This is a story about a little black and white Sierra Designs fanny pack. It is a sad story. I recommend you get the tissues out. You see, The Little Fanny Pack lived happily for years next to its owner's desk. It didn't get in the way and it didn't bother anyone. It served faithfully to carry water bottles, fishing license, and concealed carry handguns when needed. All was well and right in the world. Then, one day, The Lady of The House decided to put The Little Fanny Pack "where it belonged". After awhile The Little Fanny Pack's owner went looking for it. But it was nowhere to be found. And The Lady of The House could not remember The Little Fanny Pack, let alone where she put The Little Fanny Pack. The owner of The Little Fanny Pack spent hours searching high and low for his trusty friend, even enlisting the aid of his son and offering a reward. Alas! Somewhere, in some dark, lonely corner of the evil, unfriendly world, The Little Fanny Pack remains lost, alone, and forsaken. Its owner mourns for the lost Little Fanny Pack. The night darkens and the sun's heat loses out to the dark as we bring this little tale to an end.
If you see a little black fanny pack, please... drive him home.
Mick's looking for his little red rooster.
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THE LITTLE FANNY PACK HAS BEEN RESCUED!!!!!
Late last night, as I tossed and turned in bed, a vision came to me. Leaping from the covers (in my flannel PJ's, I should add, as I've to come to like sleeping warm w/ fewer covers as opposed to light with more covers, but maybe this is TMI....) I raced to the location. Gearing up with gloves and lights and a safety rope, I plunged into the depths of The Gun Closet and there, nearly suffocated beneath the weight of piles and piles of Predator Camo, shoved ignominiously into a corner of The Hunting Clothes Duffle Bag, was The Little Fanny Pack.
I wept, shouted for joy, and then returned the The Little Fanny Pack to it's rightful place next to my desk with Firm Instructions to The Lady of The House to never touch The Little Fanny Pack again. She casually pointed out that she never goes into The Gun Closet, let alone The Hunting Clothes Duffle Bag, therefore it is unlikely that She put The Little Fanny Pack there. No!!! Say it's not true! It was not I who put The Little Fanny Pack there! No!!! Oh, the horror!
Oddly, I see that The Little Fanny Pack is actually a "High Sierra" and not a "Sierra Designs". Hmmmm....
In any case, the sun shines and the world is right again. Thank you for your concern, thoughts, prayers, good vibes, and generous offers of large amounts of cash as I went through this difficult time.
Back in 2014, I got my first bull elk and before too long, #2 Son, affectionately called D2, was wrathy (*) to kill an elk so we put in for the draw to see what would happen. Nothing happened in 2015, but in '16, he drew for bull elk in our home unit. Yeah! Life went on for the summer and we were looking forward to the hunt. Then in August, I broke my collarbone and all of a sudden our elk plans were in limbo. The problem, you see, is that it's awfully hard to pack an elk out off the top of a mountain when you can't put any pack pressure on your broken shoulder. But, as it worked out, the doctor cleared me for "light exercise" the day before our hunt. Fortunately, he did not define "light exercise" (and I didn't ask for a definition).
D2 and I talked it over and we decided to give our immediate area a good scouting before heading up on the mountain. We'd been seeing elk all summer long in our creek and on nearby State land and I felt our chances were good, although I met with skepticism among other individuals. Nevertheless, on opening morning, we were up and looking. I drove down a neighbor's road that faced a rimrock wall I wanted to scout and almost immediately D2 and I both spotted 3 elk walking away, about a mile across a flat. Binoculars told me they were all bulls and one of them was pretty decent. Regardless of size (can't eat antlers, remember), they were bull elk in our backyard. We waited for them go around around a point in the rimrock and then we parked, geared up, and went after them.
We walked fairly quickly across the prairie and then climbed to where they'd disappeared at which point we started moving along much slower and doing a lot of glassing. I really expected to find the bulls bedded down in some timber back in a little bowl, but no luck. We spent until about noon working our way carefully around the rim where we found some bedded mule deer but no elk. Where'd they go!? We decided to go back for lunch and then I laid down for a nap. While napping and thinking about it, I figured the elk had to go into a little canyon on our property. I figured that instead of working around the rim like we'd done, that once they were in the open, they'd probably just trotted across a 1/2 mile open section. There are plenty of dips and drops in that section and they'd be easy to miss. That was the only place I could think of that wasn't visible from our earlier position and it was a nice sheltered canyon, an important thing since the wind was now up to about 20 mph. So, about 2-3 pm, we headed back out to check it out. I went down the same road as earlier and glassed every little pocket I could find. D2 was soon-to-be-a-teenager pessimistic but I am an old dog and much more persistent. And then... back in the suspected canyon, I spotted an elk. I couldn't tell bull or cow, but "bull" was a good gamble since I haven't seen a cow elk in this area all summer.
Plotting the situation, I decided to drive back to the north and come through our pasture to approach the canyon from the east. That would put the wind in our favor and give us the canyon rim to stalk off of. The plan was executed and D2 and I soon found ourselves crawling on hands and knees through cholla cactus to the rim. At the rim there was a bush to the left, an open space, and a juniper tree. I picked the bush and the instant we got there, I spotted a small bull elk bedded down on the opposite canyon wall. There should be 3 bulls in total, though, and it was important to find them all before moving. Leaving D2 in position, I inched back away from the wall, over to the side, and under the juniper and there, right below me, was the biggest bull, feeding on grass in the bottom.
I motioned to D2 and he crawled back and over and was soon in position. We had a perfect shot- 75 yards almost straight down on the bull's back. D2 was shooting a 7mm-08 with 139 gr Hornady bullets which are on the light side for elk. We needed a great position and we were in it. Plus, it would be a pretty easy hike out of the canyon to the truck, an important consideration with my gimpy collarbone. If the bull had been a big 6x6, this would've been the most perfect shot ever, but, hey, you can't eat antlers and he was a very respectable bull so I told D2 to take the shot. He did and the bull staggered forward, giving us a perfect angle for a 2nd shot, which I told him to take. At the 2nd shot, the bull dropped, rolled, and was still.
The other 2 bulls jumped up, trotted down the canyon, jumped the fence, and then stood there staring. They couldn't smell us and all they knew as a loud noise had just happened. After a few minutes, they trotted off and we gave high 5's. We then called Mom and asked her to bring the Ranger. I'm not sure why we did that, since we had a pickup at the top of the canyon, but I wanted her to be with us when we walked down to the elk.
D2's first elk
Mom arrived and we explained the situation. We all walked down to the fallen giant and admired it. Then I dropped the bombshell...."We're going to need lights and stuff..." I suppose I should've had her just bring them the first time, but the Ranger's easy to drive around so I didn't think it a big deal. Mom headed off for gear and D2 and I started butchering the elk. I have a little rule about "Don't shoot an elk past 2 pm" and we violated that rule big time and were now going to pay the price as it was getting dark, fast. Fortunately, we did have our own personal lights and before long we were cutting up elk in the pitch dark and falling temperatures. Eventually, lights appeared at the head of the canyon. Mom was back.
D2 did most of the butchering himself since I was pretty much one-armed
After she made her way down the rocky, trail-less canyon to us, we hatched a pack-out strategy. Normally, I'd bone out all the meat and pack just meat 'cause those elk bones are heavy, but given that the Ranger was just 0.2 mile away (300 yards!), I decided to tough it out and pack quarters in my most excellent Horn Hunter Full Curl pack. We loaded up a hind quarter, Mom took backstraps in another pack, and D2 threw a front quarter over his shoulder. After the other helped me stand up under my heavier than expected load, we started out in the pitch dark, trying to find a path of some sort through the rocks and brush.
Earlier, while at the elk, we'd talked about mountain lions (they've been spotted in these canyons several times). Because I had my hands full with my super heavy pack, I gave Mom my Bersa .380 pistol to carry "just in case". D2 was leading, with his headlamp lighting the way when he suddenly stopped and threw his rifle up. "Cat!", he whispered. The kid knows the difference between cat eyeshine and others and I believed him. "I think it's a bobcat", he said. We made sure and then proceeded onwards.
Doing some "light exercise" in the dark
At the last steep section to the Ranger, I couldn't get my feet off the ground so Mom pushed my pack up while I took a step. D2 went ahead to the Ranger and dropped off his load, then came back and got Mom's pack while she continued to help me. Eventually, we made it to the Ranger and downed appreciated bottles of water. While there, I said "Where's my pistol?" Mom slapped her pockets and came up blank. It was lost somewhere on the trail. I was not happy, but I did figure that I could come back during the day and find it, so we set off down the canyon again. This time, we took our time and did, in fact, find a trail of sorts. About halfway down, D2 stepped on something hard and metallic- my pistol! Yes! I was happy now.
Approaching the elk, we caught the eye shine again. The bobcat had moved down the canyon and was about 50 yards up the slope from our elk. Under the cover of darkness, he was totally unafraid of us so, just to give him (and any other cat in the area) a little warning, I fired a shot from my freshly-found pistol in his approximate direction. That sent him hustling and we watched him go up the canyon into some rocks and disappear.
Another staggering trip later, we had all the meat back at the truck and headed home. "Tired" doesn't even begin to describe me. I took a hot bubble bath and collapsed in bed. Sunday was church and on Monday, we we butchered the elk meat off the bones and cooked some up. There is nothing better than elk meat, let me tell you.
L-R: Venison, pronghorn, elk burgers
In '17, I've put in for archery elk and mule deer while D2 has put in for rifle bull and cow elk and mule deer. I want an archery big game animal and he wants a big bull elk and big mule deer and is willing to pass smaller ones up. Stay tuned!
(*) the term "wrathy" is one I've been using recently and it generates a lot of comments from people who've never heard it. It comes from this passage from "Bear Hunting in Tennessee" by Davy Crockett:
When my lead dog found him, and raised the yell, all the rest broke to him, but none of them entered his house until we got up. I encouraged my dogs, and they knowed me so well, that I could have made them seize the old serpent himself, with all his horns and heads, and cloven foot and ugliness into the bargain, if he would only have come to light, so that they could have seen him. They bulged in, and in an instant the bear followed them out, and I told my friend to shoot him, as he was mighty wrathy to kill a bear. He did so, and killed him prime. We carried him to our camp, by which time my son had returned; and after we got our dinners we packed up, and cut for the house of my old friend, whose name was Davidson.
This is the longest I've ever gone between blog updates and it's time to catch up. The biggest news is that I broke my collarbone on Aug 28 and had to have it plated and screwed. How did that happen, you ask? Dirt bikes is how. If you've been following me, you know that Derek wanted to start riding dirt bikes, so I made it happen in Jan '16 by buying a set of bikes for us- a Honda CRF150F for him and a Yamaha TT-R 230 for me. We sampled the dirt biking world, riding in the open area of the Canadian River, the mountains around Red River, our own creek, and around our little home-made track. After all this, we decided that the mountains were our least favorite simply because of the distance and time required to get there and we like track riding best, followed by the Canadian River.
Derek was getting better on the bike and I suggested we look into getting better (read "faster and better suspended") bikes. Which we did, by buying a '15 KX100 and '16 KX250F brand-new from Hester's Motosports in Raton. Here's our first ride on them- Derek's first time ever actually kick-starting a bike (the Honda was electric start), first time on a 2-stroke, and 1st time on a real motocross track. This was just a quick break-in ride on the way home from the shop. Before you critique, Derek's real riding gear was sitting at home in a box- he's wearing full padding underneath his street clothes.
Two days after this, we went back to the track to actually ride. I was super-impressed with the KX250F and was quickly making all the jumps except for two doubles. If you don't know what a "double" is, it's a gap jump where you leave one jump face, cross a gap, and land on the next jump face. There's not much margin for error on these things. But, my KX250F can easily do them, so after a little practice and concentration, I went for it. I cleared the easier of the two- a 50' gap- easily and then went after the harder of the two. This one has a much more pointed landing ramp but it's the same distance.
The double jump
I reared back, gave it gas, and poooooommmmm..... cleared the landing ramp by 10'! The hard thing about this is that there's a bowl turn immediately after the ramp and when you land there, it's kind of a harsh landing. The best thing to do is land on the landing ramp. So, Jump #2, I did that. Jump #3, I did that. Jump #4.... I came out of the darkness, wondering how long I'd been lying there, what day of the week it was, and did anyone know I was there? Then I felt a burning pain in my right shoulder and I knew I'd broken my collarbone. There was no way around it. Here's the thing (there's always a "thing", right?). The previous night I'd had a dream where I'd broken my collarbone and in the dream I thought "Oh well, everyone breaks their collarbone!" Then, Georgia didn't want to go to the track with us because she had a bad cough and I said "You'd better go because you might need to drive me to the hospital." Of course, I didn't tell her either of these things until afterwards.
So, I woke up in the dirt. My bike was over there, my helmet camera mount was there, and the camera (loose from the mount!) was yonder. Something went wrong. What, I don't know. I just remember heading toward the jump. Well, it'll be cool video anyway. But guess what I found out? The camera switch wasn't on, so no video of the crash. Georgia was reading a book. She missed it. Derek was on the other side of the track. He missed it. I firmly believe that I was abducted by aliens while mid-flight, tested for intelligence, virility, good looks, and common sense and then rudely slammed back to Earth hard enough to knock the memory from my head. Georgia and Derek arrived and helped me up, I made it back to the pit area and, fortuitously, a relative of the track owner happened along just then. He helped load the bikes up and then we were off to the Emergency Room.
On the way to the ER!
At the ER, I got X-rayed and here's what we found:
First X-ray
Well, no doubt about it now. That's a break. At first it looks like 3 pieces of bone with a gap in between, but after they got put back together, I saw that wasn't the case as we'll see in a minute. The crash happened Saturday. Monday, we got an appointment with Christos St. Vincent Sports Orthopedics in Santa Fe for Weds. By the time Tues rolled around, this is what I looked like:
This is kind of painful
When we got there- and the car ride down was possibly one of the most painful parts of the thing as I couldn't get comfortable in the front seat- I got fresh X-rays which revealed that the loose bone fragment had shifted around. I was in a lot of pain, but knowing that surgery was going to happen the next day helped me tough it out. The surgeon said "Okay, surgery on Thurs!" and left. I breathed a big sigh of relief. Then he popped back in and said "That's NEXT Thurs... we have an emergency to do tomorrow." Oh, man!!! A WEEK more of this?! Note that I was not on any painkillers at this time as I didn't want to deal with constipation, upset stomach, and possible addiction. The Dr's prescribed Percocet and, back home, I took one to help me sleep. I then had a nightmare in which the collarbone broke through the skin and I was bleeding to death but couldn't get out of the couch because the blood made it too slippery. So... no more of that! In the interim week, I managed the pain fairly well with alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Once I got past the hump and the time was getting closer to surgery, I started actually getting used to it. Every time I started to feel like the pain was too much, I asked myself the question "What Would Hugh Glass Do?" and then I didn't feel very bad at all. At least I didn't have to worry about infection from grizzly bite, you know?
At Santa Fe- where's the bone piece?
FINALLY, the day of surgery came and I've never been happier to get knocked out. Anesthesia is a funny thing. I was supposed to help them move myself from my gurney to the operating table, but I don't remember any of that. The last thing I remember is leaving the staging area and then waking up. Back home, here's what it looked like:
After surgery
A week later, we were back and here's what I look like now. The two "loose" screws are holding the floating chip back in place. If you look at the X-ray, you can now see that the loose piece broke off the bottom of both sides of the main bone. So, the main bone broke in half and an "inferior" piece then broke off the bottom of both of those. The 2 screws are holding that piece up the main sections.
The plate and the screws.
After all this, I did 4 weeks of passive physical therapy where the PT moved my arm for me. I quickly rigged up my Bowflex machine at home as a pulley so I could do this myself. At first, let me tell you, it hurt to move stuff. I had a definite "catch" in my muscles when bringing my arm down. My PT found this muscle and massaged the catch out and I improved a little each week. After 4-5 weeks, I went back to the Dr for more X-rays and check ups and then he approved me to do "light lifting and active physical therapy". Well, that's good because the next day was elk season and Derek had a tag for a bull elk. So, long story, short:
Derek's first elk! On our property, too!
Packing out an elk in the dark.
This is "light exercise", right?
After a great stalk, Derek had a 75 yard shot straight down into this bull's back and dropped him with 1 shot from his 7mm-08. We only had to pack 0.15 mile to reach the Polaris Ranger. Granted, it was uphill, in the dark, over the rocks, but I just kept the pack strap off my bad shoulder and toughed it out.
After this, I started active physical therapy for another 6 weeks and then, finally, in early December, was cleared for full activity. Of course, I immediately went riding. Okay, well, I'd already ridden a few times prior but we're not going to say anything about that, right? I mean, c'mon, I'd only ridden the KX250F for 1 hour before the crash, I was dying to ride the thing, so I took a few super-easy laps around our front yard track. After being cleared for good, I started working on building muscle again using the Bowflex, a kettlebell, free weights, and stretching.
Looking back, here's what I learned:
1) a collarbone break is painful, but it will pass.
2) I watched a lot of TV from the recliner. TV gets old fast- there is so much junk on there. Two programs, though, stand out. Steve Rinella's "Meat Eater" is the best hunting show I've ever seen, hands-down. No guides, DIY, with lots of tips on meat care, cooking, etc. "The American Bible Challenge" was great. I really enjoyed it and Derek and I did our best to answer all the questions.
3) Sometimes you crash when going for it.
4) Do the physical therapy!!!!
5) I could afford a $6000 motorcycle but I hadn't counted on an additional $6000 in out-of-pocket insurance costs! If you ride, ski, run, walk, or breathe, I suggest keeping your OOPs (< see what I did there?) on hand!
Goose Lake is a high lake near Red River, NM. The rocky, steep, Jeep trail starts at 8500' and runs to 11,500'. I've never been up and Derek's never ridden real off-road trails on his dirt bike, so we planned a trip. Leaving home at around 8 am, we stopped in Cimarron NM at the Cree-Me Drive Inn, which has the best soft-serve ice cream in the world. It was too early for ice cream and burger, so we "settled" for breakfast instead. Well... my breakfast burrito turned out to be one of the best I've ever had and Derek took 3 bites of his pancakes and said "These are really good!" He rarely says things like that. After stuffing ourselves, we continued on to Red River.
Our RV park (Roadrunner RV) ended up being right next to the Goose Lake trailhead which made things easy. We pulled in at 11 am and got camp set up. After some thinking, we decided to ride the Goose Lake Trail first, then go fishing a bit, and then ride the Greenie Peak (11,400', too) and Moonlight Meadow trails the next day.
Off we went! Now, remember, Derek just started riding a dirt bike in February. Goose Lake Trail started with a steep and loose shale ascent. I was about 100 yards up when I spotted a Polaris Razr coming down the trail. Turning quickly to find Derek, I promptly crashed, landing hard on my butt. Derek also crashed and couldn't pick his bike up on the slick surface. So, I parked mine, walked down, got him started, pointed out the line, and off he went. I took off, waved at the Polaris, and up we went. After that rocky start, things went well, although it seemed like we climbed forever. Finally, up near the lake we got some downhill time and in a fairly short time- it's only a 7 mile ride- we arrived at the lake. I, unfortunately, left the mount for my helmet cam at home, so I just have stills to show you.
In the parking lot at 11,500'.
Derek is glad to not be battling rocks.
Derek is growing
Goose Lake
The ring of rocks
The lake was surprisingly pretty- a crystal clear little thing surrounded by a ring of rock, snow still in place. It's a popular place and there were numerous ATV's, Polaris Rangers, and such in the parking lot. We were the only bikes, though. After some photos and observation, we headed back down, during which both Derek and I observed that we needed to adjust our rear brakes! On the ride down, my butt started hurting from the fall and it being only 1 pm, I thought maybe we should go ahead and tackle the other ride and save fishing for the 'morrow. So, we loaded up and off we went! Again!The other ride starts on the opposite end of town and winds thru some pretty fun trails. Uphill, downhill, level but with water washouts... it's a great ride up to Greenie Peak. From there, you can go back down and branch off one of two different ways to make a big loop. We rode that one and Derek proclaimed it as "much better" than the other ride. By this time, we were tired and hungry and stopped at "Anchovies Pizza" in town where we had a pepperoni- artichoke heart/olive/tomato mix. It was pretty good- not quite as good as Bruno's in Raton, but still pretty good. We'd definitely eat there again.
Sittin' on top of the world.
Derek with clouds
Wondering if we're gonna get wet (we didn't)
After a nice night's sleep in our new Casita (3 Ibuprofen later, my butt quit hurting), we went fishing. I don't have much to report there except that there is a steep curve where fly fishing along brush choked little streams are concerned. After a rough start (I already used "rocky start"....) during which my BOA laced wading boots lace broke and I had to use a leader to shut, which necessitated rebuilding my leader/tippet, we caught nothing. The Red River was whipping and places where there's normally pools were raging rapids. We packed up and headed over to Eagle Nest to visit Eagle Nest Fly Shack and get my boots re-wired, and then grab some food. Got all that done, eating at Kaw-Lija's where we had a breakfast burrito and pancakes again. We agreed that the food was good, but not quite as good at the Cree-Me Drive Inn. Nevertheless, we'd eat there again, you betchya.
Bed-time in the Casita
Fueled with food and information, we headed for Cimarron Canyon to fish more. Amidst much line tangling and fly losing, Derek snagged 2 small brown while I had several strikes but nothing solid. Tired and grumpy, we headed home but not before stopping in Ute Park for real, 100% gasoline, no ethanol added and in Cimarron at....you guessed it!... the Cree-Me Drive Inn for soft-serve ice cream. And a few hours later, tired, we arrived home just in time for it to start pouring rain. As I write this, just over a 1" of badly needed moisture has fallen. This is, literally, awesome.
All in all, an excellent adventure. Derek got to ride his dirt bike off-road for the first time, we both went to Goose Lake, we ate at 3 new places, we camped in the Casita... good stuff!
(Mat 4:18-19 NKJV) And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men."
I figure that since more than one of Jesus' disciples were fishermen, it might behoove one to become a fisher of fish before becoming a fisher of men. Because, like, if you can't fish for fish, then how are you going to fish for men's souls? If you can't fish? You know? I mean, is this logic or what?! So, to this end, a few years ago we set out to become fishermen.
Now, I fished in my youth, but it was bass fishing on small prairie potholes. You cast a lure in the water and like as not a hungry largemouth bass smacked it right away. If one didn't, then you moved to the next pond. This is radically different from lake fishing. Small pond fishing is more like fishing for men at a "We Want To Know Jesus!" conference. There are limited choices and the fish there are hungry. It's easy. Lake fishing- where there is a lot of water and many more choices in food, shelter, and depth for our sought-after fish- is more like fishing for souls at a Rolling Stones concert. It's gonna be a tough one and um...Keef!!!! Start me up, man!!! Sorry... where was I? Anyway, having found justification for my fishing ("seek, and you shall find...", right?), and, um... let's ignore the fact that I only found justification after I was well into fishing again, shall we?... here's where we're at, fishing-for-fish-wise.
We started fishing after David's death. Couple of reasons for that. First, none of the 3 kids could swim and I didn't want to worry about them falling in and drowning, esp David who was physically weak. I also didn't want to spend all my time untangling rods and such. There were other things we did- archery, traveling, museums- so we did those things. Afterward, Brianna was old enough to handle herself and I got Derek swimming a bit. They both wanted to fish, so off we went. We hit nearby Clayton Lake once or twice and got skunked. Then we discovered Gravel Pits Lake in Cimarron Canyon, a kid-friendly little pond stocked with rainbows. That's where we started learning about treble hooks, weights, and Powerbait. Prior to this, I was using a medium stiffness spinning reel loaded with 10-12 lb test line and big spinners and spoons- bass tackle, in other words. Trout are much more delicate and it wasn't long before I had an array of Light and Ultra-Light rods and small reels loaded with 4 lb test line.
Derek's first fish, ever, at Gravel Pits- Sept 28, 2012
Still using heavy tackle here.
Our first real success came at Lake Maloya near Raton where we all caught a limit or close to it of trout.
Derek and Brianna on our first Maloya trip- April 25, 2013
After that, I started going to different lakes around northern New Mexico, exploring and trying them out. We've hit Morphy Lake twice. First time was slow- D2 and I caught 4 fish between us. It's hard to get to and I don't think it'll be our favorite lake, although Teresa's Tamales is just down the hill and a worthy stop all by itself.
Morphy Lake
After Morphy, we went back to Lake Maloya and again caught some fish. We've been back to Maloya 6-8 times and have had good fishing every time. I think it might be our favorite lake on the whole.
Lake Maloya
Derek and I went to a 3D archery shoot back in July 2014 and just weren't having much fun so we bailed early to take in some fishing on the way home. This was our first visit to Coyote Creek and we had a great time there. We didn't catch a lot of fish, but the scenery more than made up for it.
Beaver dam at Coyote Creek
Clayton Lake is our "local" lake but it took us awhile to figure it out. Eventually, we started catching fish fairly regularly, but it's never a given. In 2015, I got something new- an inflatable Intex Mariner 3 boat. I've never been a boat person, but it's fun and it's really opened a new door as far as fishing goes. Shortly after this, I bought an Intex Challenger K2 kayak. I like the kayak for its lightweight and maneuverability but it's not as comfortable with 2 people and is obviously much less stable than the boat, I really enjoy using both boats to explore the waters.
Trying the Intex for the first time
Before long, we had to try fly fishing, especially after visiting smaller waters like Coyote Creek and Gravel Pits (and the surrounding Cimarron). Using points from my Cabela's card, I got us set up with rods and reels and we were off. There is a steep learning curve with fly fishing and at first, we were not very successful. One thing I learned about fly-fishing is that, unlike normal fishing where bodies of water are referred to as "Lake _____" or "_______ River", you call the place only by its first name. Thus, the Cimarron River is simply "the Cimarron" and the San Juan River is "the San Juan". Doing it this way lets people know that you "know". So if you want to sound like you, too, "know", I suggest you start referring to bodies of water by their Christian name.
Fly fishing the Cimarron
To help get over the Fly-Fishing Learning Mountain, we hired a guide from Eagle Nest Fly Shack. Tim, the owner, was our guide and both D2 and I learned a lot. That fall, we picked up used waders and boots from them, and applied our lessons on our own.
Learning from our guide
As of this writing, I have yet to catch a brown trout and D2 has yet to catch a rainbow on a fly rod. We're in competition to see who can be the first to get the other's fish.
A non-guided trout
At Winfield 2015, D2 learned to tie flies. Several of the Winfield guys are fly-fishermen and D2 and no shortage of help. He's caught trout- brown trout, no rainbows, please note!- on his own hand-tied flies.
Learning to tie flies at Winfield
Next on our list of fish to catch were walleye and bass. Clayton Lake has them, but Ute Lake has more, so when Heather needed to zip down to Ute Lake to do a falcon exchange, D2 and I were all on board. There, we met my ex-apprentice, Calvin, and another falconer, Mike, (that's four falconers fishing for fish, in case you lost track) and fished away. D2 caught two keeper walleye and a couple of bass, plus Mike gave us his bass and we had a meal! After trout, the walleye and bass were big fish.
First walleye and bass at Ute Lake
A few weeks later, we put our new Casita to use in an overnight stay at Clayton Lake where we caught several nice fish.
Casita Camping at Clayton Lake
The view from my kayak
D2 caught the big one
And then just a few weeks ago, we took the Casita back to Ute Lake where I caught several smallmouth bass, including a few keepers. Derek didn't catch one until just before we were ready and then hooked one bigger than either of mine.
Ute Lake smallmouth
Well, that's fishing so far. Now that the weather's getting warmer, we're moving back to the fly streams where I will catch a brown trout. We're both going to catch cuthroat, probably in the Valle Vidal, which is a place I've never been. Or maybe up in Santa Barbara creek, another place I've never been. Later this year we have plans to head down south to combine fishing with hawking and javelina hunting. We've discussed moving to Logan (home of Ute Lake) in the winter. We can speak bilingually now, switching effortlessly from Spin-Cast to several dialects of Fly-Fishing. We have "A River Runs Through It" memorized- in my case, both the movie and the book. However, don't think that we are good fishermen, I think we still need a lot of practice. And we intended to practice. A lot.
“My father was very sure about certain matters pertaining to the universe. To him all good things-trout as well as eternal salvation-come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy.”
“Well, until man is redeemed he will always take a fly rod too far back, just as natural man always overswings with an ax or golf club and loses all his power somewhere in the air; only with a rod it's worse, because the fly often comes so far back it gets caught behind in a bush or rock.”
“As a Scot and a Presbyterian, my father believed that man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace. Somehow, I early developed the notion that he had done this by falling from a tree. As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful.”
― Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories
It's been awhile since I updated my poor little blog. And that's 'cause I've been pretty busy. Let's catch up.... In Feb, I mostly worked on guitars and rode dirt bikes a bit. The weather was decent and we got a fair amount of riding done. Then in early March, our friend Heather stopped by for a visit. Being that she has quite a bit of ranch and livestock experience, I put her to work and her visit turned into a 6-week stay.
First course of action was building fence. I have 2 miles of fence between two pastures that was in pretty bad shape and has been since I got to the ranch nearly 20 years ago (I need to let that sink in for a minute... nearly TWENTY years ago...). I wanted it fixed up. To that end, I bought a Danuser T3 post driver for my Case skid steer. We worked about 2-3 days/week on the fence and got it all spiffied up with steel posts, re-stretched wire, and some new braces. After some initial hiccups, the Danuser worked beautifully. At one spot, I pounded posts by hand into a dry lake bed. Later, I drove by with the skid steer and decided to see how much further I could get the very tall posts. I drove them an additional 2' without even actuating the "pound" part of the driver! That's when I got impressed.
Miles of fence ahead
Stripping wire, pulling posts, driving new ones
Since Heather has experience with livestock auctions and Derek had some money in the bank to invest, we went to town a couple of times to buy cattle for him. I met with a local rancher the first time and got both his and Heather's opinions on the cattle. When a likely bunch came up, we bid and won and suddenly Derek was a cattleman! Back home, we branded, vaccinated, and sprayed with insecticide, all firsts for us. We ended up buying 6 yearling steers in all. We'll let these gain weight on grass all summer and sell them in the fall, making a (hopeful) profit on the gain. This is a test run to see if we want to buy 20-50-100 yearlings in upcoming years.
I'm holding the gate shut...
.....Heather applies the iron. Derek and Georgia are go-fers.
In addition to the yearlings, Derek has a herd of 8 momma cows and they started calving this past month. With these, we'll likely keep the heifer calves to build the herd and sell the steers this fall to generate money with which we'll buy more cattle next spring. If all goes well, by the time Derek's ready for college, he'll have a good fund built up.
The first home-grown calf of the year
Another thing we did was go hawking. Since I met Heather thru falconry and since she brought 3 Harris' hawks with her, flying them seemed the logical thing to do. We flew them mostly in my Cedar Creek canyon which is a pinyon/juniper lined canyon. Bunnies aren't plentiful, but we got 2-4 decent flights every time and caught 1 bunny and a jackrabbit. We also saw a Barbary sheep ewe with a very small lamb in the canyon, a first for everyone. And we got a lot of much needed exercise! I think we fired up to fly Harris's again and I've put an order in for 2 birds for myself for this fall. So, hopefully, we'll have some news on that later this summer.
Jackrabbit down!
And then we went fishing. Being originally from Minnesota, H has some fishing tricks up her sleeve including The Art of Filleting, something which we'd never done. We fished pretty much once a week and caught lots of trout. Derek caught his first walleye, smallmouth, and largemouth bass all in one day at Ute Lake.
Derek with walleye and bass
The above fish, about to be 'et.
I left out a bunch of other fun things- "walking" up to the top of the local mountain (pretty sure I said "climb" but everyone thought they heard "walk"...), looking for prairie falcons, playing Scrabble, visiting Las Vegas NM, feeding cattle, sitting in front of the fire talking, listening to music, and more, but I think you get the idea. We all learned a lot of things from each other, had fun, and it was, in short, A Most Excellent Visit.
Sitting on top of the world....
Alas, all good things must come to end and, in no time at all, it was time for Heather to head home to Montana. After lunch one day we said our "see you in awhile"'s (no "goodbyes", nope!), sent her down the road, and started getting back into our normal routine. That, of course, was quickly punctuated by incoming cattle (going into the pasture which fence we'd just fixed) and just like that, another ranching season begins.
Until next time
First one off the truck
Feed us!
And that brings us up to speed. Every year is an adventure. What will this one bring?
There is one more thing. We observed what would have been David's 15th birthday with a visit to his grave. Tears were shed, funny stories were told, and- as always- we try to look forward in hope.
