Sharing The Home Place

Let me introduce you to someone: This is my friend Craig. You’d like him. He’s a retired career Air Force guy, and one of the most intelligent and honorable people I’ve ever known. I work with him a lot, and he’s taught me more about real leadership than anyone else in my life. We’re different, to say the least. He’s a well-tailored suit, I’m Wranglers and boots. He’s precise, organized and disciplined, I’m a loose cannon. He’s BYU, I’m UW. But we share something very precious to both of us: We’re hunters.

That’s a blinding flash of the obvious in my case. If you’ve read this blog at all, you know that hunting is part of my DNA. My family have been hunters back to the days when we were painting pictures of our exploits on cave walls in Europe. But Craig’s story is different – much different. He’s a new hunter – that’s his first deer you see him with there. At a time in his life when many hunters are thinking about hanging it up, he’s as happy and excited about that first deer as I was with my first deer over 40 years ago. I think that’s a story that bears telling.

To do that, I have to introduce you to another friend. Meet Lance. He’s a big man – about 6’3” and a couple of ax handles wide across the shoulders. He’s got a heart to match – he may be the kindest and most generous human being on the planet. We became friends years ago, and no wonder - we had a lot in common. We both grew up in western Wyoming, among loggers and miners and people who loved wild things and wild places. We share a love of trucks and guns and horses and frosty mornings in the high country. His home place is in the Grey’s River, in western Wyoming. If you don’t know it, you should. It’s big country, steep as a cow’s face and home to a ton of elk and trophy mule deer and generations of Lance’s family.

I have to say that when Lance invited Craig on his annual early season deer/elk hunt this year, I was a little surprised. I shouldn’t have been. I should have known that he wanted our mutual friend to see and feel some of the things that he and I may take a little bit for granted. He wanted Craig to see the sun come up over the Tri-Basin Divide. He wanted him to hear the scream of a rutting bull and feel the hair rise on the back of his neck, just like it does for me when I hear that wildest of all sounds. He wanted to help him not just see the Greys River country, but feel it in its immensity and be part of it. He wanted to share his home place.

And that’s exactly what he did. For a week, Craig had not only a guide to the Greys River country, but an interpreter in the ways and lives of the wild things that live there. When he returned, he told me “Lance knows every inch of that country like the back of his hand!” I replied that he should – Lance and the Greys River country are one – it is as much a part of him as he is of it. It’s impossible to tell where he leaves off and it begins. It’s his home place.

Most of us are pretty shy about sharing our home places. And with good reason, in many cases. Too many of us have taken someone to that special spot – maybe that little pass between two drainages where our grandparents took us to kill our first elk or deer – only to find them there the next year with a camp full of their slob hunter friends and relations, dishonoring our both friendship and the place itself. But I think that in our fear of losing the home place to strangers, we may be ensuring that very thing.

The numbers say that hunters are declining as a percentage of the American population. Aging baby boomers are giving it up, and young people aren’t picking it up. We talk a lot about the importance of getting young men and women out in the field and away from the TV and the computer. Agencies have special programs and special seasons and special this and that. But what about someone like Craig? What about someone who’s 60 and wants to try their hand at hunting? What about someone who has spent a lifetime of work and service and has a vast social and professional network of friends across the US and abroad? Wouldn’t we like to have that person as an avid hunter and an advocate for wild things and wild places? I think we would, and I don’t think any government program is going to help us. I think we’d be crazy not to take Craig hunting and help him see what we’ve seen and feel what we’ve felt. And the only way I know to do that is for us to get outside our comfort zone and share our home place with him.

That’s just what Lance did – he shared something so precious and so personal that Craig, being the good man that he is, could not help but feel the significance of it. He would no more dishonor that home place than he would spit in a cathedral. Indeed, he is now a passionate advocate for the Greys River country and the wild things that live there. It’s become the place his mind goes when it needs to find peace, the place his heart goes when it needs to be happy. It’s become his home place, too.

So Craig, congratulations on your first deer. But more congratulations on finding the connection with that special place. And Lance, thanks for enlisting this good man in the ranks of people who care about that special place. You both did real good.

Walt Gasson, Executive Director
Wyoming Wildlife Federation

Elk Hunting 101

By the time you read this, we’ll be elk hunting. For me, it’s the best part of the whole year. It’s like Christmas and my birthday and all the other holidays all rolled up in one. My family would tell you that I live for this time of year.

It’s different than antelope hunting. For one thing, it’s a lot harder work. We hunt on foot, and there’s a lot of hiking involved. It’s colder, and sometimes it snows. And the country is just plain hard. But it is wild. I guess that’s the beauty of this experience for me – the utter wildness of it. No trucks, no four-wheelers – the only quads we use are the ones God gave us. We are on the trail way before light, and we get back way after dark. And in between, we hunt really, really hard.

We’re pretty successful at it, too. I figured it up a couple of years ago, and our success over the years is about 75% - that’s twice the statewide average. I don’t say that to brag. I’m not half the elk hunter my dad was, and I probably won’t live to be. But I’m not bad, and I’m still learning – even at my advanced age. Here are a few things I’ve learned over the years:

#1 – Know the country. Some people like to hunt a different place every year. More power to them. I don’t. I’ve been hunting the same place for decades, and I think that helps us be more successful. Over time, we’ve figured out what elk do when it’s hot, when it’s cold, when it’s dry, and when it’s just sorta normal. We know they’re not in the same places on the tenth day of the season that they are on the first day. We know where to be under what set of conditions. That helps a lot.

#2 – Hunt all day. Depending on the conditions, elk in our country may or may not spend a lot of time out in the open. If it’s hot, they don’t. They shade up pretty much as soon as it’s light. If it’s cold, they spend more time eating because they need the calories. If it’s snowing, they timber up and don’t come out much. But just because they aren’t standing around in a meadow doesn’t mean you can’t be effective hunting them. We’ve killed them in meadows, we’ve killed them in the timber and in the sagebrush. You gotta hunt where the elk are.

#3 – Pay attention. When you’re sitting on a meadow during that first hour of light in the morning or last hour of light in the evening, sit at the edge of the meadow, with something in front of you to break up your outline. Otherwise, you stick out like a sore thumb. If you’re walking through the timber, go slow and quiet. Pay strict attention to the breeze. Elk in the timber pay attention first to what they smell, second to what they hear and third to what they see. You can’t let them smell, hear or see you first.

#4 – Shoot well. It’s very vogue now to hunt elk with a starter cannon – .338 or larger. I shoot a .280 Remington, and nobody in our family shoots anything heavier than a .30-06. Since we very seldom shoot over 200 yards, and mostly under 100 yards, a big heavy rifle is unnecessary. What is necessary for us is one that is very accurate, and one you can stand to carry around all day. I want it to shoot exactly where I point it, and I don’t want it to punish me when it goes off.

Maybe more important than all the other things combined is the spirit with which we approach elk hunting. If my body, my mind and my spirit are all prepared for this experience, and if they are all in sync with each other, then hunting elk is an almost Zen-like experience. Time slows down, and your focus is completely in the moment. Things that would normally happen too fast or too subtly for you to even notice are suddenly and fully in your consciousness. It’s a magical experience that I can find few words to describe.

Good hunting, my friends. God bless you all.

Walt Gasson, Executive Director
Wyoming Wildlife Federation