I am standing waist deep in crystal clear cool water at the tail end of a wide, deep and slow running pool just watching fish after fish rise to the surface sipping bugs. They sky is the most vivid blue I have ever seen and spattered with large white fluffy clouds. The mountains in the background seem to extend all the way to heaven and the grassy meadows seem to welcome wildlife at every bend. Any guess where I am? I'm willing to bet many of you guessed somewhere out west maybe even in Yellowstone.
Yellowstone River - Bellow Yellowstone Lake - Photo Courtesy of: Big Sky Fishing.Com
As much as I wish the above scenario was real, it isn't, but the above is something I find myself day dreaming about often as I am sure many of a fly fisherman or fisherwomen has done themselves. For those that have actually had the opportunity to live out the above scenario, I envy you and hope you realize how special it was and how lucky you are. When I hear the words like native, wild and pristine there are only two places that come to mind. One is Alaska and the other is Yellowstone. Both of these incredible places are on my wish list and reside at the top of that list.
The nature and beauty of Yellowstone was so apparent to our ancestors that they were smart enough to see the need to preserve this area and protect it so it would remain as wild and beautiful as ever for many generations to come and in doing so Yellowstone became the first National Park in 1872 and started a new concept on keeping wild places wild and open for all to enjoy.
Defining what is natural and wild can be an interesting discussion as many groups in the past have tried to restore certain specifies of wildlife or fish to an area where it once flourished as well as try to improve the numbers and quality for those looking to recreate and spend time there. This balance is always a struggle and as good as a plan seemed years ago, it may not be that good today. As many people visit Yellowstone each year and enjoy in the glory it
has to offer, we must remember that there is a constant battle to keep
Yellowstone truly wild, native, pristine and open for all and it is
programs like the Native Fish Conservation Programthat will be used to
keep it this way.
The Native Fish Conservation Program is based on a National Park Service plan,
approved May 2011, which outlines the park’s increased focus on
restoring native fish and creating resiliency in fish populations. It
lays out a detailed management strategy to ensure that native fish are
restored to sustainable levels, so that they can support the natural
food chain, native biodiversity, and sport fishery purposes.
The top priority of the NPS plan is to decrease the number of predatory, non-native lake trout,
which in recent years have dramatically reduced the number of native
Yellowstone cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake. Yellowstone Park
Foundation funding of the Native Fish Conservation Program will allow
for a significant effort to suppress lake trout through private sector
netters on Yellowstone Lake. The goal of sustained efforts is to recover
Yellowstone cutthroat trout to mid-1990s levels.
Maintaining that balance to what was truly native and belongs to that which isn't but thrived and brought tourists and dollars to an area is where our challenges remain today in keeping these wild places, truly wild and original.
Growing up in the city people are always amazed that I have such a passion for the outdoors and I always told my mother that I felt I was born to late and in the wrong state. I know I will one day travel west and spend time in Yellowstone and hopefully try my luck at hooking and landing one of it's famed native cutthroat trout. The real question is will I come back East or will I have a new home out West. My wife knows the answer and it is one of the reasons she will not let me go alone.
I've written numerous times about the Outdoor Blogger Network and what a great addition to the outdoor blogger community OBN has become. Joe and Rebecca started OBN a year ago and it has turned into a fantastic gateway to some great outdoor bloggers that cover everything possible related to the great outdoors. This week Joe and Becca are showering all of us in the outdoor blogger community with many great gear giveaways that will most certainly produce some insightful gear reviews.
Stop by OBN and see some of the great giveaways and make sure to check out the outdoor blogger directory to peruse the list of outdoor blogs. I'm sure you will find something you like there.
I've been thinking about a way to share with my readers some of the other outdoor bloggers that I follow so I decided to start a new weekly posting called "They got the Passion" where I will highlight one of my fellow outdoor bloggers every week that is sharing their passions for the outdoors in their blogging.
I try to follow many great outdoor blogs on a regular basis and there are many, and I mean many, great outdoor blogs out there. Thanks to the folks at OBN (Outdoor Blogger Network) it makes finding these blogs a whole lot easier. Now you would think that OBN would be my first choice for the weekly review but they are not and I'm sure that the crew at OBN and it's members would not mind following behind my first choice of Joel over at A year on the Fly.
A year on the Fly combines Joel's passion for Fly Fishing with his passion for painting. Joel started out on January 2010 with the goal of posting a piece of art every day for an entire year and he completed it. That's right 365 posts straight. Now that is either a sign of a bigger problem or just a true showing of PASSION. Joel's tag line of "The Art Of the Fly And The fish They Catch" says it all.
Just one of Joel's incredible works of Art
This is a must see blog for any fisherman or art lover as Joel does a fantastic job of showing the beauty of a fly and the fish it catches and while doing so he will often offer up some additional musings and information. If you see something you like on his site, then buy it. If you have a fish you caught and a picture of it and want something unique for your wall, then ask Joel about creating an original painting for you. Once again here is the link to A Year On The Fly.
I'm not sure I can commit to a post a day the way Joel did, but I plan on keeping up the weekly They Have The Passion posts as there are so many great outdoor bloggers that I want to introduce everyone to so stay tuned.
A while back OBN had a writing prompt suggestion about a blog post from a kids perspective and I have asked both my son and daughter to write a blog post for me so below is the first ever guest blog post, actually it's more like a short story, as written by my Son Brendan who currently is a Sophomore in College.
My First Buck
When my father asked me write about a hunting experience, my mind ran wild with the memories that I’ve acquired in the past 8 years of being able to hunt. Should I talk about the turkey hunts in Connecticut (two doubles) or the harvest of my first ever deer while my father and his best friend watched. It is tough to pick one specific hunt because they all have so much meaning. The one I decided to write about was the 8 pointer I took in the Delaware Water Gap, New Jersey. For those who don’t know much about this area, it’s something you need to go explore. A place in New Jersey that is full of wildlife is hard to come by, but this place doesn’t lack excitement. My grandfather, uncle, father, and I have grown up hunting the mountains of “the Gap” and chasing big whitetails.
My big buck was taken during the muzzleloader trip in 2007 that our hunting group goes on after Thanksgiving every year for the first two days of the NJ muzzleloader season. We travel down the Sunday after Thanksgiving to hunt Monday and Tuesday. We head down on Sunday to unpack and do some scouting before the two fun filled days ahead of us. The food and company never seizes to disappoint and the atmosphere of a good camp is present. As we sit down and eat we discuss where we are all going to sit in the morning. I wasn’t able to hunt the archery season so I was depending on my father and others who were there to give me advice on where to sit for muzzleloader. They decided to give me a spot overlooking a laurel area near the power lines we normally hunt. I would sit behind a big tree that had fallen the previous year and watch out towards the pines that surround the power lines.
As I lay in bed that night, deer fever got to me as it was hard to fall asleep. The excitement of the hunt kept my mind racing all night. As all hunters know waking up in the morning for a hunt isn’t hard at all and that’s what happened. I jumped out of bed and got packed, ate breakfast, and we were off for a cold day in the woods. My father dropped me off at my spot as he continued on his way to reach his spot down towards the power lines before sunrise. It was a slow morning as the sun came up over the mountain and began to warm the air slightly. I have to say one of the most amazing views is watching a sunrise light up the woods slowly. There is nothing better than to sit and watch nature at its finest moments such as that. The morning showed no activity so we decided to all meet up for lunch and discusses our plan for the afternoon. I couldn’t walk away from my spot just yet; so I decided to go there again in the afternoon and wait it out for some deer to pass by my spot.
As the afternoon rolled on, my hopes for anything coming by were diminishing. Suddenly, a nice 8 pointer comes walking through the pine trees a little over 100 yards away. My heart instantly started racing as my moment to take down a trophy buck has come. I pull up my Thompson Center Muzzleloader and fire a shot. After the smoke clears I lose sight of the buck. I get a call on the radio about the shot and the situation. My uncle Steve was the closest to me so he came and helped calm me down and prepare to look for a blood trail. As we were talking about our approach of tracking this deer, the big buck appears on the hill about 75 yards away. He seemed very much alive so my shot clearly missed. Now it was my uncle’s turn as he slowly walked around the tree that I sat next to and set up for a shot. Again smoke fills the air from my uncle’s muzzleloader. The deer runs off and seems untouched as we sit in disbelief that this trophy has escaped two shots in the matter of 20 minutes.
As the day came to an end, we head back to camp for a big dinner and start swapping stories about our day in the woods. Of course, I get a little heckling from the guys about missing a big buck, but it’s just part of being the young guy in the group. I decided that I would go back to that same spot tomorrow regardless of the previous day’s events. I had a feeling that my spot was in a prime location of the big buck’s path.
The second and last day of muzzleloader camp came all too quickly as we all got up bright and early and headed out to our spots. I was determined to sit in the same spot and hope for just one more chance at this beautiful buck. Soon after we all settled down we get a heads up on the radio from Jimmy K about him spooking a couple deer as he was walking into his spot by the power lines and they were heading our way. Thoughts raced through my mind about the buck coming by again. My father sat with me on this day which made this hunt even more exciting. He made the decision to walk to the bottom of the deadfall to get a better look at the deer that could be approaching from the hill below us.
Sure enough, the big buck starts walking the same path he did before just 50 yards closer this time. My father started using the grunt call to bring him to a closer range for a nice shot. The buck decided to give me another chance as he walked 60 yards away and stood broadside. Everything slowed down and got quiet as I looked into the scope and fired a shot at this buck once again. As the smoke cleared, I could see the buck running directly away from me. The difference between this shot and the other one was that the deer was running differently than before. With the tail up this time, I was sure I had to of made contact, but was a little skeptical after the previous day. My father came back up to meet up with me and had me retell what happened from the shot to where I last saw him. After a couple minutes we decided to go to the spot of the shot and start to look for a blood trail. Our first sign of blood trail was 50 yards after the shot and we knew we had a good chance of harvesting this deer. As we were tracking the sign, we hear another shot that came from Ernie, one of our CT hunting buddies that was with us. We hear from him that he put a second shot in my deer that was on a death run at this point. As we were tracking our shot, Ernie and Bobby were tracking Ernie’s shot.
Finally, my father and I get the call on the radio that the big buck is down and I have harvested my first buck. As soon as we heard that, my father and I yelled with joy and hugged each other. That moment we had is something I will always remember and cherish. To have my father with me to witness the harvesting of my first buck made me feel proud and I felt that I made him proud. He taught me everything I know about hunting and that moment made it all come full circle for me. He always says that he gets more enjoyment from watching me hunt than him hunting by himself. For me to see the smile on his face was all I could ask for because I knew that I was becoming the hunter he wanted me to be. Once we finally got to the trophy, I sat back with awe at the beautiful creature.
After taking pictures and gutting it (thanks Ernie), the mile long drag was left. I’m thankful the road was an old logging trail that was flat because the deer got heavier and heavier with every step. As we made it back to the cars, I was congratulated by everyone on my kill. I was the king of the woods that day and nobody could have brought me down.
I want to thank my father for giving me the opportunity to write this story. I always want to thank him for being a great teacher, role model, friend, hunting partner, but most importantly, being a Dad that has been there for me with the ups and downs. Being at college, I have little time to get out in the woods due to my stacks of homework and extracurricular activities. Having been away from hunting for a couple years, it has made me cherish the moments I had with my friends and family out in the woods. Like my father and grandfather have told me though, “Get an education, have your fun, because hunting will always be waiting for you when you return.” I think that is something that not many people realize is that the woods are accepting of hunters that care about it. It’s a place to get away from everything and enjoy the beauty that is Mother Nature.
"It’s time to write about the outdoor kid in you or the kid(s) you have exposed to the Outdoors."
OBN suggested writing about a memory from your childhood of being exposed to the outdoors or from an experience where I introduced a child to the outdoors. Seeing I have already written about my first deer camp, which is definitely the one outdoor experience responsible for fueling my passion for the outdoors, I decided to write about introducing others to the outdoors seeing my blog tag line is "Sharing the Passion".
As I sit and think about all those people I have introduced to some of my outdoor passions and places I find it difficult to pick just one. I could get into one of the many times my wife was thrust into an new outdoor adventure, usually reluctantly, like the time I took her steelhead fishing for an 8 hour drift boat trip in a blizzard or the first time I handed her a warm pair of venison tenderloins just removed from a deer. I could write about one of my brothers first deer hunts or fishing trips as well. All of which have some funny and interesting moments in them but I have to be careful not to get the wife or family mad at me so maybe I'll save those for another time.
There is no doubt that I get the most enjoyment out of introducing kids to the outdoors especially my own kids, but any youngster will do and they have. I have had the pleasure to introduce a few of my kids friends to fishing, turkey and deer hunting and every single outing was special.
One hunting trip that really stands out is the time I took my son Brendan and his friend Michael and Josh out on a youth turkey hunt in the spring of 2005 when they were just 13 & 14 years old. Both Brendan and Michael had taken their first turkeys in the years before this trip so they were, in their minds, seasoned turkey hunters. We also had another of their friends along for the trip, Josh, who never hunted but was at the time experimenting with photography and videos and he wanted to video tape the hunt for me. What made this trip special was the events of that morning hunt which are documented below.
Brendan, Josh and Michael - 2005 Turkey hunt
The trip started out with my son Brendan and his friends Michael and Josh all sleeping over at my house. I'm not sure Sleeping over is the right way to explain this, maybe just staying over because they didn't sleep much and neither did I as I kept waking up to the sound of their excited little voices talking about previous hunts and their expectations for their hunt in the morning. Surely anyone that has every had to wake a youngster early for a hunting trip knows that it usually doesn't take more than one or two shakes before they jump up and say they are ready to go and this trio was no different. Tying to keep them quiet so they didn't wake Momma and my daughter was a challenge. It was as if they were continuing their excited conversations from the night before and I found myself overloaded before getting a full cup of mornign starter fluid. I don't remember being that amused at the time, but I can surely close my eyes today and see myself doing the same thing on many a morning when I was young.
We loaded up the gear under a dark sky with a light drizzle of rain coming down but no worries, we had the pop-up blind in the truck because without it there was no way I was going to keep 3 teenagers still and quiet in this weather or any weather for that matter. We were hutning a piece of private land that had a large pasture that went from the road uphill to a flat where the woods started and that flat just happens to be a common place for turkeys to cross as they work the woods around us. We've taken a few turkeys from this same pasture and I harvested my biggest bird every just inside the wood line the previous year hunting with Brendan and Michael so I knew the birds would be around but would they cooperate is the question.
So we had four of us crammed into my Ameristep Doghouse blind with only two folding chairs and both of them were taken up by Brendan and Micheal as they were the shooters. The game plan was to let Micheal have the first shot at a bird and for the life of me I can't remember why, but that was the plan. we put out two hen decoys just 15 yards from the blind and waited for the birds to start talking. It wasn't long until we heard the first sounds of birds still on their roost and in all that turkey talk was a couple of gobblers that just gave away their position. It sure sounded as if they were roosted right where they should be and I knew that if they did what I had seen them do in the weeks prior I knew they would come off the adjoining property and head up to the pasture.
We were still dealing with some drizzling rain and the birds were not as vocal once on the ground but I was able to get just enough gobbles to keep tabs on their positions and I knew the birds were working just inside the wood line across from our setup and heading to the pasture. It wasn't long before we saw the first bird step out of the woods and into the pasture. The grass was a little high but not bad, but we did have a hump in between us and the birds so we would lose them in the pasture on occasion but they did put on a show for the boys. using the binos we could see we had 5 jakes with a couple of hens and one larger bird that looked bigger but still not a mature tom, ten birds in all. I was working my box call and slate and did my best, which believe me isn't that good, to call them birds across but all we could do was watch as they continued to cross the upper portion of the pasture only to enter the woods. I watched those boys fill with excitement and anticipation at every gobble, cluck and movement of the birds, only to see all that excitement come crashing down as they hit the woods. But as I was explaining to them that it is very difficult to call Toms away from hens, I caught a little movement back over to where the birds came of out the woods and sure enough it was a turkey and it looked like a Tom.
As I pointed this bird out to the boys, their excitement grew and I had to keep reminding them to whisper and move very slowly as turkeys have incredible eye sight and hearing. Now as I was sitting there watching this bird I was hoping for one of those birds that come running right up to the decoy in a flash, but we had the opposite. I spent 30 minutes working this bird just get him to come about 75 yards across the pasture. Now put yourself into a 14 year old body and think about that 30 minute wait and you can appreciate what I had to deal with. Well this gobbler took his sweat time, but man did he put on a display for us and one I will never forget. We had about 20 minutes of video of this bird before he got to within about 15 yards of the decoy and hung up. Now when he was hung up he wasn't nervous instead he put on a display that was designed to pull those two hen decoys staked out in front of us right to him and they just kept ignoring him so we had a stand off. Needless to say I was getting impatient and extremely nervous so I told Mike to get a steady bead on him and when he comes out of his display to pick out that magical spot on his neck and let one rip. Well Mike lined him up and when he came out of his "come here girls dance" I heard the safety click off and my Remington 870 12guage bark and with that the turkey jumped up in the air, spun around and was headed out of dodge. I had Mike rack another shell and give him another shot but he just kept running away. I was depressed for just a minute until the boys started talking and I noticed their voices filled with excitement and not depression as they started laughing and teasing each other and recounting what had just happened. I got them all back on track and settled down and reminded them that there were more turkeys around so this isn't over, but in the back of my mind I thought we were done.
Well we got our laughs and ribbing out of the way while having a snack and letting things calm down and I would throw in a little calling as well. About 30 minutes after Mike's miss, Brendan says he sees two birds coming into the pasture just to our right and he is pumped because it is now his turn to shoot. Of course we have the side windows all zipped up so I unzip the side window just a little to get a look and sure enough hear come two jakes working straight into the decoys. Only Brendan and I can see them and of course Josh and Mike want to see them so Josh pushes up against me with and starts video taping out the side window while I am trying to get my son ready but Brendan was as way ahead of me and ready to roll. I made a few purrs and those two jakes came walking right into the decoys and as they got to within feet of the decoys they stretched out their necks to check the fake hen just standing there and then turned around and it looked like they were headed out. Brendan had a bead on them the whole time and was waiting for them to separate a little bit so he didn't shoot both of them. They separated just enough and Brendan let that Remington 20guage rip and down went his bird and out came a huge whoop of excitement and that is when Brendan took over and directed Micheal to shoot the other jake that had run away and stopped and was just standing there just close enough. I couldn't see the jake standing there so it was my Son Brendan calling the shots and Mike was listening and this time when the Remington went off Mike connected and the second jake dropped. We went from a miss to a double on youth day. It was just plain amazing. What made it extra special is Josh had everything on video. Yup that is right a 14 year old video taped the entire trip and did an incredible job to boot. So Josh got to see something that many turkey hunters never see or experience during the hunt but I think his favorite part was the up close inspection of the turkeys themselves.
It is a day I will never forget and I'm not sure any trip to come will ever top that day. I was blessed to share a turkey blind with my son and his two teenage friends and I got experience everything through their eyes and it was incredible. We experienced so many emotions that day that I can't possibly account for all of them and I was proud and impressed at the way the boys handled everything. From anticipation, excitement, failure and back to raw excitement. We had so many good things happen on that hunt but it was extra special listening to Josh recap the days events as he was showing off the video he took to everyone that stopped over that day.
What the boys and I experienced that day, many people can't understand and will never experience anything like it and a piece of me feels sorry for them. It was an experience of a lifetime for all of us and it is a bond we will always share.......Forever.
