December 31, 2009
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Sure, I want to be in better shape, a more thoughtful spouse, and in better touch with old friends, but my resolutions on this New Year’s Eve shade more toward the achievable.
Because I’m a hunter, I’m interested in both the journey and the outcome. I love where I’ve been, but I’m mighty curious about where I’m going, and in 2010 I hope to be going both far and staying near.
It’s both the curse and the blessing of all hunters that we are never quite finished. There is always another region to explore, another animal to study and pursue, another skill to acquire. So, in the spirit of self-improvement, here are a few simple goals and resolutions for a new year of hunting:
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December 30, 2009
by One of the most heart-warming stories I’ve encountered this season revolves around the intersection of two of our favorite populations: volunteer warriors and prospective hunters.
In the stifling heat of the Kuwaiti desert, an impromptu Hunter Education class convenes under the guidance of a Wyoming game warden.
The story comes from an unlikely source, Wyoming Game and Fish’s weekly news digest. I can’t top this dispatch from my buddy Jeff Obrecht in the department’s Cheyenne headquarters:
[ Read Full Post ]December 21, 2009
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I butcher my own meat, because I want to know it was cared for as carefully on the way to the freezer as it was in the field.
But at the end of every butchering session, I’m left with a carcass of bones and an empty hide. Normally I’ll take a drive out into the prairie and dump the carcass in a remote wash, a little gift for the coyotes and other scavengers.
[ Read Full Post ]December 17, 2009
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When Raymond Goebel, Jr. spotted a tan-colored animal slinking through the eastern Iowa woods, he naturally thought it was a deer.
Goebel was deer hunting, after all, and the woods around Marengo, southwest of Cedar Rapids, are full of whitetails. But when he pulled up his rifle and looked through his scope, he spied an animal that is making a slow but sure comeback from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains. It was a mountain lion.
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