117 antelope hunt areas, 130 elk hunt areas and 171 deer hunt areas make a jigsaw puzzle of Wyoming. Each species specific area offers multiple license types, features different season dates, and is subject to slightly different permit, equipment, rack-size and access regulations. As a non-disabled, non-veteran, Wyoming resident of adult age, who is younger than 75, owns fewer than 160 acres and intends to hunt all three species, I have until May 30th to select from literally millions of possible license combinations and complete my applications. Tag season: The unofficial Wyoming State Sport of May.
Even if your state employs a simpler system (and I hope it does), the process of tag selection can be daunting. Factor in the demands of family life and the need to earn a living and it’s enough to make your head spin. Luckily applying a few simple USOB accounting* filters can help decipher the mounds of data and inform our decisions.
Filter 1: Are there critters there? It’s about the hunt, not about the harvest. I get that. But meat (M) is a principle USOB asset. Failing to bring home the bacon… not so much. In fact, repeated empty-handed homecomings can raise questions about “what you’ve been doing out there all weekend anyway” and potentially even score you a Poor Hunter (P) rating. That’s bad for your credit, making it difficult to obtain future USOB advances. Worse yet, a P rating may trigger sporting oriented quarrels, a sure fire way to take losses.
The fact that (as my wife often reminds me) you can’t eat the horns, weights quantity over quality in the critter column.
Filter 2: What’s the accessibility quotient? Time spent in the truck is a USOB liability equal to time spent hunting, even though it’s decidedly less fun. A hunt area that’s a day’s drive from home carries a non-dividend bearing USOB burden of two days which will be subtracted from future totals. This is Lost Time (L). Beyond minimizing lost time, nearby areas have the added advantage of enabling Youth Involvement (Y). At 3, my son’s no good at putting the sneak on elk… yet. But hunting close to home allows me to make crucial USOB deposits by scouting with him in the off season.
Were I to rotate a 60 mile radius around our small town, the resulting circle would include millions of acres of public land, much of it designated Wilderness, some if it the prettiest dirt on planet Earth and all of it populated by more pronghorn, elk and mule deer than people. As such, I realize that my equation might have more wiggle room than some others’. The basic algebra for calculating Area Needs (AN) remains the same though. Namely:
M+Y–(PxL) = AN
But hey, that’s just one guy’s approach. Happy hunting.
* USOB = Universal Sporting Opportunity Balance. A unit of measure, used to evaluate the strength of a sportsman’s claim to the time and resources required to get out and do cool stuff. This tool is particularly useful as life increases in complexity and competing claims become more numerous.
USOB Accounting = the method by which USOB is calculated.
So I’ve had folks yell “USOB” in my direction on more than one occasion. But when it comes to whatever Matt is writing about I honestly haven’t a clue. Open disclosure, I have a liberal arts degree, so not much math or economics. Additionally, Matt is just plain smarter than I am. While you all are computing inputs and outputs I’m going fishing…and I applied for my tags weeks ago.
So here’s the premise. Matt and I go fishing, with each of our sons. My wife and daughter are at some type of ladies event and Matt just wants to get out. For the record, Matt’s son is 3 and mine is 2. Our kids are intermittently walking, playing with various found implements of destruction, or being carried in a backpack. We are psyched, as it is rare for Matt and I to actually fish together. For the evening, I primarily wanted to shoot photos and test out a new camera. Being a dedicated photographer, I also decided to carry a rod, bring my two labs and don’t forget the two year old I mentioned earlier.
There was a nice mayfly hatch coming off, but waters were still spring cold and the fish were not particularly eager to rise. Without all the distractions I might have worked to catch a fish on the surface. But in the name of simplicity I tied on a streamer. Haphazardly, I made a cast here and there. At one point I got snagged and broke off my bug. To keep my son’s interest I let him pick the next fly. He choose a beadhead bugger with pink crystal flash and yellow legs, something akin to a JJ Special. To be perfectly honest it’s not what I would have picked. I had no faith in it catching fish.
Valiantly, Matt was trying to catch fish on the surface. But it wasn’t quite coming together. After he had worked some likely water I tossed in the bugger and managed to hook into a small brown. The boys got to admire the fish and all was well. Who’s kidding, I was just as happy to catch a fish, maybe more so. The boys can be distracted by rocks, sticks and the like but for me it’s pretty much just fish.
Within a few more casts, in the same pool, I hooked a much better fish.
As I’m playing the fish I ask Matt to be my net man. He obliges, and smoothly completes the task. In the hopes of getting a few nice pics I suggest Matt hand me the net/fish and I will hand him the new DSLR. But it turns out the net is permanently attached to his kid backpack with a bungee. Still we attempt the swap.
Because of the bungee I’m tied to the back of Matt with a short leash. Matt is nervous about the camera and he wouldn’t know what to do with it even if he wasn’t nervous. I unhook the fish and ditch the rod. As I go to lift the fish and get rid of the net, so Matt and I are no longer tied together, I fumble the fish. Flailing around in the water, on my knees, two year old on my back, I momentarily regain control of the fish only to lose it again. One of my labs licks my face and the other shoves it’s face in the water to look for the fish. Once the fish is gone all we can do is laugh at how utterly ridiculous we must look.
Two grown men, with toddlers on their backs, and a couple of labs all splashing around in what was previously nice trout water.
In hindsight the solution is simple. Let Matt net the fish, have him hold the fish, I shoot a few photos. Stick to our jobs. A bit of buck fever and a desire to get some sort of hero shot had all of us, well mostly me, acting without all brain cells firing. Big picture I think it turned out perfectly!
My big game hunting season is two and a half months long. For those keeping score at home, that’s ten weeks afield after pronghorn, elk and deer, and forty-two weeks not. It’s a lopsided ledger that we take for granted; a fact of life, as natural as the birds and bees. But what if we applied such cold mathematics to our other Darwinian derived endeavors? Anyone interested in adhering to a ten week mating season? Granted, we’re talking apples and oranges… but the concept gives forty-two weeks a different complexion, no? You’ll forgive me than my reliance on fantasy.
This is the heart of fantasy season; the time of year when I stay up late, alone in my dusky office, and once the house is still, spread before me a lurid collection of sportrotica. I like it graphic, the stuff that shows all the curves and creases, the mounds and the deep, dark mysteries. Let’s not be coy. We’re all adults, and we all love topo maps. Who can resist their siren song in May? Elk season is six months gone, leaving the caveman itch jonesing for a scratch. And if long enforced abstinence weren’t reason enough for a little mental self-stimulation, we’re also tormented by the annual tease-fest that is tag season. Wyoming Game and Fish’s big game license application deadlines virtually mandate an intracranial vacation. Oh man, it hurts so good.
If you’re like me you can blow hours lost in the mental adventure, reliving seasons past and imaging those to come. Unroll a sheaf of USGS quads and I’m gone to a south-facing slope. Gray predawn light suggests wary movement in broken timber. There is musk on the wind and a sound, come and gone before it’s differentiated from the noises in my head. Was that an aspen complaining to the wind, or maybe a cow elk mewing to her calf? When it comes again I’m taut, whole-body listening… a cow. She’s behind me, uphill. I’ve almost got her triangulated when the bugle erupts from below…
Fantasy’s not going to get you there though. This mid-May exercise will have real consequence come September and, hard as it may be, cooler heads must prevail. I realize that swapping maps for Game and Fish spreadsheets – draw odds, season dates, success rates etc. – is like trading the Swimsuit Issue for a month-old Christian Science Monitor, but September’s real-deal beats tonight’s fantasy every time. Take a cold shower. Wednesday we’ll get to work calculating the USOB impacts of various license scenarios.
My wife and I had the opportunity to go on a real vacation for the first time, and without the kids nonetheless. Remembering the value of getting a break when I was little my parents wanted to give us the same gift. Thanks are in order to my grandparents for setting the stage! With the opportunity present all we had to do was make it a reality.
The Flats Photo by Steven Brutger
Criteria for planning the trip:
- The trip could not be a fishing focused trip and I could not disappear for 10-12 hours a day.
- We both wanted to go somewhere warm and on the ocean. Leaving winter in Wyoming in late February/early March for warmer climes is a good thing.
- If we were going somewhere warm I might as well be able to fish. I had never bonefished before and was anxious to cut my teeth. I needed to be able to do it in small chunks. Accessible flats, wadeable on my own were a must.
Occasionally the Clouds Parted Photo by Sarah Annarella
What we went with:
The number of options was mind boggling. From the Yucutan to Belize, The Bahamas to Honduras we looked at it all. Ultimately we had to choose something and it was important that both of us were bought in. What this means is that my wife needed to be as excited about where we were going as I was. There was no way I was going to push hard for a particular place and risk a vacation she hated that would be blamed squarely on me. No, the risk was too great, we needed to be in this together.
We settled on the Seascape Inn on Mangrove Cay, Andros Island Bahamas. Andros is the largest and least inhabited island in the Bahamas, it is also know for amazing bonefishing. The quiet remote setting was perfect for us and Seascape Inn’s simple but well kept accommodations were exactly what we had hoped for. Hosts Mickey and Joan were gracious, keeping our bellies full and providing us with any information we needed for our week with them. In front of our one room bungalow was an idyllic white sand beach that stretched for miles. Hardly ever seeing another soul, we were comforted to know places like this still exist.
What I Was Looking For Photo by Sarah Annarella
The Fishing:
The plan was to primarily fish on my own with one day of guided fishing, which was a combined birthday and Christmas present from my wife. As soon as we arrived my rod was strung up and I decided to check out the flat directly in front of Seascape. Within thirty minutes I had hooked two small bones and a small barracuda. The bones were about a half pound each and for some reason I determined they were babies and didn’t count. Conditions were perfect, I was encouraged by seeing fish immediately, and I was blown away by the beauty of the place.
The next day a cold front/storm moved in with temps in the 50’s, high winds and rain. It lasted three days. Undeterred I fished. There was nothing I would rather be doing, but catching fished proved difficult, or that is to say I didn’t catch any. I saw fish, but with the cloud cover it wasn’t until I was on top of them. Usually we scared the crap out of each other and I was treated to a brief view of a grey torpedo getting out of Dodge.
During the storm only one day proved entirely unfishable. The other two I bundled up and kept at it. If I had waders I would have worn them. For the first of March this storm was apparently unique in that it was too late for the cold temps and too early for rain. We had both. On the third morning I rode my bike through the rain to an expansive flat. The rain stopped and the water became glassy. Suddenly, several tailing bones appeared. However the sky was still overcast and the water was the color of asphalt, I couldn’t see a thing. With the tailing fish consistently out of range and no way to see where they were headed I never got a shot, but it left me wanting more.
Originally, I had wanted our day of guided fishing to be early in our trip, so that I could learn as much as possible and apply that to fishing on my own. The weather forced us to change our plans. After the storm broke my wife and I spent a day fishing with Patterson Bowleg. We were treated to a fantastic day. First, you really cannot appreciate Andros until you see it from a skiff. The island is an expansive wilderness that is roughly 100 miles long by 40 miles wide and has a greater land mass than all the other Bahamian islands combined. Just getting a sense of the islands vastness was a highlight.
Into the Backing Photo by Steven Brutger
On the fishing front my wife and I both caught fish and missed more. Seeing a solitary bone hone in on my fly, following as I stripped, and then teeter tottering forward to eat, was as satisfying as I could possibly have imagined. It was still cold by Bahamian standards but the sun was shining and the water was shades of blues I cannot describe. I was in heaven. The next day a gentleman I had met from Washington invited me to join him for another day of guided fishing, I accepted. After the storm, I was ready to splurge and we had another magical day.
With only a couple hours before it was time to catch our plane I waded out in front of the Seascape one last time. The tide was perfect the sun was high and despite a good chop from the prevailing wind I was optimistic. As it was almost time to go a school of about twenty fish appeared, heading my way. Trying to remain calm I put forth a decent cast, stripped, but no one looked. Two more cast led to the same result and the chance was gone. This moment is etched in my mind and only has me yearning for my next saltwater adventure.
The submerged root-ball looked like a horror movie prop. Its deepest mysteries were hidden in shadow, but what reached the light was pure menace. Meaty shrouds of river gunk waved from grabby tentacles over crevices pregnant with evil possibility. No one yelled “don’t go in there!”, and they didn’t need to. I knew I wanted nothing to do with it. Damned if somebody wasn’t beckoning me though – quiver, tug, quiver, shake, tug – through leader, line, rod and cork. My fish, irrevocably snagged, yet somehow still tied to me, was down there, in the dark place.
What, us worry? Photo by Steven Brutger
I didn’t have a plan exactly as I sloshed forth from the shallows, but the image in my head was of a few bold strides to the beast’s antechambers, followed by a swashbuckling lunge with the net, and then me straightening, damp but triumphant, with a hero’s reward. And my son would get one hell of a show from his front-row seat, on my back. Surely I would win his enduring admiration.
The precise order of what happened next escaped me. Three events converged, more or less, on one moment. The sturdy freestone underfoot became gutless silt, and I lost a foot of altitude. Two fish – big fish, glad they didn’t blow out my ACL fish, fish I’d been looking for all spring and most of the winter fish – bolted so closely by each knee that I felt my waders sucked momentarily outward. My son shrieked.
“Dada, Dada NOOOO… FISH, FISH, Big Blue Fish… fish’ll eat you!”
You, he said, not us. I guess he figured he’d untether himself and backstroke unmolested to safety once I was down. Soiled boxers notwithstanding, I was still only butt deep when Steven broke the spell.
“Dude you’re kidding yourself. No way he hasn’t broken you off in that mess.”
That was a week ago. My son and I have been fishing twice since then, but I’ve not waded without stern warnings from him about the Big Blue Fish. He tells me he can see its spots. The fish that damn near knocked me over were brown trout. It begs the question… just what was tugging at my line?
It shouldn’t take a holiday for us to raise our glass to the mothers in our lives, but they certainly deserve one. Giving birth is an impressive feat in itself and would be sufficient to warrant it’s own holiday. However, the cumulative amount of work, love and devotion that goes into raising a family in the years after is where I think the real merit for the occasion arises.
My own mother deserves a nobel prize for putting up with my brother and me over all the years. Even during those teenage years, when I was particularly unruly, my mom has never wavered in her support for her two boys. She continues to shower us with love, share that love with my children, and alway be there for us no matter the need.
My wife, the mother of our two children, is the one who keeps our ship sailing and the only reason our kids aren’t completely feral. Having both kids clinging to her leg at once yelling MOM drives her nuts, but there is a reason for it. She is an amazing mother. And the bond between mother and child is something not replicated by any other human experience.
Every big game season that goes by and does not end in divorce is a miracle. Fishing is tolerated and drinking scotch is even encouraged, sort of. The reality is, there are not many wives who are as supportive as mine. I am truly lucky. I would like to think that this support makes me a better father and it is all part of her strategic plan for being a great mother.
So fire off a twenty-one gun salute, raise a glass, break a rod or do whatever it is that seems appropriate and say thanks to all the mothers out there. Happy Mother’s Day!
The Mother in Our House Photo by Steven Brutger
We stared at each other for two minutes in the crisp morning air as the sun peaked over nearby hills. The adolescent moose made the first move, circling around knobby knees, nose to the ground, like a dog setting its bed, once, twice…
Then it charged.
With a two year old on my back and my two labs suddenly MIA, I didn’t have time to think. Ten yards from impact I threw up my arms like Joe Montana celebrating a touchdown, with a fly rod. “Hey, hey, hey” I growled. The moose planted its heels, spun and bolted up stream. We were lucky.
Heart pounding the rest of the world seeped back into focus. We could go home and avoid further confrontation, but we’d come to fish. Bluffing confidence, I told my son everything was fine. He had his doubts, repeating “moose….eat….me” as we waded upstream. It was one of his first three word sentences. We bumped the young moose twice more before he moved off. It seemed like we were in the clear.
My first few casts were shaky, but it wasn’t long before we hooked into a nice brown. We exchanged a couple high fives as the brown slid back into the deep. As I looked up from the water another set of dark eyes met mine. On the far bank, a short cast away was a new moose bedded in the willows. This time we left in a hurry.
We’d filled our moose quota but still wanted to fish. The magic turned for us and all the likely water held eager trout. By now the light was golden and the frost had melted, leaving only the sweet smell of spring.
Nearing the truck we approached one last pool. A hulking brown hammered my streamer almost immediately, followed by another three casts later. Those fish were two of the best I have seen in that stretch of water. Satiated, we waded back to the truck. The world seemed just a bit brighter after the run-in with the moose. Combined with the good fishing, it’s a morning I won’t soon forget.
He wants to catch a fish. That’s great, right? Well, let’s set aside for a moment all the warm fuzzies – connecting a boy with nature, passing on our proud American sporting heritage, igniting the light of wonder in a child’s eyes, forging resilient father son bonds through blah, blah, blah etc. – and take a look at this objectively. What does this new development mean for ME catching fish? Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the touchy-feely stuff. But I really like catching fish. Viewed through that admittedly crass and selfish lens, the squirt claiming this next rung on the participation ladder is a decidedly mixed bag. We can all agree that on balance, in the long run, it’s a worthy investment for all concerned, but am I over-leveraging my near term opportunity flow? Did I, as initially calculated, hit the jackpot, or did my spring season just crap out? Enter the Universal Sporting Opportunity Balance accounting method (USOB).
Some USOB fundamentals:
1. “I can do whatever the hell I want, so long as I take the kid with me”. Steven, first to fatherhood, pointed this truism out to me years ago. In other words, Kiddo Engagement (KE) is a primary asset on the USOB books, compulsory engagement included.
2. Compulsory engagement alone does not a USOB fortune make. If you’re going to get after it, you’ll need Eager Participation (EP). We can think of EP as the compound interest of USOB.
3. EP terms are subject to unpredictable rate fluctuations and frequent renegotiation. The past 3 years have seen steady inflation. A full belly, warm, dry body and clean butt used to do the trick. Then an occasional walkabout was required. During the hopper glut of 2012, EP prices climbed through Dad catch fish to, Dad catch fish, tot release. EP markets closed last week at use of faux fly rod.
4. EP investment involves unforeseen risk, including loss of USOB principle. There is no prospectus available for review prior to investment. For example, catching fish requires the use of hooks. Performance with the faux fly rod has not engendered confidence in management capacity. USOB markets do not respond well to Avoidable Traumas or Injured Toddlers (ATIT).
With a firm grasp of these simple fundamentals we’re able to build predictive models for any number of scenarios that might arise. Using the current quandary as an example, we can reasonably postulate that:
(KE x EP) / ATIT = USOB
Ergo, I’d better hook this kid into a trout ASAP
Have backpack rides and fish shows lost their appeasement power? If demands for greater participation are chipping away at your USOB, consider deploying a faux fly rod. This bit of DIY stream-side gear can provide the time and elbow room you need to put the sneak on that rising rainbow around the bend.
Here’s how in 6 easy steps:
1: Place expensive, genuine fly rod with-in 100 yards of small child.
2: Grab a beer.
3: Comb through the wreckage until you find an intact segment.
4: Tie butt-end of retired leader to top-most guide loop.
5: Clip hook from old dry fly – the gaudier the better – and attach to leader.
6: Get out of the way.
Time for the Faux Fly Rod Photo by Steven Brutger