Gear Review: My Rod

          Everyone has their niche. Mine happens to be fishing. I prefer river and stream fishing because I can catch pretty much anything with my spinning rod. However, I decided this past year that I need to up my game and attempt fly fishing. I may have watched Norman and Paulie McLean in “A River Runs Through It” one too many times. Let me tell you, it only took one cast of the fly rod to get hooked. Pun intended. In the moment I brought in the first fish, I made the decision to master the art of fly fishing. I needed a good fly rod.

      Grandpa recommended a rod that was both affordable and great for a beginner. This four piece rod weighs in at a beautiful 5wt/9 ft. tall. Produced by the Orvis Company and officially named the Orvis Encounter II rod and reel, it feels like an extension of my arm. It provides a weight forward floating line which allows an angler fishing the great rivers and streams in Wyoming to have an advantage over the great trout species. It is both light in feel and heavy enough to get the line out in the deep pools and curves in the river.

        The first fish I ever caught using this rod was a brown trout from Notellum Creek. My buddy and I decided to hit the water one afternoon and it wasn’t long before we were into fish. My friend

advised me to throw out my line and catch a fish that had slipped his line just moments before. I am not the fish stealing kind, but he insisted I send my fly over in his direction to hook that fish while he got his line out of the willows. After a brief (very, very brief) hesitation, I cast the little black fly upstream and watched it float on down. It took a couple casts to get the line in the right spot (I am sure it had nothing to do with operator error) and a beautiful Brown rose out of the water and my 5wt line pulled in my hand. He wasn’t huge, but he wasn’t going down without a fight. I walked myself to the shore and slowly reeled him up. The reel was smooth and steady. Though I was exerting some effort, the rod and reel made it feel effortless.

  I would recommend this rod to anyone that is beginning to fly fish or looking for a decent rod and reel for a spectacular price. Although I plan to move on to different rods, I will always have a special place for this one because it was my first. It may be my daughter’s first. Then her three younger brothers. For right now, though, the Encounter II and I are ready for the ice to melt so I can get back in the water. As Norman McLean so poetically reminds us, “One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.” Yes, indeed.

-Long Rifle

Gear Review: Buffs

     You’ve seen them, whether on fly-fishing videos or in any sporting goods store in the world. Maybe you thought they looked cool, but didn’t know exactly how you’d use them.
        For me, they are an essential part of any day’s wardrobe (except perhaps when heading to church on Sundays...) So here are my top 5 reasons on why Buffs are so great:

My Buff collection

1. They are versatile. In fact, according to their website, “it is impossible to show all the ways to wear a Buff." They can be used as hat or a helmet liner, they can go around your neck or around your head, etc. My favorite way is to wear it as a neckerchief.

2. They are great when it’s hot. When I’m mowing the lawn I soak it in water and wear it as a sun guard, so I don’t get sunburns.

3. They are great when it’s cold. They fit snugly around your ears, and face. This is a lifesaver when elk hunting, especially in a late season.

4. They protect from the bugs. When you see them in fly-fishing videos, the main reason they wear the Buffs are for bug protection. I can testify that without my Buff, I would have suffered through many more hours of scratching mosquito bites.

5. You can be a ninja. And hey, who doesn’t want that? You can see it is awesome...

-The Apprentice

Gear Review: My Tent

     Here at Three Elk Meadow, we are always one for trying something different. We always like a good story, but it’s fun to try something new sometimes. Don’t worry, we’ll still keep the stories and whatnot, but the next couple posts will be a little bit different category: gear reviews.

    

First up: my little two-man tent. It’s called the North Face Flint 2, it’s $169 from many stores, and I absolutely love it. It’s seen me through countless scouting campouts, a week of rain at a beach in Utah, and a few million backyard campouts under the stars. It’s extremely easy to set up, (it only takes about five minutes at most,) it’s extraordinarily light and small, and it has many great features that enhance my camping experience. Overall, it’s the perfect tent for all ages, no matter what.
      The tent comes only in green, “bamboo green” according to the website, it weighs only 4.5 pounds, (extremely light,) and when packed up, it’s itty bitty. Only about a foot and a half long! Both of these traits make it super portable and easy to carry. One of my favorite features is its vestibule. It’s part of the rain fly, it protrudes out the front and is great for stowing gear, freeing up space inside. Also, it makes the tent look awesome! Beware though, the vestibule is not waterproof. I wish they had designed it to bond more with the ground, it is nigh on impossible to not have a little gap, allowing water to flow in. So if it looks like it might rain, bring your stuff inside:

       I learned this the hard way last year at a scout camp in Utah. It rained for five days straight, and me and my buddy who were sharing the tent had all our gear absolutely soaking wet and covered in sand (it was a beach) because we put our stuff in the vestibule. Oh well. Live and learn. The inside tent bit is actually extremely waterproof. It’s survived many a monsoon and a flood without the inside getting a tad bit wet. It has waterproof seams on the inside which keep it perfectly dry.

       It has some nice features which make things easier: a little hook at the top, perfect for hanging a lantern or a flashlight, two inside side pockets which can hold small gear like a flashlight in the night, snacks, whatever, and it also has high-quality aluminum poles (compared to the normal steel) which are very strong and light, and can survive the toughest Wyoming wind.
      A few cons always follow perfection, of course: first, the vestibule problem I mentioned earlier. Secondly, it is made to fit two people, and it does, but just. It does get a bit squished and cramped in there. It’s okay for two people in there for maybe a night or two, but after three or more nights it really starts to feel cramped and small. Thirdly: it is a bit expensive, for just a 2-man tent. Of course, it’s one of the best two-manners out there, and really makes for the cost in the high quality.     

Overall, I think this tent is the image of perfection. It is very versatile, portable, and high quality. It’s perfect for every lifestyle, whether you are a teenager going on scout campouts or the hard-core hiker/mountaineer. It works great in the calm, quiet backyard of my house or in a huge thunderstorm in the middle of the night in the Rockies a bazillion miles from nowhere. It’s my tent, and I love it.

-The Ranger

Here are a few more pictures:

    

The spacious inside

Here's my hand next to it - very small when packed up!

Without the rain fly (bug-proof!)

Brothers

      The first two days of Mark’s elk hunt were not great. It was hot. It was windy. There were people everywhere and every one of them had a pickup truck, a trailer full of ATVs and a case of beer. On the third day, it all changed. We were on a ridge overlooking a big basin long before daylight. There wasn’t a soul in sight. The wind had calmed a bit. And as the darkness began to give way to the dawn, I began running the spotting scope over the finger ridges a mile away. It took all of a minute to locate them. At least forty elk, ghostly in the half-light, feeding and moving slowly to the southeast. If we could get down into the timber, we could head them off.
        We eased down the drainage, paralleling the beaver ponds and glassing up through the aspens and spruce to make sure we still knew where they were. Still there? Yup. Keep on walking. The sun still hadn’t cleared the horizon and these elk were headed for the dark timber, following some 30-year-old cow with an IQ of about 140. But they hadn’t seen us yet, and the wind was in our favor. This just might work…

   When we got to the point where we figured our path and theirs were just about to intersect, we split up. I took one small draw and Mark took the one to the east. I was about halfway up it when I felt that feeling – the feeling you get when someone or something is looking at you. I stopped behind a small limber pine and peered around it. Two spikes were looking right at me from the ridge above the next draw. I just did a slow fade down to my knees and curled up in the sagebrush, waiting. Sure enough, the .30-06 roared once, then again with a satisfying “whack” at the end. The elk all headed south, and as I eased up behind the tree again, I could see a 6-point bull staggering with his head down, obviously hit. He dropped below the ridge out of sight.
       I was thrilled, but when I caught up to Mark he was distraught. The bull was hit hard, he was sure. He had lain down for a while, but when his herd crossed the creek into the timber he staggered to his feet and bolted after them. There was a blood trail that any moron could follow, and I was sure we’d find him piled up in the shin-tangle timber. We didn’t. He broke off from the rest of the elk – a good sign. He laid down again – another good sign. He got up and ran like a striped ape when he heard us coming – not so good. I must have prayed 20 times that we could find this bull and put him down – both for his sake and for Mark. He bled less and less until I was on my hands and knees looking for drops of blood the size of a pinhead. Finally, he was hardly bleeding at all.
      But we stayed on him – for four hours, up one ridge and down the next, back and forth across the creek and up through the black timber and down one elk trail and another until we tracked him into a dense stand of willows along the creek. We heard him get to his feet and crash out ahead of us. I stayed with the sketchy blood trail and Mark sprinted to the edge of the willow thicket. Again, I heard the rifle speak once, then again with that same telltale “whack”. I knew it was over.

       I found Mark standing by the bull at the edge of the timber. He was shaking, and he didn’t have much to say. I didn’t either. It was enough to just be there. We just knelt beside the bull and gave thanks that this great wild animal had given his life to feed our families. We gave thanks that he had not escaped mortally wounded. We gave thanks to be in wild country and to be together. I think back on that moment now and I’m sad for the bull. I wish he had dropped like a rock on the first shot. But I’m happy for my brother and his courageous, ethical heart. Life is like that sometimes – it ain’t always easy. Sometimes it doesn’t go like you planned and you have to just doggedly stay on the trail. Thanks for reminding me of that, brother.

-Grandpa

17/23

      There’s a lot of buzz these days amongst the outdoor crowd about how people in America have become afraid of the outdoors. No big surprise there. Given that the average American kid gets about 7 hours of screen time per day and about 7 minutes of unstructured time in the outdoors, it would follow that outside might become an frightening, even alien environment. Likewise given the media penchant for hysteria over violent weather and animal attacks and heaven only knows what terrifying things might lurk behind your picnic table in a park, it’s no surprise that people increasingly fear the great wide open. With the ultimate goal of eliminating pretty much everyone else from the mountains and deserts we call home, let me offer one more terrifying thought: You might get stuck.
       Over the course of the last 45 years, I’ve been stuck in 17 of Wyoming’s 23 counties. (Hence the name of this post.) I believe that qualifies me to have opinion on this matter. If I was FOX News, this would qualify me to have FOX News bill me as an international expert. I’m not (fortunately) but if I were, I’d offer three simple rules about getting stuck:

       1) If you can get out, you were never really stuck. We spent the day with Long Rifle, Mama B and the kiddos. It snowed pretty much all day. And since it’s southeast Wyoming, the wind blew. Hence, the driveway was drifted shut. Not little drifts, either – big drifts. Despite my fervent pleas for caution, Grandma demanded that we back up and “give ‘er heck”. We hit the first drift at about 45 MPH and “gave ‘er heck” for about the first 100 yards, but came to a halt with a dull thud when we high-centered the big F-250 in about 4 feet of snow. The neighbor and his Suburban couldn’t pull me out. The wrecker could. We got out. As such, we were not stuck.
        2) It matters what you’re stuck in. Snow and ice are for sissies. It’s just water, people. Sooner or later, it’s going to melt and you won’t be stuck anymore. Mud is another matter. Long Rifle once took a wrong turn on a faint two-track out in the desert and burrowed the pickup into a serious mudhole. To make matters worse, it’s a diesel pickup and the front end weighs about as much as the state of Connecticut. But even seemingly bottomless mudholes, given enough rocks submerged in them, will allow you to get out. Sand is another matter. Being stuck in sand is like being swallowed by a black hole. One of my very first memories is of being stuck with my parents in a bottomless sea of sand. I was four and thought it was great fun. My mother did not agree.

3) Technology may be your friend. Or not. We’ve all read the stories of charming little old couples who set out to drive to Costco for some muffins and ended up frozen to death in a snowdrift in Oregon because they believed their Garmin. Garmins lie. It’s just that simple. Even simple technology like a winch can be treacherous. Ever try to winch your jillion pound truck out by hooking it to a sagebrush? I have. It doesn’t work. You have to drive a deadman. Not a real dead man – just a big metal stake that you drive into the frozen tundra like a 500 penny nail so you can hook the winch cable to it. Ever try to drive a 500 penny nail into the frozen tundra? I have. That doesn’t work either.
       In the end, if you go hunting or fishing or messing around out in the real world you will probably get stuck. If that terrifies you, good. That means you won’t be hunting or fishing or messing around in any of the places we want to go. Besides, bears will probably eat you and you’ll almost certainly get beriberi. So stay home.

-Grandpa

The Sleepover

       The past couple blog posts have been about our “harebrained schemes.” To use a Grandpa-ism, they’ve been “crazier than a pet coon.” And so far, aside from some “minor” complications, they’ve been pretty safe. This next harebrained scheme resulted in a genuinely scary situation and a learning experience for us all.
       When we say, “We’re going elk hunting,” we mean, “ We are going to spend the next week walking between 10 and 20 miles a day over rough terrain, looking for a couple of elk.” Now you can imagine that if someone gets lost, you have about as much of chance as finding that person as winning the lottery. And thankfully, we have won that lottery.
       In early October 2005, we were doing our usual elk hunt. I was all of the long age of 3, and my sister Smiles was wee little thing at the age of three months. I tell you our ages to illustrate the worry ApprenticeMom must have felt when ApprenticeDad didn’t show up at the meeting spot after a day’s hunt. And we didn’t know where he was. All we did know was that he was lost.

Apprentice and Ranger playing chess that night

     

     From what I have gathered from family stories (I don’t remember much of this), ApprenticeMom was at The Cabin with Grandma and MamaB and the grandkids, holding dinner warm on the stove as “shooting light” passed and it was long after the guys usually showed back up. Finally, Grandpa came with some pretty bad news: my Dad hadn’t shown back up at the rendezvous point. They had split up that evening to each sit on a meadow and hopefully shoot elk at dusk. Grandpa, Long Rifle, and Long Rifle’s dad had yelled, fired shots, and done everything they could think of - but they still didn’t know where he was.

       This was pretty dang scary – there was a few feet of snow on the ground and it was set to snow all night. ApprenticeDad could have gotten injured, suffered hypothermia, had a shooting accident, or any number of terrifying possibilities. A prayer was said and a plan was made for the guys to camp at the trailhead that night so that they could get back on the trail as soon as it was light. If they didn’t find him right away, they’d call Search and Rescue.
      ApprenticeMom spent a sleepless night holding Smiles and watching it snow from the comfy chair at the cabin window. In the morning, she decided to go help look for ApprenticeDad. Just as she was getting her boots on, Grandpa’s truck pulled up into the cabin’s driveway – AppprenticeDad was found!

ApprenticeDad sleeping in The Cabin after
a night in the snow

According to ApprenticeDad, he never was “lost.” He says that once he was getting ready go to the rendezvous point, he tried turning on his flashlight (it was dark) and it wouldn’t turn on. It was dark as could be and tough to even find the trail, much less walk it back to the truck. ApprenticeDad decided to the right thing - stay put. So he started a fire and kept it going all night. Once it was light, he started to hike out of Story Meadow, where he met the rest of the party.
        I know ApprenticeDad wasn’t really lost, I know it could have been a lot worse. But that doesn’t mean it was any less scary at the time. We also have learned to pack extra batteries and to use the buddy system (at least two people together at all times.) We now hunt smarter and safer. Although we still manage to have a few harebrained schemes now and then.

-The Apprentice

Around the Horn

      It was a long day, maybe the longest of days. It was the day we had waited for. This was the day we would get our Colorado River and Snake River cutthroats. By nightfall, we would be halfway to our Cutt-Slams. It started slow – really slow, and got slower. We started on the water we thought would be a slam dunk. It wasn’t. We fished all morning and didn't have much to show for it, even with the “little black fly”. We flogged the water all morning. Finally, we broke for lunch. I like lunch. And usually, lunch likes me. But not this day. That’s when things started to go south.

Long Rifle

       Right around lunch time, I started experiencing every symptom listed on a Pepto-Bismol bottle. It was hot. I was sick. And we were on 65 miles of the bumpiest road I have ever been on. After some time on the road, I spotted a honey hole filled with fish. In seconds, I pulled in a beautiful Snake River cutthroat. Unfortunately for my nephews, his trout friends had bugged out. We decided to do the same. We fished every bit of pocket water we could find all afternoon. The boys fished. I hurled. They fished some more. I expelled pretty much everything I’d ever eaten. Then we drove again. And again. And again. Finally, we stopped on this gorgeous bend in the river where it drops a few feet and pools over in a corner. The water was deep enough and held two trophy fish, just made for Apprentice and Ranger. Good fishing and great country makes for a beautiful day (most of the time). Less so when your stomach is trying to escape your body for some reason. In Alpine, I had a hot bowl of soup and prayed I could keep it down.

The Ranger

 
      Grandpa and Uncle Mark decided that rugged road was just not worth it for our return trip. We pulled out a map and lo and behold there was another road that would get us back to camp. It promised pavement and stomach relief. We collaboratively decided to go the “new and better” way, but Lady Luck had other plans. It was after dinner when we started and late when we left the pavement, but it was the “new and better” road, so we were hopeful. At the stroke of 10 PM, just a few miles from camp, our headlights hit a giant snow slide that had buried the road. Just four miles to go, but no way to get there. The great debate began: Do we walk to camp or turn back? I was just praying that Montezuma’s Revenge would cease. It was late in the night and we had been traveling for hours. The smaller folks in the group were tired and hungry. Ultimately, we decide to backtrack 130+ miles all the way back up the worst road on the national forest system to camp. Luckily, the little guys slept while poor Uncle Mark drove most of the way and Grandpa and I attempted to keep

The Apprentice

the driver awake. Blessedly, we slept in the next day and some Immodium AD whipped whatever Ebola-like virus attacking my system.
   Unexpected situations will arise. Sometimes it's a sickness. Other times it's a snowdrift. Oftentimes it requires several miles of weathered roads. You may be lucky, like us, and get the trifecta. The best we can do is to take it in stride and look for the positives. On to the next adventure. I hope there’s a honey hole waiting for me there.

-Long Rifle

The Great Arctic Deer Hunt - Part 2

      When we woke up in the morning, it was a beautiful winter day. There was 16 inches of fresh powder, the sun was shining, and it was cold. We realized that we couldn’t do much about the deer situation, so why not take a shot and go hunting! We threw the guns in the truck and headed out, bound for another hunt area about 30 minutes away. The journey took a little while, due to all the snow, but we made it there in reasonable time.

Our plan was to get weaponry and turn into hunting mode the instant we crossed the border (a river in this case) into our area. So, as we rounded the bend leading to the border, we prepared to stop and get ready. I guess it came as a surprise to us when we heard from my uncle, “there’s a deer right there in those trees.” And it was true. Not one but two doe mule deer were standing right in the trees, next to the river which marked the border of our hunt area, (luckily on the correct side). And we weren’t ready! I was to take the first shot, as the deer were on my side, and I hadn’t any hunters orange, a coat, any ammo in my .243, and was caught totally off guard. I couldn't legally shoot from the truck, so I (as quietly as possible,) stuck a round in the chamber of my gun, quietly stepped outside. It was this movement which sent the two poor deer bounding off to a little hill with aspens and everything. We jumped out of the truck, and got set up on the tailgate to get another shot.

        No amount of training and practice at the shooting range can prepare one for the sheer rush of adrenaline that comes with taking a first shot. This wasn’t a little paper target anymore on a sunny, warm day with perfect wind conditions in my hometown, this was the real deal. I did my best to slow my breathing and the crazy shaking of my gun, aimed, and fired. BAM! Puff of dirt a few inches below the deer. She actually kind of jumped a little, her back legs went out, so I thought it was a hit. But there was another deer who had gone bounding off and my cousin, The Apprentice, still had a shot. BAM! Another puff. No hit. Deer goes running. I take another shot. No hit. Apprentice takes another. No hit. We take two more shots while the poor deer still stand there and then they bound off to parts unknown. 

        We decided that maybe those two deer just weren’t for us. Actually, we thought, they were probably made of Kevlar. We hit them repeatedly but their Kevlar armor was just protecting them. So, we piled in again, this time fully prepared, and set out once more. We realized that the snow was a big problem. We couldn’t access about 90% of the places that we had wanted to go to, the snow slowed progress down, and was overall just severely hampering our hunting experience. In an attempt to get out of snow, we dropped way down in elevation to near Green River and Farson. It was a good idea though, there was virtually no snow in contrast to the 16 inches we had received. Nothing. No sign. By this time we needed to head back for dinner. Along the way we got two bunnies, one each for me and The Apprentice. They were tasty. Once we got back to the cabin we had bunny for dinner and talked the night away.

        Over the next few days, we went anywhere and everywhere. We went back to where we had saw the deer the first time. They weren’t there. We went to all four corners of Sweetwater County in pursuit of deer. One time we went to Irish Canyon, and through the feet of snow, took this picture: 

As the hunt drew to a close, we realized, we probably weren’t going to get deer. Well, in my defense, 16 inches of snow should be enough to hamper anybody’s hunt! The key thing was though, we got to spend time with the people we love, doing the things we love, in the wild country we love. And so concluded my first deer hunt.

-The Ranger

The Great Arctic Deer Hunt - Part 1

       In the summer of 2013, I turned 12 years old. And that is a BIG deal in our family. I was able to receive the priesthood, leave the bondage of elementary school – and hunt big game. Naturally, of course, I was leaning over the tailgate of the truck pulling the trigger within weeks of my birthday. This is the story of the - I shouldn't say “failed,” let’s just call it the “less successful” deer hunt experience of 2013. Hey, we did get 16 inches of snow!

       We always and forever will go hunting for critters at The Cabin. It is so great to be tromping through the snow or whatever searching for critters and then, cold, tired and hungry, to come back to the crackling fire and a warm meal. That is one sure darn nice thing about it. So, we drove up to The Cabin amidst a light snowy, rainy mix. We had seen the forecast previously, and although it did call for a little bit of snow, we weren't concerned. It was September, after all! It occasionally might flurry a tiny bit for a while but we never really get true snow at that time of year. So, as we drove along, climbing higher and higher through the mountains as the light drizzle turned to flurries, we weren't a tad bit concerned. We started developing issues when the pavement ended.   

     Yeah, it was a mess. Those dirt roads hadn’t any snow for the

past few months, and they were just as slick and icky as anything else. Luckily we had a 4-Wheel Drive three quarter ton

pickup and just sort of plowed on cautiously. When we reached the cabin, we unpacked, got everything prepared, and then fixed dinner. We had a pleasant evening, getting weaponry ready and formulating a game plan for the next day, while the snow continued to lightly fall. By now we had an inch or so, not entirely enough to hamper progress but we commented that it was a little unusual. So, we went to bed with tummies full, and ready to face the next day.

       We had planned to wake up at 5:00-5:30ish, so I was a little surprised when I finally rolled out of bed around 7:00. One look out the window told me the reason though: yeah, there was over a foot of snow and it was still falling fast. We were utterly aghast; this was absolutely the most snow ever recorded in September up there. We knew it would be folly to try and hunt that day, all the critters would just bed down and sort of wait for the storm to recess, so we wouldn’t have much of a chance at hunting.

     We spent the day just sort of hanging out. Now, I don’t know much, but this much I can tell you: sitting by the crackling fire drinking hot chocolate and playing board games while the snow falls outside the window, that is one of the better things to do in life. We watched the Iron Man trilogy, played numerous board games, and burnt through (it seemed) about seventeen tons of Swiss Miss. 

      We had a little incident with a falling tree. There is only one access road into our Cabin area, and that thing is like gold. It’s our only way to get in and out of there, so we were naturally were a little surprised when we saw that it had been blocked by a huge fallen pine tree. So, we got on like 15 pounds of snow gear, and headed out to try to clear this tree out. When we got there, we noticed that someone else had been working on it, trying to get in. So, we brought out the humongous tow rope, threw the truck into 4x4 low, and put the pedal to the medal. The tree didn’t budge. We tried again. There was a loud snap and suddenly our precious tow rope was in two pieces! So, we spent the rest of the afternoon with the chainsaw cutting the poor tree into little bits and tossing them to the side. With the mission complete, we headed back to the Cabin, ate a warm meal, and headed to bed while the snow continued to fall.

-The Ranger