OK, this is as about as close to live blogging as the Telegraph gets, although I do have a failing for leaving things down to the wire. Tsk…
But there’s been just so much going on, that thoughts I might produce this yesterday or even earlier today turned out to be delusions.
So for starters here, a glimpse of our day might explain why I have no desire to watch television whatsoever.
Actually, it started last night about 10:30, just as I got home from a Ranchlands group meeting in Ennis. The phone rings. Incessantly (in general, not last night, thankfully). This was a buffalo client I was scheduled to pick up for, first thing this morning, but alas, he was in Drummond with logistical complications due to an idler pulley deciding to fully depreciate on his main serpentine belt. He was handling it very well, I must say.
I was actually sort of relieved to not be getting up at 5:15, and after calls this morning to the ranch, et al, we agreed to let fate take its course. Fortunately it turns out the client is a capable mechanic.
The complication was I had several other clients showing up here at Buffalo Bill’s around noon, and so when I got a call at about 10:00 that my man Rudy was on the road with anticipated arrival out on the Madison around that same time you can see that my stress level escalated. Oh, to be twins...
My main man for assistance on these random pickups was in Helena, having gotten himself “invited” to several KEY meetings on our wild bison bill, such as it was. We’ll go there later, though.
I called literally everyone else I could think of who might even remotely possibly be able to break loose on a Thursday late morning (a longer list than you would think) and drive out to the Madison & pick up a recently deceased buffalo for skinning, quartering, etc. Nada. In something approaching desperation, I called Cody’s school, where Praise the Lord they are most understanding about these sorts of dilemmas. So I only had to neglect several other pressing chores as my sweet wife was off cell phone-less, blithely Christmas shopping, tear into town, get Cody from school, run myself home again, and bid him Godspeed to the harvest pasture.
At least I made it back before any clients arrived, although not by much, and embarked on skinning several buffalo shortly thereafter (one more than I’d planned on, wait, make that two). Met some very interesting people, and sent a few on their way with some great meat, although the more sensible ones are letting theirs hang overnight, and the even more sensible a day or two while they check out this remarkable area’s other offerings.
And then Cody made it back with what had turned into two more, which were shortly undressed and in the fridge, just before dark, right on schedule.
Other than that, though, not much went on, except shipping some robes and skulls, selling a buff or two, and frantically tending some other inquiries.

Some other people had a fairly stressful day also, though. Mercy, the stuff that is going on…
As I mentioned, we had a Madison Ranchlands Group meeting in Ennis last night. So this is the first unofficial report, although kudos to the young man from the Sun Ranch (ack, I must check the minutes, I should know his name by now, tsk…) who volunteered to take minutes. This was the “end of hunting season” meeting, pretty dang interesting, and thankfully far less acrimonious than I had feared, considering FWP is not offering any season extensions. None around here, at least, that I know of.
The group had negotiated a plan for public access to elk (cows, mostly) on private lands. We had a one-day call-in reservation thing back in September, sort of minimally announced but were absolutely besieged with calls, i.e. took forty more than planned on (100 was the agreed-upon number) due to a voice-mail foulup, in something like a half hour!
The participating ranches (the Sun Ranch, Jumping Horse, Cedar Creek, and Jon Fossel) took around twenty names each. Most if not all participating places called the lucky hunters, to watch for a heads-up and come shoot a cow elk. At least in the Sun Ranch case, though, NOT ONE of the people actually managed to show. Tsk…
So as usual, the ranches allowed folks they knew, or people who just happened to be at the right place at the right time, to come on and have a crack at it. Successfully, in most cases.
Now I am most certainly not a stenographer, or even a competent minutes-taker, as my handwriting gets worse daily. It’s hereditary, although I think mine has surpassed my mother’s in unreadability, may she rest in peace. Disregarding minor errors, though, it went as follows;
Off the list of 100 names, roughly fifty had opportunities at elk. The Jumping Horse allowed 41 hunters (not all off the list, as is the case with the others), who took 27 cows. On the Cedar Creek Ranch, 17 “known” (friends, employees, etc.) took 12 cows, and 46 general public took 37, mostly the last week. On Moonlight Basin, (my notes are gibberish, but to my recollection…) two public hunters both took bulls. On the Sun Ranch, 30-40 cows were taken by public hunters. Again, in that case none off the call-in list.
So you tell me; is that enough access to be considered “fair and equitable”, in order to qualify for season extensions or damage hunts?
Not according to FWP, it’s not.
I have some problems with that, as I brought up last night. I admit, my perspective is different than most. As in, up around nine or ten thousand feet, in some cases! That’s where the elk were. The ones I hunt, anyway.

Oh, there’s big herds of thousands down on the flats. That’s the problem. What do you do to harvest, or at least re-distribute some of those?! The wisdom used to run that if you let people hunt them it’d push ‘em back up onto the Forest.
Guess again.
We had quite a bit of discussion about that last night. These big herds of cow elk (and the odd little bull) live down on the flats pretty much year-round anymore. Alfalfa, some say. In spite of perceptions by some that they’re “unhunted”, in fact that’s not the case. There are random sections of State ground, and you get truckloads of (forgive me if I go a bit judgemental) morons driving around, flock-shooting at these big herds of elk off the roads. So the elk run a mile or three down to the airport, where the scene repeats, and then down to Cameron, repeat. Daily.
It’s ugly. Wounded elk all over, and just the worst sort of hunter “behavior” imaginable. But do you think the elk go back up on the mountains?
In a way, that’s kind of “dead to me”, though. We’re way up in there, because you know, it’s only the blindly lucky morons (which exist in surprising numbers) who run into big bulls down along the roads like that. That makes farming look like a sure thing.
So we’re up there approaching the top of the range, and the bulls are even higher than that! Above the goats, the bios tell me. When it snows early on, and then not again to speak of, and in fact turns to bluebird weather, or at least blue grouse weather, until the last day of hunting season when it finally snows (three years in a row now!!), hunting trophy elk in the crunchy snow, in the north deadfall, at the tops of the mountains…

It just about can’t be done.

Now I’m not whimpering too much. We could have shot lots of elk. Cows and little bulls, up at 9000’+, with no snow for retrieval lubrication. You talk about a fool’s errand…
So we held off, and to my considerable chagrin, this is the first year in a LONG time that we didn’t kill an elk. Oh, well. We’ll get a buffalo, and would have anyway.
In my case, though, I think this five-week season is ridiculous! At least since global warming arrived, it is. We could hunt elk from September 1 to at least December 15, and maybe New Years and not approach an over-harvest. We’d stimulate the economy, perhaps put a dent in these burgeoning populations (not that I think we have too many elk, by any means…), and maybe I’d finally get a crack at Mr. Big, up where they seem to hang. Or even down where a guy my age, albeit with horses and not afraid to hike, might get to one. Assuming it snows enough that you couldn’t cross the range in tenny runners!!
But no... that idea gets a chilly reception from FWP. Because this five-week season is kicking open the door to allow public access to elk on private lands. And you know what, it is... Right here in Springhill, ranches where there’s been no public access since we’ve lived here (starting in the late 70’s) things are changing.

But they’re all documenting how much access they’re allowing. And if these fabled extensions and such don’t come to pass, well… Let’s just say it won’t pass unnoticed.
The way the elk plan is written, the wording for qualification for damage hunts is SO strict that no one could qualify unless they basically allow unfettered public access thoughout the season, to every square inch of their property, with no restrictions as to sex or anything else. Of course, FWP says these matters would be enforced on a case by case basis.
I’m sorry. That’s bullshit.
We (the Gallatin Wildlife Association) had a board meeting the other morning, and our suggestion is that FWP define what number of hunters constitutes “fair and equitable” public access. If those numbers pass muster, then administer a computerized drawing. Now that strikes me as fair and equitable. Recent experience would indicate not that many will show, but I am open to being proven wrong.
We voted on another matter or two, also.
We’d gotten a sponsor for our bison bill. I’m not going to say a whole lot about this, as it’s beyond “sensitive”, although maybe that’s pointless. We started with basically what we began with last time, putting management of wild bison in Montana under FWP to be managed as “valued native wildlife”, with the Dept. of Livestock handling private property complaints from affected landowners or stockmen, which in point of fact are near-nonexistent over huge areas of overwhelmingly public lands, that would be perfect for buffalo! OK, what’s not to like?
That was one point my cohort Glenn was able to make at high-level meetings today, is that NO ONE has ever refuted the basic tenets of our proposals. NO ONE! It’s just politically inconvenient for various reasons.
When what we had submitted was drafted, though, after consultations with FWP and others, it had (sorry, but I don't pull punches at this hour) wimped out to the point that as a Board we voted not only to no longer support it, but to actively oppose it.
But now it’s gone away. The sponsor perhaps wisely thought better.
Perhaps the Grievance Merchants have some intimidated, but man… That’s a foreign concept to me. The ONLY possible reason I can see, is to let the radicals flame themselves out first, and then use this as a national springboard in ’08.
Maybe things aren’t quite ready just yet. Or maybe they are.
Things seldom progress as predicted, I know that. Mysterious ways, indeed…