Montana Wildlife Continue to Grab Headlines

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  Eight bighorn rams, ages 3 1/2 to 8 1/2, dead after being struck by lightning on Wild Horse Island in Flathead Lake.
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  Grizzlies spotted grazing a wheat field near Brady, a small farming community 50 miles north of Great Falls. Hardly your typical griz hangout but one not so uncommon  as the Rocky Mountain Front grizzlies have been spotted in recent years even farther out on the high plains. Which, by the way, back in Lewis and Clark days was the horrible bears' preferred habitat.
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  In Red Lodge a black bear is currently on the most wanted list, having eluded capture despite some 20 break-ins in recent weeks. The last incident the bear was caught (not literally) inside a house munching pizza after breaking into a freezer. Comical, eh?
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  FWP is investigating reports a wildlife photographer may have been baiting grizzlies near the forest service campground outside Cooke City where the recent maulings took place. If true, proving yet again there's a bunch of nuts out there and they ain't all locked up...right? Right.
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  In something of a radical move to get around the recent return of the Idaho, Montana, Wyoming gray wolf to endangered status state wildlife officials are considering a "research hunt"...Hooray, and take that you whacky bastards...
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  Pathetic but saddly true, YNP announced July's vistor numbers set an all-time record at 957,000...Sorry folks, but to my twisted way of thinkin' that's just way too many of us to even think about enjoying anything close to a quality experience. Do you suppose just maybe the time has come to cap the daily onslaught at something a bit more reasonable? 

Good By and Good Riddance...Hooray!!!!

Riding into the sunset of what turned out a not so hot year, always the eternal optimist I look forward to a big turn around in 2010...good luck, eh?

Oh well, the past year did at least start off with a bang, as we spent the entire month of January bird bumming around the Arizona outback in search of quails and such. Staying the month was not only a big surprise to both Gale and me an even bigger surprise was how easy life with two dogs and a small trailer turned out. I can't recall a single significant crisis the entire time.

From there however things took a distinct downturn culminating I guess with the very real slap in the face the day my Medicare card arrived in the mail...like holy shit, you really are getting old...In between we endured getting screwed big time by outfitter buddy...OK I won't go there only because I don't want to lower myself to his lowlife friggin' level...2009 was without question our worst fishing season, if not ever, certainly in recent memory...not only did we not get out that often it seemed every time something happened to dust the deal...cows trashing our favorite little crick...everywhere we went others beat us to it...favorite campsites already taken...but the topper was the fishing for the most part bordered on grim...the only really good day I recall was the day Gale landed a really big cutt up at No Name Lake...you guessed it, Johnny on the Spot was none other than a guy from Idaho...why not...the bird season started out slow then picked up to more or less tolerable, then we endured a grim week west of Havre but later enjoyed a really fine week up Malta way...then winter hit and hunting around home mostly hit rock bottom, of late we hardly buy a bird just for the dogs to point...

On another track our photo/writing careers pretty much tanked, lots of rejected queries, very few photo sold, Great Places isn't selling worth crap, news the other day I'll only be writing 8 Sagebrush News columns instead of 12 and then yesterday I found out a feature piece scheduled for Nov/Dec09 has been bumped at least to May/June 2010. I'm afraid to ask same editor what might happen to the conservation feature submitted recently...and then there was the royal screwing we got from our doctor buddy...OK, enough, by now I'm sure you get it and understand quite clearly why I headlined this rant thusly...Happy New Year...we can only hope...right? Right.