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.

Young Arizona Hunter Downs Muy Grande Mule Deer Buck

The buck we've all been looking for was shot recently by a 15 year old, no less, hunting a special draw area in Mariposa County (CA) just outside Yosemite National Park. The young hunter was one of just 10 juniors drawn and this is his first kill. The buck is a non-typical, 7X6 with a whopping 34 inch spread so the bad news is "Sorry kid to be the bearer of bad tidings but now you done it, ain't much room up there to top this one...EVER! A wintering ground for Yosemite bucks the area has long been a producer of trophy bucks...this one will probably rank 8th in the non-typical class for California bucks.

More from Great Places Montana

It seems Montanans as a whole are more likely to rave about our mountain-man cum cowboy roots than talk about the ravages that the cut-and-run mining industry wreaked upon the landscape and left behind for future generations, as happens way too often.

It seems too we are most proud of our incredible wildlife heritage; everything from grizzly bears and bison to tundra swans and relic sage grouse.

It seems also we are quite proud of our wild lands, natural lands, such as found in our two National Parks--Glacier and Yellowstone--and our 21 National Wildlife Refuges,attendant Waterfowl Production Areas and our many state parks and wildlife management areas.

And rightly so.

Given that a large majority of our residents spend far more time outdoors than in; that something like one in four hunt and even a larger percentage fish, to say nothing of the thousands who hike, bird watch,climb mountains, mountain bike, camp, canoe, picnic and otherwise just like to kick back under our high, wide and handsome big sky.

Between the covers of Great Places Montana you won't find it all but I guarantee the wealth of information we've gathered here will more than get you started.

Happy Trails.