2010 THE CAMPAIGN WAS IN FULL SWING AND SO WAS THE PARTY

The Prairies are booming. Make no mistake about it, the eastern side of the Canadian Rockies from the Oil Patch, to Cropping, to an Indian Summer, makes for a festive mood. It is sad to see the Americans so wired to their cell phones and internet buzz try and cope with the world of farmers, cattlemen, oilmen, tradesmen and folks that connect with their eyeballs over coffee. Most newbies American hunters are suspicious of these people also wanting to know why they are so open and transparent.. they must want something from me.

I decided, with reservation to allow a Californian hunter to come with us this year. He seemed pleasant but would later turn out to be a hunter, "from Hell." He seemed fine for the first week always being on his cell phone. We had enough of him constantly being called by his while we scouted so I declare no more cell phones in public. Quickly figured he was addicted to painkillers and by week two he was running out. By the second week he was so hyper as he was taking three a day and constantly rambling telling us about his days as a nasty Union organizer. He was asked to leave.

Thanksgiving in Saskatchewan is early October and in the farming lands asll foods are homegrown. After a morning shoot, the spirits came forth and it poured Rye Whisky and then the, "Moonshine." John's brew was a true 98 proof and mixed with Pepsi. It made one of our group almost go blind. Dinner was served and by 6 we were watching the San Francisco giant in the playoff

IN THE VALLEY OF GEESE AND CRANES- PEST CONTROL

Depending on snow cover and spring runoff, there is this very special valley in Saskatchewan that will hold all waterfowl species and many migrating shore birds. For me an avid bird watcher, when the Gods have decided to give the Prairies good water, the farmer are delighted and so are the migrating birds. Within the Valley, all flyways, except the Eastern are represented here. The birds gather meet their cousin they haven't seen since last falls staging and like most Prairies Canadian , they know how to party. The song fest will last all night and day until winter comes to the Praires and like many Canadians after the harvest is done, Thanksgiving Dinner serves to family they are off to warmer climates.

All night the geese, ducks, cranes and snipes drink at their roost. Although not the Canadian Rye, there has to be something in the water to make them so happy, fat and content.

My Prairie farmer friends called me early September. "Get up here and get these frigging birds off my crop." This year was a very late harvest. It was bountiful, the price was solid and the geese were taken 6-9 acres a day from my bachelor friend Kevin. Crop Insurance would only cover so much so they needed our pest control methods

2010 TRAVELS FROM SUN VALLEY TO SASKATCHEWAN

There is a wonderful valley north of Twin Falls, Idaho that reminds me of spring creek fishing haunts for big browns near Haast on New Zealand's West Coast. I will camp near Sliver Creek. Idaho just west of Picabo. The valley was the play grounds for Hemingway his shooting and drinking buddies from the heady 50's. After visiting Hemingway graves site many times over the years and retracing his final hours, I am convinced he never did blew his head off with a pre-war 1902. London Best, Boss Side by Side 12 bore. In fact, he still lives and I saw him in Las Vegas recently. I would camp near Love Spring Creek and watch wary browns sip midges. The dogs were delighted to get out and stretch. They had been wonderful for the last two days in their kennels. Tess was content to live in her cave.




Fe had been here before and knew what was unfolding. Her excitement infused Tess with curiosity and she became infected by the cool valley air that the clung heavily to the nearby chalk stream lined with pungent red willows. Fe pranced about in anticipation awakening her dormant hunting skills that were going to be in demand. A Picabo night would wash way all desert dust for the next 6 weeks it would be Prairie night filled with arctic geese and wolf calls.

After Tess had meant her litter mate by accident, I knew the world was getting smaller. I craved elbow room and so I pulled the plug and headed up to the Canadian/U.S. border and WHOA was I in for a rude meeting with US officials. I was taking a new hammer gun into Canada and decided to declare it on the US side even those it was made in 1872 and considered an antique not a weapon. The official by the name was Fish made me take all my pre 1800 double barrels out so he could check them into his data base of course with my personal info. Now I know why they call it fishing. I asked for statues and he said he could not allow me to cross into Canada unless I declared all my guns. I did and let it go. I can see the angry of the Tea partiers. It took five minutes to declare pay for my guns in Canada and he bid me adieu and told me to enjoy myself. He apologized for the America saying they are over the top thinking that everyone was a boogieman.

Five miles down the single road I was humming a John Phillip Sosa tune thanking God for me allowing me to cross over to freedom of openness. Our first night was by the big Coulee I usuall camped at when hunting Huns, Sharptail and jump shooting teal and Mallards. The morning couldn't come soon enough.

THE 2010 TRIP UP TO CANADIAN PRAIRES

I had many question after months of training our new pup, Tess. Sure, she was hard wired like the bunny in the battery adds with enough jets under her hood to hit warp speed, but could she sep out of the shadow from her older sister Fe, the Wirehair. In the end, she performed and exceeded all expectation. She out did, by leap and bounds, a 3 year old male lab who had show qualities but was "brain dead." I knew the pup was a quick study, could take a line, do a blind, followed hand signals and was forced fetched in days. How would she behave under combat stress, whistle commands, wily upland and icy water retrieves. It was time to put her months of training to test and so Tess, short for Tessarosa was to begin an adventure to make her a , "Super Dog."




Tess, was a 9 month female black lab. He older sister Fe, a Germain Wirehair, at nine, had seen every form of hunting from Canada to Arizona and was willing to share her wisdom with her younger sister Tess. We left on a warm sunny Nevada Fall morning. I decided at the last minute to try and make it up to Canada with the taking an Interstate. I headed West on my favorite road Highway 50 billed as the "Loneliest Highway in America."

My Lance camper sat comfortably on my 7.3 dually diesel Ford F350 Super Duty. I could haul a house with this machine and it would be my Waldorf for the next eight weeks with every convenience existential for a Prairie Safari. I arrived in Eureka late afternoon to talk with the Wildlife Commissioner who had engaged us to do a science review of The Great Basin Mule Deer herds. I loved the history and quaintness in Eureka. It was a classic "boom and bust" small Nevada town with lots of revenues from nearby Gold mines. Eureka was in a Boom while the rest of urban Nevada wolfed in depression after many fat years.

I had taken a very nice antelope nearby several years ago and central Nevada was a special place. I camped in town, after a Chinese supper hearing after much prodding that our Wildlife Commissioner was inches from being assassinated while serving in the foreign service in Honduras. Alls well and in the morning after a bagel and cream cheese from a local Mennonite cafe, I was off towards Ely before finally heading North to greet the migration


My next stop was in the Clover Valley at the base of the Ruby Mountain south of Wells. I meant a local rancher who had helped me find an elk several years ago. He was an avid hunter and was busy raising his family. He had some insights to what was happening to Mule Deer. We would talk further. He told me I would make it up to Twin Fall that evening. Still no Interstate

I would make it to Twin Falls that evening resting at the new Walmart. What a drive today! Eye candy with open vista so wide I never saw a Contrail. I was a blessed man with a new pup, warm weather and knew this year was going to be special.

THE ZENNING in MONTANA

THE BUG RIVERS of MONTANA

Montana is a state of mind. For those fortunate to shed the routines and ruts of urban stress and rediscover the habits of trout, you are reborn. Watching the waters, talking to bug and fish gurus, then humiliating yourself trying to bring a trout to a fly reminds us we are out of the zone. It usually takes us ardent fisher five to ten days to ,"get it." Within a week, motor neurons fire off dormant signals to refine the of cast and most important, create the free-drift. All the while, Montana rivers and tea colored streams change daily and each insect genus hatch's until there are no more and the trout key in on another hatch . You had better adapt.

Trout thrive and ready for the winter in those unseen feeding zone and it's up to you to discover the algorithms to unlock the door. Your eyes tell the hand to grip the cork, to shoot the sharkskin line and lay that bug right where you think a trout hides. You hope it brings up a bug eater. And in Montana, you can be confident that a trout lies waiting there.

There are many ways to zen Montana; flushing a wily pheasant, or taking a pair of Huns with your English hammer gun over a pointing Wirehair or adjusting windage and elevation before dropping an antelope at 500 yards. Even watching a World Class Dog Trainer send his client's Field Trail retriever on a 400 yards blind without handling the mark is sufficient to rest the soul. But, the finest and purest zone is reserved for the dry fly fisher.

Over forty years I've been blessed to rebirth in Montana. The waters still hold many surprises even as new anglers pound the banks with huge bugs attempting to bring up trout. This year was special, as I watched my experienced fly-caster wife shed her strict routine and join me dry fly fishing for aggressive rainbow and stealthy browns. By week five, my eldest son a University Student arrived with a friend and quickly regained his beautiful casting and enthusiasm for trout fishing. He was coached by the best. Lefty Kreh gave him many lessons during when we home schooled him in West Yellowstone. Dave Whitlock let him in on secret to hopper fishing the Madison and Bob Jacklin told him about fall fishing. Then my youngest son arrived after an immersion summer at Middlebury Vermont studying Chinese. He was jaded, after catching 6 pounds rainbows on every cast while traveling with me in Canada by age 7.

Period one was the post Salmon fly to the Mayfly time. When there is so much insecta emerging feed in the rivers the trout will only move an inch or two to seek a drifting fly. They are feeding aggressively so that a well cast free-drifting fly with the proper size and tippet combination will induce a big trout to slam your bug, take you into backing as you helplessly watch it head down stream to eventually ping you unless you can run the banks

ON DOG TRAINING

There is so many way to teach you dog but only a few ways to take the transmission out of the animal. I guess I was fortunate to be raised around professional dog trainers like the Hogan's of Ireland and Barrington, Illilonis, Dave Elliot, Cotton Pershall , Charles Morgan, and David Lorenz. They all knew how to get into a dog's head in many different ways to bring out the natural talents.

As everything good and exciting, it all starts in California and moves outward. Dog training was no exception. Dog training took a quantum jump when the techno guru, Rex Carr decided that wireless collar to reinforce expectations and curtail unacceptable behavior had a place in the dog's life cycle. Rex Carr made the common man able to own, train, field trial and hunt exceptional dogs previously available only to the titled gentry of America's upper Mid West and East Coast.

Today there is no reason an individual can not have a family pet that is so well mannered and trained that it can lay at your feet during winter nights, scare the juice out of an intruder and find and retrieve a crippled game bird 500 yards away. You just have to learn how to get into the animals head.

For me having great teachers helped but one teacher in particular open the door and he had nothing to do with dogs. Harry McElroy trained Hawks to hunt. He trained all hawks to the fist and taught me how to enter the domain of an animal through Falconry. Once you have knowledge of you animal their is nothing you can not do if you have the patience

LOOKING FOR GOOD TIMBER

It is not enough to have a handmade shotgun made by craftsman with candlelight usually in the back road of the Birmingham or London you need to have good timber You want you work of art to be adorned by high figured wood and so I went in search of woods blanks for high grade guns mainly double barrels and found that Walnut whose genetic Center of Origin is the Cacusis Mountain were harvested and cross bred by the French, later the Brit to adorn their bespoke weapons.

I heard often of Turkish Walnut but really it is Franquette a Walnut variety created by the French for their table. I have all English Walnut stocks but I knew little of the genetics or geographic until I was educated by a stocker in Oregon.

TO FISH NEW ZEALAND

A tiny set of islands southeast of Australia is so vastly different from their English homeland that the first settlers imported their bloodsport follies to make paradise livable. Like Joni Mitchell sings, "find paradise and make it into a parking lot." Unlike Australia , New Zealand had no deadly snakes, not even a bad predator akin to saltwater crocs or four legged dingos. New Zealand is a temperature Hawaii, a pastoral refuge for the second- sons of British gentry. They imported there Tahr , Chamois, Red Stag an old-world Elk, new World Elk, even a Moose or two and most fitting the trout.

I have fished the worlds flats, blue waters for billfish, stalked exciting tarpon, and fooled pargo. I was raised by my gentile father, a successful community developer in Trout Valley and caught his big-spring creek brown named Bertha one fine summer day. From them forth it was the Loch Leven Brown that infected my brain . It is trout with cane rods, water cress choked spring creeks and Montana freestone water that have my keen interest. From Alaska to Europe across the Americas trout are a fancy especially when they are rising to sip a evening bug floating through their lie. IN the early days, my scientist friends at Genentech blew off pressure by Fly fishing Pyramid Lake in Reno or the Stone-fly hatch on Madison in Montana. I kept hearing rumbles of New Zealand and back country fish as long as your arm. I took my eldest son Nicholas who was home schooling with us and in early February after a family reunion in Lake Tahoe where we were buried in avalanches, we flew down to the South Island and headed to the Twizel area to stalk these mythical trout.

I fell in love with Zane Greys trout fishing exploits and we were seeing the Southern Cross swaying to Stephens Stills epic song. Always keep left, I was told by the car rental man and when you're driving and turn on the light and the wiper come most Kiwi will pull off the road. We were driving on the proper side, eating minced meat pie at every gas station
and learning the Queen's adjectives like, "Magic", "Brilliant", " "Good as Gold" and "Good On You."

And there it was a lone brown trout, I guess to be at least 22 inch. I told my son to keep his shadow off the water as we walked the banks of a back water lake. A dandy brown on his beat and with the flip and two false cast I flayed the fly ten feet away before he turned to circle his beat again. Slowly he came in my direction and within three feet of the gnat my wrists tighten in anticipation. Once he saw the bug , the big brown flipped his tail to attack the high profile dry fly. He came over without a care to sip and when his jaw broke surface I lifted the 5 weight rod, felt his weight and set the hook... Too fast and he drove back to the deep. But there would be many more stalking and , when I was told to mutter, God Shave the Queen," my hookups increased logarithmic.

MY SMOOTH BORES

A sample of my smoothbores maninly from London. My objective is to collect the finest made gun from each country that were made from 1860-1930's. They must be field hunted over trained hunting dogs on fair chase birds and we must eat what we shoot with these wonder works of art

1st. Model 21 made in 1947. It is a Duck that was restocked for General Omar Bradley who collected the English Walnut as the troop invaded Normandy. There was so much artillery fire that the trees absorb the iron and the rootstock and the figure were blacken by their uptake. This is Fluer de Lys engraving and the tubes were opened by the famous Stan Baker of Seattle. This weapon has been very solid under heavy use in Canada. Picture taken with two canvasback ducks.

2nd My 1872 Stephen Grant and Son London Sidelock Ejector. Engraving is superb and the fences are a moniker for Stephen Grant

3rd. A very rare James MacNaughton 16 bore long thumb tang made in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1886. This beauty is a round body blitz action with crystal cocking indicators


















4th. My composed pair of Browning Pointer Grade 28ga and .410. My Browning buddies go gaga over these but they are not even in the same league as bespoke English.













5th The first hammer less London gun made in 1872 by T Murcott. It was called the Murcott Mousetrap. 12 Bore and is deadly on Pheasant in North Dakota