I admit to experiencing ground shrinkage – this was certainly not the size of bear I thought it was – but, I ask myself: “If I had known the true size of this bear, would I still have shot it?” To which I can answer every time, “Yes, without question.”

My 2012 bear.

In answering that question with confidence, I can be assured that in my particular case, ground shrinkage doesn’t matter. I’m not a trophy hunter. I never have been, and probably never will be. I feel a certain amount of guilt when I’m hunting while my wife chases two young kids all day at home after having been doing that all week. I’m usually trying to satisfy my craving for a hunt while maintaining an awareness of my wife’s point of view. As our children advance in age and we’re able to hunt as a family, that won’t be such a big deal anymore, but I imagine I’ll still be a meat-first hunter. I admire the families of trophy hunters and I admire trophy hunters to a certain degree, as well. It takes discipline to pass on animals not knowing if you’ll see another one – let alone a larger one. And, it takes a very understanding family to take care of the home front while a hunter passes on legal animals. It’s not for me at this point in my life.

A young buck I shot in 2010 near my house.

One theory for the difference in hunting styles is that I love the taste of wild game so much I cannot stand the thought of going a year without. But, I imagine that there are plenty of trophy hunters that love wild game just as much as I. Another way I like to think about it is that I’m simply hunting the way my predatory instincts tell me to hunt. When is the last time you’ve heard of a wolf letting an animal go because it was too small? I’m not really sure what separates the hunting styles, but I know that it doesn’t really matter. The world needs both types. Trophy hunters and meat-first hunters strike a balance. If everyone was a meat-first hunter, the laws would be so restricted and the game so few that none of us would likely be doing much hunting. If everyone was a trophy hunter, the game would be too prolific. It takes both kinds.

I realize I’ve been wandering, now. Let me try and get back on task – ground shrinkage is supposed to be a disappointing experience. Yet, I experienced it this past weekend, and I argue that I felt no disappointment except that I’d be getting a little less meat than if I’d shot an older and larger bear. Trophy hunting isn’t for everyone, just as meat-first hunting isn’t for everyone. I don’t know why this is so difficult to understand or accept, but I will continue to tell my bear story without remorse. And I’ll continue to eat on that bear, one delicious bite at a time.

Three hours later, I was staring at the moment of truth – a bear at 180 yards through my scope.  This was a nearly identical shot that I’d missed three times a week earlier – only this time I was shooting uphill rather than downhill.  And this time, I calmed myself enough to get a perfect setup – a solid rest off my pack, a prone shooting position, and steady nerves to wait for the perfect broadside shot.  This has not been a strong suit of mine, so I did come away from the experience feeling a bit of pride.  The shot was true and took the bear through the heart.  One way of looking at that is that I made a great shot – another way to look at it is that I was only about two inches from missing that bear!  Seriously, every time I skin a bear, I am surprised at how small their carcass is when you take away the hide.

So, I’ve experienced a bit of redemption, but more importantly I’ve experienced the thrill of filling my tag and the satisfaction of filling my freezer.

My mother volunteered to watch the kids this past weekend, so my wife was able to tag along on this trip.  The last time I took my wife bear hunting with me, I ended up calling in a bear and shooting it at about 120 yards.  That was two years ago, and it was the last time I confidently took a shot with my rifle, knowing the end result before I ever pulled the trigger.  I’m much more comfortable with a bow than I am a rifle, and these days when I pull the trigger on a rifle I know the end result, too, but unfortunately that has a very different meaning, now.

This past Saturday I elected to hike down in the bottom of the creek drainage instead of up on the ridge.  The creek bottom isn’t as thick as I expected, and there was a surprising amount of grass growing down in the timber.

At about 10 in the morning, we decided to hike back out of the creek bottom, but only because I knew of a vantage point on the ridge that would overlook a very nice meadow down in the timber.  So we began to climb the ridge and about half way up ran into bear scat.  A couple piles about two or three days old, but that doubled the amount of sign I saw the week before.  We continued up the ridge and I noticed Shanna was beginning to lag behind.  I turned around to see how she was doing and she motioned that she was ready for a cookie break.  I pointed to the knoll I wanted to get to and motioned that we could stop for a cookie at that point.  I then proceeded up to said knoll.  As I reached that point, I slung my pack off my shoulders and in the swinging motion I used to dump the pack my eyes drifted down the other side of the ridge and I immediately spotted a bear.  My pack hit the ground and I whipped up my binoculars to verify that my eyes weren’t deceiving me – they weren’t.  I was looking at a nice cinnamon colored bear.

I waved to get Shanna’s attention, and then slid down into shooting position.  I thought the bear looked a long ways off, so I ranged the distance to be sure – 250 yards.  It looked further to me, so I decided we could probably get closer.  We snuck down the ridge and I got into position, again.  Another check on the rangefinder told me it was 200 yards.  It still looked further to me, but I finally decided the rangefinder had no motive for lying to me.  I snuggled up with the rifle – but I knew I wasn’t going to hit this bear.  Not where he was and with my shaky shooting skills.  The bear was in a small clearing on the edge of the brush and timber.  I pulled the trigger – and knew I missed.  The miss must have been by a wide margin as the bear simply put its head in the air and looked around.  I shot again, this time I believe I hit a branch directly in front of the bear because a cloud of dust exploded right in front of the bruin and the bear took off into the brush.  I was upset with myself and proceeded to mope to my wife.  Shanna eventually explained to me that she still wanted a cookie.  So, we finally got our cookie break and while we were finishing up, Shanna hissed at me, “There’s the bear again!”  Sure enough, the bear had wandered back into another small clearing – that must have been some five-star grass.  That or the bear felt confident in my inability to hit him.  I settled in for another shot.  At my shot, the bear reared back on its haunches, then stretched out and in one lunge was out of sight.  I was pretty sure I missed, but the bear rocking back on its haunches made me hope it was a sign of a hit.  The realist in me, though, noticed the way that the bear had made his lunge in retreat was very much the sign of a completely healthy bear.  We spent an hour searching for blood to no avail.  What we did find, however, was a place where a bear or several bears have been calling home for quite some time.  So, I’ve been taking advice on shooting this week, and I’m hoping that I didn’t blow the only chance I get this spring.  I’ll be chasing the bruins again this Saturday, and hopefully at the end of the weekend, I can rewrite that auto-biography.

The following video was sent to me by a friend.  It was filmed by Marc Bales, edited by Grady Rawls and produced by Pahsimeroi Pictures.

So, Shanna and I loaded up the kids and headed for the hills to do some coyote hunting.  Actually seeing a coyote was not really the object of this adventure, but rather to get the kids – and in particular our two-and-a-half year old – a real hunting adventure.  I figured we’d have to stumble into one dumb coyote if we were to actually get something, but the experience would be worth the effort regardless of our success.

Getting the kids ready was an ordeal and we didn’t leave the house till after lunch, and once we arrived at our spot, it was another ordeal getting them out of the car and dressed warmly.  Our two-and-a-half year old spent most of the time while we dressed his younger brother running up and down the road and exploring the sagebrush.  By the time we were ready to hike up the hill, I think he’d already exhausted a good portion of his energy.  But, his mouth still ran a mile a minute and it was nice to see his pure enjoyment as he toted along a toy rifle. About half way up the hill, it became apparent that if we wanted to reach the top before dark I would need to carry him.

Our effort did not pass without reward as we saw over one hundred deer including a nice buck that posed for us on the skyline.  We saw several deer within 150 yards and when I howled for the first time, our two-and-a-half year old promptly raised his toy rifle to his shoulder like a seasoned pro ready to line up a snap shot. Perhaps the best moment of the outing was when he learned one of life’s important lessons: how to identify deer poop.

And, if anyone wants to argue that isn’t an important life lesson, I will explain to them the proud look on his face when he pointed to a pile of old and dried droppings and excitedly announced, “Daddy, deer poop!”  I think he’s well on his way to being a wise hunter.

Coyote hunting with my boys.

This friend of mine is a large land owner near Council and was telling me that another friend of his was asking him if he would take him out to shoot a wolf some weekend.  It never occurred to the would-be-hunter that wolves are not so easy to hunt that you can just simply go out on a Saturday and pick your wolf to put a tag on.  So, I began to wonder just what the tactic is for hunting these wary predators.

Wolves can be so nomadic, it can be difficult to locate them, and locating them is only half the battle at best.  I’m not being contradictory when I also mention that wolves are extremely territorial, because their territory can cover so many square miles that their whereabouts are not easily figured.  Even my large land owning friend, who has battled wolves for ten years, can’t say for sure where wolves might be at any given time.  While I began to realize I really don’t have even a starting point for hunting wolves, it occurred to me that perhaps that is the reason why I’ve had this wolf tag in my pocket since September and have gone hunting to target wolves exactly zero times. And that led me to the conclusion that I may be, in part, a hypocrite.

When a wolf season was set for the 2009 season, I was skeptical of ever getting the chance to tag one, so I didn’t bother buying a tag.  That season, while I never saw a single wolf, I had multiple occasions where their howls surrounded me.  The feeling was discomforting, and when the season was opened again for the 2011-12 season, I went right down and bought a tag.  I’ve been a long-time proponent of allowing hunters the chance to manage wolves, and here was our chance.  But as it sits now, I realize that my buying a tag hasn’t done a thing to help Idaho’s wolf problem.  There has to be some action – regardless of success, there has to at least be an attempt.  And when I realize that, I circle right back to the fact that I’m clueless as to the methods for finding, and bagging, a wolf.  One thing is for sure, though: I intend to quit my hypocritical ways and I plan on getting in the mountains in an attempt.

As of January 26, 2012 the Idaho Fish & Game has documented 201 firearm wolf kills and 59 taken by trapping.  In the 2009 season, 188 wolves were killed.  You can read into the numbers however you would like. Personally, I don’t think they tell us much, but that 31,400 tags were sold in 2009* tells me with a fair amount of confidence that I am not the only hypocrite out there.

*Harvest and tag sale numbers from the Idaho Fish and Game website.

I’m not sure if this is always the case, but there could very well be some missing connection in a sportsman’s brain. There isn’t any other demographic I can think of that can look forward to rising at 4:30 A.M. to go sit in a ground blind with snow and wind swirling around while waiting for the possibility that a duck might fly within shotgun range. To the indoor hobbyist, this sounds like insanity, but year after year, countless outdoor enthusiasts do exactly that, and what’s more is they’ll come back and tell their friends about their exhilarating morning.

One of my families’ favorite hunts has become a late season archery hunt that, in four years, has produced just one doe.  The weather on that hunt is always cold – bitter cold.  One year, the temperature never rose above 17 degrees. It’s steep country, and the snow can be daunting at times.  But every year, we look forward to that hunt like no other hunt.  I can’t for sure say why, but there are always fond memories of that place.

When I think back on some of the more challenging hunts I’ve been on, I realize there must be something about the challenge that speaks to the inner Neanderthal – and I like it.  I remember a few instances when during the hunt I wanted nothing more than to be finished. Yet, when I think back on the hunt, I remember what a thrill it had been, and I start planning to make that hunt happen again.

So, I can’t say I was overly surprised when I asked my mom and dad if they would do that hunt up north again and they quickly responded with a “yes.” It isn’t the weather or the terrain that makes or breaks a hunt, and it isn’t the amount of game seen or killed. I don’t quite have it pin pointed just what it is that makes a hunt, but I know if I have an opportunity to go on a hunt, I’m not letting a few inconveniences ruin my experience.

After successfully avoiding the dirty business for a few weeks, I decided this past weekend that something needed to be done with the decaying skull hanging from the rafters of our garden shed.  I dug out a large pot, propane burner and a couple propane bottles from the shed, rounded up a knife and a stick, took a deep breath and started frantically racking my brain for excuses to put it off for another week. Failing that, I filled the pot with water, dumped in a generous amount of Arm & Hammer Super Washing detergent, and lit the burner.  When I finally placed the skull in the water, I had finally realized that this process was taking a very similar path to my approach to diaper changing.  It begins with recognition that there is a problem, followed by long periods of ignoring the problem, followed by dropping subtle hints that someone else should check the problem, followed by a grudging realization that the job just needs to be done.

To give myself credit, I did have the good sense in knowing that this was a task best completed outdoors.  The task, although not entirely pleasant, wasn’t nearly so bad as I imagined it would be before I started.  And with that lesson learned in hindsight, I realized that I had landed on an idea for this newspaper column – always a welcome realization with a fast approaching deadline and a mind running circles and coming up with exactly nothing.  As I completed the task of prepping the skull, I came up with the following: Life’s Lessons Learned While Boiling a Deer Skull. You may search a long while before you find another list quite like it.

1.      The process is never as bad as the imagined process.  I spent most of the time leading up to boiling (it’s actually a simmer, but I’ll leave that for another column) the skull fretting over how disgusting the process was going to be. It was going to stink like nothing I’ve ever smelled before, and it would be crawling with maggots. In reality, it was mildly unpleasant at worst.

2.      Stink is relative. Really.  You think your shooting ability stinks? You should come with me sometime. I’m 2 for 27 so far this year with my shotgun. Sure, the simmering pot of deer skull didn’t smell good, but I once had to deliver packages to a water plant in Quincy, Washington as part of a seasonal job for UPS. That put stink on a whole new level.

3.       Trial by fire gets rid of a lot of nasty stuff. That’s a fact.  I can prove it if you’d like.  When I dumped that pot upon completion, it was full of nasty stuff. You can’t dispute scientific studies like this one.

4.      Not everyone understands your projects. I posted a status update to Facebook detailing my progress, and was met with quite a lot of misunderstanding.  Apparently simmering deer skulls is not something the average person does on a Saturday.

5.      Procrastination just makes it stink worse. That was the lesson taught, but as I realize how close to my deadline I am for this article, I have to wonder what kind of a student I am.

6.      Happy marriages demand that any animal skulls to be boiled are done outdoors.  This may not count as a true lesson learned as it is more of a theory I developed while completing this task outdoors while a happy wife was looking for her large boiling pot indoors.

Last year I was hunting Moose while deer hunting season was on at the same time in this unit.  After a couple days of hunting Sue encouraged me to get a deer tag also, just in case we saw a nice buck, so I did.  The very next day I was calling moose when I saw a flash of white down in the trees and my mind said “moose horn palmation”.  When a beautiful whitetail buck stepped out, quartered away and stopped.  I put the cross-hairs on him and said “bang”.  When he had finally run out of patience and ran off Sue asked “whats wrong, wasn’t he big enough?”  All I could do is look a little sheepish as I had forgot about the tag in my pocket, as my mind was still on Moose.

Than this year toward the end of Archery season in a certain area it was legal to shoot a cow elk with rifle in a certain area so I took bow and rifle to my set up one morning.  Sitting in the dawn I had four cows cross in front of me at 70 yards. Since this was to far for my  bow, I watched as they passed.  When they ducked out of sight at about 250 yards, it all of a sudden hit me, I could have used my rifle.

Nice little Five point, pretty as a picture. It's a good thing Sue was there to record for future generations what gramps can't do when offered the perfect situation.

Then how is this one.  This year I decided before archery season to extend my range so moved my 50 yard pin out to 55 yards.  My second son, Todd says “I wouldn’t do that dad, its going to bite you”.  But sure of what I was doing I did it anyway.  I mean who can’t remember that he now has a 20 – 30 – 40 and now a 55 yard pin?  It happened the third Saturday of the season when Sue and I had traveled in a huge circle starting at 5:00 AM that morning and not seeing any sign or hearing any elk movement.  It was now 5:30 PM and we were only 30 minutes from the trail and an hour and a half from the PU when out of the blue a bugle answered my cow call.  He was less then 100 yards off in the brush so we hurriedly made a set up.  That bull we could tell was circling down wind but a second bull started on in on a line from further up canyon.  I ranged a line of brush at 51 yards and just like clock work he came to an opening in this brush line.  When he came through my mantra was ‘turn broadside’.  Low and behold, he did at 48 yards.  My new mantra was ‘now stop’, and again as if he was listening and obedient, he stopped to trash a bush.  With everything going perfect I had no worries, put the 50 yard pin on him and released.  Wait a minute, that was a 55 yard pin, but it was too late to pull the arrow back.  It bit me.  We were able to call him back in but not for another shot.  Kind of makes you sick but there is no way to rectify such a mistake, so I guess you smile and joke about it.

I was sitting ahead and to Sue's left so actually had a perfectly clear path to this fellow who was busy letting everyone know how tough he was.

Then there was the last day of deer hunting this year.  It was a very windy and bone chilling day and I figured the deer would be finding places to hole up.  The bigger bucks wouldn’t like to be caught down in the brush so would find a sheltered spot on the protected side of some ridge.  We decided to hike up close to the top and then start going across the ridges to try find one of these bigger bucks.  We had got our altitude by 10:00 in the morning and on about the fifth ridge we crossed, there 100 yards below us laid our buck laying flat out and thinking he was hid.  I sat down put the cross hairs on him and said, “you take first shot Sue.”  With the wind blowing she didn’t hear me and I didn’t hear her when she said, “shoot”.  This buck was probably the biggest I have seen in the last 25 years and he didn’t get that big by being dumb.  While Sue and I were waiting for each other to shoot, the bucks patience wore out, he stood and was gone around the brow of the hill leaving us to wonder, what happened here?  I’ll guarantee, this never would have happened five years ago.  I think I’m getting to old to make snap decisions too.  Oh well, I’m having fun, especially having Sue hunt with me, so guess there’s no reason to slow down, yet.

Cold clear and windy this day. Kind of miserable to be out on the wind swept ridges but the scenery made it all easier to handle. Some people actually hunt this hard for Chukars.