Fishing

FISHING

Lake, River, Stream, Brook
Obtaining counts not
Only preparing and doing

Excites, calms, refreshes
Nerves, thoughts, worries
Go deep, some temporarily forgotten

Lulled, pacified, erased
Concentration of thought
One object in mind

How big will the next one be?

Author:
David Lay
7/27/1997

We spent the month of June this year vacationing in Alaska. One particular fishing trip was really a lot of fun as we went deep sea fishing out of Seward, Alaska with some good friends of ours that we have known since we lived in Anchorage 40 years ago. We went out in the ocean approximately 30 miles on a calm beautiful day. We found a good spot about 70 or 80 feet deep and started getting a few halibut but when we moved to deeper water (over 200 feet) we really got into them. Sometimes we all had fish on at the same time. None were giants but most ran close to 25 or 30 lbs. each. We took our grandson Randy with us and as you can tell by the picture we all really enjoyed the experience.

According to the way this old man thinks, fishing is fun just like hunting but not as much work.

Dave

Dry Creek '09

It has been a long six months of travel this work season, and not being sure of my schedule, I was ill prepared for the archery season. But, as with all things in life, you must have priorities. Consequently, on September 26, 2009 I found myself on an unfamiliar mountainside with bow in hand and enjoying my first full day of bow season.

Much of the day was spent hiking and learning the territory. I had been in the vicinity before, but five miles away. I had spent most of the day hiking and trying to spot a large muley buck. My permit is for area 390 and it holds some good deer, but my spot and stalk day was cut short, mostly because I had no binoculars, nor my spotting scope. I have since unpacked that box and plan to resume my muley quest, but I digress.

The lack of long range vision caused me to walk farther and bugle more. By the end of the day, I had only seen three black angus cows, they looked tasty and tempting, but I passed. Jayden had a volleyball game later that night, so around 5:30 pm, I started hiking back down the mountain.

I was nearing half way to the vehicle by about 6:15 pm when I heard his first bugle coming from the ridge I was on 45 minutes earlier. I sat and pondered on how much I wanted to shoot a bull; stupidity got the best of me and I started back up to the top.

We quickly met each other about two hundred yards below the top of the ridge and proceeded to cow talk and intermittently bugle at each other. At one point he went quiet and I thought that he had boogied, but he apparently was content just knowing I was there. It was nearing 7:15 and getting close to the end of shooting light. I got as close as I could and tried to figure out the direction that he was headed. This was quickly sumized and I got myself in position for a shot.

He crossed in front of me and I cow called to stop him, this was good because he stopped, but it allowed him to peg my position. I was already at full draw, and when I released he jumped the string and the arrow hit him in a less than perfect spot.

Although he knew my location, he was still confused, and only walked about 50 yards further while I cow called to him until it was dark. Just before the last light I watched him wobble as he bedded down. Knowing that my shot was not the greatest, I decided to give him some time and as I crept out of the area, continuing to cow call in hopes of keeping him calm and in the same location.

As soon as possible the next morning, I headed up the hill. Nearing the area, I again cow called, not really knowing the bull’s location or condition. Just as I was about to crest the rise where the bull would be located, a small black bear popped over the hill about 50 yards away. He was upwind of me and could not figure out what I was. Three rocks, and many shouts later, he finally decided that it was not worth it to hang around any longer and he slowly sauntered off.

Topping the ridge, I found the bull in the same bed that I had left him, but not yet stiff, and none of the meat gone bad. He died just as the pictures show him, and no posing was necessary. My father in law, Dean Powers, Ken Lay, and Boyd Burnett helped me get him off the mountain. My thanks to them and to Ryan Lay, who started the phone tree of people to help.

Jared

So as I was walking down the big ridge...

Dad and I went up to Bull Creek last Thurs/Fri and had a good time. We hunted the Rocky Basin on Thursday morning, saw some/an elk at about 200-ish yards, and heard him raking his antlers on a tree. We got set up and cow called, but I'm pretty sure he just circled in down wind and got our scent and spooked. Then Thursday afternoon I went way down into the bottom of the Big basin and hunted around. Heard one bugle and went way down the stream. I think I spotted a bear or cougar den or something, but I only glassed it from across the canyon. (didn't want to walk right up and say hello to a grizzly) Then on Friday morning I was walking down the big ridge in between the tip top of the mountain and the point where we walk into the rocky basin. As I was walking along I noticed a dark grey stone amid all the tanish/yellowish stones and soil that are naturaly up there. I bent over and picked it up and sure enough I found an old Native American spear point (or something, whatever it is/was). I think it's pretty cool. Take a look.
Russ Lay

Hey there Folks
Just want you all to know that I'm going to get a really nice mule deer buck up at Bull Creek this fall. 281-40 that's what it's all about.

.....and that I'm probably going to shoot an elk with my bow too. No high falooting 380 permit needed.

Love you all

Russ Lay

Who's your Daddy?

Dad once again shows us all up by going out and catching the biggest fish.

You the man Dad

Becoming a Mountain Man

So I'm in the middle of tanning a couple of deer hides with a friend and it's kind of cool. I'm not sure I want to become a full fledged mountain man, but I'd like to make a buckskin shirt and some leggings. I'll need to do about 4 more deer to get enough hide to make all that stuff, but I'm ok with getting there little by little. Making a buckskin takes a grotesque ammount of effort, but the result will hopefully be kind of cool. I"ll keep you posted on how the hide turns out. So far I've got both hides scraped clean, inside and out, so worst case even if I bail at this point I'll still have some rawhide to play with.

Russ Lay

Wet and Wild Doe Hunt

Well, these hard economic times made me think I better get an animal in the freezer. Plus, Russell's enthusiasm can be persuasive. (I don't think Bull Creek is in my near future, though. Sorry, Russ.) Yes, this Californian went hunting. Russell thought it would be fun to go get some does on a ranch about 10 miles south of Ulm. He asked after the BYU-Utah game if I wanted to go the next Tuesday. The way he made it sound I thought it would be an afternoon hunt. But Monday afternoon rolls around and he finally calls and asks if I can meet him in Ulm at 6 am with waders. So Monday was a scramble to get a tag, a gun, and waders, not to mention the rest of my gear together. I managed to get it all, but only one set of waders.

I met Russ the next morning and we made our way to the ranch. The landowner then gave us a very rough description of the property. We thought we could handle it and proceeded to walk out toward her meadows. Almost immediately we spooked two whitetail does, and not having a good handle on how Ryan's gun worked (bytheway, thanks for the gun use, Ryan), I couldn't get the safety off in time to even try at a running shot just as it was getting shooting light. We then moved on, spooking a few more but getting a good idea of where they went. We then saw a whitetail paying little attention to us, just feeding and making its way to the Smith River for a drink and swim. I could have had a good shot at HIM, but couldn't (no shooting antlered deer as per landowner request). So we ignored him as he went back into the trees.

As we worked our way to the river crossing (still hoping one pair of waders would do it) we saw another deer on our side of the river and we got down and crawled, slid, grunted and worked our way to get closer. As we lined up on it, sure enough, a buck. A small 2-point; probably the same one as earlier. He knew he wasn't going to get shot, so even as we stood up and moved to the river he didn't pay any attention to us.

Ahhhhh, the river. There was a nice place to cross the river. It was running low and slow, but you still needed waders to get across dry. Russell put the waders on and carried the guns and his boots across. But the river was just too wide to try and toss the waders back to me. Russ got one of his great ideas and found a couple of good sticks. He took one wader off and told me to put it on and we'd "hop" across. So you know what happened next. Russ got across with just getting the tips of his toes a little wet. I got part way out, started losing my balance, and put the other foot down. I just waded across after that.

After ringing out my sock and dumping the water from my boot, we split up. I moved to stay in the brush along the river while Russ worked to scare toward me the few we saw run into the trees earlier. Russ scared them alright. Right up the side of the bluff, running away from me. But we noticed they didn't stay on top of the bluff. They moved along a bench just below the top and then mingled in with a group of mule deer. Our wind wasn't good and we'd be in the open too much to go straight at them, so we followed an old fence line up to the top of the bluff. The top was flat and open. It was easy to see why the deer wouldn't stay up there. We then followed a fence along the top trying to work our way around so our wind would be better. We saw a couple of does up on top but weren't sure if they were on "our" property. We moved to get around to where we'd seen the deer before and up out of a coulee, a mule deer doe, 2 fauns, and a whitetail faun popped up and two whitetail does hightailed it out of there and across the river. At about 200-250 yards, we could have had that doe easy. But we were unsure again as to boundaries. We sat down, called Ryan, talked it out, took a doze, while that doe just watched us, standing pretty. We decided we better not shoot her. After she disappeared into the coulee again, we moved on, unsure of what was next. At least my leg and foot had dried out by this time.

As we rounded down off the bluff onto the bench we saw at least two groups of mule deer along the bench, back the way we'd come. We decided that I would sneak around by going back up on the bluff then come down slow and move them back toward Russ. As I moved along I thought I was near where I needed to come down and ended up spooking a group up onto the bluff. I thought that had done it. I screwed that up. But I kept moving to get behind a group I thought was closer to Russ than the ones I scared. So I started moving back toward Russell.

Meanwhile, Russell thought I was doing a great job as the second group started moving his way. I think they could smell me. He just didn't want to shoot yet because as he looked through his scope, my head kept popping up right in the line of his fire. (I didn't know this, of course.) I kept wondering why he hadn't shot yet. Finally I got smart and decided I better lay back, be patient and stop moving toward him. Shortly thereafter, Russ shot. Several seconds went by and he shot again. I'd moved those deer to within 40 yards of Russ and even after his first shot, the doe ran right at him. He thought he missed the second, running shot. But he got her both times in the lungs and once in the heart. She didn't go very far.

As we went to get her we saw two does that had been with her, lingering about 100 yards away. We quickly got down and decided it was my turn. I slipped down the slope a little to get out of sight, then moved behind a bush and crawled on my belly to get right up to the bush, using it for cover. I rested the barrel on some branches of the bush and had a clean view of the two, who couldn't see me. One was lying down, the other was standing and looking my way. I just lined up on the one standing and waited for her to turn. After several minuted she did and I squeezed off my shot. Both deer took off, but I didn't think I needed a second shot. We went and looked where they'd been and I'd hit her, but there was "grass." We decided to not go look for her yet.

We went back to Russell's doe and cleaned her out. I tried to pay attention hoping to learn how it's done. Then we went looking for my doe. She left us a good trail in the grass and we quickly found her. She'd only gone about 100 yards around the edge of the ridge. I had not gut-shot her as we'd thought. I got her right through the lungs. Russ had agreed before we started to clean out my deer, but I decided I should do it. I'd paid attention to Russell on his deer and he talked me through it as he worked. He talked me through the second time with me doing the work.

The rest of the story is just dragging them out. We dragged them back to the river. Russell wore both waders this time, so I got both feet wet as we took them across, carrying them out of the water so we didn't have the additional wet fur smell to drive home with. I had been smart enough to leave a dry pair of socks and boots in the car so it wasn't too bad driving home.

We had a good time and walked quite a bit, but eventually got the job done. There's meat in the freezer. The only disappointing thing was Russell so badly wanted whitetails. He wants to do some tanning and wanted whitetails. Maybe next year Russ. Thanks for a great hunt.

Ross

Just a picture from my cell phone. But you can tell it was a pretty river bottom to spend the day in. (Russell made that vest on his own, bytheway. He's so domestic!)