Lusby Access Area Victory

Do you remember how it felt when your team won the state championship? Or maybe when your science project got the grand prize? Or your Pinewood Derby car got the blue ribbon?

That's how it felt around here this week. WE WON!!!

Judge David B. Park in Natrona County held in favor of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department in the case of Davison, et al v. Wyoming Game and Fish Commission et al. The case dealt with an easement purchased by the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission in 1964.

The plaintiffs in the case, Corey and Kathryn Davison, Ronald and Stacey Richner, and Marton Ranch, Inc. had asked the court to rule that the easement provided only for a "100-foot walkway bordered on the streamside by the high water line of the river" and that the boat ramp built by Game and Fish was not located according to the easement. A judgment in favor of the plaintiffs would have made the easement worthless for public fishing, boating, and waterfowl hunting.

The defendants in the case, the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission, had asked Judge Park to rule that the easement extended from the center of the river to a line of 100 feet above the high water line. They agreed that the boat ramp was not located according to the easement, but held that it was relocated by mutual agreement to accommodate the Davisons.

This spring, WWF filed a motion to intervene in the case because we thought it was so important. Judge Park denied that motion. We were disappointed, but we stayed involved, working with Wyoming Fly Casters, our affiliate in Casper to find sportsmen who felt strongly enough to prepare affidavits and even testify in the case. It wasn't too hard. We had some great Womingites step up and tell the court exactly what they thought. And it worked. Citing these affidavits repeatedly, Judge Park ruled in favor of the Commission, noting that the parties intended for the easement to extend from the center of the river to a point 100 feet above the high water line, and that the boat ramp is at a location agreed to by the parties. Citing the sportsmens' affidavits, Park noted that the easement not only allows "but encourages fishing along the entire two-mile stretch" of the river. Further, he held that a reading of the entire easement clearly allowed public access to "one of the most foremost fishing spots in Wyoming and also the opportunity to hunt migratory birds."

My favorite part of the entire opinion was the judicial notice in matters of custom and tradition, and may be taken of facts "every damn fool knows".

This is a stunning victory for sportsmen. The Federation and our local affiliate, Wyoming Fly Casters in Casper are overjoyed at Judge Park's ruling. The ruling secures the right of hunters and anglers to use the only public access point between Grey Reef and Government Bridge, and on some of the finest trout water in the interior West, but more imortantly, it sets a precedent for public access easements across Wyoming. We're happy with the ruling and especially happy to see the investments made by the Game and Fish on behalf of sportsmen protected."

Signs rected by the plaintiffs must be removed according to the ruling.

Now, it's time to get out to Lusby and go hunting and fishing. Mind your manners, don't litter and be good neighbors.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation

Elk Hunt 2009: Murphy's Law

In the first gray light of dawn, I saw the bull at the exact instant that he saw me. He was a six-point, and the master of his domain. He squealed and everything erupted into chaos. He seemed to go instantly from placidly standing broadside to a full-tilt, all-out run. Things happened way too fast to think about them. At times like this, there is no real thinking. Your brain is simply processing information and you are reacting by instinct or else it's over. I remember thinking that he was a bull and a nice one...that's all my brain registered. The rest was just gauging speed and distance, calculations that were performed by instinct and experience in less than a nanosecond. I raised the .280 to my shoulder and fired. I heard him go down, in a shattering of branches, behind a big granite boulder in the timber a hundred yards to my left. He tried to rise once, twice, and then lay still...

Yeah, that was the way it was supposed to be...the way I had it all worked out in my mind. Here's how it really went:

James and Chad and I left the cabin at 4:30 AM, the same time we always do. We drove to the trailhead and noticed that nobody in the other camps was even close to being up yet, just like we always do. We hiked to the big meadow, just like we always do. We left the trail and set a course for the gap in the mountains, looking for the little footbridge across the creek, just like we always do. But that's when everything went south...

We wandered in the darkness, unable to find the bridge. We looked up. We looked down. We finally gave up and forded the creek. We crossed the meadow and missed the sheepherder trail. Then we missed it again. And again. Finally, after almost an hour of wandering aimlessly in the dark in a place I'd been hundreds of times, I found the gate in the new allotment fence and got us on the trail. We were late getting into position - a situation a lot like missing the kickoff. You feel like you missed the whole game.

An hour later, we were in the same meadow that has blessed us with an elk almost every year. No elk. No tracks. The next meadow, the one we killed two in last year - no elk. No tracks. The next one - same thing. The next one - ditto. By now, the calf muscle I tore this spring was screaming. We put Chad in the saddle while we worked the timber and smaller meadows that simply had to have elk there. Nothing. Nada. Zip. And my left calf is on fire. I can scarcely lift it and I can only walk about a half mile between rest stops. Took a fall on a snow-covered aspen log and bulls-eyed a boulder with my ribs. Now it hurts to breathe.

Q: How can it get worse than this?
A: About that time, it began to snow. Not just a little bit, either. A lot. Big, fat, fluffy flakes. The kind of snow that piles up fast and covers everything.

Over 40 years of hunting in this country has shown me that elk find a place to lay down and just wait it out when it begins to snow like this.. When it quits, they come out, but until then, you aren't going to find them. Chad and I walked out the West Fork, with me taking about a dozen rest stops to let my leg quit hurting. James hiked back to the trailhead to get the pickup and come around to pick us up. For the first time in three years, we were elkless on opening morning. Worse yet, it was clear that big snow was coming and that I was not going to be able to walk much. We went to the cabin and took a nap.

This scenario continued to play out over the course of the next 5 days. No elk. No tracks. More snow. Still more snow. Can't walk. Can't hunt. Can't show these young guys where to find them when the elk are holed up like rabbits to get away from the storm. Still elkless...still all crippled up.

Only about 40% of Wyoming elk hunters actually kill an elk in any given year. Over the long haul, we're at 78%. Not bad, but not much consolation when your leg is screaming and you're sitting in the cabin watching it snow. but the good news is that the cabin is a pretty great place to be. First off, my sweet wife is there. That's good. There's no sweeter sight in the world than my wife's beautiful face at the end of a day like this. She has retired from hunting these elk, but she runs our elk camp flawlessly, just as she always has. We live like royalty under her direction. Beth is there. She is a Wyoming girl through and through and through, never flustered by snow or uncooperative elk. Her solution: When it's like this, you just have to work harder if you want to kill one. And our grandchildren are there. We don't believe in making the annual elk hunt some sort of male bonding things. We take everyone who can go, from babies on up.

So even when we're having a hard time killing an elk, we're still having fun. I called up a couple of moose, grunting and breaking branches and shaking saplings like a bull in rut. I took Connor deer hunting down in the sagebrush. We collected aspen leaves and made pictures. We read stories and played games. And all the while, we're teaching. We're teaching about persistence and hard work. We're teaching about the beauty and blessing of wild things and wild places. We're teaching that both boys and girls can be hunters. And we're teaching that in our family, we love and support one another even when things are hard.

We never did get an elk, but it was a great week.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation

The Home Place

Welcome to our new blog - "The Home Place".

You're probably wondering why we call it that. Let me explain:

I come from a ranching family. They came to Wyoming in the 1870's. Our outfit was established by my great-grandfather, who passed it on to his son, my grandfather. The home place - the ranch headquarters - was on Craven Creek, near the village of Opal, WY. Then, in the great influenza epidemic of 1918, my grandfather died, leaving two small children and a grieving widow. We lost the home place. That isn't - and was never - about about the loss of some old buildings, some broken-down machinery, a bunch of cows or sheep and a few head of horses. It's much more than that. It's not even about the loss of your home - it's about the loss of your place in the world.

The great western historian Wallace Stegner, talked about our need for a sense of place- the feeling that there is somewhere we belong, based on specific geography, shared memories, and shared values. To a western family, the loss of the home place is the loss of all that. It isn't the loss of a place, it is the loss of a soul, and greater tragedy can come upon a family like mine.

But my family isn't unique. In the gritty, little mining, ranching, and railroad communities of southwestern Wyoming, families came from all over the world For the last century and a half, people came to Wyoming from all over the world to make a living. But they stayed here to make a life.

And part of that, at least for most of us, was about hunting and fishing and camping and spending time with their families in the outdoors. Every Wyoming family has certain places that are special to them - the places they park their camper or put up their tent. The places they hunt, the places they fish, the places they take their kids and their grandkids and their horses and their 4-wheelers. The places they go to get their boots dirty and their souls clean. These are the places I refer to as "the home places" for all of us.

These are the places we love, the places we live for, the places we bequeath to our children like some precious family heirloom. Because what they represent to us is, to paraphrase Wally Stegner, not just a sense of place, but a place of sense.

That's the true price of the last decade in Wyoming - the loss of the home place for each of us, for our children, and for our children's children. Not a week goes by now that I don't hear from someone in that redneck, red state homeland of mine about someplace that is lost - a place to hunt, a place to fish, a place to camp - that's been converted to an industrial zone. They ask me, "Where am I going to take my kids fishing? Where am I going to take them hunting?" I'm running out of answers to give them.

I guess I just want people to know about the home place. Maybe if we talk about it a little more, we'll remember how much we love it. Maybe if we remember how much we love it, we'll find it a little easier fight to keep it.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation

WWF First Post

Beginning October 1, we’ll begin featuring a blog on the WWF page. It’s called “The Home Place” and I’ll be posting regularly about hunting, fishing and conservation here in Wyoming. I’ll be including photos, maybe even some video. I hope you’ll enjoy it, and more importantly, I hope it will remind you what we’re all about here at WWF. Since 1937, we’ve been serving wildlife and sportsmen. That’s what we do, and I hope our new blog will provide a new way for you to be involved.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation