Wanted: Outstanding Board Members!

WWF is currently recruiting for Associate Board of Directors positions. These are volunteer positions, with tremendous opportunities for influencing the future of Wyoming’s wild things and wild places. Contact Walt Gasson at 307-637-5433 or waltgasson@wyomingwildlife.org.

Mom

There's been a lot of talk in recent years about the decline of hunting and fishing traditions in the American family. Academics have identified it, anti-hunters have rejoiced in it and families have lived it. Pro-hunting interests have sought to change it. But one thing most everyone agrees on: Lots of kids are growing up in a single-parent home, often headed by a mom who has little time for and little experience in teaching her children to hunt or fish. As someone who grew up in one of those homes, I'm more than a little reluctant to offer any advice to those moms. They've got enough to do without me ragging on them to get their kids into hunting and fishing. And they've got plenty of guilt without me helping them feel like they need one more thing to worry about.
So, if you're a single mom and you just don't need any more on your plate, stop reading right here and know that I appreciate all that you're trying to do and I wish you all the best. If, by chance, you're a single mom who wants her son or daughter to learn to hunt or fish, maybe I can help a little bit. Actually, maybe my mom can help. After all, she was the one who actually did it. She was the widow with a 12-year old son, a woman with only a tenuous link to the outdoors who managed to pass on the tradition of hunting and fishing in our family. Here are a few things she did:

Start where you are. My mom had no experience, and little interest, in the outdoors before my dad came into her life. For the 16 years of their life together, she dutifully accompanied him on the camping and fishing forays. She mostly opted out of hunting. When it became clear that her little son was aflame with a love of wild things and wild places, she probably thought, "Oh no, not another one!" But when she became the head of our house, she loved me enough to nurture that flame. She didn't know everything, but she knew enough to get started.

Get some help. My mom knew she couldn't do it all. That's where Luke came in. He was my Dad's best friend, and he and his family gathered me up and took me hunting and fishing. He taught me to work really hard. He taught me to fish. He taught me to hunt elk and ducks and chukars and sage grouse. More importantly, he taught me to be ethical and honest when I did. He didn't try to be my dad; he didn't try to be my buddy. He had a firm hand and wasn't interested in excuses. He was the real deal. He was a mentor before any of us had ever heard that word.
Create opportunity. My mom was a master of incentive. "If you get those leaves raked up off the lawn, I'll take you and the dog up the river to hunt ducks." It was amazing how fast I could rake those leaves with the right stimulus. "When you get done mowing, we'll go fishing." She had absolutely no interest in fishing, and when we got there, she'd sit in the car and read a book, but she wanted to get me on the water. It worked.

Be prepared. It wasn't always easy. Actually, I suspect that it was seldom easy. My mom had to spend some money that we probably didn't have to buy fishing gear and shotgun shells. She had to live with the possibility that I might fall in the river and drown or shoot myself in the foot. She had smelly bobcat pelts in her garage and skunk juice on my jeans. But she persevered. She gave me enough freedom to stretch and grow, but not so much that I didn't bump up against the limits.
For all her trouble, I'm not really sure what she received in return. She certainly got a son who loves hunting and fishing and the wild places of Wyoming. What difference that makes to her at 90 years old, I couldn't begin to tell. She's dying now, a strong and valiant spirit trapped in a body that is gradually shutting down. But perhaps her passing is eased by the knowledge that she leaves behind a strong and close-knit family, a tribe of kindred spirits who love Wyoming and its wild things and wild places. Her gift to us was that love of each other and a passion for the land that we call home. What greater gift could she have given us?

Thanks, Mom.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation

Luck Returns!

For the last two years, our outfit has been blessed by receiving a number of Commissioner's tags, donated by members of the Wyoming Game & Fish Commission. If you're not familiar with these, they allow the recipient of the tag to hunt antelope, deer, or elk in any hunt area in Wyoming. Since a number of Wyoming hunt areas are nearly impossible to draw, they are highly sought after. We raffle these tags as a fund raising effort, to support our work in conserving wildlife and wildlife habitat in the Cowboy State.

Last year, we started an event called the "Hunt with Walt" in which the winner of one of the tags gets a guided desert elk hunt in Area 100. It's a fantastic area, with lots of bulls, and your chances of drawing a license there are about the same as your chances of being struck by a meteor. And, oh yeah, your guide is me. The first Hunt with Walt was fabulous. Our hunter was a guy from Washington, Steve from Spokane (see below). He was a great hunter and a champion of a guy. We had a great time. By the end of the hunt, it felt like he was one of the WWF team. We even managed to find him a bull. And we had a great time showing him around the desert country of southwestern Wyoming.


This year, our hunter was another great guy, and another Washingtonian - Lewis from Shelton. Lewis is a lifelong hunter with a lot of ties to Wyoming, having hunted for many years in the Sheridan area. I met Lewis in Lander last Sunday evening, and we talked about the hunt we'd go on the next morning. He was excited as a little kid on Christmas Eve. As for me, I was just hoping that I could show him a great time and maybe even find him a good bull. We decided to be on the road to the desert the next morning at 6:30 AM.

By 6:00 the next morning, Lewis was ready to go. I love a guy who has hunted as long as this good man, and who still gets this excited! We headed off into the darkness. Over South Pass and across the Sweetwater and into the desert we went. We had to wait for it to get light, but that gave us a chance to have a little breakfast and visit a little bit before we started looking for elk. I headed east as soon as it was light enough to see. It was chilly, maybe 25 degrees, with a screaming west wind. It seemed like a morning that elk would like to be out of the wind.

We worked our way into one of my favorite spots, and we saw some elk but they vanished as if the earth had swallowed them up. We saw four more elk - only one very small bull. After a look into Dry Creek and up over the rim, I decided to head off to the east. Lots of times, especially after they've been hunted a bit, these desert bulls go off into the big flats and just lay up to wait for the season to end. We headed east. And east. And east some more. We headed maybe 20 miles east, and kept going. On little two track roads that skirt the south side of the buttes, out through big greasewood flats, up on little rims where we could run the spotting scope and look for an elk. We jumped one bunch of 20 or 30, with yet another small bull. We headed off into country I haven't been in since I was maybe 10 years old. We saw wild horses - one bunch even had a mule running with them. We saw sage grouse - lots of them. We saw antelope and mule deer and eagles and ravens. By noon, we were so far out into the desert country, I swear I saw two little groups of Paleo-Indians living in pit houses and drying mammoth hides...but we couldn't find a bull for Lewis.

We turned north, crosses several more small desert creeks, and pulled up short of a big rim. I spotted 5 bulls feeding near the top of it, maybe two miles away. We decided to investigate. We made a great stalk, and found that these bulls were the advance party of about 50 or 55 more elk. Just as we were making the last little crawl to get Lewis in position to shoot, some yahoo came jouncing down the road in a pickup and spooked them. I was disgusted, but the elk simply filtered down a big draw. We got Lewis started down a parallel draw and I went back up to get the truck.

When I picked him up, he was grinning like a little kid. He'd killed a bull just over the ridge, and he was simply overjoyed. By the time we got it dressed and loaded, it was dark. We wandered west for an hour, first on one little two-track road and then another until I could see lights on the highway. We finally came out on a road I recognized about 9:00 PM. He must have thanked me twenty times. It was just a great day. I loved finding him a bull. I loved showing this wild place to a guy who loves wild places. I loved being in my Home Place.


Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation

Missing The Moose

My wife's brother, Mark, is a great guy. He is tremendously intelligent. He can fix anything. His garage is cleaner than my office. But he may be the most unlucky human being I know. He applied for a moose tag in Wyoming for a decade - couldn't draw the license. When he finally drew the license, we thought the bad luck streak was broken. We were wrong. Oh boy, were we wrong!

I met up with Mark in Alpine on Saturday, October 17. It was a beautiful afternoon, 65 degrees and clear. The snow that blanketed western Wyoming in early October was all but gone. We pulled the camper up to Murphy Creek and got everything set up. We were here to get that moose!

We spent Sunday scouting the entire length of the Greys River Road. From the Little Greys to the Tri-Basin Divide, we glassed and drove and plotted strategy. We didn't see many moose - a cow and a calf - but not to worry. After all, I've killed four of these things, and it really isn't all that hard. Or at least, it wasn't. On Sunday evening, Lance rolled into camp with great news. He's spotted a good bull in the south end of the valley. We'd go after him the first thing Monday morning. We were in luck!

Before first light, we were in position. When it was light enough to see, we spotted a small bull in the upper end of the drainage. While we were debating about the wisdom of stalking a yearling bull on the first real day of the hunt, a pickup and horse trailer pulled up down below. Hmmm...that's odd...More debate...Hey wait a minute, that guy unloading the horses look like Dave...More debate...Another pickup truck, another horse trailer, I descend the ridge to palaver...

Sure enough it is Dave. And his wife, Amber. And her sister, Mariah. And her husband. Mariah killed the moose we were looking for last night and they're going in to pack it out. Mark's bad luck strikes again.

The rest of the week plays out pretty much like the first day. We have the greatest help in the world, Lance's Uncle Larry, and his two sons, Tracy and Wade. These guys know every inch of this country and every moose by first name. But they do not know Mark's luck. They go one way and see moose after moose, day after day. We go the other way and see nada. They see moose in the road. They see moose in an old burn. They see them here. They see them there. We do not see them here or there. We do not see them anywhere.

The week flies by. On the next to last night, Larry and Tracy see a bull with a cow up the Little Greys. We are there at first light the next morning. The cow is there, the bull is not. We hunt the Little Greys like wolves, from top to bottom. No moose. We go after a small bull we had seen three times before. He has vanished like Mark's luck.

On the last morning of the hunt, we pack up the trailer and head south up the valley. We try one last look at some very mossy looking country. No luck. Mark heads home and so do I.

I feel real bad about this. I was dead certain we could get this good man a moose. He deserved a moose. But we don't always get what we deserve. We don't always get what we want. But we did get a week in the most beautiful country in western Wyoming with some of the finest people I know. What could be luckier than that?


Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation