wildlife

‘Man, you got the life!’ — The truth about being a wilderness guide

“Man you got the life,” my client said as he stared out at the river. He walked out to the bank and started to slap the water with his rod tip, while his fly line piled up three feet in front of him.

“Stop your rod tip a bit higher on the forward cast,” I said. He nodded and began to swing the rod over his head like a bull whip.

“I mean hell,” he continued, “You don’t have to worry about traffic, you don’t have to worry about meetings, or time cards, all you got to do is fish all day.” He lashed the line in an arc around his head and I caught a glint of flashing steel as his fly rocketed past inches from my face.

“Try to keep a good drift,” I mumbled as his line splashed into the river. He nodded and gazed intently at the mountains in the distance. Suddenly a trout rose up in front of him and miraculously inhaled his awkwardly floating fly. “Set!” I screamed. He jerked back on the rod like he was swinging an axe and yanked the fly from the trout’s grasp, sending his line into a tangle of tree branches behind him. I sighed, smiled and calmly climbed up the tree to untangle his line.

“I tell you what dude,” he said as I unsnarled his leader from the branches. “Let’s trade, you go back to New York and take my job and I’ll stay here and live the easy life.” I grinned as I tossed his line from the tree just as the branch beneath me broke and I crashed to the ground.

“Yep,” I gasped, trying to get my breath back, staring up at the sky and trying to figure out if the rock sticking into my spine had caused any permanent damage. “It’s definitely an easy life.”

Being a guide was something I had always dreamed about doing. Like almost everybody else who liked to hunt and fish, I saw guiding as a way to make a living just doing what I loved. I saw the images in magazines and on fishing shows of those grinning guys, high fiving their clients while they swigged beer and sprawled across the bows of boats. I looked at them and thought “Damn, they really got it figured out — why doesn’t everybody do this?” So I dropped everything I had at home and moved to Montana with the intention of living the easy life I’d always dreamed about.

After my first full guide season, I quickly found out an important truth …guiding isn’t easy.

Guiding is sacrificing being idle. It’s days, weeks, and months of early mornings and late nights. It’s climbing mountains, rowing rivers, slogging through mud, and ripping through brush. It’s being permanently sunburned and constantly bug bitten. It’s sleeping on couches, in tents, and on your buddie’s floor. It’s eating when you can and what you can. It’s being a good teacher and a good listener. It’s being an expert at everything you do, even when you have no idea what the hell you’re doing. It’s hours of back breaking labor and trying your damndest to make sure your clients are successful, and being able to take the blame when they’re not.

Guiding is not living a life of leisure but working your ass off to make sure that your clients can, for at least a couple days anyway. It’s about becoming an expert at casting, at fly tying, at following tracks, etc. and then teaching it to others. Because being a good guide doesn’t come from catching the biggest fish or shooting the biggest buck, but comes from helping other people catch the biggest fish or shoot the biggest buck and being happy that they do. It’s being just as happy with their successes as you are with your own.

To be a good guide is to be a good reader of people and knowing what they’re capable of doing in the field. Being a guide is being someone who can talk, laugh, and joke about nearly anything with almost anybody, while still putting them on fish or game without breaking your stride. Some of the best guides I know are men and women who aren’t particularly skilled anglers or hunters themselves, but are really just good with people and know how to put them in the right position to be successful. Learning and knowing how to do so takes a lot of research and a lot of time in the field. Guiding is about being truly dedicated to and loving the outdoors and wanting to help others to share in that love.

There are a lot of times in my life where I question my choice to become a guide. It usually happens after a tough day when the fish just wouldn’t bite and the forest seemed devoid of game. My clients who paid a lot for my services were disappointed and angry and not afraid to vent their frustrations at me. My body hurts from a long season of barking my shins on trailer hitches, straining my back while rowing through rapids, and rolling my ankles and tweaking my knees while sliding down shale slopes and tromping along ridges and through forests. I’ll be short on sleep even shorter on cash and the only thing I can think about is how satisfying it would be to be able come home from work with some takeout Chinese and just binge watch some Netflix on the couch.

Then I’ll remember that sunset the night before, where the sky over the snow-capped mountains just seemed to be on fire, and its reflection on the water made me forget about everything else for a few moments. I’ll remember that smile a couple weeks ago, plastered on the face of a young kid who had never fly fished before as he held his first trout while I tried to take a picture without dropping the net or his phone. I’ll remember the sound of the elk bugle last season, when the bull suddenly materialized out of a no where in front of me, shattering the silence of a fall snow storm when the flakes were falling so thickly and silently, I thought the rest of the world had faded from existence.

I’ll remember these things and think that this is the guide life, and tomorrow is another day.

What would John Wayne do? Finding the warrior spirit in fly fishing

I grew up watching John Wayne movies and idolizing his no-holds barred ‘kick open the saloon doors, knock out the bad guy, and kiss the lady before anyone know what the hell is going on’ way of doing things. John Wayne was more than an actor, more than an icon, he was a state of mind. A whirlwind of masculinity that screamed to go out and take this thing called life by the scruff of its neck and shake it until all the things you want in the world shake loose and fall at your feet. He’d ride into danger against the odds and just hope he came out on top. The Duke’s code of ethics is something I’ve taken into everything I do: from the way I walk, talk, play, laugh and love, I like to push the edge and go all out–and that includes the way I fly fish.

I suppose I got into fly fishing for the same reason many other anglers do; because I enjoyed the challenge. Trying to convince a fish to eat a jumbled combination of fur and feathers tied on a hook just seemed so much more testing than simply threading a worm on a hook. I started slowly, catching sunfish in farm ponds before graduating to bass in bigger ponds, and then eventually to trout on small streams. I was thrilled with every success, yet something in me wanted to push the envelope, to create a bigger challenge for myself.

One day I was having a slow evening during a mayfly hatch. I had heard of the big brown trout that were in that particular river, but couldn’t seem to find anything but a few eight inch dinks. I was taking a break on the bank when I saw a guy enter the river above me. He marched into the water without hesitation and started casting with what looked to me like an entire chicken attached to the end of his line. In two strips, he hooked up, landed and released a big 20 inch brown before I even had time to tell him that fly would never work. That day something was sparked in me, for it was the day I discovered streamers. Soon I found myself ignoring those rising trout in the middle of the stream and instead started ripping streamers through deep pools looking for a giant. I became a big fish junkie.

Streamers are flies made to look like fish as opposed to the more common flies made to look like insects. There’s the old saying of “big baits catch big fish,” and it’s incredibly true. While the classic imagery of fly fishing with dry flies certainly lands more trout, when they get to a certain size, the only thing they eat is other fish. When I started using streamers more exclusively, I started catching much larger trout than I had before. Streamers opened me up to other species as well, since every fish from, trout to bass, eat other fish. This gave me a new outlook into fly-fishing. I started buying flies with cool names like Kelly Galloup’s “Sex Dungeon” fly and Mike Schmidt’s “Junk Yard Dog.”

I also started coming up with my own streamer patterns, tying flies in a maddened frenzy with images of massive jaws clamping onto them as I pulled them from the vice. I started buying beefier rods too. The best streamer rod I have ever used is hands down the Orvis Helios 3D. From 7wts to 10wts, their rods that really get the job done when battling a sea monster.

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Every angler knows that moment where they hook a fish and send out a small prayer to an unseen deity: “Oh God, please let me land this fish.” That feeling, that moment is where I want to live every time I go out on the water. Targeting those fish that seem un-catchable, those fish that inspire legends told in hushed whispers around the campfire. The dark caves of big trout, the high towers of musky and pike, the unbreachable walls of steelhead.

These are my fish now. Hunting for them gives me the feeling of being a warrior. I have a sudden lust for battle, only found with a bent rod and a screaming reel. Hooking a big fish on a streamer is different. They aren’t always easy to come by. Big fish have to be worked for; they have to be earned. And when the take finally happens and you’re hooked up to some monster, a fear comes with it. A fear that after all that effort, the fish might still come off before you land him. That’s a hold on to your seat, nail-biting kind of fear that makes everything else in the world fade into obscurity. It’s a fear that makes me want to do one arm push-ups, go sky diving without a parachute, and eat a rare steak that I cooked with a flamethrower.

There is a lot of sacrifice to fishing this way. The lure of “the big one” has turned me into a slightly masochistic nut job. I sometimes go days, even weeks, without a bite. I must push myself into swinging one more hole, throwing one more cast even though my shoulders are on fire and my fingers are starting to bleed from stripping line. Many times too, I go through all this and still don’t manage to hook up. Or I feel true heartbreak, missing my chance by screwing up a hookset or only seeing the fish for a brief second as he charges my fly then suddenly turns and swims away. Often it feels like I’m trying to climb a mountain that could collapse beneath me at any moment.

Yet somewhere deep within me, I find the desire to carry on. Because I remember another little movie called True Grit. A movie about being tired and scared but saddling up anyway. So now, every time I get tired of casting, every time I get tired of standing in a cold seemingly fishless river, every time I lose my chance at that big fish, a tiny voice in my mind mutters, “What would John Wayne do?” and I carry on.

Op-Ed: You should be eating wild game meat. Here’s why (and how)

I always have trouble grocery shopping. When I’m wandering down the refrigerator section, staring at what seems to be an endless supply of meat, trying to decide if I want a t-bone or a ribeye for dinner, I start to feel anxious. I stare at and sort through the meat menagerie, each piece wrapped in its cellophane packaging, glistening under fluorescent lights. I read about each non-gmo, steroid free, free range, grass fed, self contained little illustrations of protein in front of me and just feel overwhelmed. It’s because, like so much else in this modern world, in our constant striving to adapt our environment to suit our needs we’ve distanced ourselves from our past. By domesticating animals to make meat convenient for the masses to acquire, we’ve somehow made it over-complicated. Therefore, whenever I can, I go hunting, just to simplify my world and remember where meat should come from.

Hunting, killing, butchering, and eventually eating an animal gives you a whole new appreciation for meat in general. This is partially because hunting lifts this veil we’ve put in front of ourselves. It gives us a peek behind that curtain separating those cows we see in the fields on the way to work to the cheeseburger on our plate when we get home for dinner. Eating wild game allows us to feel connected. It helps us to see our part in the great big wheel of the world. Those oak tree’s in your back yard become more than just trees, because their acorns dropping on the ground fed the deer that fed you and your family the night before. Everything just becomes significantly more… well, significant.

Aside from its philosophical importance, wild game meat is also simply better for you in general. This is because domestic animals are raised to be fat, because fat tastes good. Cattle are moved from field to field to make sure that they have an ample supply of grass. Chickens and turkeys are kept penned in small cages and practically pumped full of corn. It’s no wonder obesity and heart disease are such a big issue in America. No one ever really thinks about how damaging it is to ingest all that fat we layer onto the animals we eat. The fact is that three ounces of even a lean cut of beef contains around 250 calories and 15 grams of fat. In turn that same three ounces of venison contains around 130 calories and only 3 grams of fat! Venison also has almost twice the number of vitamins and minerals per serving than beef does. Hell If you factored that in along with the amount of calories you burn to hunt a deer compared with the amount walking into a butcher shop for a steak, along with the cost of said steak per pound versus the cost of a box of 30-06 rounds, you’ve defeated any anti-hunting arguments you may have with simple math!

There’s also the act of butchering. It’s a skill that everyone should have. A lot of hunters I know simply take their game to a processor or a local butcher shop to be turned into chops, steaks, and ground chuck, that is then packaged and picked up at the hunter’s convenience. While it may work for some, I never do this, preferring to butcher myself. The process of seeing an animal that I hunted a few days before suddenly become meat on the dinner table, all by my own hands is, in my opinion, the best part of hunting. Home butchering is a much simpler process than a lot of people think it is, mostly involving learning how to skin an animal and how to separate the different cuts of meat from the entire carcass. A great butchery kit is essential to this process. I’ve had a couple over the years, but my favorite is the Outdoor Edge Game Processor. It’s a simple kit, has only four knives, a set of game shears, and a saw. These pretty much cover all my needs in home butchery. When first getting into it, I’ve found that the best way to learn how to break down a game animal is by starting on small game such as rabbits and gradually working your way up. Eventually you’ll find that everything from squirrels to bison are pretty much made up of the same cuts of meat.

People are often turned off from eating wild game because they worry about how it’s going to taste. Yet wild game meat when properly prepared can taste even better than anything you buy in a store and can be easily substituted into some of your favorite recipes. Small game animals like rabbits and squirrels, along with game birds like grouse and pheasant, can easily act as an alternative meat in your favorite chicken dishes. Animals like beaver, raccoon, mountain lion, woodchuck, and of course wild boar, make a great substitute for domestic pork. Venison from elk, moose, deer, and antelope is comparable to almost any cut of beef or lamb. The best thing about wild game is that you can experiment and find a tasty recipe for almost anything!

Hunting is something that has gotten a lot of scrutiny over the last couple years. With the advancement of social media, wealthy assholes shooting tame lions in national parks, and veganism running rampant, hunting carries a lot of negative connotations. The truth of the matter though is that if done respectfully and safely, hunting is a beautiful thing. It’s a way to reconnect with not only our past but our food, with what we’re putting in our bodies and what it takes to get it. Hunting wild game is the way to get away from guess and check at the grocery store and to truly know where your meat is coming from.

Stop ‘glamping’ and get back to basics with these minimalist camping tips from a wilderness survival expert

I grew up camping. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of being curled up in a sleeping bag and a pup tent, reading comics by flashlight. I always assumed everyone grew up that way, loving and appreciating the outdoors by visiting it every now and again. So, you can imagine my shock and utter disgust when I first heard someone mention going “Glamping” and found out how ridiculous “going camping” has become for so many people.

Nowadays, going camping is merely bringing your indoor comforts outside. Campers go to designated campgrounds with outdoor lighting. They stay in campers and giant weatherproof tents. They bring camp chairs, air mattresses, generators, batteries, fire starting logs, propane stoves, and pre-cooked meal packets. They even bring televisions and wifi routers so they won’t miss the latest episode of Game Of Thrones. Modern campers seem to do their damndest to make a night or two in the woods as utterly civilized and convenient as possible. It’s an epidemic that is ruining the whole camping experience by taking away all aspects of self-reliance. Campers now distance themselves from any connection with the outdoors, which is the very reason we go camping in the first place! I just don’t understand camping like that. Packing and carrying all that crap must be a mind-boggling pain in the ass. You just don’t need it. In reality, as unbelievable as it sounds, you can still be safe, comfortable, and happy on a camping trip with hardly anything at all.

To spend the night or even several nights in the woods, you need three very basic things: food, water, and shelter. That’s it. These three essentials to life have been keeping the populace going for thousands of years. I can’t count the numbers of nights I’ve spent in the back-country carrying everything I need in a single backpack. Now I don’t mean a massive pack frame either. My current camping bag is a G4Free 50L hiking backpack that I bought on Amazon for 30$. It’s light, water resistant and had more than enough room for the things I need to spend a week in the woods. When I pack the bag for a camping trip, aside from a paperback book and change of clothes or two, I generally stick to the three essentials of water, food, and shelter first. Everything else I add is simply a luxury.

Add a fishing pole and you could call this backpack Kubie’s retirement plan.

Water is always first and foremost. I’ll fill up and bring a 1000ml water bottle that I can clip to my belt or stick in the back of the back-pack. I’ll also bring a water filter, Lifestraw makes several good ones, and a small cooking pot to boil water in. There have been a few situations where I’ve drank directly from a mountain stream, but having suffered through Giardia once or twice, I highly recommend filtering and then boiling all drinking water. You should only drink unfiltered water directly from the source when it’s your last option. I always try to take water from streams and rivers, since moving water has very little chance to grow bacteria and become stagnant.

Shelter is the next issue. A tent is the most obvious but can be cumbersome to carry. There are however several options for small one-man tents that take up minimal room in a pack and if you want to one get one. But even tents aren’t entirely necessary. Unless I’m staying in one location for an extended period of time, I generally prefer to build my shelters. With a bit of ingenuity and some parachute cord a simple lean-to can be put together in about ten minutes or so. I usually slap together a rough frame and then cover it with a water-proof tarp I keep rolled into my sleeping bag. I clip the sleeping bag to the bottom of the pack before I go and my shelter’s all set. Once a tarp and frame is in place I will cover the entire thing in pine boughs. These act as both insulation and further weather proofing from unexpected rain or even snowstorms. I will also line the bottom of the shelter with pine boughs, as they keep my body separated from the ground where I can lose a lot of body heat and are surprisingly comfortable. With a good lean-to combined with a decent sleeping bag and a fire set close to reflect heat, I am warm and happy throughout the night. Plus you get a chance to build something; to use your own creativity for survival and comfort.

When you’re far enough into the wilderness, you have bigger concerns than cell coverage anyway.

Camping food isn’t as much of a challenge as a lot of people make it seem. Instead of lugging monstrous coolers of hotdogs and buns and condiments into he woods with me, I carry a few small simple items that are very filling. Canned vegetables and beans are simple and quick to make in a fire by simply opening the can and setting it in the coals. When the can starts to bubble, the food is ready. I also bring a couple bags of brown rice and pasta. Again, these things are both light to carry and easy to make by simply tossing the rice or pasta into a pot of boiling water. Both rice and pasta give a good carb boost and are very filling. As far as proteins go, I usually go two ways: canned chicken and wild fish. Canned chicken is great because the cans are small and light to carry and can either be eaten alone or mixed with rice and or vegetables. Fish are easy to come across in most places and catching them is way easier than people believe. A simple length of monofilament line of about twenty feet or so and a couple small hooks always go in my camping pack. The hook should be baited with a worm as worms are easy to find and are pretty much like crack to fish. To find worms just turn over a few rocks or dig down with a knife blade into soft brown earth. Bait your hook and toss it into the water on the line and wait for a tug. Most freshwater fish can be eaten whole, with only the guts removed. You can cook them in a small frying pan or weave yourself a grill out of thin green branches. You can also slow roast a fish on a stick or boil it in a pot of water. Fish are the spam of the wilderness.

Camping is a simple thing that we tend to over complicate, yet it doesn’t have to be. With a little bit of ingenuity, you can have a great and successful time in the woods with only a pack, a lighter, and a good knife. For me especially, keeping camping simple and carrying as little equipment as possible is part of the whole experience. It allows me to rely on intellect and instinct to solve problems and lets me explore. I can go farther than other campers and travel much quicker. I can get into territory that maybe no one has ever gotten into and maybe see something that no one has ever seen. Because that’s the real reason why we camp…to get away from it all.

Images courtesy of the author

Bear mace and singing songs: Expert wildlife guide explains how to survive life in Grizzly country

Human beings have always had a fascination with big predators. They are a part of our culture. We visit them in zoos where we’re safe. They show up as mascots of sports teams. Their images are plastered on t-shirts, posters, and hats. We can’t get enough of them. Predators even show up as the protagonists in some of our most popular movies and books. Jaws was a best seller. The Lion King may be the most popular Disney movie of all time, and the T-Rex from Jurassic Park is probably more recognizable than any of the Kardashians. This utter captivation by things that can eat us probably stems from some ancient memory. Back when men lived in caves and feared those things hunting them out there in the darkness. While many of those old predators are gone, the ones that are still here maintain their hold over us, none more so than the king of bruins…the Grizzly Bear.

Often standing as tall as eight feet and weighing well over 800lbs, grizzlies are the last true monsters on earth. What’s ironic is that they live in truly beautiful places that people want to visit and even live. This makes it inevitable really. When you spend a lot of time in bear country, eventually you’re going to see a bear. Hopefully it’s as a moving brown smudge on a distant hillside you can only see through binoculars. You hope not to see it as a raging juggernaut tearing through the brush towards you from 20 feet. Because that might be the last thing you ever see.

Admittedly there is a certain thrill that comes from spending time in grizzly country. Knowing that you aren’t the top dog in the woods. Having the realization that an afternoon’s hike could lead to you becoming a quick lunch sort of adds a spice to day to day life. When I moved to Southwestern Montana, grizzlies were a big part of the appeal. Being a guide and spending the entirety of my workday outside, I quickly had more than a few encounters. I’ve run into grizzlies on the river and on trails I’ve been hiking. I even had a young bear come onto my front porch in the middle of the night once. Throughout these encounters I quickly learned that grizzly bears aren’t the mindless killing machines they are often portrayed as in popular media. In fact grizzlies are some of the coolest and most beautiful creatures in the world.

(Image courtesy of Gregory “Slobirdr” Smith on Flickr)

People’s true fear of grizzly bears comes from the inherent fear of all animals, the fear of being eaten. In reality, grizzlies live on a mostly vegetarian diet of roots, berries, and grasses, only eating meat when the opportunity presents itself. Even then, grizzlies act mostly as scavengers, cleaning up animals that have died of natural causes or after other hunters such as wolves have already taken their share. That being said, grizzlies are not above running down and killing an elk or deer themselves. They can run up to 30mph in short bursts and have the strength and power to kill almost instantly. That’s where our real fear comes from. The idea of an 800lb charging beast bent on destruction. And while it does happen, the fact is bear attacks are incredibly rare and can be completely avoided if you take the proper precautions while in bear country.

Bears generally avoid man. They’re just as apt to run from us as we are from them. Attacks most often occur when a bear is surprised. Wandering through the mountains on a gentle hike, you come around a corner and BOOM there’s a bear! Your best way to avoid these encounters is simply letting the bear know you’re coming by making noise as you go through the woods. Talking, yelling, and even wearing a bell are the best ways to defend yourself against a surprise encounter. I personally prefer to sing when out in bear country, finding that my rendition of Steve Earl’s Galway Girl keeps all wildlife well away from me. The second most common instance of bear attack is when sow grizzlies are defending their cubs. While cute and cuddly, bear cubs are to be avoided at all times because the mother is close by and she will defend any perceived threat to her babies with a ferocious attack. If you see a bear cub in the woods, no matter how much you want to adopt it and give it a jar of honey, get the hell away from it.

An adorably bad day waiting to happen. (WikiMedia Commons)

The absolute best way to avoid a dangerous encounter with a grizzly is to be “Bear Aware.” Be cautious with food, keeping it in scent proof containers and disposing of garbage well away from trails and camps. Look for signs of bears as you move through the forest, such as claw marks on trees that let you know you’re in a bears territory. Other things such as tracks, and scat can let you know a bear is around. Grizzly bears also have a very distinct scent. It’s something like a combination of wet dog and rotten meat. If I’m heading into an area and I smell that, I immediately leave the area.

Sometimes however, no matter how cautious you are, a grizzly attack can still occur. It’s an unfortunate risk of being in bear country. So keeping that in mind, I recommend going into bear country armed against attack. And the best weapon against an attacking grizzly is bear mace. This isn’t the same stuff your mom carries in her purse for walking to her car at night. This stuff comes in a big pressurized can that has a range of twenty feet or more and will stop a charging bear in its tracks 99% of the time. Remember though it should only be used in an emergency. Never go out looking to prove how big your balls are by trying to spray a bear. That’s a great way to get killed.

About now, some people might be saying “Hey now I don’t need no sissy pepper spray…I got a gun.” While it is true that a gun can be a good defense against a grizzly, it’s not my first choice. This is really because grizzlies don’t know what it means to be shot. By that I mean, as a human, if I take a .22 bullet to the leg, the shock and realization of being shot will likely cause me to curl up in a ball on the ground and start sucking my thumb. It doesn’t work that way with a grizzly. They aren’t really afraid of anything and feeling pain will just enrage them. Shooting a bear and not killing it instantly will more than likely cause it to attack more aggressively.

They’re laughing at your .45 ACP right now.

So if you have to shoot one, you want a gun big enough to put a bear down fast. A 12 gauge shotgun loaded with slugs is probably the most effective weapon one can use. However shotguns are cumbersome to carry and can be difficult to get into action quickly, and you’ll need to be quick. A handgun or a “hand cannon” since you’ll need a big round like a .44 or larger to stop a grizzly, is more practical. But if you’re going to carry one, it better be a gun you’ve practiced with a lot. The recoil on big handguns can really throw off accuracy, and if you miss or wound a grizzly bear, iT may be better to shoot yourself and save a drawn out mauling. Again firearms are a last resort for me, and if given the choice of bear spray or a sidearm, I’m going for bear spray every time.

The truth is Grizzly Bears are beautiful creatures and while they should be treated with respect, they are nothing to be feared. They are a symbol of the wild. A part of a place we go to find our souls and remember a time in the world before things like cities, cellphones, Alexa, and dabbing took up most of our attention. Grizzlies are one of the last reminders we have of the past and of what’s truly important. They need to be respected and preserved for future generations visiting and living in bear country.

Feature image courtesy of the National Park Service