chapter rendezvous is Aug. 5-7 at Prairie Flower Recreation Area, Saylorville Lake and The Butch Olofson Shooting Range.

•

KANSAS • • •

In February, about a dozen members of the Kansas chapter partnered with the KDWP at Eldorado Reservoir to help with a timber stand improvement project intended to improve wildlife habitat. The Kansas chapter held its annual sporting clays event at Power Creek Shooting Park in Lenexa on Mar. 19. About 45 guests attended the event. On April 16, the Kansas chapter partnered with Friends of the Kaw and participated in a battery case cleanup project on the Kansas River, several miles downstream of Manhattan.

KENTUCKY •

• •

Chapter members and followers submitted several thousand emails to legislators to oppose bill HB 395 and to support Brian Mackey as a Kentucky Fish and Wildlife District Commissioner. Mackey was not Senate confirmed, Bill 395 was halted and an alternative bill (SB 217) was created and passed. The Kentucky chapter in February, March and May held the first few of many WMA workdays for the year and held a tailgate afterwards for food and fellowship. In April, the Kentucky chapter held its first tabling event at the annual Kentucky Traditional Bowhunters Association Tradfest.

MICHIGAN • • •

Jeff Lipple and Jordan Browne put together an ice fishing contest, which had a bunch of entries and included a lot of fun! Jeff and Jordan also spearheaded a Tines and Trash event, which had participants cleaning up our public lands while hunting for whitetail antler sheds. Austin Motte will again be organizing a cleanup of the Boardman River; in the past this has been a great event that gets a lot of involvement and attention.

MINNESOTA •

• •

Board members testified to the legislature advocating for the restoration of lottery funds to the Environmental & Natural Resource Trust Fund and for the state to tackle the spread of CWD on deer farms. The chapter removed over 1,500 yards of 5-strand barbed wire at Mud Creek WMA and hosted a successful pint night at Beaver Island Brewing Co. in St. Cloud. This summer’s events include a pint night at Bemidji Brewing, June 10; South Forty Archery Shoot, Aug. 5-6; Minnesota Game Fair, Aug. 12-14 and Aug. 19-21.

28 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

Led a firestorm of public comments that directly influenced biannual season-setting for elk, upland birds, mountain lions and more. Later, opposed an expensive and ill-advised strategy of stocking pen-raised pheasants. Organized a half dozen stewardship projects for 2022, with more to come! Supported the Big Snowy Mountains WMA acquisition, made recommendations to the BLM Dillon Field Office’s Resource Management Plan and opposed efforts to lower water quality standards in northwest Montana and statewide.

NEVADA • • •

The Nevada chapter hosted a booth at the Wild Sheep Foundation’s Sheep Show in Reno. The chapter is working with NDOW to resolve an access issue in the Virginia Range that may prevent the agency from effectively managing a sensitive desert bighorn sheep population. The chapter continues to work with the Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands on feral horse management issues, including BLM budget allocations and regional stakeholder engagement.

NEW ENGLAND • • • •

New Hampshire and Maine members worked on spreading the BHA message by tabling and presenting at several outdoor shows in the region. Connecticut members submitted comments speaking in favor of untrailed spaces in the Salmon River State Forest. Rhode Island members are pushing to protect and restore shoreline access. BHA has weighed in on a bill that limits captive hunting at two hearings in the Rhode Island House and Senate.

NEW JERSEY •

•

The chapter added to its ranks this spring, electing six new board members. With four officers and eight board members, representing every corner of the state, the chapter is excited and better positioned to fill out our summer event calendar. Check the chapter webpage for biographies on each board member and officer. Along with the Pennsylvania chapter, the chapter authored and distributed a statement opposing any loss of hunting or fishing access in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in light of an effort to redesignate the area as a national park. The chapter was invited by the New Jersey chapter of the NWTF to participate in a spring mentored turkey hunt for first-time youth and adult hunters.

NEW MEXICO •

•

In March, the New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the chapter and other groups that a game commission regulation blocking public access to streams was unconstitutional. Now anglers and boaters can use any stream for recreation, provided they don’t trespass to reach or leave the water. For the third year running, the chapter worked alongside other

CHAPTER NEWS

•

groups to clean up a stretch of the Rio Grande used by hunters, anglers and boaters. We returned to Kiowa National Grasslands to make several miles of pasture fencing more antelope-friendly.

NEW YORK • •

•

The chapter’s policy and communications teams were active around the proposed lead ammo ban in New York, preparing an action alert to engage members on this issue. We were involved in crafting the fishery management plan for Atlantic striped bass, which are declining due to overfishing. The chapter worked with the New England chapter in promoting our position and engaging members during the comment period for the revised plan. Spring was a busy time in New York with a turkey and trout event, party boat event and state forest cleanup.

TENNESSEE •

•

The chapter strongly opposed recent proposed legislation that would change management of Yanahli WMA away from the TWRA to the county in which the WMA is located. In response, the legislative sponsors dropped the bill. The chapter will monitor this situation. Science-based plans to turn closed canopy forest at a WMA into open savanna were opposed in a misinformation campaign. The chapter supports the plan and is working with partners to counter the misinformation.

UTAH • •

The Utah chapter participated in the Sportsmen’s Caucus during the 2022 legislative session. Many groups, including our BHA chapter, celebrated the withdrawal of the Book Cliffs Highway application to the Bureau of Land Management. The chapter gained representation on the Utah Division of Wildlife’s Elk Management Committee.

OHIO

•

• •

WASHINGTON

•

The Ohio chapter hosted its first clay pigeon shoot at Sycamore Sporting Clays May 14. The chapter hopes everyone enjoyed a great turkey season. The chapter is planning some great summer events for our members. Stay tuned!

OREGON •

• •

The chapter has recently recognized the need for CWD education with the recent confirmation of CWD at the state’s eastern border. The chapter has conducted two educational virtual pint nights in coordination with ODFW staff to educate the public. The chapter is excited to offer All Hands All Brands in June 2022, where volunteers and partner organizations will spend a weekend working on elk restoration projects in the Ochoco National Forest. The chapter has proudly joined the Oregon Sportsmen’s Conservation Partnership – the first coalition of its kind in the state, where groups have come together to combat anti-hunting agendas, as well as support sound science-based conservation initiatives in the state.

PENNSYLVANIA • • •

Members teamed up with the Pennsylvania Game Commission on a work project that improved habitat on State Game Lands 52. As part of a pint night, the Pennsylvania Game Commission honored conservation legend John Oliver with a lifetime achievement award. Many senior staff attended and met with BHA members. The chapter participated in a day at the capitol and a cast and blast event for legislators, along with the Sportsmen and Women Working Group, a coalition of organizations centered on conservation issues in Pennsylvania.

• • •

WEST VIRGINIA •

• •

Chapter leadership presented our case to the South Carolina legislature sub-committee in support of Sunday hunting bill H.4614. The chapter coordinated efforts with other like-minded organizations and rallied communication support from constituents to the assembly. The bill PASSED the House on April 6 and is headed to the Senate! Our member efforts continue to push the legislation. The chapter hosted a quarterly pint night and received a wonderful saltwater fisheries presentation from SCDNR’s Pamela Corwin.

SOUTHEAST • • •

The Southeast chapter recently raised attention about a proposal to sell off Black Prairie WMA in Mississippi. Our voices were heard, and the proposal to sell was withdrawn. The Backcountry Jubilee was a success despite the unexpected winter weather. Thanks to all who attended. Keep an eye out for future chapter-led kayak trips.

The chapter and our member made our voices heard on the OHV bills this legislative session, and most of those bills died in committee. However, the fight is not over: a last minute resolution was passed to create a study of the benefits of motorized recreation on state lands and WMAs. The chapter is hosting a pint night at Weathered Ground Brewing June 18. There will be a Public Lands Pack-Out event Sept. 24. Stay tuned to our social media for event details.

WISCONSIN • •

SOUTH CAROLINA •

The chapter recently hosted two hugely successful pint nights, one in partnership with PNWild and one with BHA’s very own Land Tawney. Thanks to everyone who came out! The chapter board welcomes three new board members: Matt Bipes, Jon Dykes and Alyssa Jumars. They bring great talents and passion to the chapter. Summer events begin in May with the fourth annual Methow Fence Removal volunteer workday and the fourth annual Access Freedom Archery Shoot in June.

•

The chapter held its leadership weekend and finalized planning for 2022 events and goals and also welcomed seven new board members to the board. We worked in collaboration with the Wisconsin Sharp-tailed Grouse Society to provide written input to support an aggressive plan to bolster greater prairie chicken populations and to ensure this iconic species remains a part of the landscape in Wisconsin. The chapter tabled at the Wisconsin Open Season Sportsman’s Expo in the Wisconsin Dells, where they spread the BHA mission and signed up or renewed 50 BHA members.

WYOMING • •

•

The Wyoming chapter continues to work on the corner crossing trespass case, which was transferred to the federal courts system. Chapter leaders are holding over 10 events this summer including pint nights, trail clearings, public lands pack-outs and film showings. Notably, board co-chair Pete Kassab and member Zach McLain teamed with Game and Fish to instruct hunter safety in the Sheridan region. Comments on the future of wildlife feed grounds management, amid CWD, were submitted to our Game and Fish agency.

Find a more detailed writeup of your chapter’s news along with events and updates by regularly visiting www.backcountryhunters.org/chapters or contacting them at [your state/province/territory/region]@backcountryhunters. org (e.g. newengland@backcountryhunters.org) SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 29

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KI, wirehaired pointing Griffon OWNER: Matt Wright TRAINER: No limits kennels

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HUNTING FOR SUSTAINABILITY

THE ROAD TO HUNTER MENTORSHIP

Photo courtesy Daniel Majerus

BY DANIEL MAJERUS I was extremely fortunate to have been raised in northern Ontario with endless Crown (public) land. In my youth, skilled trappers, fishermen and hunters were revered. I could not have been born in a better place, and today I live in British Columbia where the big game opportunities are seemingly endless. After 52 years, I’ve grown philosophically. A question echoed through my mind: “What if I was born in a place where my passions could not be pursued?” When explaining hunting to non-hunters, it’s difficult to describe the intangible spiritual connection to the natural world that can only be found when pursuing prey in the wilderness. I feared hunting could someday become a forgotten part of the human experience. I told my wife and daughter over dinner that I was considering mentoring a new hunter. A few weeks later my wife called me over to her computer screen. She pointed to a line on her social media page: “Here’s someone wanting to learn how to hunt.” Shelton is from India, where hunting has been banned since he was born. His father had the opportunity to hunt before the ban, and he was captivated by the stories of a bygone era. “I wanted to hunt to experience the intensity of connection my dad had with nature.” Shelton told me. “I wanted to get back the privilege of hunting that my dad had lost.” Prior to our acquaintance, Shelton had passed his hunter safety course and obtained a hunting license. A firearms license, however, is a long process in Canada. For this reason, he purchased a crossbow so that he could hunt bears in the spring while he waited for his firearms license. But neither of us could get the crossbow to shoot acceptably. It

was decided that for the rest of the weekend I would hunt with my lever gun, and it would be a no-pressure opportunity for Shelton to gain experience. We enjoyed multiple stalks that season. Shelton’s 8-year-old son Jude joined us for some adventures as well. Both gained valuable experience in the field. Eventually, I filled my tags without Shelton along and shared the meat with my new friend. That summer Shelton received his firearms license and purchased a .308 topped with a Vortex 1-8x scope. Before long he was hitting targets at 300 meters. Shelton’s other son, Joel, joined us for a frigid fall mule deer and black bear hunt. I shuttled Joel back and forth to the truck to warm up and get snacks while Shelton continuously glassed the mountainside. When I returned for the fourth time to the vantage point with Joel, I spotted a black bear on a lower bench. There was a flat area above the bear, which I instructed Shelton to get to quickly for a shot. We reached the bench and prepared for a shot, but the bear spooked and started up the mountain. When he stopped broadside, Shelton wasted no time in making a perfect double-lung hit. Your first big game animal is always an unforgettable experience. The excitement was uncontrollable. Shelton managed to contain himself long enough to unload his rifle and place it on the ground. Then it was all smiles, hugs and laughter. “I just saw my dream running away, and I thought, ‘Oh, no!’” Shelton recounted. “I couldn’t believe it when he stopped!” Exposing someone to field dressing for the first time always induces a little anxiety for me. I just don’t know how they will react. For those of us raised around hunting, field dressing is a fun and

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 31

fulfilling experience; but for others, the blood can be uncomfortable at first. I approached the task by behaving calmly and neutrally, answering questions and providing helpful hints. Behavior breeds behavior. To my delight, Joel was all in. He could not keep his eyes off the task, constantly making observations and asking good questions. He told his dad that he was proud of him. In the end, this journey was so much more than recruiting a new hunter into our ranks. It was about bridging a gap between countries, cultures and generations. In a more recent conversation I had with Shelton, he had this to say: “What this land and its people taught me in regards to the wilderness and hunting means a lot to me and my family! And I’m sure to pass this knowledge on to generations ahead, as it’s too good and sacred to be contained! I thank God for helping me experience my dad’s memories.” BHA life member Daniel Majerus is a lifelong angler and hunter who spent 13 years as a hunting and fishing guide. He now works as a tradesman in the construction industry.

32 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

Photo: Daniel Majerus

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FOR THE LOVE OF THE DOG BY BEAU BADON Nearly every hunter has a different answer when asked why they hunt. Some do it mostly for the reward of meat, others for friendships and camaraderie, and others still … for the love of the dog. Then, there are some dogs that come into a hunter’s life and completely change their “why.” This is about one of those special dogs. As college students, my wife and I couldn’t afford professional training, so we bought and read books, took advice when we could and tried to spend as much time on it as we could manage. We’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way, but Pearl’s been forgiving. She will do anything to make us happy – and she is simply a natural. The first time I recognized this was when Pearl was only 6 months old. One day in early March, I decided to take her out to look for shed antlers. Mostly, I wanted to let her get her energy out and run around. For those who have owned a German shorthaired pointer, you get it. As a puppy, one of the early games I played with her was to hide something and command her to “find it.” Out of curiosity, I took an old deer skull with me. When we arrived, I let her smell it then made my command… as if I flipped a switch, off she went. The day’s tally: three dead deer, a raccoon skull and over a dozen sheds. Pearl’s first duck hunt – just me and her – took place on the edge of a narrow wetland. Hopes of near-passing wood ducks were on my mind. As I coaxed her out from under the covers (yeah, she’s a cuddler and a giant house baby) on the crisp, frosty morning – cold for a German shorthair – I thought, “Oh, I hope she doesn’t hate me for this.” Initially skeptical, but on an adventure with Dad, her apprehension quickly turned to palpable excitement. She waded into the hip-deep mud and muck without hesitation. I tossed a few decoys out. At shooting light, I let out a few speculative quacks, and Pearl, 34 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

except for some occasional teeth rattling, was completely silent and still leaning against my legs. A few moments passed and I caught the glimpse of a large bird over the treetops. “Crow?” It dropped below the tree line and splashed into the water in front of me. “A duck? That big? Here?” “Quack.” An American black duck. She tried. I encouraged her, I threw sticks, I cheered her on. She brought me decoys and sticks, and more decoys, and that other decoy again. You get the picture. She whined in frustration, and I understood. We were at an impasse, and, at risk of turning her great morning into a bad one, I gave her praise and we hiked back. She’d done everything I asked her to do, and she did her best. I knew she was not there for the ducks. She was there for me. I called around until I found a kayak, picked up the bird before the eagles, and downed a wood duck on the way. On my way home, I replayed the morning in my mind several times. Before I knew it, I was thinking about the next day and next adventure we could have together. More duck hunts, introducing her to woodcock and eagerly awaiting sheds to drop. I’ve heard special dogs come into one’s life and completely change why and how they enjoy the outdoors. That duck hunt with Pearl wasn’t a day of limits, or a day with old twolegged friends, but a day that will be forever a memory with one of those special dogs. Beau Badon is a Ph.D. student in conservation agriculture at Virginia Tech, where he is working with BHA’s capital chapter to establish collegiate programs. He has been president of the Mississippi State University BHA club, Southeast chapter collegiate program liaison and on the advisory board of the collegiate program.

Photos: Beau Badon

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THE SIKES ACT

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BY LT. COL. ANDREW RUSZKIEWICZ Roughly 330 hidden gems, totaling over 27 million acres of public lands and waters, which many of us are unaware of, are open to hunting and fishing. Thanks to a littleknown piece of legislation passed in 1960, the Sikes Act, military installations are not only open for public hunting and angling opportunities; they are specifically managed by the Department of Defense, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, for habitat improvement and conservation in line with the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. To put it in perspective, military installations would be number eight on the top 10 list of U.S. states for total acres of public lands, putting them ahead of Colorado and just behind Montana! The Sikes Act, aptly named after its champion, former Florida Rep. Robert Lee Fulton Sikes, has come a long way since its inception in 1960. Sikes lived a storied career in politics, as well as the Army. An avid outdoorsman, who loved to hunt and fish, he knew that many of the service members returning from battle in Europe and the Pacific were reconnecting with the outdoors through hunting and fishing. Sikes used his love of the outdoors, dedication to supporting the military and position within numerous committees in Congress to champion a law that would preserve the opportunity for hunting and fishing on military installations. Since the Sikes Act became law, it has evolved through a handful of modifications but at its core remains true to its initial purpose. So, with over 330 installations and 27 million acres open to hunting and fishing, how does one go about gaining access? And what kind of opportunity exists? To start, there are a few more hurdles that you will have to jump through to get onto a military installation, as their primary focus is still the training and readiness of the military. Some of the additional requirements range from registering your weapons with the provost or security office to going through a vehicle checkpoint and obtaining an access pass for the base. Almost all major military installations actually have a fish and game management division, which might require a mandatory safety class, so that hunters and anglers understand what areas are open or closed due to training. Don’t let that scare you away, though, as there are numerous military installations where the hunting and fishing is tough to beat.

One of the greatest successes out of the Sikes Act is the implementation of the Integrated Natural Resource Management Plans, which every installation is required to produce in conjunction with the USFWS and their state game agencies. These plans have led to some historic returns of wildlife and opened some amazing opportunities to service members and the general public for hunting and fishing. A noteworthy example is the thriving herd of tule elk reintroduced on Fort Hunter Liggett in central California after near-extinction, which has successfully recovered and allows a base-specific tule elk season. Another sought-after installation hunt is on the White Sands Missile Range, which spans West Texas and north across portions of New Mexico, and its storied, once-in-a-lifetime oryx hunts. If chasing glory tags on bases doesn’t excite you, then what should is the amazing opportunities that exist across the other 328 installations, where the pursuit of whitetail, turkey, upland game and waterfowl, as well as bass, catfish, trout and salmon, all are available. We owe a great deal of thanks to the Sikes Act and the public access to our military installations it provides. Although you may have to do a bit more paperwork and take a few more steps in the process for gaining access, like any backcountry adventure, hard work and persistence can undoubtedly pay off! Lt. Col. Andy Ruszkiewicz is the BHA Armed Forces Initiative installation manager and an active duty Army officer currently serving as the professor of military science at the University of New Hampshire.

Above: Tule elk, Fort Hunter Liggett, California, Don Nead Right: You never know what you might capture on a trail cam on an installation! Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Garrett Searle

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INSTRUCTIONAL

MOUNTAIN FIT:

BY RAVEN AÄE You are a mountain athlete with a purpose, and I am a durability advisor on a mission. My work over the last decade has been to support my clients – alpinists, special forces, polar explorers, pregnant athletes, ultrarunners and big game hunters – as they move beyond pre-existing constructs of the possible, through the mountains into themselves. Let’s back up and, first, allow me to describe what execution of an endurance practice requires. There are three main elements: increasing VO₂ max (the amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise), building a wide array of neuromuscular schemas and systematically expanding your body’s ability to integrate stress. Do not underestimate the power of your practice: you’re manipulating your physiology on a mitochondrial level and, if you’re female, you’re even up-leveling your future childrens’ ability to perform endurance tasks with facility. The strategies and systems involved in achieving this is where things get intricate. I’m here to help. After explicitly coaching my clients toward endurance for eight years, I realized that our work deserved an upgrade. The very concept of endurance promotes the repetition of the destructive mythology I’m about to break down in this article: that to be stronger, go longer or get faster, one must grit their teeth and bear their practices of choice. While I, personally, have developed a fine fascination with suffering, at least 80% of my progress as an athlete has happened in wellness, wholeness and while thriving. Enter the concept of durability for mountain athletes – the 40 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

exciting idea that our practices can make us both more capable and happier, that we don’t have to hurt to get stronger and that rest is part of the work. Through my journey as a durability advisor, I’ve noticed a pattern of slip-ups mountain movers – hunters in particular – often fall victim to. Foundational among them is the idea that hunters and anglers often don’t conceive of themselves as athletes. If you like to hunt and fish, you’re an athlete. Next are the “Four Gremlins of the Durability Apocalypse.” Can you see yourself in this list? I can see 23-year-old me and many of my clients here. Read on for evidence of why they make the list, how to thwart them and resources to support the perpetuity of your food-pursuit activities.

Training by Pace When you choose to use pace as a training metric, you will generally function in a heart rate zone referred to by us coaches as the “black hole of endurance training.” None of us, even the most masochistic, can function much above lactate threshold for extended periods of time on consecutive days. Most of us are also too impatient to put in the work, that feels like it wasn’t work, in the lower heart rate zones – the real endurance sweet spot. This leaves uncoached athletes defaulting to a “fun-hard” pace – and that’s the black hole. This pace, the one most pace-based athletes slot themselves into thinking will make them stronger over time, is too hard to serve as recovery and too easy to support an increase in your lactate threshold. Thus, the black hole.

Photos courtesy Raven Aäe

THE FOUR GREMLINS OF DURABILITY

When you consistently work at too high a heart rate zone during endurance training, your autonomic nervous system becomes activated. This isn’t a good thing when you’re trying to stalk an animal or steady yourself to take a shot, often during many days on end. By performing in a stress response, within the autonomic nervous system, we activate our sympathetic nervous system. When you perform in your SNS, you lose your capacity for empathy, memory recall, learning and critical decisionmaking; your body consumes the limited stores of glycogen in your organs and other easily-accessible sources before beginning to burn muscle, which eventually leads to ketosis (when we ought to remain in lypolysis1 during endurance tasks); and extended activation of the SNS can have profound long-term physical and mental health consequences. A better alternative to pace is to measure your training using climbing grade, elevation gain/loss, distance, duration, watts or time in zone2. If you’re conscious of the importance of recovery – and you’re hip to the concept of physiologic barometers – you can also track heart rate variability and time in the various phases of sleep. While pace is nearly always the poorest measurement of training impact, time in zone is the best way to meter your endurance production. Nested within this strategy is the need for you to train alone much of the time. Given that your level of recovery, phase of training and, ultimately, the appropriate level of output during each session fluctuates from session to session, a training buddy is more likely to cause you to over- or under-train than to support your training – hard but true introvert facts. Over time, time-in-zone training will result in you getting faster.

slow wave sleep, we remain in the sympathetic nervous system and in a space of glycolysis3 – no bueno for endurance. Without REM sleep, we will first become infertile, then we will die. Yikes. Cutting corners on your sleep is the single worst thing you can do for your overall durability. As I like to share with my clients: sleep is the only intervention that works for everyone, every time.

Competition

1 Lipolysis = burning fat = efficient endurance metabolic state.

Competition is a form of fear, of insecurity – a flavor of scarcity that drives a person to think they need to steal from someone else in order to feel whole. Here’s the thing: you will never find fulfillment in competition, and it will hamper your ability to move efficiently in the outdoors. Competition is outcome-oriented and by being focused on a moment that is not the present (even while participating in a “race,” you’re still focused on the finish line and the extrinsic motivator of time), you lose touch with reality. Reality is each moment fully inhabited, observed and soaked in. Furthermore, competition is great practice for in-group/outgroup thinking – and the world could do with less of that. Indeed, even just in anticipation of a competitive event, the body has been found to produce high amounts of chemicals meant to activate your ANS. By stimulating the parts of your brain that react in fear, discerning threat from friend, you unwittingly practice the same heuristics that enable nationalism, “othering,” racism, misogyny and other forms of fear-based, hateful ignorance. The neurology of a competitive mind is one that loses the forest for the trees, loses the bear in the heat of the chase. If you are at home inside your body, reveling in the glorious mystery it is to be sentient carbon, there is no scarcity. There is no separation, no lack, no need to prove yourself – even and especially to yourself. There are other ways to validate yourself as an athlete, to challenge yourself, to spend time in the hills with

2 Time-in-zone training: the endurance-friendly alternative to pace-based training. By testing your individual heart rate zones, you then strategically allocate your time in motion to various combinations of zones. This allocation shifts according to phase of your cycle or time of the yearly arc of training.

3 Glycolysis = burning carbohydrates for fuel = optimal metabolic state for sprint activity but results in the undesirable buildup of hydrogen over time during a specific task or inefficient endurance performance over extended time.

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead” The 1+1=2 of durability is this: stimulus + recovery = adaptation. If we can think of training sessions as the primary stimulus we can control, we can also think of sleep as the primary recovery tool we can control. By sequencing the two we get stronger, smarter, faster and more durable. By stimulating, stimulating, stimulating, you’ll devolve into entropy. Sleep, to many hard-charging hunters and anglers, is an inconvenience. However, if you wish to persist in your endeavors well into old age, through pregnancy (if that applies to you) and to do so in tip-top health, you’re well-advised to heed the wisdom of your circadian rhythm. Let’s just say: your advanced situational awareness takes a nosedive when you don’t sleep well enough. When we sleep, our bodies and minds integrate the challenges we’ve put ourselves through. During slow wave sleep, we rebuild muscles and bones, our immune systems rebuild themselves, and the large majority of human growth hormone is produced during that time. During REM sleep, we repair locomotor, sensory, autonomic and thermoregulatory connections – along with doing our vitally important work of dreaming. Without enough

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Dieting Many people are drawn into the cult of dieting by promises of being able to attain a certain appearance – and diet culture strikes the athletic community especially acutely. The second promise diet culture sells us is that looking a certain way will automatically mean positive things about our performance and wellness. However, the opposite is true about dieting for most of us. Indeed, dieting has a neutral impact on beginner to intermediate endurance athletes, while having a measurably negative impact on more advanced athletes. Intermittent fasting purports to be a shortcut to lipolysis; but it is not. Ketogenic diets may be useful for sprint-oriented athletes, but evidence shows

they cause negative impacts to endurance athletes’ performances. When we starve ourselves, our ANS goes into a stress response, impairing our cognitive function and physical performance. As you learned earlier in this article, the basic task of endurance is to maintain a state of lipolysis for the widest span of activity possible. Over 10 years in business I have noticed, anecdotally, that when my athletes gain weight their performance and health improve markedly. Indeed, when I am at my fittest, I am also at my heaviest. Coincidence? I think not. If you menstruate you’re in luck: we’ve developed a proprietary system for you to fuel your body specifically for your metabolic needs at the four different phases of your cycle. Those of you who don’t menstruate? My best diet advice is this: eat well, eat often, eat in good company, eat for joy and eat until you are satisfied. As Kendra Lilley, a licensed mental health counselor and fly fisher, notes in her piece on the Magnetic North website: the diet industry is a $72 billion per year behemoth. And you have better ways to spend your precious time and money than punishing your good, good body. A useful question to ask yourself prior to engaging in a restrictive diet is: Who profits off my insecurity? Once a hunter or angler can kick these unwelcome gremlins to the curb, they can take to the hills ready to encounter and alchemize any adversity that comes their way. While endurance will eventually reach its end, durability is perpetual. BHA member Raven Aäe is the founder of Magnetic North (magneticnorth.us). She shares a cabin with her daughter on the edge of the Pasayten Wilderness.

Photos courtesy Raven Aäe

the people and animals you love – ways that will contribute to, rather than detract from, your ability to tune in with your body and our body, the earth. The bridge to rehabilitating ourselves from outdated competitive norms is contemplative practice. The meditator’s brain, according to the research of Dr. Richard Davidson, has a strong connection between an enlarged amygdala and the prefrontal cortex; that connection is called the uncinate fasciculus. The uncinate fasciculus allows the long-term meditator to pause before reacting – nothing more, nothing less. That pause, cultivated over a lifetime of practice, is what will transform our perceptive abilities. We cannot accurately perceive the nuanced nature of the present moment when we are competing with someone else.

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INSTRUCTIONAL

Backcountry Hydration What do people and watermelons have in common? Not a lot actually. The rind of a melon supports its shape but is pretty pathetic when compared to the strength and complexity of the human skeleton. And color? If a person approaches the shade of a watermelon, we’ve doubtlessly got a medical problem. But there is one place where the worlds of humans and melons collide that’s not on a paper picnic plate. The mass of both organisms is primarily composed of water. According to the Mayo Clinic, about 60% of the average adult’s body mass is water. That doesn’t rival the 90% fluid composition of a melon, but it’s still a lot of water. Hydration (maintaining the quantity of all that bodily fluid) is thus critical to the performance of many body functions. It’s absolutely essential to mental and physical performance during exertion, whether it’s a soccer player at practice or a hunter in the field. Here’s why the water bottle is as important to a safe, satisfying outing as a GPS unit or functional footwear, and here’s how to keep your body fueled with fluids.

Dehydration = Decreased Physical Performance Exercise physiologists have found dehydration inhibits athletic performance for activities that are sustained over any length of 44 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

time. One study concluded dehydration can reduce the length of time an individual can comfortably engage in endurance activities by 50%. That means a mobile hunter who can capably scour the mountains in search of elk for eight miles per day may be “done” at four miles if dehydrated. Dehydration more severely affects efficiency in relation to aerobic activities (longer bouts of sustained exercise) than anaerobic exercise (short, intense bursts of physical output). At severe levels it can lead to more serious consequences. “Dehydration also increases the incidence of heat-related problems such as cramps and heat stroke,” said Dr. Pat Hughes, avid hunter and assistant professor of health and human performance at Rocky Mountain College in Billings, Montana.

Other Systems Suffer However, the diminished ability for sustained exercise isn’t the only result of dehydration of concern to hunters. Many research projects have linked dehydration to diminished cognitive function and slower reaction times. Thus, a dehydrated hunter might be slower on the trigger when hunting upland birds or reason poorly in a survival situation. Dehydration also has very real impacts on physical comfort. Poor hydration leads to increased feelings of fatigue. It reduces blood

Photos: Jack Ballard

BY JACK BALLARD

volume and increases viscosity (resistance to flow), requiring the heart to work harder. In frigid temperatures, hydration actually helps the body stay warm by allowing the circulatory system to efficiently supply blood to all parts of the body, including fingers and toes.

By the Numbers At what point does dehydration degrade one’s capacity for exertion? Dr. Hughes pegs 2% water loss, as measured against an individual’s body weight, as the threshold for dehydration, a standard widely acknowledged among exercise physiologists. To calculate the fluid volume loss at which you’re dehydrated, multiply your body weight by 0.02. My weight fluctuates around 160 pounds. That means a loss of 3.2 pounds (160 x 0.02) of water leaves me dehydrated. Water weighs 8.34 pounds per gallon. Thus, at a loss of 0.38 gallons I become dehydrated. In practical terms, that’s a deficit of 48 ounces or right at 1.5 quarts of water. Water is lost from the human body as vapor through sweating and breathing, and as liquid in urine. Standards for fluid replacement developed by the U.S. military provide a good baseline and are easily adapted to hunting. The standards chart fluid replacement requirements at various temperatures and in reference to three types of work: easy, moderate and hard. Easy work consists of tasks like marksmanship training or weapon maintenance. Moderate work involves jobs such as carrying a 40-pound pack while walking briskly on a hard surface or patrolling. Hard work includes such strenuous activities as humping a 40-plus-pound pack while walking quickly on a hard surface or navigating loose sand or inclined terrain with a moderate load. At 78 degrees, an individual needs an intake of .75 quarts (24 ounces) of fluid per hour to remain hydrated while continuously performing moderate work or engaging in hard work at a rate of 40 minutes per hour. Hard work at a rate of 30 minutes per hour in temperatures above 82 degrees requires a full quart of fluid replacement per hour. It should be noted that these intake rates maintain the individual for up to four hours. Exercise extending beyond four hours requires extra fluid. However, individuals have very different sweat rates. Dr. Chris Irvine, a colleague of Hughes (also a hunter), notes that by weighing themselves before and after sustained exercise, individuals can develop very precise measurements of how much fluid they lose during exertion in relation to weight and adjust their personal fluid intake when exerting themselves accordingly.

Warning Signs Urine color is a standard indication of dehydration. “If you wait to drink until you’re thirsty, you’re already well on the way to dehydration,” said Dr. Hughes. “Urine that’s switching from clear to yellow indicates a fluid deficit.” (Note that vitamin supplements with the B-vitamin, riboflavin, will typically turn your urine bright yellow temporarily.) Light-headedness, dizziness and naseau are indications of severe dehydration. Rather than wait until the body signals dehydration, maintain your fluid. “Make sure you’re well hydrated before heading out,” said Hughes. “As an athletic trainer I build in breaks for sports

practice every 15 to 20 minutes. Hunters should also regularly schedule hydration breaks.”

Other Factors Fluid loss is compounded as temperature increases and humidity decreases. Humidity decreases with elevation. Hunting at altitude or in hot environments requires greater than normal fluid replacement. “And don’t forget about electrolytes,” advised Chris Irvine. Exertion that extends beyond an hour requires replacement of salt and other minerals that the body loses through sweat. “Sodium (salt) and potassium are the most important to think about. Look for sports drinks that provide a sodium to potassium ratio of about four to one. Sodium levels should be within 500 to 2,000 milligrams per liter.” Chugging water isn’t the only way to replace fluids. Eating fleshy fruits and vegetables helps. I frequently carry a tiny stove and fuel canister to boil water and make tea or hot cocoa when it’s cold. In warmer conditions, I add powdered Gatorade to water as it’s a satisfying alternative to plain water. It’s easier to maintain hydration when consuming fluids you enjoy. The outcome? Hydration is certain to safeguard your health and performance in the field. BHA member Jack Ballard has written hundreds of hunting articles and several books on elk hunting and biology. When not in the field he strives for peak athletic performance as an alpine ski racing coach and competitor.

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the hike. the hunt. the catch. the harvest. the adventure. the journey. the spot. the story. the meal.

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PUBLIC LAND OWNER

PRIVATIZING PUBLIC ELK

BY THOMAS BAUMEISTER As Americans, we intuitively understand that some things in life deserve to be protected for our collective benefit, such as the air we breathe and the water we drink. In Montana, this also includes fish and wildlife, along with the opportunity to hunt and fish. Public ownership is at the heart of the U.S. system of natural resource management, where wild animals belong to the state in which they reside. State ownership is motivated by the desire to conserve wildlife as a renewable resource for the benefit of the state’s citizens. Central to this concept is public trust, a social and legal construct that recognizes certain things in life are so valuable that they should not be owned exclusively by some individuals but by everyone equally. Under the public trust principle, the people charge the government with the duty to oversee and manage the wildlife on our collective behalf. For more than a century now, Montana’s elk have been managed this way. Specifically, the state fish and wildlife agency has the duty to manage the time, place and manner in which public elk may be accessed by hunters in a biologically sustainable and socially equitable fashion – with no one having greater privileges than anyone else. As so defined, the state cannot abdicate its responsibility nor parcel out the elk trust. Nevertheless, the tug of war between private and public interests 48 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

intensified recently in Montana, as they vie for supremacy to shape how elk are managed – specifically, who gets to hunt bull elk and who doesn’t. Hunters, outfitters, resident landowners and, increasingly, out-of-state trophy ranch owners all claim their stake in elk; yet their interests often pull in opposite directions with shrinking common ground left to build on. Across the West, access to elk has become the latest battleground in the nation’s growing tension between the have and have nots. It is no longer about tweaking elk permit numbers; rather, it is fundamentally about who gets to hunt elk. What’s playing out here in the wilds of Montana’s hinterlands is akin to a culture war. The Treasure State is quickly turning into the playground for the nation’s wealthy and politically connected elite. The Montana chapter of BHA has been at the forefront of this battle, weighing in on those debates and explaining what’s really at stake. We’ve been showing Montanans what’s going on and how we can prevent it. The stakes could not be higher. And it’s not just elk; we see the same trend occurring with trout, deer, bighorn sheep and mountain lion, along with other species we value as public land anglers and hunters. The recent allocation of trophy elk tags to the Wilks Brothers – Texas oil billionaires who own a sweeping swath of some 300,000 acres in central Montana – flirts dangerously close to taking elk out of the public trust and thrusting it into the hands of private property owners simply because of land ownership; albeit there

Photos: Erik Petersen

The movement for the conservation of wildlife and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.” – Theodore Roosevelt (1916)

was some nominal public hunting access granted in exchange. greater share of “our elk.” In other words, we shouldn’t be picking We absolutely believe that landowners should be compensated favorites based on guided hunters or DIY, wealth, prestige, land for opening public access, but coveted trophy bull elk should ownership or anything else for that matter. not be the bargaining chip. This privatization will only further “The opportunity to hunt is yours by virtue of your citizenship,” incentivize landowners to block and limit public access rather proclaimed the late Jim Posewitz, longtime Montana elk hunter than encourage it – history has proven this to be the case over and conservation giant. When Posewitz wrote those words, and over again. he was referring to what made elk hunting and conservation Normally, in Montana, if you want the chance to hunt elk in emerge triumphantly in North America. In large, what kept elk the hunting district where these lands from slipping out of physical existence are located, you must enter the public – and our collective consciousness – we’ve held firm to the idea that more than a century ago, and what lottery and hope to draw a coveted the opportunity to hunt elk elk tag. This may not give a hunter keeps them around today, is that the the option to hunt those areas every must be available to the average species is held in public trust and not year, but it gives everyone an equitable person, no matter their social permitted to be privatized, carved up chance of drawing. And 15% of these or monetized. This is the essence of the or economic status. tags are already set aside as an allocation American conservation ethic, which for private landowners. This random stands proudly in defiance of the King’s draw system is in line with the public trust principle for the deer in feudal Europe. government to create equitable and sustainable opportunities. By Many view state fish and wildlife agencies as holding sweeping allocating elk permits over and above these quotas only for those powers and unfettered autonomy to uphold the public trust in fortunate enough to acquire enough land sends a clear message elk. But this is not actually the case. The specific policies that that some people have more right to hunt our public elk than matter most to elk hunters, such as the what, when, where and others. We disagree. how of hunting elk, are not actually up to the Montana state In Montana, we’ve held firm to the idea that the opportunity to agency to decide. Rather, this duty falls squarely on elected and hunt elk must be available to the average person, no matter their appointed officials in their respective offices: the governor (who social or economic status: one only should need a hunting license often appoints the agency director and commissioners), the or permit to be eligible to participate. That opportunity must be legislature, the citizen-oversight commissions and other executive equally available and not predicated on any terms or conditions committees. Collectively, these are the decision-makers referred to that are not universally applied among all hunters; nor does as trustees, whereas the state agency is simply the trust manager. anyone hold an a priori or privileged status in terms of owning a This arrangement is what makes elk subject to, and at the heart SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 49

Photo: Erik Petersen

It is up to hunters – elk hunters in Montana, bear hunters in Washington, deer hunters in Kansas, mountain lion hunters in Colorado, etc. – to remember that our elected/appointed officials are not actually required to govern in any particular way. of, politics – including power grabs and political favors. In many ways, bull elk have become political pawns as access to them is sought after, highly valuable and easily monetized. Since it would be impractical to consult every citizen each time we need to make decisions – for example, who gets an elk license – we’ve instructed the state and its officials to do this on our collective behalf. This mandate is precisely why trustees are elected or appointed to be held accountable for their actions and to be ultimately aligned with the will of the people. We expect our trustees to be honest, transparent, fair and impartial, and we reserve the right to take corrective measures if necessary. We can vote them – or the elected officials who appointed them – out. As far as the trust manager, the state fish and wildlife agency, that accountability is located within the principles of public governance (good government) such as administrative process, public involvement and transparent decision-making. It’s crucial that we remember this, but more importantly, that they do, too, both the trustee (elected and appointed officials) and trust managers (technical experts and administrative bureaucrats). This, in a nutshell, is how BHA is approaching this and why the Montana Chapter has been so active in the process. It is up to hunters – elk hunters in Montana, bear hunters in Washington, deer hunters in Kansas, mountain lion hunters in Colorado, etc. – to remember that our elected/appointed officials 50 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

are not actually required to govern in any particular way. In fact, they are under no obligation to abide by any formal guiding principles, and thus may pursue matters to commercialize and privatize Montana’s wildlife. It’s up to us to be vigilant. Advocacy matters. Voting matters. Your voice matters. In 2021, the Montana chapter and others led a charge that successfully defeated a legislative bill that would have issued transferable non-resident elk permits to landowners, allowing them to go to the highest out-of-state bidder. Since then, many similar proposals have been put forward, all poorly disguised as attempts to address elk populations but really are just further attempts to commercialize and privatize our wildlife. We’ve beat each one back, or significantly improved them, but we don’t expect the attacks to let up anytime soon. We cannot and will not be complacent. You shouldn’t either. Guiding principles of our work at maintaining fair and equitable distribution among stakeholders: • Stand firm on no handouts, set-aside or privileged allocations to special interests without a commensurate benefit to the public trust • Demand publicly accessible and transparent decisionmaking

• Request to always use the best science available • Select trustees who understand trustee obligations and are free of conflicts of interest and competing concerns • Hold trust administrators publicly accountable in the media • Encourage local and decentralized decision-making to counter centralized efforts by executives So how do we as frontline members of BHA fight to uphold the principles of public trust and the equity in opportunity to access and hunt elk in Montana and in the West? In a nutshell, we have to be really good at what we do. Casual engagement simply won’t cut it. There are certainly different ways and approaches; here we offer some things that have worked well for the Montana chapter. • Get involved early; let your intuition be your guide that something isn’t right • Understand an issue first before you react • Peel back the layers to really see what’s going on; follow the money • Surround yourself with people with different perspectives on an issue • Encourage honest and candid dialogue among your team members • Argue on public trust principles, not mere preference Photo: Packing out a Montana public land elk, courtesy of BHA member Dudley McGarity

• Shape and control the narrative, be creative with communications • Be vigilant, don’t rest on your laurels – privatization is slow, insidious, and gradual • Build capacity within your ranks for a long drawn out battle • Fight like hell; yet be smart about your strategy. It’s better to be good than just reactionary as emotions resonate but don’t win by themselves. The United States has been long cherished as the place where anyone can be a hunter no matter means or status. In the coming months and years, pay close attention to how your opportunity to hunt and fish is managed. If you witness your opportunities diminishing, hold your elected officials accountable – as they get to make the rules on the things we hold dearest. Thomas Baumeister is the vice chair and capital leader for the Montana chapter of BHA. He worked for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks for two decades before joining the board of Montana BHA. He holds two masters and a Ph.D. in biology and wildlife biology and wears out a pair of boots each fall chasing elk and upland birds.

SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 51

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FATHERS SONS SWAMPERS AND

AND

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Photo: Marianne Nolley

BY JONATHAN WILKINS Winter in the Delta is a drab and tawny affair. It’s an exceedingly flat landscape, punctuated with dark brown skeletal trees and rust colored rice stubble. Sheet water and moist soil units abound, some naturally formed, and many others manipulated by man. Known for the swollen, molasses-colored rivers that dominate the winter terrain, the Delta is a congregating point for a nation of waterfowlers – a normally sparsely inhabited region inundated with frenzied feather chasers from just before Thanksgiving until the end of January. Fanatics from all over the country come to the area in the hopes of experiencing the magic and reverence of flooded timber duck hunting. The iridescent, green-headed mallard is king here and reigns supreme for 60 days of passionate pursuit. These birds are drivers of the economy and facilitators of dreams. Defining as waterfowling is to the people and places of the Arkansas side of the Mississippi River Delta, it still remains only part of the story. This is a region representative of rural America, where people busy themselves with the hard work of making a life, living through the exertion of effort and the creation of compact, tightly knit communities. Agriculture and churches form the basis of tribal self-identity. Schools are small; classes are made of the same students, kindergarten SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 55

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Photos: Marianne Nolley

through high school. Neighbors are known from one generation story house where the Holiday family makes its home. Years ago, to the next, and the communal oral tradition still matters here. when I first bought a place in town to serve as a duck camp, I Brinkley, Arkansas, is a point of specificity in this lineage of took notice of the hunting-related accoutrement in the backyard. Americana and hunting tradition. Positioned as the approximate It was obvious that this was not the residence of outdoor halfway point between Little Rock and Memphis and directly dilettantes but serious connoisseurs of the region’s hunting and off of the perpetually traveled Interstate 40, it is most often fishing opportunities. There are usually a couple of flat-bottomed experienced as a fast food and gasoline stop for travelers. In fact, aluminum boats, an archery target and a ubiquitously dark green, without that immediate proximity to one of the nation’s busiest knobby-tired Chevy truck out back. There’s also a group of wellthoroughfares, it might have already gone the way of other small built dog kennels, which house a howling collection of raccoonDelta towns that have suffered the demise of the family farm in sized, calico, collared dogs that lets even the most uninformed a more pointed and devastating way. Boasting a population of passerby know here resides a family that takes hunting seriously. around 3,000 people, Brinkley is one of the larger communities Last year I made the acquaintance of Anthony Holiday in the region – not big enough Jr., known as TJ, and was to call for a Walmart but able to immediately struck by the There’s also a group of well-built support a grocery store, several ag friendly, affable nature of the dog kennels, which house a howling shops and its own school system. man. Stoutly built and bearded, collection of raccoon-sized, calico, Like much of the Delta, most of the time I saw TJ he was collared dogs that lets even the most in the backyard with friends, Brinkley has a population that is majority African American uninformed passerby know here resides camo-clad and either preparing – a holdover from the South’s for or returning from a hunt. a family that takes hunting seriously. particular agricultural past – Just two doors down from and it flavors and influences my camp and obviously sharing the culture of the town. Here you’ll see Black men with lifelong some common interests, it seemed appropriate that I introduce connections to farming and working the land, wearing rubber myself. We talked about hunting, and I may have even tried to boots and splattered with mud, standing in line at the town’s gently pry a few coveted duck hunting tidbits from him, as I Family Dollar. Black ownership of farmland is not a foreign quickly realized that he was not only intimately knowledgeable concept here, and working with your hands is still a pride-filled about the area but also a competent outdoorsman who dedicated enterprise. From fish farms to soybean fields, this is a region where much of his free time to stalking deer, ducks and rabbits. Black is not synonymous with urban, and the people interacting I was most intrigued by his position as a rabbit hunting with the land look different than the truck commercials shown on aficionado, particularly because he was pursuing the region’s primetime television would lead you to believe. lagomorphs behind beagles. I had only harvested a few cottontails A few blocks off of Main Street and within view of a large rice in my life and had done so mostly by happenstance with a .22, drying and grain packaging operation, you’ll find a tidy, single- so the idea of purposely chasing them coupled with generous bag

limits appealed to me. Beyond that I was well aware of the long- goes by Tony, is friendly but more reserved than his son. With a standing history of African American small game hunting and gold-capped tooth and a smooth, velvety tenor to his speech, he houndsmanship in the South and was anxious to tap into that exudes a specific kind of cool that comes only with maturity and aspect of my heritage. I inquired with TJ if he might be willing the shrugging off of youthful brashness. More confidence than to allow me to accompany him on a rabbit hunt to experience braggadocio, the way he walks and even holds his shotgun is the event for myself, and while he stated that normally his rabbit indicative of a man steadfast in himself and his abilities. I first met Tony on a frosty hunting was a family affair, he Though often relegated to the back February morning as TJ prepped graciously agreed to let me tag pages of hunting history, there is a deep his dogs and got ready for a public along. Though often relegated to the and resonate lineage of Blacks as dog land hunt a couple of weeks after back pages of hunting history, handlers and breeders, particularly in the conclusion of duck season. TJ told me he normally didn’t there is a deep and resonate southern states. start pursuing rabbits until after lineage of Blacks as dog handlers regular waterfowl season closed and breeders, particularly in southern states. This is a tradition that goes back to the times of in an effort to not negatively impact anyone else’s pursuits with Black bondage, when often enslaved people were tasked with the his wide ranging and auditorily distinct pack of beagles. job of breeding and training the sporting dogs of the plantation The beagles themselves are an outlier to my hunting dog owners. They also served as hunting guides for the slave holding experience, which has almost unilaterally been focused on gentry, and while they may not have received credit for this waterfowl retrievers. Beagles seem quaint in comparison, but expertise in the annals of history, Blacks have been instrumental I recognized immediately that the desire of these diminutive in developing the sport hunting traditions of the American hounds to do the work they were bred for was no less than that South. Those hunting traditions still maintain influence on the any of their larger canine compatriots. inhabitants of the region. And though not often profiled in TJ picked out and loaded a collection of his four best dogs to popular culture, there remains meaningful Black relationships hunt with – all females (known as gyps). He expressed to me that he prefers to hunt with female dogs, as he finds them easier to train with an agrarian lifestyle throughout the rural South. TJ is a continuation of that proud and longstanding lineage, a and more willing to stay on a track. He related that a hardheaded tradition that was imparted to him by his father. Anthony Sr., who male beagle can ruin a hunt if it decides to ignore his handler; SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 57

he’s a dogman who expects obedience from his pack. The dogs range in color from a dusty straw-tinted yellow to Appaloosa-like splotched black and tan, all of which mimicked the dull tones of the natural winter environment. Once loaded into the bed of the truck in a large metallic dog box, we headed north of town to the wide expanse of the Cache River Wildlife Refuge to see if we could locate a warren or two for the dogs to chase. Several miles later, we rumbled down a dirt road to an area I was familiar with from duck hunting, encompassed by thousands of acres of brushy briar patch and grassland, located between a bayou channel and many miles of agricultural fields. Here the dogs would have room to run and roam without danger of encountering private land. At the tailgate of the old truck, TJ and Tony quietly decided which direction looked most likely to hold rabbits. There, I observed the quiet, monosylabic ruminations of two men who had been participating in an activity for a lifetime and implicitly trusted one another’s judgement. 58 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

TJ attached tracking collars to the dogs and released them one by one, pointed in the selected direction with short, punctuated bursts of encouragements. Father and son followed the dogs at a leisurely pace, with Tony allowing TJ to take the lead, before spreading out and finding complimentary positions to the path of the dogs. They explained that once the dogs strike a rabbit, the prey will run in a wide circle that will bring it back to the area where it was first discovered. It’s then the hunter’s responsibility to either wait where the initial track was struck or to try and get ahead of the rabbit at a point of likely intersect. It only took a few minutes until the dogs were hot in pursuit of their quarry – all the while exclaiming in a broken and raspy declaration that was equal parts yodel and something akin to the awkward, cracking sound emitted from a 13-year-old boy singing a love ballad. After a few passes nothing had materialized, so the men decided Photo: Marianne Nolley

to head across the dirt road and try a patch of ground with less brush and more open terrain. I was standing with TJ, getting a lesson in the finer points of rabbit dog instruction, as he urged his hounds on with calls to “look for him, look for him,” when we heard the percussive shotgun blast from Tony’s direction. We jogged over toward the shot. Tony stood stoically, pointing toward a rabbit laying some 10 yards away. More of that cool confidence in action. The dogs came excitedly up a minute or so later, nose to ground and tails wagging, before running into the rabbit. The dogs were so well trained, one of them took the instruction to retrieve the rabbit and bring it over to TJ’s outstretched hand. We meandered to another patch, where I shadowed Tony this time and prodded him with questions about why he had started taking TJ hunting when he was six. He explained it was a continuation of the instruction he received as one of 11 children growing up in Brinkley. He had learned to small game hunt and fish from his older brothers and uncles after the death of his father,

and he instinctively carried on that tradition with his son. As he loaded a dip between cheek and gum, I asked him what kind of hunting he preferred. “Rabbits and squirrels,” Tony replied. “That’s what I like to hunt. And brim fishing – I love catching brim. I deer hunt to spend time with him (TJ). He likes it, and he’s good at it.” The evident pride in that statement was striking. It was a father’s acknowledgement of his son becoming a man and an expert in his own right. For Tony, hunting with TJ was a chance to revel in the man he had become and to feel good about the hand he had in that maturation. Those thoughts were interrupted by the constant back and forth of TJ prodding his father to ready himself, as he anticipated a struck rabbit was being run close to his senior’s position. “Hey Daddy. Here he is!” The rabbit would give one of the hunters the slip or the “okie-doke,” as they called it, and the process would begin again. Tony pointed out rabbit trails in the thorny dewberry scruff SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 59

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Photos: Marianne Nolley

and piles of fresh rabbit droppings indicating heavily used travel routes. The dogs might be using their noses, but Tony and TJ used their eyes, searching for bits of sign garnered from years of experience and the situational awareness that it breeds. TJ was next to shoot, wandering into head high grass and returning a few moments later with a rabbit twice the size of the last one. He explained the difference between a “cotton patch” or cottontail rabbit and the much larger swamp rabbit that he held in his hands. We set the dogs loose a few more times but after an hour or so hadn’t had any more success, so we decided to call it, as the men had a piece of private ground they were anxious to try their hand at later that afternoon. Back at the truck, TJ loaded his dogs back in their box one by one, calling them by name before stooping low to pick up the stubby-legged hounds. First Lacy, then Bella, followed by Roxy and finally the youngest and newest addition to the pack, Yella, were deftly swooped up and put into their transient home before the men headed to their next hunting spot. I met back up with TJ later that evening in his backyard while he cleaned the morning’s haul plus the three additional rabbits they had gotten that afternoon. Tony was inside relaxing, as he had done his time with knife and hose in hand many times before; now it was TJ’s turn. TJ expertly skinned and gutted the rabbits with the quick fluid motions of a man who had repeated the task countless times before. We talked about the small town he had grown up in. Occasionally neighbors or friends would pull up under the old pecan tree behind the dog kennels to stop and chat for a bit. It was indicative of TJ’s standing in his community; he was considered a friend by many and respected enough that people driving by wanted to stop for a few minutes to see his success and dispense a bit of town gossip. Before I headed back toward my camp, TJ held up a cleaned rabbit and offered it to me. I hadn’t pulled a trigger that day, but I gladly accepted, asking him how he preferred it prepared. His response solidified his reverence and appreciation for the man who had taught him how to hunt. He didn’t tell me how he liked it but, instead, how Tony did: cooked simply with gravy and potatoes or rice – nourishing for the soul as well as the spirit. I promised him I’d pay homage to his family tradition by preparing this one the same way and left thinking of lessons learned from my own dad. I left thinking about fathers and sons and swampers.

His response solidified his reverence and appreciation for the man who had taught him how to hunt. he didn’t tell me how he liked it but, instead, how Tony did: cooked simply with gravy and potatoes or rice – nourishing for the soul as well as the spirit.

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Jonathan Wilkins is a guide, writer, cook and outdoor educator focused on the intersection of wild food and the American experience. He’s also the founder of Black Duck Revival, a lodge and brand offering immersive educational experiences in the natural world, and a board member for BHA’s Arkansas chapter.

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EVERY ADVENTURE HAS ITS REWARDS T H E @FatTire

E A S Y

D R I N K I N G

A M B E R

A L E

A FAREWELL TO FISH

In the summer of that year, we lived in a village near a stream in Idaho where salmon came to spawn. The Valley of the Fish was broad and flat, and high snow-covered mountains rose to the south. The stream wound like a snake through the valley marshes, and the water sparkled in the sun. There were boulders and pebbles in it, and in places, the water moved swiftly, and for these reasons, the fish liked it, and their families had lived there for a long time. There were many salmon in the stream – fish who had come home to spawn and die in the way of their ancestors, and we fished for them with joy and awe. Neither they nor we could foresee what was to become of them. (With apologies to Ernest Hemingway)

Facing Page Photo: Bert Lindler

BY M. ROBBINS CHURCH In the fading light of a long Idaho summer day, I returned to our car, tired from fishing the small stream. Bert was out there somewhere on Marsh Creek, and I assumed he would soon join me. It was time to put away our gear and rest before our drive back to Sun Valley, where we worked that summer. There was a breeze in the pines, and the creek throbbed with the splashing of wild salmon bustling their anxious ways upstream to spawn. It was a special extended spring Chinook season that year, 1967, and we had come to see something we could never have seen back home in Virginia – something we might never see again. As I leaned against the car, enjoying the evening, I heard a faint, odd sound – animal-like, but unlike any animal I had ever heard. I left the car and walked up Cape Horn Road toward the sound, which came from far upstream. It was not a wild animal. It was Bert – screaming. I bolted back to the car and sped up the road, guided by ear, parking as near to the sound as I could in the gathering darkness. Bert was in the creek – still screaming. I sloshed across the soggy meadow until I got close, arriving just in time to see a huge Chinook rocket into the air well above Bert, a fish connected to him by line, leader and barbless fly. When Bert saw I was near, he screamed less loudly. It wasn’t clear if Bert had hooked the fish or the fish, him – the Chinook seemed in charge. It dashed downstream, then wrapped Bert’s fly line around a large clump of an eroded bank, stopping the action. “Bert, come down this way and unwrap your line,” I said. “I can’t. It’s too deep. Besides, I think the fish is off.” And he was right; the Chinook had worked its way free. “How did you hook it?” I asked. “I’m not sure. I was just fishing, and then there it was. It jumped eight times! Over my head! Eight times!” Bert’s heart rate and blood pressure subsided about an hour later at Stanley as we turned off the then dirt-and-gravel washboard road that was Idaho 21 and onto pavement towards Ketchum. It was July, and we had come to Marsh Creek, near Stanley, to fly-fish in the evenings after work, trying our luck for the first time with salmon. We had never cast for fish this size or in a place so beautiful – the meadows lush and sprinkled with wildflowers;

the Sawtooth Mountains across the valley, white with the heavy snows of the winter past, gleaming against the bright, blue Idaho summer skies. Bert’s fish was the first either of us had hooked. We thrilled to see these fish that had traveled so far from the ocean – driven upstream by ancient urges, pulsing and splashing by us in riffles, as we stood within a rod’s reach, transfixed. On our next day off, we were back, camping close to the stream. It was to be an eventful day, starting with a hummingbird hovering inches from my nose as I inhaled syrup-covered pancakes. After breakfast, Bert headed upstream in search of another giant. I fished closer to camp. Mid-morning, as I studied a pair of Chinook holding 30 feet upstream, three would-be “anglers” appeared across the creek from me, asking if I had seen any salmon. To show them the fish, I flicked a quartering cast ten feet upstream of the salmon. To my surprise, as the fly swam past, one of the fish shivered sideways to inspect it – but let it pass. The fish now had my full attention. I took a single step forward and sideways to gain a better angle, hunched my shoulders, and cast again. Without hesitation, the fish grabbed my red and yellow multi-wing streamer, then, feeling the hook, flashed downstream past both the startled visitors on the far side of the creek and me. I dashed downstream and across a gravel bar, trying to keep up. The fish sought refuge under the far bank and lodged there, seemingly unmovable. At last, it yielded to sideways pressure, thrashing into the stream channel. The battle was renewed as the fish, again, muscled me downstream. Soon I had more company – Bert, as well as Idaho Fish and Game, three binocular’d wardens strong – the latter emerging from the lodgepole pine forest on the ridge to the north, hustling across the meadows. The wardens were polite but attentive, quietly noting the other onlookers who drifted away, nervous in the presence of the law. When the wardens verified my fish was legally hooked by a fly in its jaw, they shifted from monitors to cheering squad. Only then did it dawn on me that I had been under legal scrutiny. As I looked for a spot to land the fish, Bert appeared in the stream, approaching with his camera. The startled fish surged away, parting the knot at the fly. “Bert, what are you doing?!” “Sorry, just trying to get a shot. I thought you had him.” The sympathetic, yet amused, wardens checked our licenses SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 65

We had seen special things in a special place, and we would never forget. Although we would not visit those salmon again that year, they visited us – haunting our dreams. and tags and departed. Who knew that enforcement could be so entertaining? And we headed back to camp for lunch. But the day wasn’t done. That evening Bert hooked, landed and released a 20-pounder, a smaller cousin to his first hookup. This time, there was no screaming – we were old hands at the game. The season soon ended, and we said our farewells to the natives of Marsh Creek. We had seen special things in a special place, and we would never forget. Although we would not visit those salmon again that year, they visited us – haunting our dreams. We wondered how many had swum up from the gravels together, had roamed the Pacific side-by-side, then swung in unison with their inner compasses, crossing the bar with nearly 900 miles yet to go, guided home by smells never forgotten? As we had fished that summer, we knew Columbia River dams had depleted salmon runs, but little did we know of the bleak future looming for the Chinook of Marsh Creek or for the rest of Idaho’s runs of wild anadromous fish. At the close of the 1960s and into the early ’70s, the dam 66 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

builders slammed shut the gates of the last of their gang of serial killers of the Snake – Lower Monumental, Little Goose, Lower Granite – dams with names for Post Office walls. They joined Ice Harbor Dam as an apocalyptic squad of death for salmon and steelhead. Escapements plummeted, spawning habitats became uninhabited, and the salmon streams of Idaho grew quiet and lonely. Striving to slow the accelerating losses of wild Chinook runs, the state did the only thing it could, cutting salmon seasons and angler harvests – changes that could be only proverbial fingers in the dike. The last legal season for spring Chinook in the upper reaches of Marsh Creek and its tributaries was 1971 – four short years after the plenty we had witnessed. Bert and I revisited Marsh Creek nearly 50 years from our fishing, crossing the same wet meadows, soaking our shoes, socks and pants legs in the same ways as before. The stream channel seemed little changed, and we found pools and riffles that stirred memories. It was late September, and the bright valley grass and wildflowers Photo: Bert Lindler

In some remote glen far up in the Sawtooths, the fading shouts of a young angler in the valley echoed still, telling any who would listen of a system once complete, a river once whole. we had recalled were now sere in the thin autumn light; the mountains were gray – almost bare of snow. We saw no salmon; any spawners of that year were dead and gone. Instead, we found structures to measure streamflow and, hopefully, fish passage – tools of men and women who had come in good faith, striving to help as best they could. We felt like sad voyeurs, visiting the abandoned aftermath of some terrible crash, where paramedics had left instruments of their efforts after they had surveyed the scene, counted the bodies and searched for survivors. We walked the stream in silence, remembering. Things were not the same in Marsh Creek, and we knew it. There were ghosts here – of boys and fishes. In some remote glen far up in the Sawtooths, the fading shouts of a young angler in the valley echoed still, telling any who would listen of a system once complete, a river once whole. And in the now-subdued pools and riffles, the lost sounds of salmon dashing and swirling, fulfilling their wild destiny, while dancing their dance of death, ghosted into the clear Idaho skies and slipped away, back into time. Photo: Robbins Church

We departed with last looks – remembering the past, lamenting the present, wondering what the future might hold. BHA member Robbins Church holds a bachelor’s degree in analytical chemistry and a Ph.D. in aquatic ecology from the University of Virginia. Now retired, his research with the U.S. EPA spanned a range of topics, including possible future effects of acid rain on lakes and streams, hydrochemistry of forested catchments and stable isotope ecology of salmon streams of the Pacific Northwest. Editor’s Note: Please tell your elected officials to support Snake River dam removal at backcountryhunters.org/take_ action#178/

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WHY In a world overrun by categories and labels, hunting is the great equalizer. The outdoors are one of the few places where age, gender, race and sexual preference don’t matter. I am a female, a bow hunter, a wife. I am NOT a “female hunter” or a “woman who hunts.” I am a hunter – we all are, plain and simple. And this is my why.

Photo: Amber Casey

BY AMBER CASEY “Text if you get one!” my parents say as my husband, Pat, and I hug them goodbye prior to making the 1,400-mile trek to Montana for our annual two-week archery elk hunt. “No. … We get full service, so I’ll FaceTime you – if it actually happens,” I respond after a tight hug and a hopeful smile. A few days later we leave Michigan in the rearview. My mind is busy and anxious, but my heart is full of passion and my eyes are burning with that familiar fire that warms me every time I venture into the woods. I find that fire in the aroma of crimson leaves under muddy boots walking to the treestand. In the distant gobble of a tom, while spring peepers sing backup on early April mornings. I find it every time a hunting story is told, a venison tenderloin is served or when catching a glimpse of camo hanging in the basement while grabbing a jar of bone broth from the shelves. It burns sitting next to my dad at sunrise on opening day and when my nieces call to congratulate me on a successful hunt. Or sometimes I find it simply sitting next to a small stream, mid-hike in summer, under towering Michigan hardwoods, listening to the water race over bedrock while my eyes subconsciously close. Where I can breathe deep and let go of anything that has been weighing on me. Collectively these moments kindle that fire. These moments are my why.

Making the 23-hour drive west every year is daunting, but knowing you have your loved ones’ full support and that they’ll be anxiously awaiting the text message that says “attachment” keeps tired eyes open and the cruise control on. It’s also a time to reflect and plan. Reliving the past four years’ failed attempts to notch a tag and wondering if this year will be the same. I think about what I might do differently to change the outcome. But, really, I’m most excited about just immersing myself in the outdoors once again. Stepping out of the truck, my body is immediately ignited – head to toe, inside and out. I recognize the familiar lowing of Angus cows wandering the mountains. The soothing scent that can only come from fresh alpine air rushes through the cottonwoods in the creek bottom shading our tent. Rugged mountain ranges brush against bluebird skies. My soul has craved these for months. No headlights or buildings to see. No exhaust fumes or restaurants to smell. No traffic or neighbors to hear. The mountains grab a hold of me more than the pursuit of elk. Instead of focusing on the thermals and what was glassed or heard that morning, I’m mesmerized by the sunlight bouncing off the distant peaks or a whitetail feeding peacefully in a distant meadow. I want to absorb those surroundings – even if only for a few seconds – take a deep breath and calm my busy mind before we start the climb and the pursuit. Those moments of Zen are quickly interrupted when a bull bugles, exposing his position. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 69

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Photos: Pat Casey

A plan is made as the sun sinks lower. No sooner than we are in position, he’s crashing down the mountain to the irresistible cow calls Pat is making to my left. It’s so thick there isn’t a clear shot more than 10 yards. A decision has to be made. His bugle echoes through the timber. The trees sway frantically back and forth as he rakes. He’s making his way in my direction. When his harem spots me through the thick timber and hightails it down the mountain, I assume he will do the same, but instead the bull turns and beelines to Pat’s mews. Only his tines are exposed, but he’s closing in – quickly. Darting back and forth between positions, I find a small shooting lane and draw back. Coming to full draw, years of memories and emotions rush over me. I know this is my moment. He pants heavily, raising the hair on the back of my neck. After blowing past the shooting lane, a cluster of trees stops him abruptly, exposing his rump. The bugle pierces my ears, while the adrenaline pumping through my body keeps me at full draw. He turns toward me with his head down, panting, and quickly closes the gap. I make a subtle movement, causing him to stop and pick up his head. We lock eyes at a mere seven yards, and I release the arrow. As the arrow buries into his neck, he wheels and crashes through the timber. I stand in shock, unable to move, trying to process the events that just unfolded. After a few seconds, the crashing abruptly stops. Deafening silence. All I hear are my heavy breaths and pounding heart. I can’t see anything, but I anxiously await that final crash that every hunter wants to hear – but it never comes. Pat rushes over to piece together what happened. As I fill him in, twigs slowly break not more than 50 yards away. My heart sinks, realizing he’s not going down anytime soon. We decide to head back to camp and return a few hours after dark. Resuming the search, we quickly discover a sizable pool of frothy blood. “Yes!!” More sign is found further into the timber. We eagerly track with shaky beams of headlamps guiding the way – stumbling over deadfall, taking branches to the face, anticipating the glowing eyes of a bear or cougar searching for the same thing. The sign slowly diminishes, and we strain to find more. Complete silence resumes, as we wonder what to do next. A few more steps are taken, and we hear a slow, yet heavy crash just out of headlamp range – we bumped him. As we back out again, I begin to lose hope. A long, sleepless night ensues. Early morning finds us 250 yards from the initial hit, beginning the search anew. Seeing what is in front of me, I feel my world crashing down. Beneath the mountain, shoulder-high brush extends for acres upon acres. Finding a downed elk amidst that tangle is the true definition of a needle in a haystack. And there I sit, in the center of it all, trying to feel something – anything – longing for a concrete answer, even if that means anger, defeat or sadness. All I feel is numbing emptiness. Pat senses my uncertainty and decides to start grid-searching – a suggestion that both snaps me back to reality and makes my heart sink. It’s approaching 8 a.m., and the temperatures will soar to 90 degrees by noon. If he is found, it has to be quick. Pat interrupts my negative thoughts and suggests taking a trail that continued slightly uphill. But the bull is injured – badly. He wouldn’t go uphill. Rolling my eyes, I reluctantly agree.

After a few halfhearted steps I pick up my head, expecting only more disappointment, only to see a motionless light brown rump in a small opening of the brush. The air leaves my lungs, and my legs instantly grow weak. I drop my head along with my bow and collapse to my knees. Placing my trembling hands on his soft coat for the first time I frantically scroll through my phone to find “Mommio” and the FaceTime option. I sit next to the bull as it rings, making sure the camera is front facing. When she picks up, my hands are still quivering. Through the sniffles, with a tear-stained face, tired eyes and a shaky voice, I say, “Mama, I found him.” I hang up after a brief yet emotional conversation and wipe the tears away, pulling myself together, realizing the real work ahead. Gathering my bow, I kneel beside him for a few quick pictures, the distant mountain ranges in view. But the smiles for the camera don’t last long. Glancing down at the bull, tears instantly start falling again. In the moment, two very different but powerful emotions overwhelm me – gratitude and remorse. I’m grateful: for recovering him; for the meals he will provide; for having a husband, family and friends by my side every step of the way; for this time in the mountains; for the gift of the hunt. But taking a life to sustain mine is no small thing and is always accompanied by a remorse only a hunter can know. It’s never easy and grows more difficult with age. Hunting gives me a deep connection with the outdoors, which helps keep that fire lit and my sanity strong. Knowing he will nourish not only my body, but also my soul, helps get me through. Driving home with a tired body, full heart and heavy cooler, the passing landscape and the steady trance-like hum of the tires cause me to grow reflective. My senses are still filled with the tangy scent

of sagebrush, the heart-pounding bugle tearing the silence of the coming evening, the brilliance of the September sky over towering mountains and the soft, warm body of the animal that will feed me this year. I look over to see Pat sleeping in the passenger seat, and I smile. My mind shifts to reuniting with friends and family, telling the story over tenderloins and a cold beverage during the coming whitetail season. I’m reminded again of why. I am a hunter. The millions of moments that happen before and after releasing an arrow fuel a fire that burns deep in my soul. My thoughts are interrupted by the buzzing of my phone. I look down and smile, “Hey, Mama, we’re on our way home.” BHA member Amber Casey was born and raised in West Michigan and always had a strong connection with the outdoors. She grew up riding horses, but hunting and fishing started consuming her life in her early 20s. That’s still the case today; you’ll find her chasing big game somewhere out west or waist deep in a river with a fly rod in hand. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 71

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10 MONTHS, 110 MILES Setting the Stage for a Lifetime of Adventure BY RORY O’HANRAHAN AND BARRY WHITEHILL

Photo: Barry Whitehill

It is difficult to get into trouble when you can barely stand – so it seemed like a good time to take our 10-month-old baby, Penelope, on a 110-mile long float trip in remote Alaska. We had a spare rubber tote, which she couldn’t climb out of on her own, and an infant life jacket, so we decided to go for it. I mean, she can’t quite walk, so how much trouble could she really get into? -Rory O’Hanrahan When Rory broached the subject of bringing his daughter Penelope on a float, my immediate response was absolutely! My sons joined me on remote hunts before age one, so why not? However, when Rory went on to mention bringing two dogs, my apprehension spiked. Dogs on remote Alaska float trips seem to go either very well or very, very poorly – porcupines, wandering off, chasing critters, or worse, getting chased back to camp by bigger

critters. In my experience, two dogs meant twice the potential for bad things to happen. -Barry Whitehill

UPSTREAM Rory: It is difficult to float when there isn’t a lot of water. We had launched at fairly low flows at the headwaters of Birch Creek, a designated wild and scenic river. It had rained in Fairbanks the night before, so we were hopeful rain would reach us to help raise the water levels a little bit. Fairbanks was almost 100 miles away by road. Now that we were dragging across shallow gravel bars and scraping over downed trees, Fairbanks seemed even further away. We managed three miles the first day and only four miles the second day. I was beginning to wonder if this float would take us a month when I only had 10 days until I needed to be back to work in Anchorage. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 75

RISING WATER Rory: At camp the third night, we huddled under one of Barry’s tarps enjoying fresh caught grayling and the reprieve from the mosquitoes that campfire smoke provides. We had chosen a campsite on a gravel bar that afforded grayling fishing right in front of our tent and a nice sandy area behind the tent to relax and watch the fire. It rained hard later that night and most of the next day, so we decided to stay put. As evening approached, the water overtook the sandy area and drenched our fire. It was probably 11 p.m. (hard to tell the time when it is always light in the summer of interior Alaska) when we decided to pack up camp and get to higher ground – before the river overtook our tents. Time was of the essence; we packed up and stowed our tents, sleeping pads, portable crib, tarps, toilet, kitchen – and everything else we had strewn about for a “relaxing” time at camp – into the boats. Barry: Logs and clumps of tussocks floating by are red flags when on a river. For me it means monitoring sticks driven in at the high-water mark, double checking boats and their tie-offs, waiting 15-30 minutes, then doing it all again. At some point the decision needs to be made to “hold them or fold them.” We made the decision to fold with the river only a couple of feet from our tents. Rory: We got back into the boats to find a drier campsite than where we were. The good news is that there were plenty of places higher up among the spruce trees that provide safety from the 76 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

rising river. The bad news is that the mosquitoes love these areas among the spruce trees. We cut our losses with a decent location not too far down river. By midnight we were settled again.

RAPIDS AND OBSTACLES Barry: The next day we stopped to scout Birch Creek’s one big rapid – “Shotgun.” Much to my surprise, at the higher flow, the rapid was gone. I thought to myself, “This is a piece of cake,” when I got nary a splash paddling my new Alpaca Forager Packraft through Shotgun. The only other rapid I had noted on previous floats was a half mile downstream, usually an easy class II-plus. Now an immense hole dominated the middle of the river in this normally placid run, but there appeared to be a sneak skirting the hole on river left. I hit the run perfectly but found that a strong backflow from a huge downstream eddy surged down this line into the hole. It was all I could do to keep from being carried back into the hole. As I barely held a stationary position next to the hole, I noticed that the eddy surges would, for an instant, subside. Mustering all the strength I could during one of the lulls, I finally made it through. Rory: Luckily, Barry knows where the rapids are on this river. From upstream, it didn’t look like much. If we were on our own, we probably wouldn’t have pulled over. And when we stopped to scout the rapid, and I instantly regretted it. I felt like we were swimming through mosquitoes. Interior Alaska is known for its baseball-sized mosquitoes. Pushing the bugs away felt like pushing molasses away from your face. It was hard to see the trail through my head net and 8 billion giant mosquitoes. I could barely see the line that we chose. As we were scrambling back to our boats, I was wondering if we chose the right line. Maybe I should have suffered through the

Photo: Barry Whitehill

Barry: Floating free-flowing rivers provide an infinite number of experiences. No two float trips, even on the same river, are the same. Weather conditions play a big role. It is amazing how much the river character changes with a few inches difference in water level. And sometimes it is “careful what you wish for” when hoping for more water.

Photo: Barry just prior to flipping his packraft, by Rory O’Hanrahan

bugs a little longer to be safe? The kid was being eaten alive, and I didn’t know how many bug bites it takes to be life threatening to a kid under 1 year old. We hopped in the boats and went right through the rapids without a hitch. I was feeling like a pro. What a rookie mistake. Barry: I thought I was done with rapids. Complacency is a very dangerous thing. There was one more spot a little further downstream that was constricted by some large boulders. But all the previous times when I had floated through, there was hardly a ripple of concern. I didn’t have enough energy to walk down with Rory to scout it. He thought there might be a run past a lateral breaking wave if I could hug in tight to one of the boulders. That lateral almost spanned the entire river, with an odd angled breaking wave. I think the last time I had to swim was from the front of a 14-foot raft that went into the big wall at Hermit Rapid on the Colorado River at 22,000 CFS. Instant rejection. This flip happened just as quickly. In the fast current, I was flushed a quarter of a mile downstream before I could tow my boat to shore. Rory: We thought that there was one more rapid not far below the last one. There was a sketchy trail of wet rocks, so I left Barry, Amanda and Penelope at the head of the run and went scouting. The high flows made for some strange water. The river came down and made a big arcing right turn. At the same time, it made a wave pushing from left to right. Basically, you are at the mercy of the river as it pushes you right, but also tries to flip you over the right side of your boat. As Barry led the charge, we watched what looked like a slow-motion flip. He never stood a chance. It made me happy to be in a 14-foot self-bailer.

Around the next corner we hit an unexpected hole. The front end came up much higher than I wanted; one dog flew in the air, and Amanda held tightly onto the baby, while my heart stopped. We came back down, hair wet and eyes wide, but made it through. I now realized that I had no idea what was in store for the rest of the trip. It is times like these when you realize that you don’t actually know anything. Barry: Done with rapids, but not with obstacles. We came up on a small bull moose who took his sweet time moving out of midstream and two different cows with new twin calves. One cow was decent, never raising her hackles. The other put on quite a show. At least we didn’t have to battle her out of the boats, but for a moment I thought this might be another challenge.

CLIFFS Barry: I like cliffs. Here, on Birch Creek, the dry south facing cliffs hold remnants from the Pleistocene’s colder, drier time – like Artemisia (sage) species. They are also home to many cliff-nesting birds: ravens, cliff swallows, golden eagles and a healthy supply of peregrine falcons, who generally let you know when you are too close to their territory. Rory: When we reached the cliff section of the river, the trip really became enjoyable. The water level was dropping to ideal flows. The water clarity was increasing. The wildlife was everywhere. The sun was shining. Now this is when I love rafting. Camping on sandy beaches, we never wanted to leave. Fires near a river, margaritas and a good weather forecast really made us appreciate life. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 77

Photos: Barry Whitehill

PERMAFROST AND SLOW OXBOWS Barry: Slow meanders on a free-flowing river give a person lots of time to reflect; passing sheer cliffs of melting Pleistocene ice gives plenty to reflect on: intricate slurry patterns, sculpted melting ice, intense “barnyard” smells emanating from the melting permafrost. A mammoth might not be standing on the bank in front of you, but you can sure smell them! Rory: Watching the world change is something that I think you can appreciate – or at least understand – once you realize that you have very little control over anything. We heard the ice melting and chunks of earth falling into the river before we saw them. We pulled over to watch the permafrost melt. It made me reflect on how temporary our time is on this planet. Being out in the “middle of nowhere” is a term that you hear a lot. I really felt far away from everything but very connected to everything at the same time.

ABOVE THE RAPIDS AGAIN – LESSONS LEARNED Barry: All right, much of my judgement against taking dogs on river trips was based on taking my poorly trained hounds. Dogs do add their fine-tuned sense of smell to alerting us, like Finn did one night when something was passing in the dark. Taking children, even toddlers, forces even a seasoned outdoorsperson to 78 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

take a very different view of the landscape. You can’t just plop a child down on any gravel bar – the rocks either have to be too big to swallow or fine enough to just add grit to their diet. Finn and Lando are welcome anytime on my floats, as are the rest of the O’Hanrahan Clan. Rory: It would have been easier to stay home. It would have been easier to do it without a kid and two dogs. We didn’t get to see everything that was out there. We were watching the kid, the dogs, the rapids – and we saw a lot of the inside of our raft. That being said, when we did look up, we were amazed. From the skinny water at the top, which had me nervous that we would need a month to complete this trip, to the slow oxbows that made me know that our trip was coming to an end, we enjoyed it all. Having someone that knows the river was crucial. I learned things that will stick with me for the rest of my life. Along the way, we discussed our ability to access this river. It is a BLM wild and scenic river. It is public land and water. There is no entrance fee. All we had to do was show up and blow up. Barry is a valuable resource and an amazing advocate for BHA. I will always be thankful for the time he puts in to help others, and I look forward to our next wilderness float together. Rory O’Hanrahan is an emergency department nurse in Anchorage, Alaska, a BHA Alaska chapter board member, and he helps run the the chapter’s Instagram. Barry Whitehill is based in Fairbanks. He the vice chair of the Alaska chapter, has been a BHA member since 2005 and a remote Alaskan river floater for the past 30 years.

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WET SHOES

Photo courtesy Will Griffiths

BY WILLIAM GRIFFITHS “Just a little longer” echoed in my head as I watched a fishing pole that wasn’t mine, willing a fish to bite. I had seen salmon before, but I had never caught one – never had a chance to either. I didn’t know why I wanted to catch one so fiercely. I wasn’t hungry; I didn’t need to catch a fish for food. But the idea of the connection to something bigger, in some way, pulled at me. The pool under the bridge was mysterious; the bedrock gaped open, creating an abrupt drop-off and the allure of an unseen depth. The boiling currents offered glimpses further into the hole, and my eyes moved to the large rocks in the tailout. I stood, staring into the unknown, many times on this bridge overlooking the Salmon River, imagination run wild. To get to the Salmon we had driven west, away from the high desert of Central Oregon and toward the coast for the weekend. As my mom’s red Euro van made the descent over Santiam Pass, my brother Ryan and I noticed a shift in the air. Thick, moistureladen clouds obscured the mountaintops, and the comforting squeeze of the compressed horizon calmed us. Before the trip my mom had bought me a new pair of shoes, the ones that light up with every step. I had quickly destroyed the

previous pair in a series of puddles, rivers and rocks. It had been awhile since that happened, so I was allowed another chance. As we passed through the urban sprawls on the way to the ocean, I stomped my feet to watch the red flashing lights on the soles of my shoes dance across the floor. They were black on top with red plastic slashes, as macho as you can get for a 6 year old. Mom turned around to remind me that I would wear them out if I used them too much, with Dad adding something like, “Listen to your mother.” Looking back, they balanced each other well as parents. My dad was more likely to say no to unwarranted requests but eager for a well-researched argument or observation. Mom, more easygoing with perceived needs, supported us with the type of love that could melt a snowball in February. Ryan and I knew our boundaries with them, both when they were together and when we had them to ourselves. Dad was driving. He liked to drive and still does. Mom was knitting socks for a Christmas gift, even though it was only September. We were getting close; the temperate forests of the Pacific Northwest surrounded us, bringing my thoughts closer to the ocean, the sand and the salmon. My shoes, and probably Ryan, had taken a beating by the SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 81

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Photos courtesy Will Griffiths

time we saw the Salmon, and patience stretched thin in the car. It appeared to be a slow morning, but the anglers here below Fortunately, we were almost to the hatchery, the road now wet the bridge knew they were down there; we all pictured the dark with a light rain. We made the familiar turns, getting a glimpse of streamlined bodies sitting at the bottom, returning to their home the small river as we crossed a bridge spanning the Salmon River. after years in the vast Pacific. Though I hoped to see one of these Ryan and I strained against the seatbelts to get a better look. I large salmon, I knew that the fish weren’t there for us. They had think I strained the hardest. their own purpose, one that I could not know, and I was OK with We parked next to the “Salmon River Fish Hatchery” sign that. and burst out of the car, sprinting to the concrete pens where I wasn’t sure how long ago Dad had left me. I didn’t have any the returning Chinook were found beating their heads against sense of time when I was near a river and, as a 6 year old, I didn’t a wooden board in a vain attempt to gain have the slightest care. I stood near the passage. My dad, a recently retired middle water and concentrated my gaze on the These fish, there under school science teacher, explained the unattended fishing pole in front of me. I salmons’ migration and life cycle to us. the bridge, were wild. And second-guessed myself at the pole’s first Ryan and I knew that, at The magical transformation of the salmon, twitch – the slightest movement that the from a tiny egg to the massive adults we owner of the pole didn’t notice as he talked some level, we wanted saw below us. He told us of the epic cycle to his friend a few paces away. My whole to be wild too. of ocean and rivers, of life and death, and body tensed, my young, developing mind of the importance of the fish for the whole spinning its wheels. The pole sat on the ecosystem. But as we watched the giant dark backs swim anxiously edge of the pool’s precipice. But between the rod and me was in the imprisoned water below, we felt something deep inside us a puddle – not massive, but large enough that my shoes would that whispered something was wrong. likely not make the journey through it. After a quick dash to pay our respects to the river, Ryan and The rod twitched again. My voice was lodged in my throat, I hopped back in the car, eager to see the fishermen upstream. unable to yell at the pole’s owner and unsure of my place to do so. We headed up the road and our eyes widened as we saw how Then it sprang to life, this time not pausing at it headed towards many cars were parked at the bridge. We were excited because we its watery grave. My mind reached a crescendo at that moment, knew the deep pool under the bridge had fish not destined for a the urge to grab the pole and save the day versus the thought of concrete pen. These fish, there under the bridge, were wild. And my light-up shoes meeting their fate. Ryan and I knew that, at some level, we wanted to be wild too. I was too slow. The pole was dragged into the pool, vanishing We parked on the left side the bridge, and I walked calmly across into the green water. My eyes met the pole’s owner, and they with Dad. We paused for a moment above the river, and I analyzed searched mine for an answer as to why I didn’t do something. the congregation of fisherman, all waiting patiently for their lines Lacking a good one, I walked up the embankment and went back to come tight and to feel the power of the Northwest’s king. I to the car where my family was waiting. wished I could spend my days there with them, to commune with This memory is my first regret. And even on that day I felt a the river and ply for the creatures that dwelled in it. change in my brain’s chemistry as I played the moment over and On the other side of the bridge we scrambled down the muddy over in my head. I guess it is no surprise that I now have shoes embankment. I was careful to avoid dirtying my new shoes or, that I wear as often as I can, called wading boots, designed to get more accurately, tried to escape the stern look and frustration of wet. my mother if she saw my shoes muddy and soiled. After a few BHA member William Griffiths is a student of rivers and a fishing minutes, I was told it was time to go. guide on the Upper Madison. He is completing work on a book “Just a little longer,” I pleaded. “Five minutes,” Dad said, and walked back to the car. Although that will communicate the impacts of climate change on salmonid only a short distance separated us, and I was in an easy line of ecosystems in the American West, and he’s caught a couple salmon since that day under the bridge. sight, I had my freedom.

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Fangs, and the Damage Done we were just admiring and photographing sank his fangs in my right hand. Timber rattlesnake venom is considered a hemotoxin, which Cloudy skies, misty, thick air that seems to stick to your skin – not an ideal day to go looking for timber rattlesnakes, though we destroys tissue in order to aid in the process of digestion of the did anyway. We found what we were looking for: a 50-inch black snake’s prey. When a snake ingests its prey, there is a lack of phase rattlesnake. As still as the skies before a storm, he sat on a enzymes to break down the meal, which is why the venom comes moss-covered log with the bloom of mountain laurel juxtaposing in handy, starting the digestion process from the inside out. A wild timber rattlesnake will mainly with his freshly shed skin. We’d Once bitten, graced by ignorance, subsist on the mice, squirrels, all managed to walk by without I remained calm with little chipmunks and birds typical among catching a glimpse, and this would low vegetation such as huckleberry, have been the end of the story until knowledge of the severity of the blueberry and mountain laurel. we heard, “Whoa, hold up, look at situation that had just begun. Due to the dangerous nature of this guy,” from the back of the pack. their venom, and their protected We admire the rattlesnake and take several photos. Using snake tongs, we bring him oﬀ his perch status, handling a snake is not just discouraged; it’s illegal without and into the pipeline grass where we can more safely handle the the possession of a venomous snake permit from the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission. We had one, but little good it did snake. We notice the snake has a dozen porcupine quills approximately me that day. I was rattlesnake hunting with a group of guys who had been two-thirds of the way down his body and joke about how harmoniously that interaction must have gone. As one of the guys participating in the Cross Fork rattlesnake roundup for more begins to lower the snake into the bucket with a screw-on lid, than a decade. I couldn’t pass up a weekend at camp where the which we use for safe transport of the snake from the location backyard was a trout stream, and the days were spent hiking and it is found to the rattlesnake roundup held in Cross Fork, hunting for a rattlesnake in hopes to win the roundup. Pennsylvaina, he strikes. In a fraction of a second, the creature Once bitten, graced by ignorance, I remain calm with little

Photo courtesy Cooper Ferko

BY COOPER FERKO

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86 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

Photo courtesy Cooper Ferko

knowledge of the severity of the situation that had just begun. I start the 1.25-mile trek back to the truck. The swelling started almost instantaneously at the location of the bite. In the remote Hammersley Wild Area, cell service is nonexistent, meaning help coming to us was off the table; so we walked. The ground was soft and swampy, sucking my foot through the mossy surface ankle deep with each step. The venom was beginning to show its presence with a strong metallic taste and the inability to move my mouth to the point that a swig of water would make its way right back out of my mouth and onto my chest. My speech was slurred far worse than that of the patrons leaving the local watering hole at closing time. We arrive at the truck as drowsiness and nausea take hold. I climb into the backseat of my dad’s truck, my dad in the passenger seat and Cross Fork local Mike Stone behind the wheel, as he could have driven the backroads blindfolded. Mike had spent the last 30 years of his life in the state forestry industry, a man I always had many wildlife and forestry questions for and who always had the answers. I continue asking questions but also seek comfort in my unawareness of what is to come. After the half hour ride and a back-and-forth battle between fighting consciousness and profusely vomiting, I arrive at Bucktail Medical Center in Renovo. A man rolls a wheelchair toward the back door, and I notify him and the guys I was with that I was unable to move my body enough to get out of the truck on my own; whether it was that the venom had sucked all the energy out of me as it was trying to shut down my body or a paralysis type effect, I have yet to figure out. As soon as I get wheeled through that automatic door, another spell of vomiting takes place onto the hospital floor. I promptly apologize and get a look of apology accepted in return. Four vials of antivenom are quickly administered. Antivenom is made by injecting a small dose of rattlesnake venom into an animal – typically a sheep, horse or goat. The animal is injected numerous times over a few weeks. After a few months, the animal’s body has created a significant number of antibodies. A copious amount of blood is donated by the animal, and the antibodies are then removed – creating the life-saving serum. The antivenom does not reverse the effects of a snake’s venom, but it does smother it and slow the damage. With enough antibodies, the harm of the venom is stopped. The nausea and struggle to stay conscious seemed to fade as the antivenom ran through me, but the pain then took grip like a falcon’s talons onto a field mouse. Desperate for relief from the pain, I am refused medication as the doctor explains that my heart rate is so slow that pain medication could cause it to stop entirely. I’m quickly back out the doors of Bucktail; no, not in a recovered state, but headed for a life flight, as I need more antivenom, and Bucktail gave me their entire inventory. The ambulance is rerouted on three different occasions by virtue of a severe thunderstorm, preventing the helicopter from landing safely. I finally board the flight at Williamsport Regional Airport and am en route to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pennsylvania. On the flight they are able to better stabilize me and graciously give me a hefty dose of pain medications, followed by an explanation of how pain medication, no matter the strength, will not take away the pain I’m feeling – which is being caused by compartment syndrome and essentially had my hand and arm

blown up to the point that it felt like it should explode. We arrive at Geisinger, where I’ll spend the next 10 days. In the pre-operation room I wait to undergo a fasciotomy, to relieve the pain and swelling, which is up to my shoulder. My hand is so blown up, my fingers were fully spread and still touching, unable to perform the slightest bend. Imagine a balloon, one breathe away from bursting, but that balloon being my right extremity. Small cuts on my hand were beginning to split apart. On my way to the operation room, I look forward to the anesthesia knocking me out, giving me a break from the pain. I wake up, somewhat disoriented, and quickly notice the pain seems to have completely vanished. My family walks toward me with big smiles; for a second, I wonder “am I alive right now?” I am alive, and the surgery relieved the pressure in my arm, which was the culprit of the pain. My family, well, they were just so damn happy to see me, they couldn’t help but smile. Ten days later, I am discharged directly from the ICU, where I had received constant care from the selfless nurses, who put smiles on my face; from doctors, who knelt down and said prayers beside me when the slopes seemed steepest; and family and friends, who were the greatest of company when it was needed most. Through hypotension, hypertension, acute renal failure, along with rhabdomyolysis (muscle tissue breakdown, resulting in the release of a kidney damaging protein), platelet counts less than 3,000, a swollen sack, four times walking around size, allergic reactions, 18 doses of antivenom, three surgeries and many laughs and a few tears – I’m left with an experience that reminds me of the fragility of life, expanding my focus on living each day with gravity and never taking an opportunity for granted. In the moment it never hit that this could have gone south; retrospectively the weight of the situation seems heavier. And when there is no choice but to play the game with the hand you’ve been dealt, you’ll play it with grace. And if you don’t, you’ll have to pay up. Cooper Ferko is a BHA member living in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where he enjoys bowhunting for whitetail, fly fishing for trout and photographing wildlife.

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SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 87 Explore our full line of products at www.BFGoodrichTires.com.

BETTER THAN A Cup of Coffee or a Reality TV Show BY KIP KRUGER As conservationists, we’re happy to put boots on the ground to clean up or improve the habitat in our favorite outdoor spaces. We’re willing to make a call or send an email to our legislators in an effort to convey how important our public lands, waters and wildlife are to us all. And we’re willing to pony up money to help our favorite conservation groups succeed. We do these things because it makes us feel good about giving back to the places we love and because it’s necessary to protect them for future generations. But what if we could consistently do more? On a Zoom call for BHA life members this winter, BHA Innovative Alliances Director Rachel Schmidt was talking about “Project Aspen,” a new self-sustaining addition to BHA’s diversified funding, which will ensure BHA will always be there on behalf of our public lands, waters and wildlife. As she described the funding and donation goals of the project, I sat listening from my home office in Arkansas and did some quick math in my head: If every BHA member would donate just a couple of extra bucks each month, Project Aspen would reach the matching fund goal in no time at all. So I decided to open my big fat mouth with my brilliantly hatched idea. I have been hunting and fishing in the Natural State since I was a wee lad. I have been a license holder since I was 12. Not understanding how conservation and conservation funding worked, I only begrudgingly parted ways with the money needed for licenses and stamps as a poor college kid. But when I started understanding where that money went, and how I helped conservation with every dollar spent, I began to buy more licenses and stamps. Today, I buy every license, stamp and permit that the state offers through our game and fish commission. I know that 88 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SUMMER 2022

I won’t need or use a lot of what I purchase, but I feel like I am contributing to the cause. It is an act of philanthropy that I can really get behind, and one that works for my pocket book, which is exactly what each of us can also do for BHA – enter monthly giving. Last year I chose to become a life member of BHA, both because it is the conservation group I feel most passionately about and because I got a sweet Traeger grill as my gift for becoming a life member. Not everyone is in a position to become a life member, and it was a sizable chunk of my hunting expenses for the year, but I really wanted to do it. But I didn’t just want to become a life member and be done; I wanted to continue to give in a way that fit my budget. On that life member Zoom, I realized how I could make that happen. Monthly giving really fit the ticket. I’m not really a Starbucks guy, but I do occasionally visit our local coffee shop. I realized that for the price of a cup of coffee, I could give every month to BHA just like I do every year with my state fish and game agency. And that’s what monthly giving is all about. Every dollar counts, and it adds up quickly for the organization. Monthly giving is sustaining support that BHA will use to fight the good fight now and well into the future. On top of that, we can feel good about the money we are spending. The monthly giving program gives us conservationists a tool to both stay within own budget and be philanthropic with our money and our time. And you don’t have to be a life member to sustain the work we do; anyone who wants to contribute can. Think of it like this: Every month most of us pay for monthly streaming services, cell phones, filling our gas tanks and grabbing a bite to eat at our favorite restaurant without blinking an eye. The money comes out of our account, and we calculate these expenses as reasonable parts of our budget. Let monthly giving, in whatever amount works for you, be the same; heck, it might even be the little encouragement and reminder you need each month to spend more time in the places that don’t get cell service. And that’s better than a fancy coffee or the latest episode of whatever reality show is trending. Your Friendly Ozark Hillbilly, Kip Kruger Kip Kruger is the legislative affairs chair for the Arkansas chapter of BHA. A native of The Natural State, he spends his fall chasing bears, squirrels and whitetails in the hills of the Ozarks. He fell in love with public land guiding in the Boundary Waters and chasing whitewater all around the country. You, too, can set up monthly donations at backcountryhunters.org/donate

Photo: istock/unalozmen

OPINION

DONATE TO INVEST in the future of your public lands, waters and wildlife CAMPFIRE CIRCLE

The Campfire Circle is a group of dedicated advocates, like you, who choose to donate $1,000 or more per year to ensure that BHA’s campaigns, advocacy and on the ground efforts on behalf of our wild public lands, waters and wildlife are sustained. Support from the Campfire Circle (formerly known as Legacy Partners) is crucial to the mission of BHA. Michael Abell Charles Allore David Alpert Adam Arnold Louis Bahin Carl Besetzny David Brown Ryan Busse Scott Callaghan Jennifer Campbell Tom Carney Kenton Carruth Wally Chapman Dave Cline Patrick Condon David Cornet Christopher Davis Todd DeBonis Jeffrey Patrick Dennis Dan Edwards

Scott Engelstad Sarah Foreman John & Tara Gale Steven & Debbie Gale Cristian & Kelly Goss Stephen Graf Jordan Gross Robert Gustin James Harrington Chris Hennessey Nate Hollingsworth Alex Howe Jeffrey Jones Edward Jones Thomas Jorgensen Richard Kacin Max Kerr Colton & Maria King Ted Koch Kai Lampson

Jean Latenser Guy Litt Matt Little Matthew Logue Peter Lupsha Thomas Lynch Jody Marler Stephen Mason Mark Mattaini George McCloskey Tom McGraw Joe McMahon Andrew Miller Michael Murphy David Neiman Robin Tawney Nichols Sean O’Kelly Douglas A. Okland John C. Oliver Samantha Pedder

Lee Perry Matthew Petersen Natalie Petersen Scott Petty Scott Phelan Wilson Potterville Rick Potts Christopher Proper William Rahr Oscar Ramos Adam Ratner John Reese Jesse Riggleman Logan Riggs Rachel Schmidt Mike Schmitt Ryan Sewell Brian Smith Mathew Smith Archimedes Stuk

Kay Sullivan Andrew Sullivan Land Tawney Jeff Taylor Kent & Laurie Thomas Mark Thompson Russell Traurig Lynda Tucker Karl Van Calcar Nathan Voris John Webster James Westfall Barry Whitehill Adam Whitney Christopher Wittkopf Eric Wolfe Tom Wright J.R. Young

PROJECT ASPEN

Our shared lands, our responsibility. We are working to diversify our funding sources to ensure that BHA will always be working on behalf of our wild public lands, waters and wildlife – for generations to come – by establishing a $1 million endowment. This investment will grow and become a perpetual funding stream that exists to support the future needs of our organization, regardless of any unpredictable challenges beyond our influence. Give today to form the root structure that will sustain BHA for many years to come.

LEGACY GIVING

Including Backcountry Hunters & Anglers in your plans for the future will create a long-lasting impact for our wild public lands, waters and wildlife. Your commitment to BHA will allow the next generation of conservation leaders to continue our work as part of your legacy. Including BHA in your will, trust, retirement account or life insurance policy is one of the easiest and quickest ways to support the future.

ONE-TIME OR MONTHLY DONATIONS

You can choose to make one donation at a time or become a sustaining donor and make monthly donations. All donations are fully tax-deductible and go toward securing the future of hunting and angling – ensuring that you have access to public lands and waters and healthy fish and wildlife habitat when you get there.

OTHER WAYS TO GIVE

AmazonSmile – to support BHA through your everyday Amazon purchases, visit AmazonSmile and register BHA as your preferred nonprofit. Please contact BHA Director of Innovative Alliances Rachel Schmidt at schmidt@backcountryhunters.org or visit backcountryhunters.org/donate for more information. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 89

BEYOND FAIR CHASE

IN OR OUT OF THE FISHBOWL?

Perspectives on Traditional Hunting Methods

Photo: istock/SolidMaks

BY RON ROHRBAUGH I have been hunting almost exclusively with traditional archery tackle for more than 25 years and have used longbows and recurves to kill more than 50 big game animals, ranging from feral hogs to greater kudu. In addition, I grew up hunting with Pennsylvania-style flintlock rifles and still use a “smokepole” for the occasional late-season whitetail hunt. I don’t spout those statistics to brag but to simply establish my credibility in discussing the ethics and effectiveness of traditional hunting methods. In this article, we’ll explore the implications of using primitive or traditional tackle when modern alternatives are available and examine the notions of fair chase and ethics related to traditional hunting methods. While there is room for debate, for the sake of brevity, let’s define traditional tackle as single-string bows, such as recurves and longbows with no mechanics to reduce draw weight, and open-sighted muzzleloading rifles with flintlock or cap-style ignition systems. With each step backward in technology, we lose some advantage, which makes the act of taking an animal more difficult. The biggest of these advantages to disappear is accuracy. Diminished accuracy means that hunters must reduce their effective shooting distances. For example, with a traditional bow, I limit my shots to under 20 yards in forested habitats and under 30 yards in more open environments, while many compound archers readily shoot out to 60 yards. Similar shooting limitations apply to traditional muzzleloaders. While a scoped .30-06 is lethal out to 300 yards and beyond, an open-sighted flintlock is most effective inside of 75 yards. So with this understanding of traditional hunting implements and their limitations, what additional obligations do hunters have regarding fair chase and ethics? Fair chase is about ensuring that game animals have every opportunity to escape a hunter’s pursuit and that hunters don’t possess unfair advantages. Under this definition, it’s easy to argue that traditional hunting methods, with their inherent limitations, offer a higher degree of fair chase than more modern methods. Put more simply, the probability that a targeted animal will escape the traditional hunter is many times greater than if a hunter is using a modern approach. Given this, I feel confident in saying that traditional forms of hunting exceed the typical expectations for fair chase. Getting your hands around the issue of fair chase and traditional hunting styles is a bit like picking up a box turtle – with ethics, it’s like unhooking a freshly caught eel. We could spend multiple pages dancing around the notion of ethics, but let’s not skirt around the

issue. The question of ethics and traditional hunting rests squarely on our concern for individual animals. As a wildlife scientist, I usually think about populations of animals and how a particular environmental threat or change will impact that population. But, in this conversation, we must confront the needs of individual animals and minimizing any suffering they might experience. Specifically, any unnecessary suffering potentially induced by our choice to use traditional and perhaps “inferior” methods when alternatives are available. There is risk of wounding in every hunting situation. As hunters, we are obligated to manage that risk to the best of our ability. Hunters who choose traditional muzzleloaders or bows must invest time and research in becoming proficient with their tools of choice to reduce the risk of poorly placed shots. This investment often means long hours of practice and tuning when you’d rather be trout fishing. The time commitment doesn’t stop there. Being successful with traditional gear involves getting very close to your quarry, which requires pre-season scouting and uncommonly good knowledge of animal ecology and behavior. Practicing to manage wounding risk is not limited to traditional bows and muzzleloaders. I would argue that the probability of wounding an elk with a .270 at 300 yards isn’t much different than with a recurve bow at 20 yards. Both shots, if well executed and placed, will cleanly kill an elk, but the shooter needs to be capable of doing their part. The bottom line: “weekend warriors” and traditional gear don’t mix! Being practiced, prepared and proficient is our absolute obligation! All that said, there remains a philosophical angle to the ethics question that we have yet to explore: As hunters, how do we see ourselves amid the natural world? When observed from “outside the fishbowl,” it’s easy to judge nature as anthropocentrically chaotic, violent and cruel. But, if we view ourselves as part of nature, swimming with the fish in the bowl, the natural world comes into sharper focus, allowing us to see that everything is shaped by life and death. Using traditional hunting methods helps to put us right in the middle of the bowl. By any standard, regulated human hunting, including with traditional techniques, pales in comparison to the natural suffering and death experienced by thousands, or millions, or even billions of individual animals every day. Does this argument give us carte blanche to be careless, dispassionate hunters concerned with only ourselves? Absolutely not! It simply offers another perspective from which to view ourselves, the wildlife we love and modern culture. It’s important to remember that hunting isn’t some magic thing that we just invented. It’s an indispensable, primordial behavior, evolved first to transfer energy from one animal to another and then as a ritual act. Hunting belongs in the fishbowl, and so do we. BHA member Ron Rohrbaugh is a professional wildlife biologist, author/freelance writer and hunter-conservationist. He is the author of more than 50 feature articles in various hunting/outdoor magazines, the Living Wild with the Orions book series, and A Traditional Bowhunter’s Path. Ron lives with his wife Debbie and two young children in a log cabin on the Allegheny Front in north-central Pennsylvania.

This department is brought to you by Orion - The Hunter’s Institute, a nonprofit and BHA partner dedicated to advancing hunting ethics and wildlife conservation.

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FIELD TO TABLE

SPICY CURRIED WALLEYE SERVINGS: 4 PREP TIME: 5 MINUTES COOKING TIME: 15 MINUTES

BY JENNY NGUYEN-WHEATLEY Fish, curry and rice go well together, and it’s a quick and easy meal to make. It’s also a nice break from all the fried fish, which seems to be all anyone ever does with walleye. Embarrassingly, this recipe was inspired by a Trader Joe’s frozen dinner: the korma fish curry, which made me realize that fish and curry can make a good pairing. While korma is an Indian-style curry, I decided to take the Thai route for this recipe. Either way, with pre-made curry sauces and pastes available to buy, curry and fish make a quick and easy meal. I am a big fan of Mae Ploy’s curry pastes, which are widely available, easy to use and delicious. The coconut milk helps round out the spiciness. You can use just about any fish for this recipe. I decided on walleye, which is probably the most sought-after fish in Nebraska. People love it for its white, mild-tasting flesh. I think its mildness lends itself well to heavy doses of flavor, like curry. Walleye can be delicate and doesn’t do well with heavy handling, so I suggest preparing this dish with skin-on fillets, so they don’t break up while simmering and serving. BHA member Jenny Nguyen-Wheatley is a hunter, writer and editor in Omaha, Nebraska. In addition to her role as full-time associate editor at Nebraskaland Magazine, she runs the wild game cooking blog Food for Hunters and is a regular contributor to BHA’s Field to Table blog.

INGREDIENTS 4 walleye fillets 2 tbsp of Mae Ploy Panang Curry Paste 1 1/2 cups coconut milk 1/4-1/2 cup of water 1 tbsp of olive oil, plus extra Chopped chives or cilantro for garnish Freshly cracked pepper Cooked jasmine rice INSTRUCTIONS Rinse fish under cold water, pat dry with paper towels and set aside. Heat oil in a pan, add curry paste and sauté for 1 minute over medium heat. Shake the coconut milk can before adding it to the pan. Stir until well combined with the curry. Then stir in water – you want the mixture thick but thin enough that it won’t scorch while simmering. Bring to a simmer and add fish skin-side down. Cover the pan and simmer on low until fish is cooked through, about 7-10 minutes. Season fish to taste. Depending on how much curry paste you’ve added, you may not need to add anything. Transfer fish and sauce to a serving dish(es). Drizzle with a bit of oil and garnish with chopped chives or cilantro. Serve fish and curry with white rice. SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 93

USE CODE BHA FOR 20% OFF TO SUPPORT BACKCOUNTRY HUNTERS AND ANGLERS AND THEIR MISSION * *Code valid on new membership purchases made at onxmaps.com A portion of all proceeds using code BHA goes to support Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and their mission.

END OF THE LINE

Of Boys and Swamps

Mayfly graphic: istock/ anton_novik

Between reading stories of adventure from many of you, BHA members, I’ve been chipping away at Of Men and Mountains by William O. Douglas. Douglas grew up near Yakima, Washington, and roamed from the foothills to the peaks of the central Cascades. This was a time before the Columbia (or Snake) was dammed. A time when Chinook spawned in the high tributaries of the Columbia, under the shadows of the great volcanic peaks: Rainier, St. Helens and Adams. “I learned early that the richness in life is found in adventure,” Douglas said. He ate cutthroat and berries high in the alpine. He huddled under a tarp, fighting back the Northwest’s driving rain and hypothermia. He speared salmon with Native Americans. He got lost. Douglas went on to become the U.S. Supreme Court’s longest serving justice and an advocate for wilderness. He was by all accounts a person of the backcountry who had made it to the nation’s highest court. A lover of wild places, it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t also have been a BHA member.

As a teenager growing up Michigan, I didn’t so much roam mountains, like Douglas, as I did swamps. This issue of Backcountry Journal will drop right around peak time for the famous hatch of Hexagenia mayflies on the swampy, black-muck streams of the northern Lower Peninsula. As soon as we were old enough to drive, rather than partying, my friends and I were making nightly voyages to what we simply referred to as “The Swamp.” From the first warm, muggy days of June until the Fourth of July, we became creatures of the night. The routine was something like this: Sleep through class each of the last few days of the school year; scrounge together $20 for gas and gas-station hotdogs; drive several hours north; sit anxiously awaiting dark and the emergence of the giant bugs and the rising of presumably giant trout; fish until the wee hours of the morning; drive several hours home; repeat. Only work and our most often but not always understanding parents could stand in our way. By Western standards, The Swamp was tiny; onXmaps wouldn’t register any purple roadless layers, for sure. But to us it was wild. We encountered our first bear there. We heard noises we couldn’t Many years ago, BHA member Mike Palmisano and I stare to the sky, wondering will the big bugs show? Photo: Adam Fox.

explain. We got lost. Our childhood fears of the dark were realized. On a night when work kept me behind, my two closest friends claim to have been stalked by something akin to Bigfoot – the night ending with a mad dash for their car. It takes a lot for teenage boys to admit their fears, but I awoke at 3 a.m. to a phone call from my legitimately terrified friends. They were so scared they didn’t return to The Swamp that year. Their encounter fresh on my mind, I did return, only to have my own, Bigfoot-less but terrifying, experience when my headlamp died on a moonless night. My Lab, who I’d later lead through blindness, led me, blind, clutching his collar, through the swamp and back to the truck, as deer, raccoons and who knows what else crashed through the night. And we caught fish. Fish that validated us (in our own minds and little more) as anglers. Memorable fish. My teen years passed into college and adulthood in that swamp. Friends left for college, then careers. I stayed, to borrow from Norman Maclean, “unwilling to leave the fish [I’d] not yet caught.” But the years changed the swamp. Word was out. The angling traffic grew; the wild faded. My final summer in Michigan, I only made the midnight dash once. And, disgusted by the line of cars on the nameless dirt two-track, I left without making a cast. My mind was pointing west.

Several summers later I first set foot in Washington’s William O. Douglas Wilderness – its namesake’s childhood stomping grounds. I climbed the same trails he once had, camped along the same lakes. Later that fall, that wilderness was the setting of my first elk hunt. I slept under a tarp, drenched by several days of torrential rain, as Douglas had done time and time again. But elk bugles serenaded through the hills, and I was hooked. I’d found my new wild. And it’s an old wild that still remains because folks like Douglas had fought for it. -Zack Williams, editor SUMMER 2022 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 95

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