[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Backpack Hunters–Check In #24794

I have been doing it since I was a kid, and that means right around 60 years of experience. One thing for sure: it is a lot easier now than it was then (despite the high mileage on the chassis). Technology can certainly be abused, but the advances in backpack gear are remarkable. I have a complete packing list I can send you if you wish. I seldom take everything on it, but the check-list approach means I won’t leave anything important at home. One odd item I never leave without, especially in Alaska: a good, long, paperback novel. If you get weathered in to a backpack tent for three days by a blizzard, it will keep you from going crazy, and you never run out of toilet paper. (Don’t read the brown pages.) Crime and Punishment actually saved my life in a bad fall, when it cushioned my head from a serious blow from a rock. (It was in the outside pocket of my backpack.) Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Grouse Question #24787

Grouse are funny. Grouse of all species can be wary game birds most of the time and remarkably dumb at others. Spruce grouse are known for naive behavior (good news when you are feeding moose camp with your bow up North), but they all can do it. Some years back we had an adult blue grouse show up at our MT house and hang out on the deck. Before long, it was walking through the house when we left the door open. This was in the spring, so the bird was at least a year old. It was a cock bird, presumably looking for love in all the wrong places. Fortunately, it never ran into one of the retrievers. Ours all have soft mouths, but I’m not sure they are that soft. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Winter Critter Damage? #62382

The heavy hitters around our MT place are the hairy woodpeckers. They make a good argument of aluminum siding. Our house is full of holes now, and certain family measures are lobbying for termination with extreme prejudice with the .410. Trouble is, I’ve hunted all kinds of game birds all over the world and consider myself an excellent wing-shot, but I have never seen any bird harder to hit on the wing than a woodpecker. How the Thompson brothers did it with longbows is beyond me.I can watch the nuthatches for hours though as they carefully stash seeds and bugs into the minute cracks next to the woodpecker holes–too cool.Other than that it’s the usual assortment of bunnies and deer, plus an occasional lion track in the coulee. Let’s face it: during hard winters wildlife eats what it can get and if we are going to build houses in their backyards we can’t complain when they do what they have to do to survive. The only exception to this enlightened attitude is the feral cats,which wantonly destroy more wildlife than human hunters ever could. Shoot them all, but be cool about it. If the Cat People find out, they can be more dangerous than Al Queda. They scare me so badly I’m going to sign this with an alias. Best, Gene Wensel

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Hybred Deer in AZ. #62365

While I see your point (no pun intended), I certainly can’t say that isn’t a mule deer. I have seen eye guards on mulies that age. Hybridization is uncommon but does occur, almost always as a result of a whitetail buck breeding a mule deer doe. The offspring are fertile but have a poor survival rate, so the net population impact is usually negative for mule deer. I have–rarely–seen deer in Montana that I thought were hybrids, an opinion based mostly upon an inordinate amount of black in the tail. Genetic analysis from a sample of skin off your skull plate could answer the question. Perhaps a nearby university wildlife biology department would be interested in running the test. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Southwest DIY Javelina Hunts? #62351

That’s good country, and I will be there for a month next winter. However, I will be concentrating on my bird dog, shotgun and camera for the most part and don’t want to be making noise where people are bowhunting! (I’ll be farther south anyway, but you never know–might stop in for a beer.) Javelina don’t deserve their bad reputation as table fare. It’s not moose tenderloin, but it can be perfectly good. Most of the odor problem arises from the musk gland, which is located, of all places, just above the tail. Stay well clear of that and minimize contact between hide and meat as others have pointed out. The meat itself is fine grained and tasty if treated right but it’s invariably tough. Consequently, I don’t eat a lot of javelina steaks. It does best diced into bite sized pieces and cooked slowly in a crock pot or Dutch oven. I use it for stew, curry, or–my favorite regionally appropriate approach–tacos or chile. The first time I killed one, I spiced up the slabs of rib and cooked them over an open mesquite fire while camped out in the middle of nowhere. It looked good and tasted good, but if I hadn’t given up after an hour I’d still be chewing that first bite. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Al Kidner's feature article #58790

I got to know Al quite well back when I was traveling regularly to Australia. I can’t say enough good things about him. I hope we get to run more of his material in TBM. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: cool documentary #58788

I haven’t seen the video, but I spent a lot of time in the field with Russian trappers and Native reindeer herders back in 1990 and 1991. Toughest people I ever met, and we formed some remarkable friendships during the time I spent there. They were also likely the happiest people in what was then the USSR (actually, it no longer was by the time I left in 1991), probably because they were operating so far off the grid that they didn’t have to deal with the rest of it. I thought I knew a lot about getting along in the wilderness when I went, but I knew a lot more when I came back. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #54035

As a point of info, “You Can’t Go Home Again” is the title of a novel by Thomas Wolfe. He was right. Read Lewis and Clark’s Journals, and then go look at the same habitat a mere 200 years later. Wildlife just can’t adapt that quickly to so much change. That’s why rational management is required. Too bad the “rational” modifier is so frequently overlooked. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #51127

Smithhammer, I couldn’t agree more with your last two posts. The reasonable middle ground is getting drowned out on this issue, as with many others, by the shouting on either extreme. I have spent lots of time with both wolves and grizzly/brown bears and continue to respond emotionally to them. But I have to point out that you reasonably can’t fret about the apex of the pyramid without fretting about the base. There wouldn’t be any brown bears without red salmon. There wouldn’t be any red salmon without zooplankton at sea. But how many people are clamoring to save the zooplankton? Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #50075

Let’s think about this a little more, if anyone can stand it. Elk and wolves are both among the group of large North American mammals that evolved in the Old World and crossed the Bering Sea land bridge to get here. They were accompanied by another apex predator–the human being. Relationships among the three had developed over millennia prior to their arrival here.For reasons that were probably necessary, human hunters were eliminated from the process in Yellowstone about a hundred years ago. Next, consider the bison. Prior to European contact, they numbered somewhere between 20 and 40 million, only to be reduced to a handful in a corner of Yellowstone. Their survival as a species was miraculous and largely derived from efforts an earlier generation of American hunter-conservatinists. Interestingly, the historical year-around carrying capacity for bison in what is now Yellowstone was essentially zero. They utilized the high plateau as summer pasture, but were smart enough to move elsewhere during the winter. They didn’t stay there then until we made them, and the ecosystem wasn’t ready for the situation we created. The upshot is that our policies eliminated not one but two apex predators from the mix, at the same time we were artificially concentrating not one but two large ungulates in places they did not naturally occupy. No wonder rivers changed course. To think you can solve the problem by addressing one or two components of a highly complicated inter-relationship in isolation is naive. Just MHO.Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #44105

That eloquent passage from Leopold has frequently been taken out of context to suggest that its author experienced an a-ha moment regarding hunting in general, which is certainly not the case as anyone familiar with Leopold knows. It’s not really clear just who first recorded the principles of the North American Model–Val Geist told me it was Jim Posewitz, and Jim told me it was Val. Anyway, I think Leopold merely anticipated one of its six core concepts: Wildlife should not be killed without a valid reason. Big difference. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #44029

Eldsvolling–Thank you very much for the references. In fact, that was exactly what I was suggesting that this discussion needed. (As everyone who reads TBM knows, I’ve been trying to establish a rational middle ground on this issue for years.) Point is, any good photographer can make a film supporting any position on wolf recovery, including both extremes. If the goal is management by science rather than emotion, data speak louder than pretty pictures. Also, please note that your third reference concludes, in essence, that it’s more complicated than that. It usually is. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: Wolves and Rivers Video #32129

The film is beautifully done but lacking in scientific data. I’m not saying that any of its message is wrong, but I would have to see some more evidence before concluding that its thesis is correct on all counts. It is one thing to make a film abut the beauty of Yellowstone and its wildlife, but taking a position on a controversial subject requires facts. I would be glad to look at them objectively. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: poll on release #31131

Split, but it doesn’t matter. Pick one and stick with it or you will go crazy. Don

[Don Thomas]

in reply to: What's in your daypack? #27882

Lots of good things named here, but of course the trick is to make the complete package as light as possible. When weight isn’t critical, the sky’s the limit. Backpacking I light to go light, but I still haven’t heard three things mentioned that I always take, at least in most circumstances: 1. An extra set of rawhide bootlaces. A destroyed lace can make a boot miserable, and you can always loose them for tying down things around camp. 2. A little spoll of fishing line and some flies. In Alaska during spring and fall there are almost always fish in the streams and they won’t be hard to catch. Great survival food. 3. A good paperback book.If you get weathered in badly and have to stay in a tent flat on your back for a couple of days, this will keep you from growing crazy. Good supply of TP too. Make it long. Dostoyevsky saved my life in New Zealand once, but that’s another story. Total weight of all this is less than a pound. Don

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