Picture This!

With all the great stories, equipment, adventures and people out there I thought it would be great to get some pictures.  If you have any pictures from a hunt, your gear or best of all you geared up that would be great.  If you send in pictures I will post on our site as well as putting some of the best pictures on all our sites.

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Calling Elk Bow Close

Whether hunting public or privateland, the fundamentals of calling elk remain the same.

By Michael Waddell

We heard the bull bugle at first light and snuck into his core area. When I hit a lick on my bugle, the bull simply came unglued and stormed our position like a tank, crashing through brush and small lodgepole pines like they were atchsticks. Before we could react he was in our lap and we were pinned down, myself hiding behind a camera, too afraid to even touch the tripod for fear of my shaking hands would run the footage. All I could see of my partner edged against a stunted pine was the tip of his undrawn arrow shaking uncontrollably on the rest. Before a shot presented itself, the bull smelled a  rat and disappeared as quickly as he arrived.

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Your Wolves At Work

*Editor’s Note:* On August 28, 2009, I received an email from a reader that contained a story from an unidentified author. The story was about a wolf encounter he had while out hunting elk. I tried to find out who wrote the piece to authenticate it but was not successful. This morning I found an article in the Cody Enterprise in Wyoming. This article contains much of the same information in the story I had received including the photos. Below is a copy of the article I received along with the pictures. What doesn’t add up is that the Cody article says the incident took place on September 15 but I received the story and pictures on August 28.

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I had one heck of an experience this past Friday. I was walking into an area I spotted 5 bulls last weekend when wolves started howling, growling and snarling about 300 yds away in the timber below me. Read more

Grizzly Bears Back On ESA List. Molloy’s Science Trumps USFWS’ Science

Major press sources got Molloy’s ruling all wrong!

Once again we are witness to everything that is wrong with the Endangered Species Act. Judge Donald Molloy, the one judge all the environmentalists seem to run to when they need a court to support their agendas, has decided that grizzly bears in the Yellowstone area, should be put back on the Endangered Species Act list of protected species.

It is a waste of my time and energy to attempt to explain why Molloy’s science is in disagreement with that of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Science. None of it really matters. It is incredible that the science used by the USFWS is regularly disregarded by Molloy in favor of either his own interpretation or that of the environmentalists. It really blows my mind. The out for the judges becomes whose science fits the case. Read more

Wolf Protectors Uncloak Greed, Reveal Irrational Behavior

Sportsmen across Idaho this morning are claiming some sort of victory in the ongoing wolf debate, as hunters will take to the field with the hopes of bagging a wolf. Yesterday’s hearing in federal court, aimed at putting an emergency halt to the wolf hunt, ended without a decision from Judge Donald Molloy. He promised a quick ruling. While people wait, hunters are taking advantage of the situation and heading afield.

But in the court room yesterday, the plaintiffs, a group of 13 environmentalists fighting against the wolf hunts, openly displayed their greed when the lawyer for Earthjustice told Judge Molloy that there needed to be 3,000 to 5,000 wolves in the Northern Rocky Mountains region before they would consider the reintroduction a success. He didn’t say they would deem it a success. He said they would consider it a success. This has been part of the problem from the onset. 3,000 to 5,000 wolves is a far cry from the original claim that 300 wolves would do the trick. The environmentalists just keep moving the goal posts further away. Read more

Elk Foundation Files Motion to Intervene in Wolf Litigation

From Blue Heron Communications:

MISSOULA, Mont.—The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has filed a motion in Missoula federal court to enter an amicus curiae brief supporting state-regulated wolf hunting in Idaho and Montana. If the motion is granted by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, RMEF documents will be considered in Molloy’s decision on whether to allow or stop the hunt.

A hearing is scheduled for Monday and a ruling could follow soon afterward.

A coalition of 13 environmental groups filed an emergency injunction asking Molloy to stop the planned hunt and return wolves to the endangered species list. Read more

Idaho’s Plans For Wolf Management

Idaho Regional Fish And Game Supervisor Clarifies Wolves Destruction On Elk Herds

I’ve always had a certain degree of sympathy for employees of any state fish and game department. They are much like a baseball umpire. Every call they make, one side agrees and the other doesn’t. One thing though can be said about the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. At lease one regional supervisor, Mark Gamblin, understands that the Internet is a resource that needs to be utilized whether his organization likes it or not. The Internet has become a powerful resource of information – some good and some not.

It seems that Gamblin has been monitoring the discussions going on at Ralph Maughan’s blog, an overtly pro wolf advocate site. It also appears that Gamblin has had enough of the rhetoric being written there, that he decided to post his own comments in order to clarify the positions of the Idaho Fish and Game Department and dispute a few of the talking points being used there. Read more

New Revelations about Reintroduced Wolves

Republished with permission by George Dovel, author.

In the early 1980s the 197-page unpublished research report, “Wolves of Central Idaho,” surfaced. In it, co-authors Timm Kaminski and Jerome Hansen estimated that elk and deer populations in six of the nine national forests in the proposed Central Idaho Wolf Recovery Area could support a total of 219 wolves without decreasing existing deer and elk populations in those forests.

They based this on an estimated 16.6 deer or elk killed by each wolf annually, and on estimated increases in elk and/or deer populations from 1981-1985 in the two-thirds of forests where they had increased.

But even if their estimated prey numbers and calculations were accurate, their report said only 17 wolves could be maintained in the Salmon National Forest, five in the Challis NF, and none in the Panhandle, Sawtooth and Bitterroot Forests. Yet the obvious question of what to do when the number of wolves in any National Forest or game management unit exceeded the ability of the prey base to support them was not adequately addressed. Read more

Marshall Sage: Government Control by “Eliminating The Sovereignty Of The States”

The following is a guest article. I asked Marshall Sage for permission to publish his response to a discussion on state sovereignty and the decimation of the United States Constitution by progressives.

Marshall Sage is a retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who has enjoyed the freedom to hunt and fish throughout much of the free world. Most recently radio host for “Outdoor Life” a hunting and fishing program in Southwestern Idaho. A life member of SCI and the NRA. Contact at msage22@gmail.com.

Our founding fathers gave our nation a blueprint on how to avoid a centralized, authoritarian government from taking away our individual freedoms (endowed by our Creator) and rights (Bill of Rights). This blueprint was our Constitution. It’s no accident that in less than 200 years of following this blueprint the United States of America became the most prosperous and industrious nation on earth. Read more

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