The wild turkey can offer the hunter one of the greatest challenges of any of the North American game species. Consistently bagging turkeys every season entails putting forth your best hunting efforts, embodying stealthy movement and putting yourself in a predatory mode. Luck has its place in every hunter’s endeavors but it is impossible to be consistently lucky. Placing your mind in a constant defensive posture will enable you to heighten your awareness and your woods skills. Letting your guard down for one minute can be the difference between filling your tag and heading home empty handed.

Movement and Noise:

The average hunter lumbers through the wood with no regard to the animals he is spooking, trudging onward snapping limbs and twigs with every step. The hunter himself is often his own worst enemy. The hunt is very frequently over before it ever begins due to the carelessness exhibited on his trek through the forest.

When deploying the run and gun method of hunting turkeys, one should constantly be monitoring his noise and movement levels. Before I go on, one alternative the hunter could adopt is the slipping and calling method. It is the same basic tactic but moving slower and more deliberately taking great effort to walk softer and quieter yet still covering as much ground as possible. If proper care is taken, you will often be within gun range of a gobbler when he answers your calls. Envision a cougar stalking a flock of turkeys. It moves at a snails pace in a prone position. It covers little ground in rapid fashion, using available cover to mask its movement. Throughout the years of my turkey hunting endeavors I have moved on turkeys in the same manner, even when just to reposition and try calling from a different angle. Allow yourself more time to move from point A to point B. Using available cover to conceal your movement will also put you on the path to success. When making your way through the timber pick the path that will offer the most concealment and the least amount of noise.

Patience:

One of the most overlooked factors in the triumph of consistently successful turkey hunters is the ability to sit still for extended periods of time. We all know there are two basic methods to hunt turkeys, blind calling and slipping & calling. The key is that both methods are directly affected by having the patience to remain stationary when needed. Exhibiting the ability to wait out that old gobbler will have turkeys riding in your vest on a regular basis.

An older method of hunting turkeys, blind calling consists of setting up and calling in a stationary position, with hopes a gobbler will come within earshot of your lusty turkey hen vernacular. When all the hens have been bred and the toms are on the move, it is common to have locate gobblers that are still in a heightened state of breeding. It requires more patience than physical endurance, although it can prove to be productive. At a point when turkeys become less vocal and the breeding season is winding down setting up on a food source and waiting, can also pay dividends. The gobblers will frequent these areas because it will hold hens and he may ultimately find a breeding partner that has been overlooked.

Patience does not apply to slipping and calling directly, but once you have engaged in a conversation with a gobbler, moving too hastily can prove to be detrimental in your quest of a long beard. Once you start working a gobbler, do not change your position unless absolutely necessary. Each year many gobblers would have been harvested had the hunter remained still. When a gobbler goes silent there is a very good possibility he is closing in quietly. If the gobbler is continuing to answer you but making an obvious about face from your position, only then should you reposition and approach him from either another angle or get around in front of his route and engage him. A simple rule of thumb to add to this thought is when you have decided to get up and move, wait thirty more minutes. This tactic will eventually pay off.

Awareness/Keeping Up Your Guard:

Heightening your overall woods awareness and always being on the defense is one factor to consider. Learn to decipher certain turkey sounds and vocabulary while on your hunt. Listen for scratching, soft deliberate foot steps in brittle leaves or the long distance sound of a yelp or a single cluck. The key here is tuning your senses to pick up on these turkey identifiers. Often times hunters overlook these simple tell tale signs that there are turkeys in their area. When you are in turkey rich environment always feel there are turkeys within eyesight of your position. Taking care when any movement is involved will allow you to view more game, turkey or otherwise. Scan your field of view only cutting your eyes from left to right. Use your peripheral vision to it’s maximum potential before any head movement. When you decide to move your head or shift your body for a better view, use slow deliberate movement.

Turkey Behavior:

The wild turkey has certain behavioral patterns they adhere to. Take the time to verse yourself on which patterns will affect you during the spring. Plan as many scouting trips to the areas you will frequent during the upcoming spring season. This will allow you to gauge those particular turkeys. Learn their habits and whereabouts, ranging from just after fly down, mid morning, mid and late afternoon. Having the ability to locate turkeys during these time frames will give you an added advantage. Placing yourself strategically in areas that consistently hold turkeys will increase your odds of success.

Also learn as much as possible about the wild turkey from a biological standpoint. For example, social structure, breeding and feeding habits, nesting and roosting areas. Patterning turkeys and identifying which part of the breeding cycle the turkeys are in will help you modify your tactics throughout the spring season. Each year will present a new set of challenges. The season could start off with the gobbler already having assembled his harem and roosting with them or you may encounter an early breeding scenario where the tom is more vocal on the roost as he begins to assemble his hens. Identifying which phase of their spring courtship is occurring will aid in you choice of tactics. Whether calling to the hens if the gobbler is actively breeding or calling aggressively if the gobblers are on the move searching for hens not yet bred, it will make your decision easier.

Concealment:

Mother nature designed her predators well. They utilize their fur color or plumage for their concealment. They also exploit the terrain and the available cover to cloak their attacks. The turkey hunter can apply these same tactics to his hunting. Use any available natural cover to disguise your position. Although the advent of pop up blinds has become wildly popular as of late, I prefer to use what Mother Nature provides for my concealment. Deadfalls, palmettos, brush piles and even the natural contours of wood lines provide excellent concealment.

Your use of camouflage is very important as well. Depending on early or late spring, match your patterns to your surroundings. There is a plethora of excellent camo on the market today. Chose the one that best suits the terrain you are consistently hunting. Turkeys will key in on movement before anything else. As, stated previously make sure you remain still as long as possible and when movement is necessary use slow, calculated motion. Granted, you can harvests turkeys in blue jeans, if it tickles your fancy. I prefer to capitalize on any advantage I may have that may counter his bionic like vision.

In Conclusion:

The wild turkey is a formidable opponent. His senses are his number one defense. It is not that he is smarter than the average turkey hunter, it’s just the fact that he capitalizes on his ability to discern motion. The turkey hunter must act in the same fashion. We must exploit the same god given instincts that are buried somewhere inside us. Always remember we are the highest rung on food chain ladder. We are the most intelligent creatures that scour the earth. Discipline and attention to detail can heighten our hunting ability. Think in those parameters and you will become a turkey predator.

Scott Ellis
Prostaff
Woodhaven Custom Calls
Tru-Glo Fiber Optics
Therma-Cell
Ol’ Tom Technical Gear
Member:Florida Outdoor Writer’s Assoc.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

District of Columbia v. Heller ruled that citizens have a right to have a gun in their homes to protect themselves. The ruling made it clear that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to keep and bear arms. What didn’t get decided in Heller was what, if any, restrictions on those guaranteed rights were allowable. It appears McDonald will not tell us that either.

There is no clear cut established “gun right”. It is not defined. The only thing that has shaped gun rights or gun restrictions, has been state and local laws through our jurisprudence. As we have seen, some of those restrictions have gone so far as to deny certain citizens the right to possess a gun at all, as was the case in Heller, in the District of Columbia and McDonald, in Chicago.

If SCOTUS should rule to force Chicago to abide by the Second Amendment through the “Due Process Clause” of the Fourteenth Amendment, then the question becomes, how much? Will the court offer any ruling as to where Chicago should begin?

In oral arguments, former Solicitor General Paul D. Clement, representing the NRA, suggested that there should be a “carry over” of Second Amendment laws along with the Fourteenth Amendment incorporation.

Personally, I believe the Court will react much the same way it did in Heller. They will make a ruling of whether Second Amendment rights extend to the states and then leave it up to the courts to hammer out what will then become “reasonable” restrictions on guns.

After Heller, even though the High Court ruled that a ban on gun ownership was unconstitutional, the District of Columbia did not make it easy for anyone to get a gun and register it. I foresee the same events in McDonald.

Tom Remington

Celebrate!!

In 1991 MSSA got a bill passed setting aside the first week of March as the official week in Montana to celebrate our cherished Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Here’s what the Montana law actually says:

1-1-224. Observance of right to keep and bear arms. The week beginning the first Monday in March is an official week of observance to commemorate Montana’s valued heritage of the right of each person to keep and bear arms in the defense of his home, person, or property or in aid of civil power. During this week, all Montanans are urged to reflect on their right to keep and bear arms and to celebrate this right in lawful ways.

So, if you wanted reason to plan a celebration, here it is. If you have interesting ideas about what you will do in your community, let me know and I’ll recirculate them to the MSSA e-list.

Also, if you’re interested and as a bonus, I’ll paste below the story about how this happened (one of the several “Legislative Tales” from my book Gun Laws of Montana – commercial teaser).

Best wishes,

Gary Marbut, president
Montana Shooting Sports Association
http://www.mtssa.org
author, Gun Laws of Montana
http://www.mtpublish.com

==========================
Legislative Tales
RKBA Week in Montana

In 1991, I was in the State Capitol lobbying for our successful “shall-issue” concealed weapon permit bill. It was difficult to get the attention of legislators because there was a tremendous controversy in the Legislature over whether or not Montana should adopt Martin Luther King day as a paid state holiday. That was a marginal issue here in Montana because there just aren’t many African-Americans living here. For many legislators, it seemed an issue awfully remote for Montana. But, the liberals in the Legislature really wanted the bill to pass, mostly I think to flex their political muscle. That session, we had a Republican governor, but the Democrats controlled the Senate and the House by slim margins. That made for a lot of partisan squabbling.

I had a bit different take on the issue. Considering how very many gun owners (90+% Montana households) and hunters we have in Montana, it seemed to me that if we could have a day for Dr. King, we ought to have a whole week to celebrate our right to keep and bear arms, and another whole week to celebrate our culture and heritage of hunting.

So, I sat in a chair in the hallway of the Capitol and wrote out two separate bills on a yellow, legal tablet. It was beyond the deadline in the session when individual legislators could introduce new bills, but it was not too late for whole committees to introduce new bills.

I took my two handwritten bill drafts to friends on the House Fish and Game Committee. The House F&G Committee loved my two bills, especially as a salve to a lot of hard feelings over the King holiday battle. So, the House F&G Committee had my two bills quickly drafted in official style, printed and introduced. The two bills were quickly approved by the Committee, flew through the Senate and House. The RKBA bill, HB594, passed the House by 90-7 on Third Reading, and passed the Senate by 45-5 on Third Reading. The Hunting Heritage bill, HB 613, passed the House on Third Reading by 89-9, and passed the Senate on Third Reading by 43-7. Both bills were signed by Governor Racicot, and are now the law in Montana, found at 1-1-224, M.C.A., and 1-1-226, M.C.A.

Mac Moad

This hunt is still so fresh in my mind I still can’t believe I did it. Some 4 weeks ago, I was so fired up and excited when I met my friend Brad in Booneville Arkansas. We had set a date to do some scouting for a big game animal I had always wanted to hunt since I was a kid. The season opened on September the 15th this year due to the number of black bear population. To some folks, black bear hunting isn’t that exciting. I had seen pictures, watched videos, and read articles about bear hunting, but had never really thought I would actually have the opportunity to hunt bear myself. It was always just a dream. So you can imagine how excited I was. After meeting my buddy at his house in Arkansas, we discussed how we would travel to Flood Mountain, about 15 miles south of Booneville. Right smack dab in the middle of the Ouachita Wilderness. We had scouted the same area last year and Brad had shown me the ropes on bear hunting. Eager to learn, I soaked up every little detail I could and waited patiently to hunt. Then, out of the blue, I had to travel out of town on a business trip which destroyed my chance at hunting. This year was different. I took my wife with me on the scouting trip too. We each had a 4-wheeler in which she really had fun. We spent all day scouting several mountains and finally found a great spot with lots of sign. So this is how the hunt went.

My first 25th hour Black Bear

I left my house already tired but excited at 4:00am Saturday the 20th of September, headed for my buddy Brads house in Booneville, Arkansas. I couldn’t sleep the night before so I spent most of the night watching Buckmaster deer hunting videos. The 4-wheeler, the climbing stand, the bow, and backpack was loaded in the truck and as my drive ahead was about 1 ½ hours, I kept thinking “today feels good”. I finally arrived at my buddy’s house and was amazed at how much cooler the weather was, closer to the Ouachita Mountains. {About 70 Degrees} After a brief run down conversation with Brad, we loaded my equipment and ATV in his trailer and truck and headed off to the wilderness. Getting to flood mountain was no problem: Getting up flood mountain was not so easy: We drove the 4-wheelers up and in the mountains as far as we could go in which there we parked, found our first flag from the earlier month of scouting, and began the mile walk along the mountainside of some of the roughest country I have ever had the pleasure of hiking. By 6:30am we were at Brads stand location and he began setting up.
My stand location was two more draws farther down the mountainside, so I eased my way around Brads’ location and found my spot pretty quickly. Once set up and sitting in the stand, I watched carefully and quietly, enjoying the scenery. As an avid bow hunter, I am used to the outdoors and love to watch for whatever will become the “highlight of the day.” This hunt was a little different than the deer hunting I was accustomed to. I saw only one squirrel all morning, and no bear. My radio buzzed about 11:30am. Brad had called me suggesting we scout another area about 8 miles away that he knew of. So, back to the 4-wheelers we went, only I elected to keep my climber at the bottom of my stand location. There was just something about that spot that I was so drawn too. About 4:30pm we arrived back at our ATV parking spot on the mountain we were hunting that morning, with no luck on scouting the other location. I was back in my stand, quick, fast and in a hurry. 5:30pm I was sitting once again in my spot, watching and glassing for any sign of movement. Listening to the acorns drop from the white oaks I was in, I heard what sounded like a tree falling, just on the next draw directly in front of me. I could not see the area of the falling tree, but could observe approximately 45 yards all the way around my stand. I also watched over 2 very promising trails that looked as if they were being used on a daily basis. Several fresh broken limbs in the trees around my spot ensured me I was deep in bear country. At 6:14pm, I could not believe what I was hearing. Someone was cutting wood with a hand saw, just on the other side of the draw I was hunting. I was floored. I kept thinking to myself “who in their right mind would build a deer stand this deep on public land on the side of a rattlesnake infested mountain?” Unmotivated now, I kept in my seat and whispered out loud, “Well, you never know, so I think I’ll just sit tight”.
10 minutes later, from directly in front of my stand, I saw her. She was a big sow, 300pds plus with beautiful black fur. Her snout looked almost white as she breathed deep and hard after her climb up the very draw I was hearing someone cutting wood from. Then it clicked. Wood was not being cut by a hand saw as I previously thought, it was her. The big black bear was panting as she climbed the deep draw she had appeared from. Out of breath now, she slowed her pace and took a break. The bear was 24 yards from me as she sat down for her breather. I watcher her in amazement and realized that this was the first bear I had ever seen in the wild. My heart pounded harder as she began to approach my stand, walking slowly down one of the two trails I was on. She would stop, look around, walk a few steps, and rest again, while looking around once more. I observed behind her and every spot I could see or hear to identify if she was alone or not. No doubt in my mind, nope, no cubs. No other bear in sight or hearing range. The closer she got, the more nervous I was, and, the bigger she got. I waited for my opportunity to draw my PSC Nova, and was pleased when I was at full draw, sights on the bear, and she had no clue I was there. At 11 yards, she stopped, looked to her left, brought her right leg over her left one as if she was going to turn her traveling direction. I picked my spot, breathed shallow, squeezed the trigger release, and “Bam”. She was hit hard and fast. The 2” mechanical Rage broad head did its job very well. The arrow was a complete pass through and I was sure I had made a swift and clean shot. The bear jumped, spin in a small circle twice swatting just behind her shoulder, then took off running to my left. She slowed her pace as she trotted a half circle around my stand ending up behind me. I watched her crash and then “nothing”.
I could see her and she wasn’t moving or breathing. 10 seconds after the shot, she was down. Not only was she down, and after I paced off the distance later, she was only 22 feet from my stand. Immediately after she crashed, my radio buzzed and it was Brad. I said in a low tone voice “Yeah, what have you got?” He replied “Man, I hear a lot of commotion going on and it is pretty close to your area.” I said “Well, that’s probably because I just dropped one 300 pounds plus”. You could hear the excitement in his voice now “Are you kidding me, really?” I told him “No, really, I can see her right now”. He asked “When do you want me to come over there?” I paused, looked at the bear, listened, and completely calm stated “Now if you want, she is down, and she ain’t moving”. His final statement was “Ok, on the way”.
I climbed down after memorizing her location from my stand, then, waited on Brad to show up. He arrived pretty quickly and had a big smile on his face. We talked about the events that just took place and then walked to the bear. Seeing her, I became very cautious and checked from a distance for any sign of life. She was definitely taking “the long nap.” Then: Everything was so calm……….. I realized then, what had taken place. I was the first member in my family to have ever harvested a bear. I had conducted my first bear scouting trip, bought my first non-resident 3 day bear license, seen my first bear in the wilderness, and harvested my first bear on my first bear hunt. That was an amazing feeling. I have harvested some really nice whitetail bucks in my life, but never had I engaged in this kind of hunt. No baiting, no calls, no hunting guides, no nothing but me, the wilderness, the bear, and good old fashioned hunting. Brad was so excited he blurred the picture on my cell phone camera.
Now, once the hunt was over, we realized we should have planned better in the event a bear was harvested. We tried to move her after she was field dressed: No luck. We tried dragging her: No luck. We tried putting her on a pole and carrying her out: No luck. We tried using a pack cart: No luck. We tried getting some more folks out there to help us: No luck. Nothing we tried seemed to work. We were stuck in the middle of the wilderness on the side of a very large and rough mountain with no way to get her back to the 4-wheelers. We tried for 5 hours, mostly in the dark, and had only moved her 5 feet. I called my brother in-law and he suggested I cape her from the shoulders back. I desperately wanted to save the meat, but my attempt was not successful. After I caped her as suggested, we were able to get her back to the ATVs and man was I ever so glad to see those 4-Wheelers. It was now 7 ½ hours from the time I took the shot and we weren’t even down the mountain yet. At 4:00am Sunday morning, we arrived back at Brads house, took a few pictures and I headed back to Oklahoma to the taxidermy man. The check in was easy, at least I had a cell phone to make the call to check her in on my way home. I finally got home at 5:15am Sunday morning. 25 hours of bear hunting adventure. I am always learning about hunting and love to learn different methods. I believe that what I have learned about bear hunting in this area is this: If you’re going to hunt deep in rough country, on the side of a mountain where you can’t take a ATV, and you’re going after big game that you’re not strong enough to drag out or pack out even with help: I don’t know about you, but, I think I will take some pack mules with me the next time I hunt really big game.

Bye the way, every bit of this is true.
I hope you enjoyed my story: Mac

Bob and Forrest father and son do a little squirrel hunting in Northeast Indiana. Bob and Forrest hunt all types of animals, but they use what they shoot. I have not tried squirrel, but I have been told it tastes far better then chicken

Bob gets his squirrel

Forrest gets his first squirrel

A Fine Pelt

Skinned Squirrel waiting to be cleaned and cooked

This is what I hear all the time. Even our education factories teach our kids this inaccurate history. Few have ever heard of what it was really like. I know I have had many discussions with people about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I admit I was one of those who dreamed about how wonderful it must have been. What could be more exciting to a man who loved the outdoors than to be a member of the Lewis and Clark troop? This would provide a participant the opportunity to see the forests, the plains, the rivers, the valleys, the birds, deer, moose, elk, bison, mountain goats, wild sheep, tons of beaver, muskrat, mink, lynx, bobcat, mountain lions, coyotes, wolves, oh, my. What am I forgetting. I might have been in for a rude awakening had I been there.

Lewis and Clark mounted their expedition from around 1804-1806 and their journey was quite well documented. We know that they took along “professional” hunters and trappers to provide food for the members. Logs show Lewis and Clark spent much of their time trading with Indians for dogs to eat because there was no game.

During the years of 1825-1860, Jedediah Smith, Peter Skeen Ogden, Milton Sublette, Joe Meek, John Fremont, Charles Preuss, Captain J. H. Simpson, and Howard Egan, explored all over the West, both on foot and horseback. They kept diaries and logs of their adventures and these accounts describe a much different picture of what it was really like before man moved into this region and settled.

Jedediah Smith is believed to be one of the first explorers of this region. In 1827, Smith and what was described as two of his best men, set out up the American River, through Central Nevada and ending up at Lake Lake, Utah. Smith’s log describes this trip accordingly.

After traveling 22 days from the east side of Mount Joseph, (Sierra Nevada’s) I struck the Southwest corner of the Great Salt Lake, traveling over a country completely barren and destitute of game. We frequently traveled without water, sometime for two days, over sandy deserts where there was no sign of vegetation and when we found water in some of the rocky hills we most generally found Indians who appeared the most miserable of the human race. When we arrived at the Salt Lake, we had but one horse and one mule remaining, which were so feeble and poor that they could scarcely carry the little camp equipage which I had along. The balance of my horses I was compelled to eat.

This expedition originally began with 14 men and 28 horses.

In 1828 Peter Skeen Ogden led an expedition into North Central Nevada. In an area that is now near Winnemucca, Nevada on the Humboldt River (Marys River), what was seen is described this way.

From clumps of sage on the hillsides, scrawny, brown-bodied men peered out upon their passage. Down in the Valley, now and again, the Indians scurried into the brush ahead of them. They were clothed, if at all, in twisted rabbit skins; They had no horses. They lived on seeds, and what wild fowl they could bring down. Ogden had never encountered a race of animals less entitled to the name of man.

The following year Ogden returned to the same area to do some trapping on the river. He describes the river as being very “unwholesome” and says the antelope, which during this time would be near the rivers are scarce. He declares, “woe to them who depend to them for support”.

In 1832 Milton Sublette led a group of trappers into the Marys River (Humboldt). There was no game and the trappers had to eat the beavers they had been trapping. His reports stated that there was not much for what wild animals there were to eat and that they were forced to eat wild parsnips, which poisoned them. The group had to leave this area and head north where they hoped to find something to eat.

Because of this it became necessary to at once abandon the river, and strike across the country towards the North, where after being four days with almost no food, and several weeks in the state of famine they reached the Snake River above the fishing Falls, they were forced, as they passed through the country, to subsist upon ants, crickets, parched moccasins, and the pudding made from the blood, taking a pint at a time from their almost famished animals.

Joe Meek recalls holding his bare hands in an anthill until they were covered with angry ants and then licking the ants off and eating them like a hungry animal.

Joe Walker later traveled through this same Marys River area and continued on into California near the Truckee River down the West Slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Having left Salt Lake and traveling 14 days into California, the expedition had not seen any game to eat and instead lived off horses they were compelled to kill to ward off starvation.

One man killed a deer, which he carried to camp on his back. The animal was dressed, cooked and eaten, … in less time than a hungry wolf would devour a lamb. This was the first game larger than a rabbit that they had killed since leaving the Salt Lake two months ago. For fourteen days they had lived on nothing but horseflesh …twenty four horses had died in crossing the mountain, and seventeen of these had been eaten.

1825 and 1826 found Ogden covering much of what we all know as Oregon today and not only did his group not find any game but the horses were starving because they couldn’t find even any decent grasses for the horse to feed on. It wasn’t just the explorers finding these wastelands. Ogden relates a story told of an Indian woman in Oregon.

The winter before had been so severe, she said, that her people had to resort to the bodies of relations and children. She had killed no one herself, but had fed on two of her children who died.

Things are pretty harsh when anyone has to resort to cannibalism but to first have to kill somebody to eat them, is unfathomable.

John Fremont and Charles Preuss covered areas of Southern Wyoming west toward the Bear River and then South toward Salt Lake. Things were tough. Game was missing and grazing grasses for the horses were non existent as well. Explorers tried trading with the Indian for food but soon discovered the Indians were starving to death themselves. It was only upon finding the Shoshone camped out along the Snake River, were they able to find a tribe living well from ample supplies of smoked Salmon.

Fremont’s party traveled the Columbia River north into Vancouver finding much the same. They even had to buy firewood from some of the resident Indians. Heading south toward Nevada, local tribes warned Fremont there was nothing for his horses to feed on. They were right.

… They had found nothing but dry, shallow basins, their way “broken by gullies and impeded by sage, and sandy on the hills, where there is not a blade of grass.”

Later Fremont would find Pyramid Lake and gorge on trout.

In all of the travels that are documented by many of these explorers, in what is now the state of Nevada, only one time is there mention of someone sighting an elk, but it is believed the person saw a mule deer and mistook it for an elk.

The Indians in this region mostly lived terrible lives, with little clothing, food or sufficient shelter. They ate mostly rats and insects and what few other birds or small game they might be fortunate to find and kill. We have visions of Indians having access to ample game animals and utilizing the hides for clothing and shelter. Such was not the case in most of the Great Basin.

Howard Egan, Sr. was the first Mormon explorer into the region of the Great Salt Lake. As a matter of fact he traveled there with Brigham Young. Egan covered much of the area between the Salt Lake and west into California as he was in the business of driving cattle there.

Egan recounts for us how the Indians crafted these remarkable corrals they would use to trap antelope. The entire episode of putting on a drive required all the men, women and children of the tribe. One had to question whether the effort put into the building and driving was worth the 24 antelope they trapped in twelve years. But when you’re hungry, some antelope is better than none.

The Indians did a similar thing conducting a cricket drive. No, I’m not kidding. Trenches were dug of about 1 foot wide by 1 foot deep and covered over with a thin layer of stiff grass. All the tribes people would begin pounding the ground with tufts of straw in a concerted effort, to drive the black crickets toward the trenches. Once the trenches contained all the crickets they could drive, they set the grass they had placed over the trenches on fire, killing the crickets. They then used the crickets for food, mostly grinding it up and mixing it with other things to make a concocted kind of flour.

These and more accounts certainly paint a far different picture of how things actually were than what we are often taught about how balanced and bountiful our forests and wilderness were before man arrived. Man certainly made his share of mistakes in being good stewards of the land but in time we figured out what we had to do to sustain game populations and to control the predators that destroyed those.

With the presence of man and bringing with him agriculture and the knowledge to plant and grow crops and tend the land, this began to create a better habitat that would support a heartier and healthier crop of game animals. We controlled the predators so people could harvest the game to feed their families and over time devised a pretty decent wildlife management plan that many around the world now envy.

Sorry, but Mother Nature didn’t really give us a “balanced” ecosystem, at least one that is the most productive. These accounts above I believe more accurately depict Mother Nature’s idea of a balanced ecosystem. There’s nothing wrong with that but I don’t think it is in the best interest of humans to have it that way, nor is it what I think people really want or are thinking about when they speak of “natural” wildlife management.

Tom Remington

Photograph by James Grayson

Not every great shot is through has a cross-hair in it. Photographer James Grayson sent me this picture. Of course he does a lot more then just take pictures of animals. Visit him at HERE…

With all the great stories, equipment, adventures and people out there I thought it would be great to get some pictures. If you have any pictures from a hunt, your gear or best of all you geared up that would be great. If you send in pictures I will post on our site as well as putting some of the best pictures on all our sites. Things I am looking for, but not limited to.

• Gear: Clothes, utility tools, ATV’s…
• Favorite weapons: guns, bows, sticks, stones…
• Best Duck Blind or Hide…
• You, family or friends dressed for the hunt…
• Where you hunt

All I need is a digital picture in any PC compatible format and a description of the picture. You can make the description as long or short as you would like. If there is a story behind the picture we would love to hear about it.

Send Pictures to:

Todd Krater
U.S. Hunting Today
Managing Editor
todd@ushuntingtoday.com

Note: If you want a picture posted and do not have a digital copy I would be willing to scan it for you. Please contact me for details.

US Hunting Today reserves the right to refuse any picture for any reason as well as edit it where appropriate.

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.

Learn more about Will Graves below.

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The following interview took place on 24 January 2010.

Q: Will, didn’t you work and travel extensively in Asia, Europe, and Africa during your career with the US government?
A: Yes. I was very fortunate to visit and work with a variety of people in places such as Germany, Russia, Kazakhstan, Poland, Siberia, the Karellian Peninsula, Iran, Greece, Spain, Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italy to name a few.

Q: What did you learn about wolves based on your travels and work in these foreign lands?
A: First and foremost, that the management of wolves depends entirely on people and not on any so-called “balance of nature”. When management and control of wolf numbers and their distribution is absent, the damage to human life, livestock, domestic animals like dogs, and wildlife increases as wolf numbers and densities increase. Unlike other large predators, wolves are very adaptable, wide-ranging, pack animals that keep expanding their range both as individuals and as packs that expand as food and opportunities present themselves.

I was amazed at how little attention was being paid to both the visible danger of wolves and the hidden potential for the spread of diseases affecting people and other animals when wolves were being Re-introduced into Yellowstone Park in the 1990’s. The lack of discussion and preparation for controlling wolves and the absence of any candid description of historical and current wolf experiences and research worldwide struck me as a potential problem of great magnitude.

In addition to the substantiated deaths of many rural people especially in Russia, particularly children and women year around, outbreaks of wolf attacks on humans occur periodically in severe winters or when wolves become habituated to humans when they are not hunted as during World War II in Russia or when their numbers and densities increase with resulting losses of certain prey animals. They are particularly dangerous when they become increasingly bold around humans and human habitations. When wolves come into Russian villages or begin appearing at rural American school bus stops or when, as I was recently told by a Montana rancher, one came into his yard and actually looked in a window of his home, this is a very dangerous situation and almost certainly a prelude to an attack. While trying to chase off such animals is futile, removing such animals should be done immediately. However, this is merely a stopgap because other nearby wolves are likely to soon adopt similar behavior; when wolves exist routinely in such proximity to humans, history and research in Russia show this to be a dangerous situation requiring constant caution and constant control of the wolves.

Also in addition to the observable losses of cattle, sheep, domestic geese and turkeys, pet dogs, herding dogs, hunting dogs, watchdogs, and wildlife like deer, elk, and moose, there is the hidden damage from the stress of constant harassment of chasing and stalking all the surviving animals resulting in reduced physical capacities to survive and reproduce. This resulting stress leads to reduced resistance to disease and reduced weight and stamina that constitutes a significant loss to ranchers, farmers, hunters, rural residents and wildlife populations in my opinion.

Q: Didn’t you begin your career as a US technician working in Mexico to detect and eradicate livestock diseases?
A: That’s correct. My first job for the government was in the USDA Bureau of Animal Industry program as Chief of a “horseback-only” Inspecting, Vaccinating, and Slaughtering Brigade in a tropical rainforest in Mexico. Our goal was to stamp out the foot-and-mouth disease. My Brigade was based in Cozalapa, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Q: Will, today there is growing concern about wolves in North America and especially about wolves as carriers and vectors of diseases and infections such as tapeworms. What diseases, if any, are wolves susceptible to?
A: I am not a disease expert but I have had a lifelong interest in animal diseases and their pathology, especially the more infectious diseases. In 1978 a Russian Biology Degree candidate noted that wolves carried Brucellosis, Deer Fly Fever, Listerosis, Anthrax, and other diseases. Another Russian scientist noted that the wolf can be infected with more than 50 types of parasites including various tapeworms as you just mentioned. Other Russian specialists have reported that wolves are potential vectors of foot-and-mouth disease. Wolves, just like other Canid animals such as dogs and coyotes are susceptible to and can carry rabies, distemper, and other dangerous infections like Neosporum caninum that causes abortions in grazing animals like livestock and big game animals such as elk, deer, and moose.

Q: Can you describe how some of these diseases are spread and how this affects rural communities where wolves are present?
A: Yes. You mentioned Hydatid diseases or tapeworms earlier. There are quite a few species of tapeworms and several are fairly common in wolves. When infected wolves defecate, minute tapeworm eggs are present and may become airborne when the feces dries so kicking or handling wolf feces is not advisable. The eggs may be deposited on nearby grasses, berries, mushrooms or other plants with water runoff after rains or even heavy dew. These eggs are readily passed onto dogs that commonly have a habit of smelling other canid’s feces and often rolling in it. When the dog returns home it may lick the owner or drool in places leaving eggs on objects but most significant is the fact the dog introduces the eggs into the human living space where toddlers and others are exposed to airborne eggs or eggs on surfaces that may enter the lungs or mouth or a cut. Dogs with tapeworms often drag their anus on the floor to relieve the itching that results from the tapeworms that are spreading inside them, thereby further infecting the human living space. In Kazakhstan, where wolves are common, research indicates that rural dogs have tapeworm infection rates several times higher than that of their urban cousins. In many areas of Asia and Eastern Europe it is a long-standing tradition that dogs are unclean and thus are never allowed into buildings of any kind. Like the tradition of not eating pork in some cultures, traditions like no-dogs in homes and ritual washing of hands when entering another’s house are speculatively attributed to avoiding diseases historically associated with dogs.

Wolves, like dogs, can carry these parasites without noticeable effect while they range far and wide.
Livestock such as cattle and sheep are susceptible to infection of the tapeworms carried by wolves. One case of a horse infected with tapeworms in Washington State was recently noted. To the best of my knowledge, infected domestic livestock are mildly debilitated, although the chances of the worms entering organs would make the animal more vulnerable to disease and potentially less healthy in an overall sense. Domestic livestock can be vaccinated for tapeworms.

Wild big game animals like deer, elk, moose and mountain sheep are also susceptible to infection with tapeworms. Infected animals, like infected livestock, show little outward signs of the infection but they are similarly debilitated by various problems like shortness of breath from infected lungs. More problematic however is the likelihood of other kinds of infections in their less healthy state, and in my opinion their becoming more vulnerable to environmental factors like predation, winter stress periods, weather extremes, and periodic food scarcities.

Humans that live in or near wolf areas need to be especially knowledgeable and alert. Humans infected by certain tapeworm species carried by wolves risk having cysts and tapeworms incubating in their body for as many as 20 years. The tapeworms may infect the lungs, liver, kidneys, heart, or brain. These last two can be fatal. Diagnosis of emerging symptoms can easily appear to be many other things so that examinations may miss the cause of the problem.

This is a thumbnail sketch of wolves and their relationship to Hydatid Diseases. Other diseases and infections such as Neosporum caninum, a disease probably spread by wolves and causing abortions in livestock and big game animals like deer, elk, and moose need more research, rural awareness and public education about the risks and costs of such infections. Brucellosis, Rabies, Distemper, and Anthrax are other diseases known to be carried and spread by wolves.

There is also speculation that wolves may carry some diseases or infections on their fur or in their paw pads that may be picked up near dead animals or as they pass through infected areas like pastures and big-game wintering areas. Remember that wolves don’t spend their lives in a restricted local area like other wildlife such as most cougars or bears or coyotes or foxes. Individual wolves often roam far and wide and packs have been observed to travel over large and changing areas in the course of a year. Wolves, like dogs, are fairly omnivorous so that when a food source becomes scarce such as disappearing big game or more tightly guarded livestock; wolves are fully capable of moving into new areas and then beginning to feed for example near the edge of a rural community on domestic birds like geese or turkeys or even into towns where wintering big game animals may be seeking safety. Wolves that begin feeding on cattle in pastures just like wolves feeding on big game animals in wintering “yards” will be frequenting pastures or certain wintering yards repeatedly thus compounding the chance of both picking up certain infections and subsequently spreading it to like animals from which the infection originated.

One last thing; there often seems to be many hidden agendas at work whenever we talk about wolves. For instance, when Russians are asked about wolves as vectors for foot-and-mouth disease or anthrax, they are often reluctant to say anything. This might be because of rumors about wolves spreading anthrax from a weaponized anthrax burial site where wolves were able to recently gain access. Anthrax and foot-and-mouth are candidates for biological weaponry research and thus things that can cause trouble for the indiscreet. Similarly in the US discussing claims about wolves “balancing” nature or about their danger to and disruption of rural American life are similarly clothed in fictions and political correctness about everything from lethal controls to federal government liability for damages and harm caused by their wolf protection program.

Q: One last question: what would you recommend that the US and Canada do to avoid the potentially catastrophic effects of a growing and habituating wolf population that threatens rural residents, rural economies, and rural communities today?
A: First, we have to educate the rural and urban publics about the real and hidden effects of wolves. This is a primary function of government in my view. Such education would address candid facts about:
- Lethal wolf damage to livestock and wildlife, and how to avoid it.
- The increased stress on livestock and wildlife and how to minimize it.
- Areas away from people where wolves are to be allowed and areas where they are not allowed.
- The need for constant monitoring and for lethal controls by government where wolves threaten humans.
- Diseases and infections carried and spread by wolves and how to avoid them.
- The dangers of wolf habituation and what it portends.
- The toll on rural watchdogs, hunting dogs, herding dogs, work dogs, and pet dogs that results from wolves and how to minimize it.
- The serious total consequences of these things on rural residents and rural lifestyles if not prevented.

Second, wolves need to be kept as completely as possible out of any areas where they have a probability of interacting with humans routinely. A combination of government hunters, public hunters, and legalizing the killing of problem wolves by threatened citizens without the threat of government prosecution are really permanent necessities as long as maintaining wolf populations in acceptable numbers and areas is to be achieved. This will require expensive but continuous monitoring and research to constantly adjust to wolves and their proven capacity to adapt to human changes throughout thousands of years of recorded history.

Will, thank you for sharing these insights based on your travel and experiences. More Americans than you might imagine owe you a debt of gratitude for taking the time to share this valuable information and your suggestions with us. Jim Beers.

* Details about Will’s book, “WOLVES IN RUSSIA: Anxiety Through The Ages”, may be found at his website: WolvesinRussia.com

Note: If you found this interview worthwhile please share it with every rancher, farmer, dog owner, hunter, politician, friend, and relative that you know. If you know of any publication that would use it, please ask them to publish it. This is a serious matter of national importance and all of us need to understand it before we can come together to resolve it. JB

Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7atcomcastdotnet