The old english proverb states that the “Eyes Are the Window to the Soul”. What can you say about looking into someone’s freezer? A quick inventory of mine revealed a few interesting items: One antelope head, that needs to be skinned and made into a european mount before long. Two flats of raspberries, saved for baking, Read More
My son was so excited for the first day of hunting season, and the morning was such a blooper reel of false starts, forgotten gear and last minute errands, that I nearly failed to calibrate expectations. We’d left the highway, the state roads, and the graded gravel behind before I thought to check in, Read More
My uncle always said that elk were a staple and everything else was an appetizer. I guess we liked appetizers because as a kid we would always shoot a couple of whitetail does for the freezer. We had tons of them on our family ranch and they tasted delicious. Now, I have almost no access, Read More
There’s a difference between the smell of an animal and the smell of an animal on you. Pronghorn antelope have a goaty, musky, virile stink. When a whiff wafts from an arroyo or the matted secrecy of a day bed, it’ll twist your neck and curl your nose. In such chance encounters the smell, Read More
The air is getting cooler. A few trees are starting to turn. Many folks are thinking about fall fishing. Aggressive browns, big streamers, you name it. We love to fish, we’ll probably still fish this fall. But something else is underfoot. It’s hunting season. Some folks are already going full tilt. Archery seasons have, Read More
The more I learn about hunting and fishing, the more I recognize how much I don’t know. Adding a kid to the mix has really driven that humbling realization home for me. Not only do I have the perpetual need to refine my approach in the field, but now I also need to develop, Read More
Sweat was beading on my brow. I was gasping for breath. Running up hill, I needed my iPhone. Fifty yards away I had the spotting scope set up. Binos were around my neck, so was the camera. A few hundred yards below were 300-400 head of elk. Cows and calves were mewing, the herd, Read More
I’ve got a garage full of gear. Enough to outfit a small army for anything from mountaineering to horsepacking, canoeing to big wall climbing, not to mention hunting and fishing. Despite the raw volume of stuff, that at times is overwhelming and probably warrants a garage sale, there are a few pieces of gear, Read More
Arthur C Clarke once said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Had he been an elk hunter he’d have known that no technology, advanced or otherwise, knows the half of it. There is nothing so magical as elk apparating from the pre-dawn grayness. With a naked eye or through German glass,, Read More
Meat, as we’ve discussed, is a fundamental USOB asset. Keep bringing it home, and you’re more likely to score the hall pass for a trip to go get more. Take it up a notch though, by fixing a knock their socks off supper, and you’ll get unsolicited inquiries into when you’re going hunting again., Read More