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Charles M. Russell Wildlife Management Area, Montana Volume 26

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Number 2

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© Tony Bynum

Summer 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

From the Editor | In this Issue..................................................................... Howard P. Monsour, Jr.

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From the President | B&C Professional Members...........................................Ben B. Wallace

CONSERVATION & HISTORY | 8

10 Capitol Comments | The Budgets of Discontent ......................................... Steven Williams 12 Member Library | Dean Witter – Financier, Sportsman, Philanthropist ... Theodore J. Holsten 14 Ruffed grouse society: Celebrating 50 years....................... Daniel R. Dessecker 16 WOLF MANAGEMENT Back in the Hands of the States.........Gregory T. Schildwachter 20 NEW PARADIGMS: For Managing and Evaluating Elk Habitat

................................................................................................... Martin Vavra and Michael Wisdom

Section Sponsored by

14 | RGS

16 | Wolf

20 | Elk

RESEARCH & EDUCATION | 24

26 Knowledge Base | The Case of the Missing Research Legacy.................. Winifred B. Kessler 28 B&C Professors’ Corner | How Do You Catch a Moose?.................................. William Porter 30 WEST TEXAS MULE DEER | In Changing Landscapes....................Dustin Hollowell

30 | Texas

HUNTING, ETHICS & BIG GAME RECORDS | 36 38 HUNTING AND THE LAND ETHIC................................................... Cristina Eisenberg

42 The 6.5s | Long ignored stateside, 6.5mm cartridges have surged of late......Wayne van Zwoll 50 THEN & NOW | Kentucky Whitetails.........................................................................Bill Cooper 56 PHOTO ESSAY | Hunting BC’s Cassiar Mountains .......................................... L. Victor Clark 60 generation next | New Feature Celebrating Youth Hunting........................B&C Staff 66 Beyond the Score | Hunting Stories.............................................................. Justin E. Spring 68 Recently Accepted Trophies | 28th Awards Program Entries....... B&C Records Department 74 Trophy Photo Gallery | Sponsored by Realtree AP........................ B&C Records Department

38 | Land Ethic

42 | The 6.5s

50 | Kentucky

56 | Cassiars

60 | Youth

FROM THE EDITOR In this Issue This summer issue of We must first gather the data, then Fair Chase is, in my implement the scientific knowledge we have opinion, one of our gained. It is an easy formula not so easily best. The overwhelming achieved in our complex society. This requires theme in our essays is money! Steve Williams writes a disturbing that only through tale in his “Capital Comments” of our narrow Howard P. scientific study will the escape from draconian reductions in funding Monsour, Jr. truth be known. of our wildlife agencies and forest service.

Editor-in-Chief Most of the time, This budget battle is just beginning and if Chairman B&C intuition, what we think not won, has the potential to be one of the Publications Committee or feel is correct, isn’t. most influential decisions concerning the Michael Wisdom and Martin Vavra’s article future of our conservation efforts. We must on “Management of Elk Habitat” tells us that all join his call for action to preserve the instinctive repulsion to the concept of this heritage! clear-cutting our forest is a false one when The future of the conservation herithis system is used scientifically. In fact clear- tage is the theme behind our new “youth cutting may be the tail of survival for our elk series.” We have asked our young hunters to herds. William Porter shows us that the tick tell us of their experiences in the field. Most may be more dangerous to our moose popula- of you may know that starting with last year’s tions than are wolves. My intuition told me awards banquet, the Boone and Crockett otherwise. Greg Schildwachter tells the tale Club began recognizing trophies taken by of the struggle between young hunters less than science and Congress in 18 years of age. Josh Hahis wolf management mat’s essay is the first of article. It is a must-read if our youth series. His you want to understand story, recounting the the intricacies and at record-book hunt for times, frustrating ways we black bear in Alaska, must negotiate through tells us that it is his genour public government to eration and those who achieve our conservation follow that the Boone goals. No single group and Crockett Club can do this–influence works for. must come from coaliIn conjunction Josh Hamat’s hunting essay tions. And the Boone with these essays, Fair and Crockett Club was about his Alaska black bear hunt Chase magazine will also kicks off Fair Chase’s new youth front and center marshalhighlight outstanding hunters section. ing coalitions to help groups that are contributlegislators understand science behind delisting ing to this youth legacy. These persons or the wolf, which ultimately resulted in the groups have taken the extra effort to ensure Legislature’s April 14, 2011, vote delisting the the hunter-conservationist tradition is passed wolf in Montana and Idaho. The theme per- down to the next generation. The first to be meating these articles is that preservationists, recognized is Ted Nugent’s Kamp for Kids. if not guided by scientific knowledge, can be For nearly a quarter century, Nugent’s camp destructive to conservation of wildlife species has introduced, promoted and brought recand forest management. Success with scientific ognition of our North American wildlife study and its proper application is a story told model to thousands of our young generation.

by Bill Cooper in “Kentucky’s Trophy White- This is the future heritage of our conservation tails.” How scientific study starts its process is and hunting legacy. reflected in Dustin Hollowell’s article on “West As usual, we still have our outstanding Texas Mule Deer in Changing Landscapes.” articles on hunting led by one of my favorites, Cristina Eisenberg’s article, “Hunting and the Wayne van Zwoll. Please also check out Land Ethic” demonstrates how private land- “Beyond the Score.” owner and Boone and Crockett member Paul I hope you enjoy this issue of Fair Vahldiek’s inspiring vision can “serve as a Chase. n land-ethic blueprint for private lands.”

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Fair Chase PRODUCTION STAFF Editor-in-Chief & Publications Chairman

Howard P. Monsour, Jr. Managing Editor/Design

Julie T. Houk Conservation and History Editor

Steven Williams Research and Education Editor

Winifred B. Kessler Hunting and Ethics Editor

Kyle C. Krause Assistant Editors

Keith Balfourd

Craig Boddington

Jack Reneau

Tony A. Schoonen Assistant Designer

Karlie Slayer Editorial Contributors

L. Victor Clark

Bill Cooper

Dan Dessecker

Cristina Eisenberg

Joshua C. Hamat

Dustin Hollowell

Theodore J. Holsten

Winifred B. Kessler

Howard P. Monsour, Jr.

William Porter

Greg Schildwachter

Justin E. Spring

Wayne van Zwoll

Martin Vavra

Ben B. Wallace

Steven Williams

Michael Wisdom Photographic Contributors

Denver Bryan

Tony Bynum

John Eriksson

Donald M. Jones Fair Chase is published quarterly by the Boone and Crockett Club and distributed to its Members and Associates. Material in this magazine may be freely quoted and/or reprinted in other publications and media, so long as proper credit is given to Fair Chase. The only exception applies to articles that are reprinted in Fair Chase from other magazines, in which case, the Club does not hold the reprint rights. The opinions expressed by the contributors of articles are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Boone and Crockett Club.

Fair Chase (ISSN 1077-4627) is published for $35 per year by the Boone and Crockett Club, 250 Station Drive, Missoula, MT 59801. Periodical postage is paid in Missoula, Montana, and additional mailing offices.

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B&C STAFF Chief of Staff – Tony A. Schoonen Director of Big Game Records – Jack Reneau Director of Publications – Julie T. Houk Director of Marketing – Keith Balfourd Director of Conservation Education – Lisa B. Flowers Office Manager – Sandy Poston Controller – Jan Krueger TRM Ranch Manager – Mike Briggs Assistant Director of Big Game Records – Justin Spring Development Program Manager – Jodi Bishop Assistant Controller – Abra Loran Assistant Graphic Designer – Karlie Slayer Customer Service – Amy Hutchison Records Dept. Assistant – Wendy Nickelson Publications Intern – Danny Johnston

FROM THE PRESIDENT B&C Professional Members When I sat down to write this column, I intended to let you know what the first six months of my Ben B. Wallace presidency has been like. While you will PRESIDENT Boone and Crockett Club still get a feel for that, the more I thought about the events leading up to this writing, the more it became apparent there was a common thread weaving throughout my first six months as president: how critically important the wonderfully talented and dedicated Professional Members are to the Boone and Crockett Club and the North American wildlife conservation movement. As I lay out these first six months, I’m sure you will agree with my previous statement.

The first few weeks of my presidency were rather benign. I’m sure this was due to hunting season, Christmas and New Years.

However, the beginning of 2011 opened the floodgates of the sometimes turbulent, sometimes docile, but always moving river of being president of the Boone and Crockett Club.

My first stop was at the Dallas Safari Club (DSC) convention, where I and other members of our Club were there to enjoy the convention and to pay tribute to our past president, Dan Pedrotti, who received the Peter Hathaway Capstick Hunting Heritage Award. This award is DSC’s most prestigious conservation and service award. As a side note, the Boone and Crockett Club won the award in 2009. While at the DSC convention, it struck me how well-run and organized the convention was. I haven’t attended the DSC convention since it was moved to the convention center, and it was very impressive. Ben Carter is the executive director of DSC and a Professional Member of B&C. While I know Ben would be the first to credit the volunteer members of DSC, Ben is the person who oversees his small number of staff and makes sure everything runs well. My congratulations to Ben on an excellent convention.

My next stop was at the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s SHOT Show.

Here, several of our staff, Tony Schoonen, chief of staff, Keith Balfourd, director of marketing, and Julie Houk, director of publications, all three Professional Members, organized and ran me and Regular Members Marc Mondavi and Howard Monsour through 25 meetings with industry leaders in two days.

6 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

After the SHOT Show, I was to go to the Safari Club International (SCI) Convention, but it was at the same time as a previous commitment, the South Texas Charity Quail Hunt (STCQH), a primary fundraiser for the Caesar Kleberg Wildlife Research Institute (CKWRI), headed by its director, Fred Bryant, also a B&C Professional Member. As usual, Fred and his staff put on quite an event and raised a ton of money for CKWRI and several other South Texas charities. For those of you not familiar with CKWRI, it is the leading wildlife research organization in Texas. Its research helps ignorant ranch owners like me become better land stewards.

Next stop was at the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, which is put on by the Wildlife Management Institute (WMI). WMI is headed up by Steve Williams, president, and Dick McCabe, vice president, both B&C Professional Members.

The conference is an intense week-long gathering of industry leaders dedicated to the conservation, enhancement and management of North America’s wildlife and other natural resources. Again, another well-run conference spearheaded by two more B&C Professional Members. Two other side notes–I had the privilege of awarding WMI the B&C Theodore Roosevelt Legacy Award for its partnership with B&C in cooperative conservation efforts and watching our B&C Professional Member, Alan Wentz, receive Ducks Unlimited’s prestigious Canvasback Award.

I then attended the Pope and Young Club convention and celebrated its 50th anniversary. I must say, this year’s P&Y convention was the largest, best attended, and most lucrative P&Y convention I’ve ever been to. Kudos to the Pope and Young Club, its members, and to the man who ran the convention, Kevin Hisey, P&Y’s executive secretary and a B&C Professional Member.

My latest stop was in Washington D.C., where our past president and current Conservation Policy Committee co-chair, Bob Model, and I met with senators, congressmen and staff to go over several major issues. I want to thank our B&C Professional Members Greg Schildwachter, David Anderson, and Mitch Butler for opening doors for us and for having incredible insight of the people and the issues we dealt with. In addition to meetings, Bob and I attended the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF)’s Congressional Shoot Out. The Shoot Out is for industry leaders one day and members of the Congressional

Sportsmen’s Caucus the next. CSF’s top two executives are B&C Professional Members: Jeff Crane, president, and Gary Kania, vicepresident. Jeff and Gary put on a great shoot.

Also attending were B&C Professional Members Melissa Simpson, now with SCI and Tim Wigley with PAC/WEST Communications.

Furthermore, I had the privilege of shooting with B&C Professional Member, the Honorable Don Young, Congressman from Alaska, who kicked my you-know-what in total clay pigeons hit!

BOONE AND CROCKETT CLUB FOUNDED IN 1887 BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Club President Ben B. Wallace Secretary Robert H. Hanson Treasurer Timothy C. Brady Executive Vice President – Administration

Morrison Stevens, Sr. Executive Vice President – Conservation

William A. Demmer Vice President of Administration

James F. Arnold Vice President of Big Game Records

Eldon L. “Buck” Buckner Vice President of Conservation

Stephen P. Mealey Vice President of Communications

Marc C. Mondavi Foundation President Ben B. Hollingsworth, Jr. Class of 2011 Manuel J. Chee Class of 2012 Howard P. Monsour, Jr. Class of 2013 James J. Shinners

I could go on and on about the deeds and achievements of all our B&C Professional Members, but I regret space will not allow me to do so. Let me end with a quote from one of our honorary presidents for life, Robert Munro Ferguson: “As in the past, our Professional Membership should be held to a select group from all manners of careers–academic, government careers, museum types, other conservation organizations, writers, artists and other. You name it, but here again, as in the past, their selection should be based on achievement, position, usefulness and dedication as well as personality. I have always felt that election to Professional Membership should be considered an honor and recognition.” I believe Mr. Ferguson would be proud of the Professional Membership we have today and I hope you are too. n

Spon s ored b y

mossy oak Brand camo

CONSERVATION AND HISTORY Capitol Comments | Page 10 Member Library | Page 12 Ruffed Grouse Society: Celebrating 50 Years | Page 14 Wolf Management: Back in the Hands of the States | Page 16 A New Paradigm: Evaluating and Managing Forests | Page 20

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©Denver bryan/images on the wildside

n this issue Steve Williams gives us a report on the desperate and critical times he foresees for conservation in the United States with the looming budget cuts in 2012. Theodore J. Holsten’s column, “Member Library” highlights financier, sportsman and philanthropist Dean Witter.

Professional member Gregory Schildwachter gives us a breakdown of the events that led to the recent delisting of the gray wolf. Michael Wisdom and Martin Vavra provide valuable insight on new approaches to elk habitat management. This has important implications for maintaining and restoring healthy fire-prone forests. We also help another partner organization, the Ruffed Grouse Society, celebrate their 50th anniversary. Healthy, active forest management on public and private forestlands is their primary goal.

8 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 9

CAPITOL COMMENTS The Budgets of Discontent Based on their words and actions, it is quite clear that some members of the U.S. House of Steven Williams, Ph.D. Representatives do not Professional member share our concern Boone and Crockett Club about conservation.

The proposed Fiscal President Wildlife Management Year 2011 Continuing Institute Resolution (CR) would have eliminated or reduced funding for some of the most effective conservation grant programs run by the federal government. For example, the proposal would have had severe repercussions on the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund, State and Tribal Wildlife Grants, Forest Legacy Program, National Wildlife Refuge System, and the National Fish Habitat Action Plan.

Many of these grant programs leverage non-federal dollars on the scale of three to four times more than the appropriated federal dollars. As it finally played out, Congress did not make the draconian cuts that some desired.

That is the good news for conservation now. However, as Congress debates the Fiscal Year 2012 federal budget, it is certain that conservation programs will not fare as well.

Without a doubt, the nation is facing severe financial problems.

The size of the federal budget, budget deficits, the debt ceiling, and debt payments must be addressed. However, the recent focus on making these cuts almost entirely from discretionary funding is shortsighted, disingenuous, and ineffective. The federal budget is approximately $3.5 trillion.

The budget deficit is estimated at $1.4 trillion.

Discretionary funding constitutes about 39 percent (or just over $1.3 trillion) of the entire federal budget. We cannot erase the budget deficit until the nation solves the future of entitlement programs ($2.1 trillion and growing). Within that 39 percent of discretionary funding, federal spending for land and water programs constitutes only about 0.5 percent of the entire federal budget. I am not advocating for a complete pardon from budget cuts to conservation programs, but let us recognize their size relative to the entire budget and the programs’ importance to the nation.

It appeared that the budget cuts offered in the last CR were decided by a weird Chinese menu approach–reduce this from column A, and eliminate that from column B. There was no logic to the process; rather, it reflected staff work which must have been directed to grab a spreadsheet of federal conservation programs and don’t stop cutting until they reached a magic and arbitrary dollar amount. We should expect more from a Congress that publicly declares its thoughtful and deliberative budget development process. The proposed reductions and elimination of federal conservation programs would have halted—and may still halt—years of hard work by Congress and American citizens to improve conservation in this nation. Further, they would have tarnished the nation’s conservation legacy that the Boone and Crockett Club so proudly and rightfully proclaims. Remember, those budget cuts were offered when Congress was looking for $100 billion in cuts for the FY 2011 budget.

Current figures vary but I have seen demands

and anglers provided license revenues of $1.3 billion and excise taxes of $880 million for state fish and wildlife conservation programs.

Retail sales of hunting and fishing equipment totaled $70 billion. State and local sales taxes associated with hunting and fishing purchases provided $11.5 billion to those entities. Federal taxes collected from these activities were $14 billion. That amount exceeded the budget for the Department of Interior. Who would dare say that hunters and anglers do not pay their way and provide the lion’s share of funding for conservation? Who would dare say that these citizens’ interests were unimportant? Apparently some members of Congress are perfectly, if not deliberately, willing to target the interests of American hunters and anglers. If you are not insulted by their actions, you should be. And you should start thinking about what this nation will become without continued investments in our natural resources. You might also ponder the future for your children and grandchildren.

Conservation funding for programs that protect wetlands, acquire, and/ or place easements on river bottoms that would restrict infrastructure development and allow rivers and streams to follow natural courses, now appear to be pretty cost effective when the country is besieged by flooding in the lower Mississippi and upper Missouri Rivers. Imagine the cost savings associated with conserving wetlands and floodplains rather than the expense of flood insurance payments to rebuild flooded structures for the second or third time.

The agricultural and conservation lands downstream of the levees in Louisiana certainly have proven to be cost-effective because they absorbed flood waters and protected the cities of Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Imagine the real value of these lands if the marketplace rewarded conservation efforts, rather than development, in the historical Mississippi River floodplain. The ill-fated efforts to tame the Mississippi and Missouri rivers should provide a valuable lesson that conservation pays, protects lifestyles, and protects the economy. If only Congress could see past their green and misaligned eyeshades. n

Apparently some members of Congress are perfectly, if not deliberately, willing to target the interests of American hunters and anglers. If you are not insulted by their actions, you should be. And you should start thinking about what this nation will become without continued investments in our natural resources.

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for cuts totaling $381 billion for the FY 2012 budget. This is a desperate and critical time for conservation in the United States.

I hope, and we should demand, that Congress considers the economic impact associated with fish and wildlife conservation when making decisions that affect funding for the programs that make that economic impact possible. According to the 2006 National Survey on Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation and Hunting in America/Fishing in America: An Economic Engine and Conservation Powerhouse report, there were more than 34 million Americans who engaged in hunting and fishing. Hunters

MEMBER LIBRARY Dean Witter - Financier, Sportsman, Philanthropist Hearing the jungle go to sleep is thrilling.

Every rustle is an anticipated tiger. Only those people who love Theodore J. Holsten the wilds can appreciate this. It is emeritus member Boone and Crockett Club the same thrill that comes from sitting by a lonely stream or lying by a campfire at night looking up through the trees at the canopy of bright stars overhead, or watching a forest moon, or going out in a duck blind before daylight in the stillness of the dark and then sitting in the blind in anticipation of the flight when dawn comes. . . . In a machan, this is all magnified by the strangeness of the scene and by the unusual forest noises that one hears– birds calling, monkeys chattering–and by all the expectancy and anticipation of waiting for a huge animal that provides interesting and, at times, dangerous game. I pity those who have never experienced these thrills.

Dean Witter wrote these words in his diary during a tiger hunting trip to India. He hunted From Left: Map of route from Solo Safari; Five thousand pound rhino with 31inch horn; Frontispiece from Shikar, showing Witter with tiger taken in India.

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with Allwin Cooper of Nagpur in 1961 and later that same year with the Maharaja of Kotah. He bagged four tigers and a leopard while in India.

Dean Witter was born in Wisconsin in 1887. He was still a toddler when his family moved to California a short time later. Witter graduated from the University of California in 1909. Along with several family members, he founded Dean Witter & Co., in 1924. His business success enabled him to take many hunting and fishing trips during his lifetime.

He made several African safaris and hunted extensively in western Canada and Alaska.

An avid fly fisherman, he had a strong preference for wading the many streams of the Western United States.

Witter served in both World Wars. As a captain of infantry, he was awarded a silver star for “gallantry in action” during the MeuseArgonne battle in 1918. He served in World War II as a colonel of ordnance and was awarded a medal for outstanding service.

Reflecting his wonder and love of the great outdoors, Witter wrote three books about his sporting adventures. They

Books By Dean Witter Solo Safari (1949) Meanderings of a Fisherman (1956) Shikar (1961)

were all privately printed and most of the material in the books was taken from the diaries that he meticulously kept. Dean Witter became a Boone and Crockett Club member in 1949.

At the time of his death in 1969, Dean Witter & Co. had nearly 80 branches in the U.S. and Canada, and the company was the largest investment house on the West Coast.

His financial success led to the establishment of the Dean Witter Foundation that continues to practice imaginative grant making in the fields of finance and conservation. It supports specific wildlife conservation projects in northern California and opportunities to improve and extend environmental education, particularly in grades K-12. Dean Witter’s love of the outdoors continues today with this legacy. n

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A merican Wildlife C onservation Partners – S potlight O rganization

Ruffed Grouse Society Celebrating 50 Years of Managing Forest Habitat

The year 2011 marks the 50th anniversary of the Ruffed

By Daniel R. Dessecker

©Denver bryan/images on the wildside

RGS Director of Conservation Policy B&C Professional Member

Grouse Society (RGS), established in 1961 by a group of Virginia sportsmen concerned about the future of North America’s most widely distributed grouse. Today RGS remains singularly focused on sustaining the shrublands and young forest habitats required by the ruffed grouse, American woodcock, chestnut-sided warbler, and many other species of wildlife. RGS’ mission may be even more timely now than ever before as these important habitats and the wildlife they support become less and less abundant on the landscape.

In February 2007, the American Bird Conservancy classified early successional (young) deciduous forest habitats in the eastern United States as one of the nation’s 20 most threatened bird habitats. Throughout the eastern United States, young (under 20 years old) deciduous forest habitats have decreased by 33 percent over the past several decades, while total forestland has increased by approximately seven percent.

In the absence of fire, which historically raced across much of North America, young forest habitats are sustained primarily through the natural succession of open lands to shrub-dominated fields or through the use of active forest management treatments in existing forest stands. Acreage treated on national forests in the East using the types of treatments that led to the development of young forest habitats has declined by 52 percent since 1995.

Approximately 70 percent of our eastern forests are controlled by non-industrial private forest landowners. The use of active forest management on these private ownerships For more information on the Ruffed Grouse Society; is declining due to a variety of factors, one of visit ruffedgrousesociety.org which is ownership fragmentation. Private parcels are increasingly being fragmented into or call 1-888-JOIN-RGS

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smaller and smaller tracts, and unfortunately, The Ruffed Grouse Society of America research on the attitudes of private landowners was formed on October 10, 1961, in clearly shows that as the size of private forest Monterey, Virginia. tracts decreases, so too does the likelihood of active forest management. and trails to facilitate timber harvests designed Not surprisingly, these recent declines to enhance young forest habitats. These roads in shrublands and young forests have resulted and trails can also provide critical access for in the declines of wildlife that depend upon sportsmen and sportswomen, hikers, backthese habitats. The ruffed grouse, bobwhite packers and other forest users. Shrublands are quail, and American woodcock are important periodically renewed by mowing or some other game birds throughout much of the eastern form of mechanical treatment.

United States. These three species are expeAlthough RGS doesn’t provide finanriencing population declines throughout much cial assistance to private forest landowners to of this region. support habitat management activities, the Breeding Bird Survey data collected society does provide technical assistance by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service confirm through on-site habitat consultations conthat the number of bird species characteristic ducted by its staff of wildlife biologists at no wildlife habitats–very young, very old, and of shrublands or young forest habitats that cost to the landowner. RGS has found that all ages in between. Old forests develop are experiencing population declines in the most landowners are more than willing to through time; young forests develop only when East exceeds the number that are increasing. utilize commercial timber sales to establish created through active forest management.”

For the past 10 years, the Ruffed Conversely, the number of bird species char- young forest habitats once they understand acteristic of mature forest habitats that are the importance of these habitats to ruffed Grouse Society has worked in cooperation experiencing population increases exceeds grouse and other wildlife. The key message with the Boone and Crockett Club and other the number that are declining. Many of these the RGS works to convey is that a timber sale partner organizations of the American Wildlife declining bird species that use shrublands or is not an end unto itself. Instead, it is the Conservation Partners (AWCP) to promote wildlife-friendly legislation and policies at the young forest habitats are classified as high means to an end–wildlife diversity. conservation priority. These include the whipThe society’s COVERTS program pro- federal level. It’s gratifying to note that since poor-will, yellow-breasted chat, and the vides another opportunity to reach out to the “timber wars” of the Pacific Northwest in seriously imperiled golden-winged warbler, private landowners. COVERTS programs are the 1980s and 90s, which affected forest manwhich was petitioned for federal listing under coordinated by university extension offices in agement policy across the nation, the pendulum the Endangered Species Act in 2010. various states, with the longest-running pro- appears to be swinging back toward a more Due to the ephemeral nature of shrub- gram conducted by the University of Wisconsin. balanced approach to forest management that lands and young forest habitats, breeding-bird COVERTS workshops are intensive, two- to includes active management–the same approach promoted by the Ruffed Grouse use of these habitats may last only a few years. The relatively brief period of time Increasing the use of active forest management on Society over and over again. This shift that young forests provide optimum public and private forestlands is the primary goal of in perspective is evidenced in part by the passage of the Healthy Forests Reshabitat conditions for some bird species the activities of the Ruffed Grouse Society. toration Act of 2003 (HFRA)–legislation necessitates the regular development of these habitats through targeted active forest three-day events where 20-30 landowners re- that was vigorously promoted by the Society management. ceive classroom and field instruction on wildlife and others within AWCP. HFRA was designed to expedite reRGS pursues this goal by providing ecology and forest habitat management. Using technical and financial assistance to resource the philosophy of “teach one, reach one hun- source management projects deemed necessary management agencies responsible for wildlife dred,” workshop participants are then expected to protect rangelands and forestlands from conservation on local, state, and federal public to share what they’ve learned with neighbors catastrophic wildfire, insect infestations or disease. Too often in the past, these types of lands; educating private landowners and the and others in their community general public about the essential role played Decisions made in Washington, D.C., projects were delayed by the endless paperwork by active forest management in sustaining a and our state capitals can dramatically affect required by a web of federal regulations and diversity of wildlife habitats, and therefore, a how we can or can’t manage our nation’s legal challenges from organizations more diversity of wildlife; and by working to estab- public and private forestlands. As one would interested in the politics of forest conservation lish regulatory policies that promote sound expect, the Ruffed Grouse Society is actively than the practice thereof. This legislation was forest stewardship. engaged in the debate surrounding the future an attempt to accomplish what the National To date, the Society has contributed of forest wildlife conservation when relevant Forest Management Act (NFMA) could not.

After the passage of NFMA in 1972, millions of dollars to establish shrublands and issues arise. The society, like the Boone and young forest habitats on public lands through Crockett Club, has consistently used sound Senator Hubert Humphrey, D-Minnesota, a its Management Area Program. Habitat qual- science as the foundation of its contributions staunch advocate for responsible environmenity on just over 500,000 acres of public land to this debate. This is one reason why the tal policies, stated that the legislation would has been improved through the society’s col- RGS was first invited to appear before Con- move forest management out of the courts laborative efforts with the U.S. Forest Service, gress in 1993 and provide testimony regarding and back to the forests where it belonged. the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and fish and the benefits to wildlife from thoughtful forest Almost 40 years later, perhaps this laudable wildlife agencies in almost every state that management practices. The Society’s message objective is a bit closer to reality. The Ruffed supports ruffed grouse or American wood- then was simple: “To sustain the full array of Grouse Society continues to work with its cocks. Typical management activities include forest wildlife on our nation’s federal public colleagues in the wildlife conservation comthe construction or reconstruction of roads lands, we must sustain the full array of forest munity toward that critical goal. n Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 15

Congress restored

By Greg Schildwachter B&C Professional Member

16 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

…a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that some states are now the official managers of the gray wolf. This overturned a U.S. District Court decision and Congress blocked the courts from reviewing the matter further. This stroke of constitutional power is welcomed by some, frightening to others, and familiar to those who recall that Congress intervened several times from 1988 to 1991 when it directed the administration to begin the process for wolf reintroduction in the Rockies.

But the meaning of this case is deeper than the drama of congressional action and the amusement of who welcomed it then and fears it now. We need to see that when Theodore Roosevelt (TR) made conservation a national issue, he opened it to national debate. His triumph was not that the nation would do conservation his way—or, as we may dream, our way for his sake—but that it would be done according to a competition with other views. Now the contest of decisionmaking in America is a professional enterprise open to all but controlled and dominated by those with specialized knowledge about how the country makes up its mind. Unless we engage in that profession, we cannot expect decisions to turn conservation where field biologists and agency administrators would take it.

The wolf case illustrates one way this has played out so that sportsmen prevailed, in part. It is a guide to what we must do to influence the future of conservation.

Some issues draw attention to themselves.

Americans care about wildlife conservation, but

…not as much as many other things. This is clear and poignant on Capitol Hill, where front-page issues occupy the chambers through which all issues must pass.

Even routine conservation questions must be worked out informally to clear them for rubber stamping through channels. The quality of decisions made informally depends heavily on the aptitude and effort of the members of Congress and staffs controlling the issue. Many are new to the subjects, details of policy, and unintended consequences. They need help from people that former Senator John F. Kennedy described as “expert technicians…capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear,

understandable fashion.” JFK was explaining the proper role of lobbyists.

As wolf delisting is not front-page news in many places, it faced mixed prospects after Judge Molloy. On one hand, the Senate—usually the final bottleneck—took bipartisan initiative with Rocky Mountain senators on both sides of the aisle introducing three different bills by end of September 2010 to delist wolves. On the other hand, the bills proposed widely different means of delisting.

One would amend ESA to disqualify all wolves from federal protection. Another would amend ESA to delist part of the Rocky Mountain population. A third would delist the same area without amending ESA. These were opening positions designed to sound like solutions to angry people. They were not positions based on analysis of existing policy and pressing problems concerning livestock, big game, lawsuits, and sustaining the recovered wolf population under state laws.

To help simplify the puzzle of fitting good policy with straight answers and votes, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation (RMEF) collected data on how people perceived the issue and options. RMEF conducted a nationwide telephone survey of 1,000 committed voters with extra calls in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. They collected detailed qualitative data from focus groups in Minneapolis and Detroit. Results showed that most people trust ESA and believe state wildlife managers should have most authority over wildlife.

Especially in metro-Detroit, it appeared that urban America has a decent grasp on general conservation principles.

RMEF and a few other groups began advocating the simplest, most persuasive facts as the points to guide policy and politics: federal goals were met, states were supposed to take over, states had detailed management plans, and the hold-up in court is on technicalities. The RMEF group began discarding facts about radicals at the fringes and red tape in the bureaucracy because—though factual—they drove away support. A good exchange got going between Senators Jim Risch of Idaho and Jon Tester of Montana, two leaders of the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus. Great Lakes states members of Congress were not active.

Back rooms

…with or without smoke, are not as secret as the image suggests. What they really are is exhausting. Most people invited to these meetings have jobs that require them to attend several each day. Many attendees are perfectly willing and justified in reporting what happens in the room, talking through

© Donald M. Jones

Wolf conservation has often done so, but there was no clear reason to expect that Congress would bestir itself after U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s decision on August 5, 2010. His decision rejected the fifth attempt by the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove some or all wolves from the lists of threatened and endangered species. Reversing the “delisting” was in most respects a typical development in the FWS’s routine for any Endangered Species Act (ESA) issue–the courts have made many de facto listing decisions.

Environmentalist lawsuits have been common for about 40 years, and multiple lawsuits on an issue are not strange, especially regarding ESA. Most of their lawsuits push species onto the lists—such as a string of complaints on the Canada lynx and several other species. And they file many suits to impose what they see as protections, as they have done on Columbia River salmon species for nearly 20 years straight. Some have sued to block what others consider as good conservation, as when some environmentalists sued to stop the wolf reintroduction because they did not like how it would be done.

Congress rarely reacts, partly because Congress specifically enabled such lawsuits.

Before the era of routine lawsuits, technical agencies had wide discretion given them at birth by TR and his peers. The year after founding the Forest Service in 1905, when TR created the Grand Canyon National Game Preserve on the Kaibab plateau, the Forest Service needed no further process to

begin killing wolves and other predators there. Precursors of the Fish and Wildlife Service needed only a congressional appropriation to exterminate wolves nationwide.

Technocracy ruled this way until the 1960s when Rachel Carson condemned the reign in a book about pesticide use, Silent Spring.

She suggested that citizens should have access to agency data, advance public consideration of options, and recourse to file suit. Within 10 years Congress granted all three wishes, respectively, in passing the Freedom of Information Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and provisions for citizen lawsuits in ESA and other laws.

Like many environmental lawsuits, complaints about wolf delisting avoid the basic issue of whether wolves had recovered and alleged flaws in the decision-making process. The process runs through reams of policies beyond ESA alone, including the general ESA regulations, the wolf recovery plans, the environmental impact statement on reintroduction, separate special regulations for the reintroduced wolves and wolves returning on their own, a FWS policy on defining the legal meaning of “population,” and the Administrative Procedures Act. Against this history, there were several plausible reasons that Congress might thwart the legal stratagems this time. Unlike most wildlife, wolves present a more straightforward biology: they reproduce quickly, flourish in various habitats, and are relatively easy to count. Clear data show wolves are more than five times over recovery goals.

Also, by 2010, more hunters were advocating delisting for conservation reasons as wolves were affecting big game management. Finally, as recovery is rare (13 species in the U.S. out of more than 1,300 species listed), the legalisms of delisting were unforeseen and demoralizing obstacles to success.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 17

Northern Rockies Approximately 2,000 wolves

western great lakes Approximately 4,000 wolves

Wolf Populations Today

southwest Approximately 50 wolves

the issues and taking advice, but they are often too busy with follow-up to return every call.

This was the labor of love in October and November. As the issues and options took shape, legislators from the Rocky Mountain states began negotiating, as did the governors and the Obama Administration, which continued exploring a settlement with the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Each venue reported occasional progress but none had a clear way to carry out anything they might decide. If wolf state delegates to Congress agreed on a bill, they would need to persuade California and East Coast members who held jurisdiction over it. If Wyoming’s negotiators agreed to adjust or replace their state’s management plan, the change would need to pass the entire legislature. If the administration found a way forward, it would need to issue a new delisting rule.

By mid-October, the difficulties compounded as hunters sent mixed messages.

Simple points advocating state management competed with threats of poaching wolves and punishing politicians who settled for anything but a symbolic position. This made the issue seem doomed to the decision-makers trying to help us and some stopped working on it. We hunters realized we were not organized on wolves as we have been on game laws, Pittman-Robertson, and the agenda of 18 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

our Federal Advisory Committee and American Wildlife Conservation Partners network.

The wolf issue was outside our basic political competence just as the wolf was outside scientific regulated management for most of our history. Just five years earlier we had gained a place in the wolf debate when FWS authorized culling wolves to help state big game managers. Now, angry that this token achievement was held up in court along with most other wolf policy, we were losing a chance for a better solution.

Boone and Crockett Club President Lowell E. Baier attempted a revival by uniting sportsmen behind ethical sportsmanship.

With six groups joining, the Club issued an editorial calling hunters to “continue toward [the] goal in an orderly fashion” so that “wolves will be managed the same way as other wildlife, based on the best available science with protections against illegal killing.” The Club’s press consultant placed the piece in regional papers, weeklies, and Web sites starting October 20, 2010. With signatures by the Mule Deer Foundation, Pope and Young Club, Elk Foundation, Safari Club, Wild Sheep Foundation, and the Wildlife Management Institute, the statement inspired more coalition work to follow.

At the same time, a new idea for a solution began to circulate: environmental plaintiffs might accept delisting if state managers had higher minimum population sizes

to maintain. From governors’ staffs, it sounded like the governors might agree to higher numbers. Or, Congress could impose higher numbers on the states. Or, the administration could attempt to enact the idea through a new rule or a settlement. Many sportsmen objected to infringing on state authority as well as rewarding plaintiffs with arbitrary numbers not considered in public process.

Twenty-four groups from American Wildlife Conservation Partners (AWCP) co-signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar urging them to keep the idea out of settlement talks.

Some of the AWCP groups—now starting to work as a coalition—expressed the same objection to members of Congress and staff.

Pressure to force an agreement rose around the mid-term elections and the end of the 111th session of Congress. The numbers-approach seemed to be handy, if not perfect. If governors agreed to it, members of Congress could enact it as part of an overdue spending bill for the new fiscal year. But it is risky for Congress to tread on state sovereignty in the West, so Congress needed governors to bend. On December 2, 2010, Senators Baucus and Tester wrote to Secretary Salazar declaring that a state-based agreement was a necessary precondition for congressional action.

The numbers-approach soon collapsed on its main flaw of being arbitrary.

The administration abruptly proposed new numbers to the governors over the first weekend in December (as the Club met in Albuquerque). The proposal insisted that Idaho’s minimum population rise from 150 wolves to around 500 wolves, claiming to be consistent with Idaho’s own plan. But 500 wolves was Idaho’s chosen population objective, not its minimum. Idaho planned to keep the population around that number, not always above it. The distinction was lost or ignored, and although Governor Butch Otter might have agreed to a minimum higher than 150, he rejected 500 and the governors’ talks broke up. Still, somehow the same proposal reached the Senate for a parting shot at agreement in that chamber, but it was rebuffed.

Wolf delisting had a brief formal consideration in the Senate before adjournment.

On December 21, with informal efforts dead, Senator Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, rose in session for a symbolic attempt to pass one of the original bills from September. Senator Ben Cardin, D-Md., objected and a short debate followed with Senators Jim Risch, R-Idaho, and Max Baucus, D-Mont. Senator Crapo mentioned that the failed numbers-proposal would have changed Idaho’s management plan, which Senator Baucus had not known and, once informed, agreed was unacceptable.

It was a small achievement for the efforts thus far: a short Senate debate that clarified the members’ minds and helped the next effort.

“Where would this get us?”

It was an email from congressional staff containing a draft bill to reinstate the delisting decision overturned by Judge Molloy.

It was now the first week of February, and several AWCP groups were already asking for a solution based in previous decisions by the FWS to delist recovered wolves.

Compared to that, the discussion draft was a partial solution: Rockies only, except Wyoming, and no Great Lakes states.

Meanwhile, some members had resubmitted bills from the previous Congress and some staff still hoped to revive the numbersbased proposal.

By that Friday, February 11, the new discussion draft appeared officially in both the new wolf bill proposed by Montana’s Democratic senators and also in a provision

by Representative Mike Simpson of Idaho in the Republican budget bill numbered H.R. 1. It looked like they had a deal. The sportsmen now working as a coalition liked some of it: keeping federal and state authority separate and upholding valid, science-based decisions. Plus, it was a blunt political message to litigators. Our coalition issued a statement thanking members of Congress “for taking

several steps in the right direction for wolf conservation.” Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation led the statement, joined by the National Rifle Association, Safari Club International, Elk Foundation, Wild Sheep Foundation, and Boone and Crockett Club.

Our group suggested improving the deal by overturning all the lawsuits, not just the latest one, and reinstating the larger recovery areas published by the FWS in 2003.

That seemed too strong a rebuke of environmentalists for the Senate to accept. We thought it wiser to include Wyoming and— biologically—with only parts of Oregon, Washington, and Utah delisted, we thought it certain that the remaining areas of those states, some of which already had wolves, would never carry enough wolves to justify delisting as a standalone area.

As Congress and the administration resolved the main issues of the spending bill, our coalition was along for the ride. H.R. 1 passed the House, and, on March 4, the Democratic Senate proposed the exact same wolf delisting provision in its alternative budget. In mid-March the Obama administration and the plaintiffs proposed a court settlement, hoping to forestall Congress. But on April 9, Judge Molloy rejected the settlement, and we soon learned the final budget bill included delisting. The only change in the end was a gesture for Wyoming in a new sentence confirming a different court’s ruling that the FWS had been arbitrary in rejecting Wyoming’s plan.

and other mammals and birds. Challengers have twisted its meaning such that, if Judge Molloy accepts the twisted reading, the provision will become meaningless in winning local support for reintroductions. Ironically, this provision was the last effective amendment of ESA—in 1982—and we may lose what we accomplished then by failing to clarify ESA now.

To safeguard the ESA or any law, or to improve one, requires forays deep into the public forum such as described here for wolf delisting. Many make the effort because they care. For the Boone and Crockett Club, it is a duty of mission. Fittingly, when TR spoke of “the man in the arena,” he was talking about citizenship. That is what it takes to keep his conservation legacy. n

In dealing with this one species,

. . . Congress changed nothing in the ESA, and therefore, left the root problem for other species. Some wordings of ESA are open to misinterpretations allowing attacks on valid decisions. Most of these shrewd efforts go to adding favorite species to the list regardless of biological priority. But one of the remaining wolf cases yet to be decided by Judge Molloy may also disrupt active recovery for other species. That case concerns FWS’s authority to adapt standard ESA protections, which FWS uses in order to reintroduce a species without needless restrictions on local people. It helps win support for reintroductions.

Rightly applied, this provision enabled wolf reintroduction and earlier projects for the California condor, black-footed ferret, whooping crane, and several fish Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 19

20 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Elk are one of the most popular game species in North

Healthy Forests Restoration Act Mike Wisdom and Marty Vavra have provided valuable insight on new approaches to elk habitat management in western Oregon and Washington, and by inference in much of the rest of elk habitat in the West. This has important implications for maintaining and restoring healthy fire-prone forests.

The Healthy Forests Initiative of 2002 and Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003 (P.L. 108-148) were implemented by the U.S. Forest Service and BLM on their fire-prone forests and rangelands in the West to reduce hazardous fuels contributing to increasing catastrophic wildfires and to restore fire-adapted ecosystems. Action was taken following a landmark wildfire season in 2000 and dire predictions of future recurrences based on an estimate of about 190 million acres of federal forest and rangeland in the lower forty-eight States with a high risk of large-scale insect or disease epidemics and catastrophic fire due to deteriorating ecosystem health and drought. Data related to Wisdom’s and Vavra’s report show that in drier (“eastside”) forest and rangeland types, the same conditions contributing to increased risks of insect and disease and catastrophic wildfire outbreaks (too much of the wrong kind of plants) are also contributing to declining elk habitat quality (low nutrition quality for cows on summer range.) Improvement of elk habitat quality and restoration of forests and rangelands in these drier ecosystems appear to be compatible and complementary if not compelling goals. We look forward to future reports from Mike and Marty to provide more detail on this important relationship.

America. Their widespread occurrence on public lands provides a myriad of public hunting and viewing opportunities. Trophy hunts are now offered for bull elk in every state in the West, and much of this trophy hunting occurs on public lands. But all is not well with elk on public lands. In the past, By Michael Wisdom and elk nutrition on summer range Martin Vavra Ungulate Scientists for the USDA Forest Service was sustained on public forests by Pacific Northwest Research Station extensive timber harvest, which Photos provided by authors opened up forest canopies. The open canopy allowed full sunlight penetration to ground level, in turn promoting vigorous growth of grasses, forbs, and shrubs that established a nutritionally-rich forage base essential to sustaining healthy elk populations.

Today, following two decades of limited timber harvest on many federal forests, the abundance of high-quality forage for elk has declined. Federal forest managers scramble to prevent even the smallest forest meadows from being overwhelmed by tree invasion and to maintain their forage productivity, but it is a never-ending battle without active silviculture on the larger areas of forestlands. In response, elk have increasingly sought highly nutritious forage on private forestlands in areas where better forage has been maintained through active timber harvest. Or, alternatively, elk have increasingly sought higher quality forage provided by agricultural lands adjacent to federal forest habitats.

Management concerns expressed about elk spending more time on private lands, coupled with the potential for reduced hunting opportunities on federal forests recently provided a strong impetus for new thinking about elk and forest management.

These concerns were exemplified by the situation in western Oregon and western Washington. During the 1960s and 1970s, researchers such as Charles Trainer and James Harper, then of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, documented low pregnancy rates, low body fat, and low calf production in westside elk herds. Trainer’s and Harper’s research concluded that the low productivity of westside elk herds was directly related to the low quality of available forage, a characteristic of the unproductive soils of western Oregon and Washington, which are inherently low in nitrogen, calcium, and other nutrients essential to production of nutritious elk forage. Trainer and Harper also reported that the nutritional deficiencies of greatest consequence to elk reproduction and productivity occurred during summer, when lactating females need high-quality forage to

successfully rear calves, and when yearlings require high-quality forage for growth and development.

Strangely enough, most of the lush understory vegetation present in westside landscapes is unpalatable to elk, and in some cases contains compounds that actually suppress digestion if consumed. The low nutrition levels of the westside, however, appeared to be offset by extensive timber harvest, which provided a more nutritious forage base on forests throughout the region during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Since then, timber harvest has been halted on most federal forests in the region, leading to the widespread view that elk nutrition has declined dramatically in the absence of continued maintenance of open-canopy, early-seral forests. In addition, private forest owners often accelerate the return of tree cover after timber harvest, shortening the time period in which nutritious forage is available on those lands.

Attention to the topic of declining forage conditions for elk on federal forests led to new nutrition research for the species in the westside region in the early 2000s. The research was initiated by John and Rachel Cook, elk nutrition scientists with the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI). To understand and quantify the relation between forest management practices and forage conditions, the Cooks used tame elk to estimate the quality of elk diets under a wide variety of forest timber practices and associated conditions.

Tame elk, reared from birth by the Cooks at the USDA Forest Service Starkey Experimental Forest and Range near La Grande, Oregon, provided an essential mechanism for the diet work. By following the tame elk over a series of grazing trials in each forest condition (e.g., young stands follow clearcutting, mid-age pole stands, mature stands, Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 21

Tame Elk in Grazing Trial

Westside Seral Stages

GPS Collared Elk

old-growth stands, etc.), the Cooks were able to identify the forage species selected by the elk, and estimate the amount of each forage species eaten. Additional samples of the selected forage species in the elk diets were subsequently analyzed for nutritional quality through laboratory work.

Results from the grazing trials and diet quality analyses were dramatic and obvious. Open-canopy forests established immediately after timber harvest, particularly as a result of clear-cutting, resulted in “earlyseral” forest conditions that provided elk with digestible energy that exceeded their daily maintenance needs. All other closedcanopy forests, including old-growth, did not provide adequate amounts of highquality forage sufficient for elk to maintain body fat during summer, a critical time period for elk to accumulate body fat needed for reproduction and survival.

“We were astounded at the consistently low quality of available forage under closed-canopy forest conditions in western Oregon and Washington,” said John Cook. “Our findings clearly pointed to the importance of the grass-forb-deciduous shrub stage of succession, following timber harvest, as a critical source of nutrition for elk.”

The elk nutrition findings of John and Rachel Cook prompted discussions about new ways of evaluating and managing elk habitat, and the need for new evaluation tools to reflect the new thinking. An earlier elk habitat evaluation model, developed for the westside in the mid-1980s, originally considered elk nutrition as one of four model components, but the nutrition component was ignored by model users. In addition, the model contained a cover component that was later determined to be outdated, based on thermal cover research conducted by the Cooks in the 1990s.

Bull elk on U.S. Forest Service land

Discussions about the need for new modeling approaches, based on the new nutrition research, were prompted by the leadership of the Boone and Crockett Club and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Said Steve Mealey, vice president of conservation and board member of the Boone and Crockett Club, “Our field visits to national forests in western Oregon clearly showed that the nutritional needs of elk in the region were not being met with current forest management practices, and that land use plans on national forests contained little direction for managing habitat for elk nutrition.”

Melissa Simpson, then the undersecretary of agriculture for natural resources, and Jim Caswell, then the director of the Bureau of Land Management, to further identify funding needs and sources. As a result of these efforts, over 20 scientists, representing federal, state, private, university, and tribal partners, began work in 2009 to synthesize and model the findings of the Cooks’ nutrition research in combination with analysis of radio-telemetry data collected during the 1990s and 2000s on wild elk from seven different study areas across western Oregon and Washington.

Radio-telemetry data on elk were provided from the seven study areas by the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Makah Nation, Quileute Tribe, Sauk-Suiattle Tribe, and Oregon State University.

The synthesis and modeling work had two main objectives: (1) to predict and map elk nutrition across the entire region in relation to all management conditions, encompassing all land ownership areas; and (2) to integrate the nutrition predictions with all other factors that affect elk use of habitat across the region. To meet these objectives, the synthesis and modeling of elk nutrition and radio-telemetry data posed a daunting task that had not been attempted before for elk or other species that range over vast areas.

None of the data sets had been collected for such a synthesis, requiring a tremendous amount of time to understand, edit, and integrate the data. Moreover, these data sets required the estimation and mapping of over 50 different types of environmental characteristics, such as slope, aspect, vegetation types, and forest conditions. Such maps had to be developed for vast areas, encompassing many millions of acres of western Oregon and western Washington. And finally, the many radio-telemetry data sets on

Management concerns expressed about elk spending more time on private lands, coupled with the potential for reduced hunting opportunities on federal forests recently provided a strong impetus for new thinking about elk and forest management.

22 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Mealey and Bob Model, past Boone and Crockett Club president and Club board member, joined with Jack Blackwell, then vice president of lands and conservation at the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, to organize a series of meetings with state and federal agencies to find funding sources for the new modeling work. Mealey, Model, and Blackwell then facilitated the development of a study plan and grant proposals that led to formation of a team of scientists to initiate the new modeling work. The trio further collaborated on the details of the proposed work with Boone and Crockett Club members

wild elk across the region had to be evaluated to assess how well the data could be used to meet objectives.

The synthesis and modeling work focused on analyzing the nutrition predictions with the telemetry data, to understand how well elk used areas of highest nutrition, and what other factors, such as motorized access, might inhibit elk use of areas of high nutrition.

The modeling work was recently completed, with results that are considered remarkable by elk scientists. In each of the seven study areas where telemetry data were evaluated, elk consistently selected for areas of highest nutrition, particularly when such areas were farther from public roads, on flatter ground, and closer to areas near cover. Remarkably, of over 20 models tested, the same habitat-use model consistently produced the most accurate predictions of elk use across all study areas.

The elk nutrition and habitat-use models are now available for management applications. Early uses by federal, state, private, and tribal management partners appear extremely promising in terms of the potential benefits for management. For the first time, nutritional conditions for elk can be accurately mapped across vast areas, and the probability that elk will use these nutritional conditions can be estimated with the habitat-use model that considers nutrition in concert with other

major factors that affect elk use. Given the mixed land ownerships in most areas of the region, of particular benefit is the capability to map elk nutrition and habitat use across multiple land ownerships to compare and contrast the probabilities of elk use on private and public lands. Such evaluations allow all landowners, in partnership with state wildlife agencies and conservation groups like Boone and Crockett Club, to discuss and devise ways to effectively manage elk distributions across land ownerships to meet overall objectives for nutrition, population productivity, viewing, and hunting.

The developed models predict a need for more early-successional habitats for optimum maintenance of elk herds. Interestingly, a recent article by several noted forest ecologists in the journal Frontiers in Ecology has pointed out the value of early-successional ecosystems that occur following disturbance.

These systems were described as providing resources that attract and sustain high species diversity, complex food webs, large nutrient fluxes, and high spatial and structural diversity. The authors concluded that where maintenance of biodiversity is an objective, the importance and value of these earlysuccession ecosystems are underappreciated.

The challenge to managers is to develop strategies that effectively provide the structure

and composition of these early-succession habitats. Providing improved habitat for elk may, in fact, improve the overall ecological health of westside landscapes.

Scientists involved with this new elk modeling would like to expand their approaches to other areas of the western United States for benefit of elk, landowners, and the hunting public. These new modeling approaches also are proposed for development of new evaluation tools for mule deer. Whether this type of innovative work for benefit of elk, mule deer, and other big game species can be sustained depends largely on future support for continued big game research. The key to such future work will be maintaining strong partnerships among federal and state agencies, conservation and hunting organizations, universities, private industry, and tribal nations, as demonstrated by the elk modeling work in western Oregon and Washington. n Drs. Michael Wisdom and Martin Vavra are ungulate scientists with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station in La Grande, Oregon.

They have conducted long-term research on a wide variety of land use issues related to elk, mule deer, and cattle management on forests and rangelands of the western U.S.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 23

RESEARCH AND EDUCATION

©TONY BYNUM

Knowledge Base | Page 26 B&C Professors’ Corner | Page 28 West Texas Mule Deer in Changing Landscapes | Page 30

24 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

W

riting about one of her favorite topics, Winifred B. Kessler celebrates the “discovery” of missing Grants-In-Aid records that will shed more light on Boone and Crockett Club’s role in iconic research projects of the past century. In the second in a series of essays by the Boone and Crockett Professors, Bill Porter delves into the art and science of graduate education, including the “extra step” that is taken to ensure B&C students are well prepared for the real world of wildlife management. Dustin Hollowell shares his research on the relationships between mule deer population trends and large-scale habitat changes in West Texas landscapes.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 25

KNOWLEDGE BASE The Case of the Missing Research Legacy For over a dozen years now I’ve chaired the Conservation Research Grants Program, which began its legacy as the Winifred B. Kessler Grants-In-Aid Program, for the Boone Professional member and Crockett Club. I Boone and Crockett Club feel deeply privileged on several accounts.

For one, it’s professionally and personally rewarding to have a hand in facilitating the conduct of needed research on big game species and their management. For another, it’s highly satisfying to see graduate students use these grants to launch their careers in the wildlife profession. And, it’s a real honor to help carry on a 60-plus year legacy that includes iconic projects and people in the field of wildlife science.

Most of what I know about the program’s past comes from project lists, each of them incomplete in some respect, and update articles that B&C members have written for editions of the Records of North American Big Game books. The Club’s early investments in research go back to the 1940s, with studies examining wolf depredation in Alaska and ecological studies of bighorn sheep. The Grants-in-Aid Program was formally established in 1948 by the newly-created Conservation Committee. Project lists show that in the decades since, the Club has provided grants to support around 150 research projects spanning a diversity of subjects and locations throughout North America. Especially in the early decades, the lists read like a Wildlife Science Hall of Fame: Durward Allen’s pioneering work on the wolves of Isle Royale, which became the longest continuous study of a predator-prey system in the world; the Craighead brothers’ famous work on Yellowstone grizzly bears; the work of Canadian legend Ian McTaggart-Cowan on the wolves of Mount McKinley; Maurice Hornocker’s ground-breaking studies on mountain lions and other carnivores; and on and on.

Getting access to the results of these studies is fairly easy. They may be found in the original journal articles in which the researchers published their findings, or in any number of textbooks in ecology and wildlife management. But what more is there to the story of Boone and Crockett’s long history of involvement in big game research? This question has come up often among B&C staff and members, along with rumors about a 26 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

stash of records that had been kept for the Grants-in-Aid (GIA) Program. But where were they? This mystery of the missing GIA records persisted for more years than I’ve been with the program.

In April, thanks to a fortuitous turn of events, the mystery was solved! The story was related to me by Abra Loran, Assistant Controller for the B&C Club. She and Controller Jan Krueger had been searching high and low for certain old personnel files, with no success. There was one place left to check: the crawl space under the B&C headquarters building, which was the final resting place for old accounting records. I don’t know whether Abra drew the short straw, fell victim to rank, or simply is a brave soul. I only know it was she who crawled into the bowels of the B&C Headquarters, discovering not only the misfiled personnel records, but as well, roughly 10 boxes bearing the label “GIA Records.”

Eureka! Various B&C staff paused in their duties to cart the boxes upstairs into the light of day and historical investigation.

The significance of this discovery is best conveyed by Abra herself: Going through those boxes was really neat. You know you’re holding a piece of history when the accounting records I found were on extra large ledger paper, which is way before my time. That’s one aspect of working for the Boone and Crockett Club that I love, the history. In one day I found the mystery employee records and the GIA boxes. It was an awesome day! n

Abra reviewing the GIA files she located in the crawl space at B&C Headquarters in Missoula, Montana. Background image shows the east pack of wolves from Durward Allen’s wolf studies on Isle Royale dated 1975.

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their own ideas and hone their thinking through critique by their peers.

The best graduate student experiences, and the best science, tend to arise by a process that is neither prescribed nor easily managed.

This is because the best occurs when a spark is born of an amalgam of technical skill, critical thinking, and creative inspiration. As faculty, we look for students who have the potential to achieve that amalgamation. We teach and mentor students, but above all, we encourage them. We watch for those sparks.

When those sparks come, we fan them into flame. The range of knowledge required and the pace at which it has to be assimilated means graduate students in wildlife face one steep learning curve after another. To succeed, these students have to be not only exceptionally bright and passionate about wildlife, but absolutely tenacious.

What separates education in wildlife science from other sciences is that we take a final step with students. We ask them to translate their findings into impliwho complete cations of wildlife man- Those graduate training agement and policy. We in wildlife often go on to use science at put them in front of the highest levels. hunters, wildlife managThe pragmatic lessons, the critical ers, and boards of directhinking skills and tors. They need to be the exposure to the world of policy also effective in conveying many graduates their science to the sci- drawinto conservation entific community, but leadership. The photograph of a we want them to be doctoral student is equally effective with a good example. Dr. Dale Garner (Ph.D., the non-scientists.

1995) is now Chief It is no coinciof Wildlife for the Iowa Department of dence that this Natural Resources. education paradigm and the mission of the Boone and Crockett Club to affect policy through science are such a good combination.

Both can trace their origins to Theodore Roosevelt’s dictum that all wildlife resources are part of an integral whole, wise stewardship of those resources is a public responsibility, and science is the tool for effective discharge of that responsibility. n © William Porter

How do you catch a moose? Of course, some people would ask, “Why would you want to?” These seemingly simple questions lie at William Porter the heart of the Professional member Boone and Crockett Club experience for graduate students in wildlife Professor Michigan State science.

University As Boone and Crockett professors, we build an educational experience for each graduate student with a goal that is at the core of the Boone and Crockett Club’s reason for establishing the professors’ program: to make a difference in wildlife conservation. We attract some of the brightest people in the world and we train them to be good scientists. But we want more from them. We want them to be able to make science effective in the world of wildlife management and conservation policy. We train them to be scientists and leaders. That graduate training is the subject of the Professor’s Corner this issue.

The graduate experience in wildlife is designed to provide a solid education in solving the kind of practical problems wildlife professionals face every day: handling wildlife, analyzing data, and writing. The question, “How do you catch a moose?” is almost a metaphor for this experience. Learning to handle wildlife safely ends up covering a lot of territory from the skills of hunting and trapping to the basics of pharmacology to working effectively with people. Data analysis draws students into a world of ever-more sophisticated mathematical models, geographic information systems, and statistical analysis.

The culminating challenge is learning the skills of writing technical science.

While how is generally the underlying focus of the Master of Science degree in wildlife, the Ph.D. experience is captured in the second question, “Why would you want to?”

Why is essential to understanding the relationships between wildlife and the larger ecosystem. Why is chronic wasting disease spreading in some places and not others? Why do predators have greater impact in some years? To answer these questions requires that students learn to think critically. New students expect graduate education to be just an extension of the undergraduate system of classes and term projects. What they find is that learning to think critically occurs mostly outside the classroom. They learn to develop

How do you catch a moose?

The process is ingenious. In the Algonquin region of eastern Ontario, moose give birth to calves on islands and peninsulas, presumably to reduce the risk of predation. To catch moose, a team of wildlife biologists drives these islands and peninsulas for cows and young calves in a manner akin to a deer drive. The intent is to push the cow and calf into the water. Once in the water, the calf is easily separated from the cow by biologists in a small boat. At four to ten days old, moose calves are relatively docile and biologists pull the calf from the water, tag it and take it back to land. This draws the cow back to shore to defend her calf.

The tricky part is when the cow emerges from the water. A biologist with the dart rifle has to get a dart into the rump of the cow and the sedative has to act before the cow reaches the calf and stomps the biologists holding it.

Darting takes a cool head and a dead-eye aim. Once hit with the dart, the cow generally loses control of her action within seconds and is fully sedated within a couple minutes. She is collared, a drug to reverse the sedative is administered, and she and her calf are up and moving within a few minutes.

Why would you want to?

This particular research was done to understand why moose populations were fluctuating so much. Wildlife managers were concerned about the influence of wolf and bear predation.

During the study, the doctoral student radio-collared 40 cows and 40 calves. Findings showed that infestation by parasites, specifically winter tick, was more likely to be causing the fluctuations in moose populations than the predators in eastern Ontario. Thousands of ticks latch onto a single moose. In late winter, these ticks extract blood from the moose before dropping off to reproduce. The irritation of the ticks causes moose to itch, and in the process of scratching themselves on trees, they rub their fur off. If they lose enough fur, they die of hypothermia.

Help Preserve Our Hunting Heritage The Boone and Crockett Club has been America’s leading wildlife conservation organization for 124 years.

The Club is dedicated to guardianship and provident management of big game and associated wildlife in North America and to maintaining the highest standards of fair chase. You can help support this important work by naming the Boone and Crockett Club Foundation the sole beneficiary of your IRA. Such a gift can save up to 73% in taxes!

The Boone and Crockett Club Foundation can help with your plan. Call today: Winton C. Smith, J.D. 1-800-727-1040

“During my twelve years in leadership roles I have found that Boone and Crockett Club members give unselfishly of their time and financial resources to support the Club’s many programs. That is why I have chosen to leave my IRA of approximately $1 million to the Club. Financially, it just makes sense.” ~ Gary Dietrich (Regular Member since 1998)

West Texas

in Changing Landscapes

Mule Deer

By Dustin Hollowell Wild Horse and Burro Specialist Bureau of Land Management

Mule deer are distributed throughout western North America from northern Mexico throughout the Great Plains to the western Canadian provinces and southern Yukon. Their extensive range, wild habitats, and prominence in historical accounts make them an icon of the American West.

“Looks like you’re headed west!” These welcomed words

meant that Dr. Louis Harveson had selected me as his graduate student and research partner and that I’d be trading the tall timbers of East Texas for West Texas, the land of big game milk and honey. The purpose was to complete the last leg of a three-part research project of Sul Ross State University and the Borderlands Research Institute on the ecology of desert mule deer populations in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas. Parts one and two had examined how precipitation patterns and changes in hunting season length affected populations of desert mule deer (see “Mule Deer Discoveries in the Trans-Pecos” in the Winter 2007 issue of Fair Chase). In part three, we would examine how these populations are affected by landscape-level changes in the Trans-Pecos region.

“Trans-Pecos” refers to all Texas real estate west of the Pecos River. Spread over nine counties, the area includes more than seven million hectares of Chihuahuan Desert supporting a rich diversity of wildlife, habitats, and elevations. When it comes to big game, there is very little that this region does not offer. It’s home to two subspecies of whitetail deer, desert mule deer, elk, desert bighorn sheep, pronghorn, javelina, and several introduced species such as aoudad and feral hogs. This region is also home to a plethora of game birds, song birds, small and mid-size mammals, and predators. In the presence of all of these distractions, I resolved to keep my focus solidly on desert mule deer.

I’d been fortunate to grow up in an area of Texas with both mule deer and whitetail deer, and my first big game harvest was a muley buck on a cold Thanksgiving morning with my dad. This experience, coupled with the majestic character of mule deer, gave me a deeprooted respect and passion for the species. Since then, mule deer have given me some of my most frustrating days afield, but some of my most memorable and happy ones too. The chance to live in the Trans-Pecos and study desert muleys was a dream come true.

A Curious Kind of Deer

Mule deer were first described in 1817 along the Big Sioux River in South Dakota by Charles LeRaye, a captive of the Sioux tribe. Later, mule deer were named and more thoroughly described in the journals of the famous Lewis and Clark expedition: “... a curious kind of deer” and “rarely found in any except rough country.” “...fully a third larger in general (than the common deer), and the male is particularly large …the 30 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

©TONY BYNUM

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 31

ears are peculiarly large…and their horns also differ, these in the common deer consist of two main beams from which one or more points project the beam graduly deminishing as the points procede from it, with the mule deer the horns consist of two beams which at the distance of 4 or 6 inches from the head divide themselves each into two equal branches which again either divide into two other equal branches or terminate in a smaller…the year [ear] and the tail of this anamal when compared with those of the common deer, so well comported with those of the mule when compared with the horse, that we have by way of distinction adapted the appellation of the mule deer.”

Mule deer are distributed throughout western North America from northern Mexico throughout the Great Plains to the western Canadian provinces and southern Yukon. Their extensive range, wild habitats, and prominence in historical accounts make them an icon of the American West.

In Texas, where desert mule deer range is limited, they are a highly-valued asset in any landscape or vista they inhabit.

Most campfire discussions among Texas hunters call up visions of tall-tined whitetail bucks coming through mesquite and cactus, lured

32 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

in by a hot doe or by the skillful rattling of antlers. While the wide-ranging whitetail deer is the primary ungulate hunted in Texas, the special challenge of mule deer hunting triggers an annual pilgrimage to the mountainous deserts of West Texas. The desert muley’s economic and aesthetic importance in West Texas is enormous.

Historically, desert mule deer populations in the southwest have experienced unpredictable ups and downs. Even with these fluctuations taken into account, data from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) surveys show an unprecedented decline in mule deer populations during the last 20 years. Both the year-to-year swings and the longer-term declines raise questions about the species’ future. Given the desert muley’s iconic status and its importance to West Texans and visitors alike, any insights into the declines are of high potential value to managers.

Mule deer researchers have identified several factors that influence populations and habitats including precipitation, fire, urban development, and livestock grazing; oil, gas, and mineral exploration and extraction; and invasions of aggressive woody plants, including pinyon pine, juniper, and cedar. Specific research on Trans-Pecos mule deer is limited

however, and population declines have not been addressed at a broad, landscape-scale.

Our project aimed to help fill the void by examining whether landscape-level changes are contributing to the declines. The results, we hoped, would be of practical use to landowners and resources managers in making management decisions.

A Satellite’s View of Mule Deer Country

More specifically, we wanted to examine cost-effective ways to detect and quantify changes in rangeland habitat on a landscape-level scale from two different time perspectives: 10-year intervals and 2-year intervals. We also wanted to evaluate the amount and degree of change and how it relates to changes in mule deer population trends. We hypothesized that mule deer population levels, as indicated from TPWD surveys, would show a relationship to changing environmental conditions detectable at the landscape scale.

We carried out this analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which are systems of computer hardware and software designed to store, retrieve, map, and analyze geographic data. Our source of geographic data was provided by Landsat satellite

imagery. Landsat is a program of earth-orbiting satellites jointly managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey since 1972. These satellites take specialized digital photographs to support a wide range of studies about physical and biological conditions on the Earth’s surface, including both natural and humaninduced changes. Our Landsat data had been “terrain corrected” to ensure that rough terrain and topography are accounted for when comparing remotely-sensed images collected at different periods in time. This was important because if a satellite image at time 1 without terrain correction is compared to a terrain-corrected image at time 2, the two maps will not precisely match and much of the image will be falsely reported as change.

Our geographic data was also “atmospherically corrected.” Atmospheric correction standardizes atmospheric conditions between times of image collection to ensure that, again, we are comparing apples to apples.

Once the data were corrected, we calculated a soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) for each image obtained. SAVI is a calculation performed on multi-band satellite images such as Landsat, to produce a singleband index that magnifies vegetation reflectance. This is useful in studies such as ours because vegetation reflectance has been found to be correlated with ecological indicators such as plant cover and “phytomass,” which is an estimate of the total mass of living plants in a given area at a given time.

In a nutshell, the soil-adjusted part of the equation was used to remove the reflectance of soil and factors other than vegetation as these sources are thought to dominate reflectance values in imagery of arid rangelands.

Each satellite image is made up of millions of pixels (short for “picture elements”), much like the images you see on your television screen. The SAVI calculation assigned each pixel a value (digital number) between -1.5 and 1.5 where the more positive the value, the more indicative of increased moisture and vegetation. Conversely, a negative value indicates a more arid landscape and lessdense vegetation.

Using a simple calculation based on these digital numbers, we were able to detect where change occurred, the direction of change (towards positive or towards negative), and the degree of change (how much the values moved in a positive or negative direction). Categories used for classifying the degree of change included: no change (minus10 percent to plus-10 percent), slight change (10.01 percent to 50 percent up or down), moderate change (50.01 percent to 100 percent up or down), and extreme change (greater than 100 percent up or down). We evaluated changes observed in 10-year

Trans Pecos Region of West Texas

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 33

increments (1985-1995 and 1995-2005) and in two-year increments between 1985 and 2005.

We compared the direction and degree of these changes to trends in desert mule deer population estimates across the Trans-Pecos and in management units delineated by TPWD. Please bear in mind that negative or positive change does not refer to “bad” or “good” change but rather to the direction of change based on the analysis of the imagery. For example, a change in the positive direction does not necessarily mean the change is good, it simply indicates that the landscape changed to represent lusher, greener, or denser vegetation on the landscape. Conversely, a change in a negative direction indicates a more arid landscape and

34 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

less dense vegetation. The relationships between direction and degree of habitat change and mule deer population trends were analyzed using a simple correlation analysis.

What We Saw

Analysis using 10-year time intervals did not provide much insight into specific factors influencing mule deer populations.

Population densities may rise and fall several times within a given decade in response to short-term conditions other than habitat change. As well, the 20-year inferential frame could be too short to evaluate long-term population trends and their relationship to habitat. However, the view using 10-year time frames did yield some interesting discoveries.

The overwhelming majority of our observed management units, as well as regionwide population trends, displayed an increasing or stabilizing trend in deer abundance during the latter 10-year frame of the study. TPWD biologists noted that until the early to mid-1990s, rangelands in the TransPecos region, especially the eastern portion, were primarily used for sheep and cattle grazing. Since then, many landowners and land managers have decreased livestock numbers and incorporated wildlife into their operations—a change that reduces competition between mule deer and livestock. Additional insight was provided by inventory data sets from the management units in the eastern part of the Trans-Pecos. These data showed that mule deer populations there have experienced better stabilization and recovery than most of the populations elsewhere in the region. We graphed cattle and sheep stocking rates for the region with data provided by the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service and these rates were nearly equal to, and the exact inverse, of mule deer population trends across the region! It suggested that the land-use trend of managing more for wildlife and less for domestic animals could be contributing to the stability and increases in mule deer populations in these management units and across the region.

Another interesting finding was that in the latter time frame, the amount of the landscape that fell under the “no change” category outweighed that of the first 10-year interval by nearly four times. This suggests an overall sensitivity of desert mule deer populations to disturbances that change habitat conditions at the landscape level.

Habitat quality and quantity are directly related to land-use choices such as fire suppression, livestock grazing, urban sprawl, and oil/gas/mineral exploration and extraction, as well as natural factors (e.g., precipitation, brush encroachment). Although our study did not examine effects of specific land-use activities, it’s safe to say that any activity that reduces habitat quality and quantity may temporarily cause adverse effects on mule deer populations.

Evaluation of landscape change with respect to the shorter, two-year intervals produced some results consistent with our hypothesis that landscape changes indicating more arid conditions and reduced vegetation are related to mule deer population declines.

Generally, SAVI changes in a positive direction were found to be correlated with upward or stabilizing population trends, and SAVI changes in a negative direction were correlated with downward population trends.

Changes observed in the slight and moderate

Although mule deer management approaches may vary depending on region, climatic conditions, and management circumstances, the goal of biologists and managers alike is to apply the best information possible. This is critical for the future of both conservation and the hunting heritage. change categories in the negative direction also showed a correlation with downwardtrending mule deer populations. So little of the change detected fell into the extreme change category that it was not a factor in our analysis.

Changes in the positive or negative direction also correlated with the amount of precipitation, a finding consistent with the first stage of this research in which mule deer population trends were found to be tightly linked to patterns of precipitation. Clearly, precipitation is a huge factor driving the trends of mule deer populations in west Texas.

Precipitation determines the amount of plant growth in the Trans-Pecos and other desert environments, and thus affects the amount and quality of cover and forage. Cover is important for fawning, protection from predation, and thermal cover (shade) in West Texas. Forage production, particularly of forbs (broad-leaved herbs) needs no clarification as to its importance to mule deer populations and other big game species. In summary, the effects of adequate precipitation (or lack thereof) across the landscape are critical for mule deer.

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Still More to Learn

As is typical in research, more quesof habitat alteration, specific habitat types tions arise than are answered. The more these being changed, and how questions can be addressed, the more complete mule deer populations will be our understanding of mule deer ecology respond to those chang- and management. Although mule deer manes. As well, more specific agement approaches may vary depending on information about land- region, climatic conditions, and management use activities and habitat circumstances, the goal of biologists and changes could be used managers alike is to apply the best information to evaluate effects on possible. This is critical for the future of both other species inhabiting conservation and the hunting heritage.

My experiences in West Texas have the Trans-Pecos. In particular, future research deepened my appreciation for the desert mule evaluating intensities, deer and its rugged haunts. It’s my hope that timing, and methods of livestock grazing may this special creature will continue to grace prove critical for understanding habitat re- western vistas, reward hunters, and produce lationships15748 andPLS_fairchase.ai management options million-dollar smiles for generations to 3/7/11 for2:25:46 PM Trans-Pecos wildlife. come. n

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The habitat types in the Trans-Pecos vary greatly depending on location, elevation, soils, precipitation, and season. Some of these habitats provide optimum habitat and boast high mule deer densities. However other habitats such as desert scrub in the lowlands may only provide marginal habitat. If these marginal habitats were to experience extreme change, mule deer densities may not be significantly affected on a landscape scale. Although our study focused on the amount and direction of change in landscape conditions, we’d sure like to know more about the types of habitat change (e.g. brush encroachment, fragmentation, agriculture, etc.) that may be playing a role in changing mule deer densities.

Resource managers across the southwest would surely benefit from future research that focuses on specific kinds CY

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HUNTING, ETHICS, AND BIG GAME RECORDS Hunting and Land Ethic | Page 38 The 6.5s | Page 42 Then and Now – Kentucky Whitetails | Page 50 Photo Essay – Hunting Cassiar | Page 56 Beyond the Score | Page 60 NEW SECTION – Spotlight on Youth Hunters | Page 62 Recently Accepted Trophies | Page 68 B&C Field Photos | Page 74

A

John Eriksson/Images On The Wildside

ldo Leopold’s essay about hunting and the land ethic is as relevant today as it was over 70 years ago when he penned the concept. A reminder we could all use. Which leads us to the hunt. Should your next rifle be a 6.5mm?

Read all about this long-ignored cartridge and see if it’s a good choice for you. Wildlife biologist and long-time B&C Official Measurer Bill Cooper brings readers up to speed on the success that Kentucky has had managing their whitetail deer population.

Don’t miss the striking images in this issue’s “Photo Essay” graciously provided to us by B&C Official Measurer, L. Victor Clark. We also launch our newest feature section in Fair Chase, Generation Next, which celebrates today’s youth hunters as well as various youth hunting programs throughout North America.

36 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 37

I spent a dozen purple dusks and gilded dawns last

December hunkered down in hoar-frosted coulees, hiding in the rabbitbrush and sage, and fording icy streams during a late-season Colorado elk hunt. In an area with too many elk and not enough wolves, hunting cow elk provides a powerful conservation tool because of its effectiveness in thinning herds.

By Cristina Eisenberg Boone and Crockett Club Fellow

Courtesy of the Aldo Leopold Foundation www.aldoleopold.org

Estella Leopold dove hunting with her son Starker by her side.

Boone and Crockett Club Conservation Fellow Cristina Eisenberg is completing her doctorate in Forestry and Wildlife at Oregon State University. She is the author of The Wolf’s Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades, and Biodiversity, published by Island Press in 2010 and is at work on her second book, about large carnivore ecology and management in the West.

38 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

I had convened a science hunt on the High Lonesome Ranch, where I work as the research director. The ranch comprises a sublime, 300-square-miles of deeded and permitted land in north-central Colorado on the west slope of the Rocky Mountains. Its rugged, aspen-crowned mountains and deep river valleys hold healthy deer and elk herds and provide a home to abundant cougars, black bears, and more.

Threatened and endangered species returning here include wolf and lynx.

Inspired by American ecologist Aldo Leopold, principal ranch owner and Boone and Crockett Club regular member Paul R. Vahldiek, Jr., hopes that the High Lonesome Ranch will serve as a land ethic blueprint for private lands. Vahldiek and his partners’ key restoration strategies include reducing habitat fragmentation and conserving top carnivores that benefit ecosystem health. Their efforts involve predator-friendly ranching, stream and grassland restoration, and using hunting as a conservation tool. A true mixed-use enterprise, the High Lonesome Ranch offers big game hunting and wing-shooting opportunities to guests, while being actively managed as a cattle ranch and as a collaborative effort with several universities to implement science that fosters greater awareness of how to create healthier landscapes.

My hunting companions on the High Lonesome included Michael Soulé, who founded the science of conservation biology, and James Estes, a prominent marine ecologist who studies how predation by sea otters shapes ocean ecosystems. Soulé is a co-investigator on the High Lonesome. Both men were veterans of many hunting seasons, but I was new to hunting. Indeed, Soulé, who has long been a Zen Buddhist, created a furor when he took up hunting some years ago—a Buddhist journal began referring to him as the “Buckshot Bodhisatva.” And so these men, who had long mentored me in my science, now also mentored me in my first hunt.

I grew up in a hunting household. My father had been raised on a ranch in northern Mexico, where his job was to hunt to provide food for the cowboys and help with the cattle.

My grandfather lost the ranch for financial reasons, after which my father went to work for the diplomatic service and spent the rest of his life in cities. But wherever he lived he tried to hunt. He founded a hunting organization in California to promote fair chase and ethical hunting. My brothers never took up hunting. And so, a few years ago, before my father died, he gave me his guns and told me it was my turn.

As a scientist, I study how predation affects whole ecosystems. Specifically, I look at how wolf predation affects this species’ primary prey (elk) and how this relationship can influence whole ecosystems. Remove an apex predator such as the wolf, and elk grow more abundant and bold, damaging their habitat by consuming vegetation unsustainably. Lacking apex predators, ecosystems can support fewer species, because the plants that create habitat for these species have been over-browsed.

Early Boone and Crockett Club professional member Aldo Leopold in the 1920s recognized that top predators benefit ecosystems in myriad ways by increasing the movement of energy through them. Yet, he also knew that given human needs for land use and development, it isn’t possible to have wolves and other top predators in as many places as they roamed several hundred years ago. Leopold was among the first to suggest that hunting by humans, if done properly, can help emulate the effects of top predators. This concept, which he first proposed in the 1940s while grappling with the Wisconsin deer population explosion that had resulted from removing all the wolves and cougars from that state, was highly controversial.

A lifelong hunter, he had the temerity to suggest harvesting does as the most effective way to control the deer population. His suggestion was poorly received by the public.

Leopold firmly believed in the use of ethical hunting as one of our most effective conservation tools. In the 1910s, fresh out of the Yale School of Forestry, he pioneered some of the pillars of contemporary conservation: bag limits for hunters, wildlife refuges, and the first national wilderness area. Consequently, in 1922 he was recruited as a Boone and Crockett Club Professional Member, serving in this position until his death in 1948. During his tenure as a Professional Member, he founded the science of wildlife biology, focusing his research on deer and elk population dynamics, predation by wolves and cougars, and the role of hunting by humans to help create healthier game populations.

In his seminal book, A Sand County Almanac, Leopold articulated his land ethic philosophy. He wrote, “A thing is right if it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Leopold embodied the land ethic and fair chase. His entire family—from his wife to his young children— hunted with him. In his family life, he strove to demonstrate how humans are integral members of the biotic community—and that hunting is an essential component of land stewardship. Leopold died long before his ideas about hunting and the land ethic were accepted.

Indeed, today hunting remains controversial in some circles and the wolf’s conservation status continues to be uncertain.

Predation and the primal act of hunting are intrinsic elements of who we are as humans. These relationships are eloquently elucidated across the ages in Paleolithic petroglyphs of spear-wielding humans and saber-toothed tigers killing bison. As omnivores, our diet has historically consisted of wild foods harvested from the land, which includes the flesh of other animals. Today, as we strive to live more lightly on the earth, some of us are turning to hunting beyond sport as both a way to create healthier ecosystems and nourish ourselves with healthy food.

While hunting by humans isn’t quite a surrogate for hunting by wild predators (because humans hunt differently than wolves —e.g., we don’t kill young or sick animals, and we don’t hunt at close range or year-round), it can provide an effective conservation tool.

It sometimes takes a village to create a hunter. My father was gone, so I turned to the Boone and Crockett Club to prepare me for my first hunt. Last August I took the Women’s Hunter Education course, taught at the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch (TRMR) under the sponsorship of Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks. In retrospect, there couldn’t have been a better, more supportive, or more enjoyable way to learn the fundamental skills necessary for me to obtain my hunting

license. The instructors included women who have made enormous contributions to wildlife science and conservation: wildlife biologists Diane Boyd and Ursula Mattson, and Boone and Crockett Club’s Director of Conservation Education, Lisa Flowers.

The TRMR lies southeast of Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, where short-grass prairie meets the sharp limestone upthrust of the Rocky Mountain Front. Owned and operated by the Club as a place-based conservation education center and a research station affiliated with the University of Montana Wildlife Biology Program, the TRMR is a demonstration ranch, an example of how conservation and ranching can work together—quite a challenge, considering grizzly bears and wolves live in this wild landscape, along with cougars, a large migratory elk herd, a large population of migratory mule deer, and residential whitetail deer.

To get to the TRMR, I drove eight miles west on a gravel road from the small ranching town of Dupuyer toward the ranch, which lies deep within the foothills that crest and break against the Rocky Mountain Front.

Late summer sunlight brought silvery aspen and inky conifers into sharp relief against gentle mounds of prairie. Dark forms of grazing cattle dotted the hills, part of the 200 cow-calf pairs stocked on this ranch. When I arrived in the late afternoon, a full class of about 25 women had begun to gather at the Elmer Rasmuson Wildlife Conservation Center, a state-of-the-art teaching facility that each year welcomes 300 teachers, 2,000 students, and other civic and conservation organizations. Coming from diverse backgrounds and ages, we became acquainted over a delicious ranch supper, during which we exchanged personal stories about why we wanted to learn about hunting.

The course was an empowering experience for all because of the many inspiring women present—from expert hunters such as Diane Boyd to teenage girls who had just been given their first rifle. My roommate, a softspoken woman in her early sixties who had never hunted before, was perhaps the most

The author (front and center) with her Women’s Hunter Education group at the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Ranch.

inspiring person for me. A recent widow, she was taking the course because her husband, an avid hunter, had left her his guns. While mourning him, she had decided that she not only wanted to learn how to use these firearms, but she wanted to participate in a hunt.

We gathered in the welcoming space the instructors had created against the breathtaking backdrop of the Rocky Mountain Front for our intensive course in hunting. We learned about everything from firearms to fair chase, hunting regulations, wilderness survival, game field-dressing methods, and more. We spent the afternoon on the TRMR shooting range, learning to use and clean rifles and shotguns.

And at the end of the day, when we took our hunter safety exams, everyone passed. This course provided yet another demonstration of how the Club is keeping the land ethic alive by supporting hunting by all, including women, as part of sustaining the hunting tradition.

Nearly four months later I found myself silently making my way toward a herd of 40 elk at dawn across restored native grassland on the High Lonesome Ranch. Estes, Soulé, and my other hunting companions taught me the art of waiting patiently for the right shot, and how hunting can be one of the best ways to honor an animal’s life. As we hunted we spoke about science, conservation, and the land ethic. We talked about the importance of “saving all the pieces” as Leopold put it, which included the carnivores, and how this would help create healthier herds of elk and deer.

I got my elk after six days of hunting hard. She was a beautiful three-year-old cow, which I stalked at dawn across a mile of open grassland and a stream. I thought I would be nervous when I took that shot, but I wasn’t, and my shot was true. She will feed me and my family and friends for one year. And her meat tastes of sagebrush and snowy mountains and clear streams and deep wildness—the sort of wildness Aldo Leopold wrote about in his land ethic essay. n Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 39

We are happy to announce our first-ever limited edition hat for friends of the Boone and Crockett Club. This will be the only new hat offered by B&C in 2011. Supplies are limited – get one while they last!

This handsome, low-profile, six-panel hat in brown pigment-dyed cotton is sure to be a hat you will wear again and again. The fabric has the look of oil cloth without the weight. The front of the hat features an embroidered stone felt appliqué of the classic Boone and Crockett Club medallion logo and the side features “Limited Edition 2011” embroidery. Also includes a velcro closure for a self-adjusting fit. This hat is only available to current Boone and Crockett Club Associates, Members, and Official Measurers.

Not an Associate?

Sign up with this order and be eligible to order the limited edition hat or Sitka Gear.

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Designed for the active hunter, the 90% Jacket is built of a durable, and breathable, 2-way stretch, DWR treated soft shell material. Available M-XXL

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All Sitka Jackets and Vests are available only to current B&C Associates, B&C Members, and B&C Official Measurers. Each item has been customized with a B&C label and includes free monogramming by request.

40 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

We hope that you have enjoyed your association with Boone and Crockett Club and have been able to see what the Club is doing to protect hunting, promote wildlife conservation, and educate the public. We also hope that you will take this opportunity to join our growing list of Lifetime Associates who have stepped up their support of the Club’s work.

Boone and Crockett Club introduces a new Lifetime Associate membership fee for our supporters aged 65 and over. Those individuals who are 65 and over can now upgrade to a Lifetime Associate at the discounted rate of $750. The regular fee for individuals under 65 remains at $1,000.

Please call us at 406/542-1888 to speak with a Lifetime Associates Program specialist or visit our web site for more details: www.booneandcrockettclub.com

Please Welcome Our Newest B&C Lifetime Associates

746. Pamela S. Atwood – Monte Sereno, CA 747. Stanford H. Atwood, Jr. – Monte Sereno, CA 748. Ryan Friedkin – Houston, TX 749. Corbin Friedkin – Houston, TX 751. Shelley E. Plymale, Jr. – Overland Park, KS 752. Luke R. Viravec – Crooked Creek, AB 753. Mychal Murray – Bellaire, TX 754. Gavin Strait – Greencastle, PA 755. James L. Smith – Dickinson, TX

LIFETIME ASSOCIATES BENEFITS Subscription to Fair Chase n Lifetime shirt with B&C logo n Leather hat with B&C logo n Lifetime Associates plaque n 20% discount on select B&C books n Significant tax deduction n Invitations to special events

n

756. Stanford K. Williams – Northbrook, IL 757. George D. Leidel – Sebring, FL 758. William P. McBeath – Las Vegas, NV 759. Nyle R. Swast – Templeton, PA 760. Ted F. Volken – Lincoln, CA 762. William M. Krall – Kemmerer, WY As of May 31, 2011

New B&C Lifetime Associate George D. Leidel New B&C Lifetime Associate William M. Krall New B&C Lifetime Associate Nyle R. Swast with his daughter Nyla

The Boone and Crockett Club would like to thank our Lifetime Associates for their loyalty and support of the Club’s commitment to science-based wildlife management and the user-pay North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 41

The

6.5s

Long ignored stateside, 6.5mm cartridges have surged of late.

Should your next rifle be a 6.5?

“Not enough gun,” said my professional hunter. Perhaps,

By Wayne van Zwoll B&C Professional Member Photos courtesy of author

I conceded, without saying so. A bull eland can weigh a ton. Mine was a deer rifle, by most measures. Still, when we spied the beast in scrub thorn across a broad basin, I chambered up. We closed quickly. When the cover got thin, I bellied forward alone. At 80 yards, I found a shot alley and cinched the sling tight—then settled down to wait. The eland was bedded, quartering off; I wanted to see front rib. My muscles had begun to cramp when at last the bull stood. But he turned instantly, presenting no shot….

It’s not that a 6.5 can’t kill. A century ago, explorer and B&C member Frederick Courtney Selous and the celebrated hunter W.D.M. Bell reportedly used the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer on animals as big as elephants.

Its long, solid bullets penetrated pachyderm skulls to destroy the brain.

Both men were deadly marksmen, and cool in crises. B&C member Charles Sheldon also liked the 6.5x54. In Alaska he found it adequate for brown bears, sheep, and moose. The flat arc of its slender bullet—and the trim Mannlicher-Schoenauer carbines popular in this chambering—won favor from accomplished riflemen with a lust for the far horizon.

Modern 6.5s, from left to right: .264 Winchester Magnum, 6.5/284, 6.5x55, .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor

42 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 43

6.5

Creedmoor

44 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

There’s nothing magical about numbers. But when enthusiasts talk of classic sports-car engines or the diameters of hunting bullets, numbers take on personality. Bullet sizes followed custom as cartridge firearms replaced muzzle-loaders after the Civil War. Diameters shrank and velocities increased with the development of smokeless powder during the 1890s. But the diameters of bullets that armed the world’s powers at that time seemed to come from nowhere. Great Britain settled on the .303 British, with a .311 bullet, in 1888. That year, Germany adopted the 7.92mm (8mm) Mauser with a .318 bullet; it switched to the .323 “JS” bullet in 1905. The U.S. fielded the .30-40 Krag in 1892, the .30-03 in 1903, the .30-06 in 1906. All used a .308 bullet. Italy, Sweden and Japan chose 6.5mm, or .264, bullets, in the 6.5x52 Italian (1891), 6.5x55 Swedish (1894) and 6.5 Arisaka (1897). Holland, Greece and Portugal also adopted 6.5s.

What does all this have to do with hunting? Actually, a lot.

First a review. Bullet diameter is not the bore diameter of a rifle. It matches groove diameter. Spiral grooves, cut into the bore to spin bullets for better accuracy, lie between the bore-diameter lands, which grab the bullet.

The bullet shank fills the grooves as the lands engrave it. For 30-caliber rifles firing cartridges like the .30-06, bullet diameter is .308. For 270-caliber rounds, bullet diameter is .277.

And so on. Cartridge designation does not follow strict rules. Sometimes it’s confusing: The .308 Winchester, for example, uses the same-size bullets as the .300 Savage. The .308 is named for groove or bullet diameter, the .300 for bore diameter. In some cases, the cartridge designation matches neither!

In Europe, smokeless cartridges are labeled by bullet diameter and case length in millimeters. So the 7x57 uses a 7mm (.284) bullet in a case 57mm long. Some U.S. cartridges, like the 6mm Remington and the 7mm and 8mm Remington Magnums, specify bullet diameters in the European tradition.

The .30-06, named for bore diameter and year of introduction, had a bullet diameter made popular in the .30-40 Krag and .30 Winchester Centerfire or .30 WCF, later called the .30-30. The first magnum widely chambered in the U.S. was also a .30: the .300 Holland & Holland. The .270 broke from that trend in 1925. Flat-shooting, with power to Flat arcs (and lightweight rifles) suit the .260 Remington and 6.5 Creedmoor to mountain game.

The Creedmoor is civil in recoil and accurate making it a versatile, efficient hunting cartridge.

From prone at long range, Wayne killed this elk with a Magnum Research rifle in 6.5 Creedmoor.

kill elk-size game, the .270 became a hit. Jack O’Connor, and many other gun writers, adored the .270. Not until 1962, when Remington announced its 7mm Magnum, would a hunting cartridge draw such acclaim. Meanwhile, in Europe, the 6.5x68 Schuler appeared.

Based on the the 8x68S, it was a hot number for the day, more than matching the .270 for long shots at big game.

Some years ago in Spain, I looked without luck for a big Spanish ibex. The week drew to a close. On the mountain with a camera the final day, I met a Spaniard who, upon hearing my story, insisted I stay to hunt with him one more afternoon. “You can use my rifle.” I consented. Late that day, we spied a big ram hundreds of yards off. “Shoot from here,” he said, insisting that his 6.5x68 shot so flat I didn’t have to hold high. I politely demurred and convinced him to try an approach. We paused on a rock ledge across from the ram, and my amigo again urged me to fire. “Too far,” I said, then suggested he stay there while I stalked. He threw up his hands as if I’d suggested standing on my head to empty my pockets. But fortune favored me; minutes later I made a 200-yard shot, prone, dropping the ibex instantly. It was a memorable hunt, the only one I’ve made with the 6.5x68.

The 8x68 trailed by some years the best-known 6.5 of all, the 6.5x55. Birthed in the 19th century, “The Swede” is hardly as potent as modern 6.5 magnums, but it’s still a versatile cartridge. A few years back, poking through Wyoming lodgepoles with a Howa rifle in 6.5x55, I bounced two elk from a finger ridge. They galloped off into the canyon below, one sweeping right, one left. I dashed forward, chose the left-hand route and found a shot alley just as the bull paused. Hit through the lungs, it spun and vanished. I plunged after it, and managed to tag it once more, ending the hunt. My 140-grain soft-points clock about 2,650 fps; traditional 156-grain round-nose bullets loaf through the woods at 2,550 fps. Swedish hunters say that’s fast enough. The 6.5x55 has killed more Scandinavian moose than any other round.

Intelligent case design means smooth feeding and efficient thrust in short barrels. Recoil is modest. Recently I carried a Swedish 1896 carbine for pronghorns. The 18 1/2-inch barrel and an aperture sight gave this little Mauser a wand-like feel. The effective reach of Norma’s 120-grain Ballistic Tip load far exceeded my iron-sight range. A buck that allowed me too close on a rainy morning dropped summarily to one shot.

There’s nothing magical about numbers. But when enthusiasts talk of classic sports-car engines or the diameters of hunting bullets, numbers take on personality.

As 6.5s proliferated in Europe, American shooters tried other sub-30 cartridges.

Charles Newton, trained as a lawyer but immersed in rifles and cartridges, developed the .250 for Savage in 1913. Savage dubbed it the .250-3000 because its 87-grain bullet flew at an astounding 3,000 feet per second. About the same time, Newton also fielded a .25-06.

With Fred Adolph, he fashioned other cartridges. In August 1914, he founded the Newton Arms Company, intending to build rifles from DWM Mausers. His timing couldn’t have been worse: Germany went to war a day before the first shipment of Mausers was due.

Not easily deterred, Newton designed a new rifle from scratch and loaded his own ammunition. He even came up with deep-driving softnose bullets for tough game. But Newton depended on Remington for brass. The initial production run of Newton rifles shipped in January 1917—just as America entered the war and the government seized control of ammunition plants! Making the best of bad luck, Newton tooled up to make cartridges.

But in August 1918, banks supporting his venture sent it into receivership. He Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 45

Best 6.5?

The 6.5 Creedmoor ranks among Wayne’s favorite cartridges. Here’s why: 120 A-Max (Hornady) Velocity, fps Energy, ft-lbs Arc, inches 129 SST (Hornady) Velocity, fps Energy, ft-lbs Arc, inches 140 A-Max (Hornady) Velocity, fps Energy, ft-lbs Arc, inches

Muzzle

100 yds.

200 yds.

300 yds.

400 yds.

2910 2256 -1.5

2712 1959 1.6

2522 1695 0

2340 1459 -7.1

2166 1250 -20.5

Muzzle

100 yds.

200 yds.

300 yds.

400 yds.

2950 2492 -1.5

2756 2175 1.5

2570 1892 0

2392 1639 -6.8

2221 1417 -19.7

Muzzle

100 yds.

200 yds.

300 yds.

400 yds.

2710 2238 -1.5

2557 2032 1.9

2409 1804 0

2266 1596 -7.9

2128 1408 -22.6

persevered with the Charles Newton Rifle Corporation in April 1919. A deal with Eddystone Arsenal to supply equipment fell through, however. Later he formed the Buffalo Newton Rifle Corporation to build and market rifles of his own design. It failed in 1929, shortly before Newton’s death.

The ill fortune that dogged Charles Newton probably had nothing to do with the failure of 6.5mm cartridges to win the hearts of hunters stateside. Still….

The .256 Newton was the first commercial 6.5 sold in the U.S. It debuted in 1913.

Unlike the .250 Savage, .25-06 and later .257 Roberts, it did not use a .257 bullet. Its original load was a 129-grain .264 bullet at 2,760 fps.

With modern powders, you can easily add 150 fps. The .256 Newton had the .30-06’s .473 base; at 2.44 inches, the .256 hull was about .05 shorter. A few years ago, talented rifle-maker Buzz Fletcher loaned me a Mauser he’d barreled to .256 Newton—a lovely rifle with the slim, elegant profile favored in Newton’s time. I handloaded for it and found it a joy to shoot. Buzz eventually pried it away.

With .25s on one side and the .270 and 7x57 Mauser on the other, even the most endearing 6.5s had a devilish time wooing American hunters. Following World War II, surplus Swedish Mausers sold at steep discount, with battle-weary .303 SMLEs and 8mm Mausers. But no foreign round threatened the .30-06 or .270 in North American game fields.

Winchester’s .264 Magnum, introduced in 1959, gave shooters a high-octane 6.5. Based on the belted .458 introduced three years earlier, the .264 Winchester Magnum is nearly identical to the 7mm Remington Magnum in profile. But instead of promoting its new round as a long-range cartridge for deer and elk—as Remington would later hawk its big 7—Winchester billed the .264 as a deer/ varmint round. Rather than point out that the .264 shot flatter than a .30 magnum but kicked less (Remington would do that too!), Winchester came out with full-page ads showing the .264’s muzzle end-on, with this caption: “It makes a helluva noise and packs a helluva wallop!” Shooters of that day were not impressed. Claims of rapid throat wear hamstrung the .264. The 7mm Remington Magnum almost killed it. Winchester put a nail in the coffin when it reduced .264 Magnum starting velocities in its ballistics tables from 3,200 fps to 3,030 for the 140-grain Power Point. “You might as well shoot a .270!” exclaimed shooters.

This bull dropped to Wayne’s second shot from a 6.5 Creedmoor—marginal, he says, for eland.

46 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

An E.R. Shaw rifle in 6.5/284 shot this group for the author. Long actions get most from this round.

Actually, loaded to its potential and fired in a 26-inch barrel, the .264 Magnum can launch 140s faster than even the original factory claims. With slow powders like IMR 7828 and RL-25, I’ve clocked Sierra spitzers beyond 3,300 fps. No pressure signals. The superior ballistic coefficients of 140- and 150grain 6.5mm bullets give the .264 Winchester an edge on Remington’s 7mm Magnum at long range.

Remington tip-toed into 6.5 territory in 1966, with its 6.5 Remington Magnum.

This belted round (with its sibling, the .350 Remington Magnum) appeared in the Models 600 and 660 carbines, built from 1965 to 1971.

The 6.5 Remington Magnum has a 2.15-inch hull, compared to the .264 Winchester Magnum’s 2.50-inch case (derived, like those of most of our belted magnums, from the 2.85inch .375 H&H, circa 1912). Ballistically, the 6.5 Remington Magnum matches the .270.

The .260 Remington outperforms the Swede. Essentially the .308 necked to .264, it appeared in 2002. I suspect the .260’s modest success at market is partly the fault of the 7mm-08, which preceded it by a decade and earned quite a following. With 120-grain

bullets, the .260 has an edge downrange. And 120s are all you need for deer-size game. On the final day of one Colorado hunt, I spied a group of elk on a far ridge. I sneaked to within 270 yards on an opposite rise, bellying the last yards in deep snow. Sling snug in prone, I triggered the Kimber 84M. A cow lurched, dashed downhill, then somersaulted to a stop in a cloud of snow. The .260 Remington shoots flat, delivers a lethal sting and babies you in recoil.

Inspired by its success in long-range target-shooting, a growing number of hunters are embracing the 6.5/.284. VLD (very low drag) bullets have helped raise the profile of this round, which performs best in long rifle actions, where leggy bullets of high ballistic coefficient can be seated out. Norma and

Black Hills catalog ammunition for the 6.5/.284. Lapua lists brass. My rack holds two rifles in 6.5/.284: a heavy sporter with a Savage action and a fluted stainless barrel by E.R. Shaw, and a synthetic-stocked welter-weight

by Ultra-Light Arms. Melvin Forbes at ULA designed his Model 20 action to accept midlength rounds like the 7x57 and the .284 Winchester. Its magazine accepts 3-inch cartridges. Both these 6.5/284 rifles shoot nickel-size groups with hunting loads.

The most potent short 6.5 is the Lazzeroni 6.71mm Phantom, based on John Lazzeroni’s rimless case trimmed to 2.05 inches. Head diameter is .580, keeping case capacity (and ballistic potential) close to that of the .264 Winchester Magnum. The 6.71 Lazzeroni is a factory-loaded round, but it’s

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 47

commercially chambered only in Lazzeroni rifles.

While 6.5s have been designed mainly for bolt rifles, the rising popularity of AR-15s has inspired new, smaller 6.5 rounds. The 6.5 Grendel, circa 2002, derived from the PPC Benchrest. Its 1.52-inch case is shorter than the .223’s, but loaded length is the same. It was fashioned by Bill Alexander of Alexander Arms and by Arne Brennan, who’d chambered a prototype in an AR in 1998. (Lou Palmisano had set this stage in 1984 with the first 6.5 PPC round.) Les Baer’s .264 LBC AR cartridge is essentially the Grendel under a different label. Chamber dimensions differ slightly. Both deliver fine accuracy. Using a bolt rifle, Arne Brennan fired a 600-meter group with the Grendel that miked less than 1.2 inches! Velocities reach 2,500 fps with 129-grain bullets.

The most recent 6.5 of note is the 6.5 Creedmoor, announced in 2009 and named for the famous New York shooting range on Creed’s Farm that once hosted long-range rifle competition. Dave Emary, senior ballistician at Hornady and veteran cartridge designer, tapped competitive riflemen for new ideas. An accomplished 1,000-yard marksman himself, Emary necked the .30 T/C hull to .264. The shoulder on this compact case is well to the rear, to help with long bullets in short actions. Powder technology from

48 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Hornady Superformance ammunition gives the Creedmoor speed to match the .270’s at distance. Truly versatile, the Creedmoor has more bite than the 6.5x55, is better suited to VLD bullets than the .260.

I learned about the 6.5 Creedmoor by way of a rifle from Todd Seyfert at Magnum Research. The Remington 700 action wears a carbon-fiber barrel with a Kreiger stainless core. GreyBull Precision added a stock and a modified 4.5-14x Leupold scope. Its 1/3-minute elevation dial is calibrated specifically for the 129 SST in the 6.5 Creedmoor. “You shouldn’t have to hold over,” said GreyBull’s Don Ward.

“Spin the dial to the correct range setting and aim dead-on.” Prone with a sling, I was soon banging steel out to 500 yards. Friend John Burns then called a coyote across a New Mexico mesa. At 250 yards from the sit, I slid a 129-grain SST through its ribs. The coyote dropped without a twitch. Next up: elk.

Some hunters consider .270-class cartridges marginal for elk. And though I had killed them with the 6.5x55 and the .260, bullet placement does become increasingly important as payload shrinks. I gave this 6.5 Creedmoor rifle a good workout at 500-yard gongs, but promised myself close shooting at game. Alas, when Ray Milligan (Milligan Brand Outfitting) spied a bull, there was no approach. “Your call,” he whispered. “But the air is dead-still.” I snugged the sling, settled

into prone and cranked up the scope’s elevation dial. The bull showed me his forward ribs, spot-lit by a sinking red sun. I crushed the trigger. The elk sun-fished and sprinted, then crashed into the sagebrush. The shot was twice as long as any I had attempted at elk in 35 years of hunting. Still, the SST had hit within a hand’s breadth of my aiming point.

Ruger 77 and No. 1 rifles in 6.5 Creedmoor, then a South African hunt with a Thompson/Center Icon, have further endeared this cartridge to riflemen. With a T/C I dropped a vaal rhebok at 250 yards. A mountain reedbuck dropped as if struck by a train. I found the Creedmoor’s limit with an eland.

The bull had taken my 120-grain GMX in the near lung. The angle was nearperfect, my shot sent to the off-shoulder.

Unlike the bedded eland that had denied me a shot, this one had shown me just what I wanted. The great splayed prints led us up into heavier thorn. An hour passed; we kept to the track. Then, a stone’s toss ahead, spiral horns moved above the canopy! We raced forward. The bull dashed away into a canyon, then suddenly reappeared, lunging up the far side. “Two hundred,” hissed Andrew. Dropping the rifle onto the sticks offhand, I fired.

Behind! I flicked the bolt, shot again as the bull vanished.

We found him dying. I stood to the side. My final bullet had driven forward from between the hams, slicing the dorsal aorta near the spine. “A perfect hit,” said Andrew.

We both knew it was a lucky shot. “Eland take some killing.”

There’s no magic in bullets .264 in diameter. But for all but the heaviest game, the 6.5mms have proven themselves capable.

The 6.5x55, .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, 6.5/284 and .264 Winchester Magnum, especially, deliver a most useful combination of bullet weight and speed. Civil recoil, even in rifles trim enough for long carries, mark the first three. The remaining two send bullets on flatter arcs than the fabled .270, with enough downrange punch for elk.

The greatest challenge I’ve yet given a 6.5 was a beef-size steel slab, hung a measured mile from a bald Wyoming ridge. A Remington-based .264 Magnum, built by GreyBull, was stuffed with handloads sporting VLD bullets long as knitting needles. I leaned into the sling, watched my pulse subside, felt the zephyrs shift from two o’clock to twelve, then die. The rifle spat.

I missed. Then I missed some more.

When at last a faint wink in our powerful optics showed the brief wiggle of steel, my partner allowed, straight-faced, that his load was finally figuring out the wind. n

Best of 2011

Sponsored by

The hunting experience is remembered and reflected back upon in many ways. In the old days, just the meat, head skins, hides, horns, antlers, or tusks were salvaged as mementoes of successful hunts. With the advent of the camera, photographs were added to what we could carry with us across time to remember the hunt and honor the animals taken.

The Boone and Crockett Club has a tradition of honoring trophies and the fair chase hunts that produce them, including photographs from the field. In keeping with this tradition, the Club, and our friends at Swarovski, thought it would be a good idea to take this one step further and celebrate some of the best examples of field photography, and share them with you in each issue of Fair Chase.

For the third year, our editors will be sifting through hundreds of field photos looking for exemplary trophy field photography. The most

outstanding examples will be featured in the Spring 2012 issue with the top three being awarded prizes provided by Swarovski Optik.

Ashley L. Gonzales Typical mule deer – 194-5/8 Rio Arriba Co., New Mexico October 2010

NOTE: All field photographs from accepted trophies in 2011 are eligible.

Michael J. Radford desert sheep– 173-1/8 Washington Co., Utah September 2010

Joel T. Nicholson typical American elk – 376-6/8 Hilda, Alberta September 2010

Winners Receive

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Second Prize - EL 10x42 WB

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© Photo by donald m. jones

Compact, lightweight telescopes for long walks and extended stalking trips in difficult terrain, such as in the mountains. Fluoride-containing HD lenses minimize color fringing (chromatic aberration) and deliver contrast-rich images with razor-sharp outlines. Ideal for digital photography through the telescope. A straight angle simplifies locating the target. Extremely rugged and unusually lightweight with state of the art magnesium technology.

Documenting Wildlife Success Stories from the Past to the Present

Kentucky > Whitetail deer

By Bill Cooper Wildlife Biologist B&C Official Measurer

A steady rain fell as James Sanders guided the truck

onto an old farm road and headed toward a line of high wooded hills. Low clouds and a dark overcast sky gave no indication of a break in the miserable weather. Hardly ideal hunting conditions, but this was not just another routine hunting trip.

The date was November 23, 1957, opening day of Kentucky’s second-ever deer season.

The beginning of a regulated whitetail hunting season in Kentucky was not an overnight happening. It was the successful culmination of efforts initiated a decade earlier by Kentucky’s Division of Game & Fish, which later became the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources (KDFWR). The main thrust of these efforts involved the organization and implementation of a statewide deer restocking program and the intensification of law enforcement, particularly in and around the restocked areas. The first official deer season in 1956 included 27 counties and was three days in length.

The 1957 season regulations encompassed the same 27 counties.

Sanders’ destination that rainy morning was a McCreary County farm, owned by a good friend who had mentioned sighting deer from time to time. Located in southeastern Kentucky along the Tennessee border, McCreary is situated at the edge of the Cumberland Plateau. The terrain is rugged and predominantly forested, with deep gorges, rock ridges, and towering cliffs. Most of the county lies within the Daniel Boone National Forest.

Sanders was joined by his brother, Scott, who had driven down from Ohio to hunt with him for the weekend. Because of the bad weather, the men decided to spend the day scouting the area and hopefully, pick out a good stand for the following morning.

James Sanders, left, and his brother, Scott, with their whitetail bucks taken on opening day of Kentucky’s 1957 whitetail deer season.

50 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

John Eriksson/Images On The Wildside

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 51

Old trophies from Kentucky continue to surface like W.B. Vincent’s 1962 buck shown below, which was entered in 2005. However, C.W. Shelton’s extremely wide buck (bottom) was entered soon after he harvested it in 1964.

TEN OLDEST WHITETAIL DEER ENTRIES FROM KENTUCKY

John Eriksson/Images On The Wildside

Entered in B&C’s Records Program

52 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

SCORE

LOCATION

223 1/8 NT

McCreary Co., KY

168 3/8 TP

Lewis Co., KY

185 3/8 TP

Nelson Co., KY

179 7/8 TP 174 7/8 TP

HUNTER

OWNER(S)

DATE

James H. Sanders

James H. Sanders

1957

Frank B. Smith

Harold Smith

1958

Joseph R. Wolf

Michael C. Parker

1961

Edmonson Co., KY

W.B. Vincent

W.B. Vincent

1962

Hart Co., KY

Robert Hobbs

Roy J. Hobbs

1962

197 1/8 NT

Edmonson Co., KY

Leroy Wilson

Leroy Wilson

1963

181 2/8 TP

Hardin Co., KY

Thomas L. House

Thomas L. House

1963

187 6/8 TP

Union Co., KY

Charles Meuth

Larry S. Melton

1964

185 2/8 TP

Todd Co., KY

C.W. Shelton

Bass Pro Shops

1964

196 2/8 NT

Henry Co., KY

Picked Up

Michael L. Roberts

1965

After walking about a mile, the rain came down heavier and the brothers crawled under a dense cedar thicket to keep from getting soaked. They briefly considered heading back to the truck, but that thought was quickly dismissed when the rain changed back to a light drizzle. After descending into a deep hollow and crossing a small creek, the hunters began climbing a steep hillside below a high rocky ridge. About halfway up, a flat “bench” extended several yards from the hillside, and the brothers discovered a number of deer tracks scattered along a dim trail.

“At that time, the rain was fairly light and since it was only about 10 o’clock, we decided to hunt a while,” Sanders recalled.

“After climbing a short distance above the bench, we took stands about 50 yards apart.”

Not long after getting settled, the sound of distant shots echoed from the head of the hollow. About 20 minutes later, Sanders heard the sounds of deer on the rocky hillside. Turning toward his brother, he pointed in the direction of the sounds. Scott nodded his head, indicating he had also heard the deer.

Located along the narrow bench, approximately 100 yards from the hunters was a dense thicket of cedars, saplings, and sawbriars that blocked any view of the approaching deer. As the brothers anxiously waited, a doe finally stepped into view and began to slowly move along the bench. Seconds later, a buck with 8 to 10 points emerged from the thicket, following the same path as the doe.

In shooting position, Sanders attempted to track the buck as it walked below him, but trees and limbs kept interfering with his aim. Finally, as the deer entered a small opening, he squeezed the trigger. The shot went low, sending the buck spinning in its tracks. Almost immediately, before the deer had a chance to run, a second shot rang out and the buck dropped. Scott’s shot had not missed.

“I was standing there thinking, ‘Well there went my deer,’” Sanders recalled. “Then all of a sudden, from the direction of the thicket, a deer snorted loud as a mule. When I turned around, there was a much bigger buck standing there with what looked like a small brushpile on its head.”

Remembering what had happened a few minutes earlier, Sanders steadied himself, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened!

The .30-06 rifle Sanders was using had a pump action, and with all the excitement, he had never remembered to pump another round into the chamber.

“Well sir, I pulled and pulled on that trigger until it’s a wonder I didn’t pull it off,”

Sanders recalled. “Finally, it dawned on me what the problem was and I pumped the rifle.”

Unfortunately, the sudden noise of the rifle’s action was too much for the buck, as it whirled around and bolted back into the brush. Never hesitating, Sanders quickly ran along the hillside until he could see the backside of the thicket. As the big deer broke into the open, he quickly aimed and fired, and the buck went down.

Walking to where the huge whitetail had fallen, the size of the buck’s antlers appeared bigger and more amazing with every step. Neither Sanders nor his brother had ever seen anything like them and they both counted well over 30 points.

It took the men over six hours to carry both bucks the two miles back to their truck and then drive to the checking station—a noteworthy accomplishment considering the largest deer had an official field-dressed weight of 272 pounds.

The Sanders brothers were certainly the talk of the community that fall, not just because of the amazingly big whitetail, but the simple fact that both men had taken deer.

Anyone who hunted in those early years can relate to the difficulty of merely sighting a buck in the woods, much less shooting one.

Less than 500 bucks were taken during the 1957 season, and while none could match the rack size of Sanders’ impressive deer, it would be fair to say that every one of the bucks was a trophy.

The late 1950s and early 1960s was a brief segment of time that few in today’s whitetail fraternity could comprehend. While Kentucky hunters welcomed the opportunity to hunt a big game animal in their home state, the reality was that practically no one knew exactly how to go about it. Unlike the traditional small game and waterfowl hunting, there was no previous generation of deer hunters to pass along methods, techniques, or specific areas to hunt. Additionally, the plethora of equipment available to today’s hunters, such as portable tree stands, pop-up blinds, calls, scents and attractants, trail cameras, and a variety of camouflage clothing, was nonexistent. In fact, while most smalltown hardware stores sold guns and ammunition, very few stocked center-fire rifles.

Not surprisingly, few hunters at that time were familiar with records books, trophy scores, or antler measuring. In the case of Sanders’ great buck, 33 years would pass before the antlers were finally measured at a 1990 deer show in Somerset, Kentucky.

There, John Phillips, deer project coordinator for KDFWR, now retired, officially determined the rack to have 35 points and a non-typical Boone and Crockett (B&C) Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 53

2003 – Hopkins Co. Matthew E. Jones Score 177 2/8 TP

Beginning in the 1990s, trophy entries from Kentucky tripled from the previous decades and then nearly doubled again as we started the new century.

2003 – Russell Co. Ricky D. Roy Score 183 TP

2000s 2007 – Union Co Mason Hancock - Age 9 Score 210 7/8 NT

1997 – Christian Co. Mark C. Morris Score 173 TP

ABOVE: Mason’s grandfather bought him a .22 rifle the day he was born and he began sitting in deer blinds at the age of 3. He went on to take his first deer at the age of 5. Mason harvested this B&C buck on his family’s farm during the special December 2007 youth hunt.

score of 223-1/8 points. Had the antlers been measured after the normal 60-day drying period, the buck would have reigned as the state record non-typical for 23 years.

There is an interesting footnote to the antler measuring in regard to a drop tine on the rack’s right antler. This particular tine had prevented the rack from hanging flat against the wall, so Sanders sawed half of it off. Otherwise, the final score would have easily been two to three points higher.

Sanders’ buck currently ranks as the state’s earliest recorded B&C whitetail; however, old trophy racks still continue to turn up from time to time. Donald Rice, of Lexington, recently entered a double drop-tine buck from the 1970 season with a typical score of 170-3/8 points.

“I always assumed I would kill a bigger deer,” Rice said. “But after KENTUCKY 41 years, it finally dawned

BY DECADE on me that probably Typical and Non-typical wasn’t going to happen.”

Whitetail Deer Entries Kentucky’s early TOTAL lag in trophy buck recogDECADE ENTRIES nition is quite evident in 1950s 1 the 7th edition of Boone and Crockett Club’s All1960s 23 time records book, 1970s 23 published in 1977, where 1980s 62 the recorded entries in1990s 193 clude only three deer from 2000s 343 the Bluegrass State.

1990s

1995 – Muhlenberg Co. Creighton Spurlock Score 171 7/8 TP

54 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Interestingly, one of those entries, a 25-point non-typical, scoring 208-6/8 points, taken in 1968 by Richard Lohre, came from the same county as Sanders’ buck. Lohre received NRA’s prestigious Silver Bullet Award in recognition of taking the top whitetail in the nation during the 1968 season.

Kentucky’s deer restoration and subsequent herd expansion was a gradual west to east progression across the state, with some restocking efforts in the eastern mountains continuing into the early 1990s. By closely monitoring county populations and adjusting regulations accordingly, KDFWR managed for a number of years the difficult task of meeting harvest guidelines in terms of both quantity and quality.

However, by the late 1980s, annual harvest data indicated an ever-increasing correlation between hunter success and the percent of 1½-year-old bucks in the antlered harvest. In some counties, over 80 percent of the antlered buck harvest was yearlings.

Obviously, few bucks moving into the upper trophy producing age classes meant that, proportionally, very few state hunters would ultimately have an opportunity to take a mature buck.

To help correct this problem, KDFWR implemented a statewide one-buck limit beginning with the 1991 deer season. The regulation was all inclusive, covering modern gun, muzzleloader, and archery hunting.

“There’s no doubt the one-buck limit was a significant factor in regard to the state’s subsequent rise in trophy deer production,”

said David Yancy, KDFWR deer biologist.

“During the years just prior to 1991, yearling bucks were averaging between 70 and 75 percent of the antlered harvest. After 1991, the average dropped to 60 percent.

“Interestingly, the yearling buck harvest began another decline in 2004, and has continued to drop each season since. Currently they comprise about 42 percent of the antlered harvest. We believe this additional decline can be attributed to deer hunters voluntarily passing on young bucks. It certainly wasn’t the result of a regulation change.”

Yancy goes on to add, “The significant drop in the yearling buck harvest has had a direct impact on the adult component of our deer herd. In 1988, one out of four (25 percent) antlered bucks was 2½ years old or older. By 2008, this had increased to 2.3 out of four (58 percent) were 2½ years or older.

This means our hunters have a much better chance of taking a mature buck now than 20 years ago.

“Additionally important is that in 2008, the doe harvest topped 50 percent. Now, the challenge is to maintain enough hunting pressure on the female segment of the herd to keep deer numbers in balance with societal demands and available habitat.”

A look at Kentucky’s list of recordsbook deer in regard to the time period in

which they were taken gives a dramatic illustration of exactly how the one-buck limit has affected trophy deer production.

These figures represent bucks that have been officially measured, with the final score exceeding B&C’s Awards book minimum entry level. Most, but not all of the deer have been entered into the records books.

Beginning with the first limited deer season in 1956 and continuing through the 1960s and 1970s, 50 B&C bucks were recorded. From 1980 to 1989, an additional 85 record-book deer were taken. From 1990 to 1999, B&C numbers jumped significantly to 219. And during the years 2000 to 2009, an amazing total of 399 B&C bucks were recorded.

From a distribution standpoint, it is hardly surprising that the agricultural counties in western Kentucky, particularly those encompassing the Ohio River bottoms, top the list in terms of producing trophy deer.

However, the Bluegrass counties of northcentral Kentucky and those in the Pennyroyal Region along the Tennessee border are not far behind. In recent years, even the predominantly forested hills and valleys along and

This 25-point non-typical, scoring 208-6/8 points, was taken in 1968 by Richard Lohre. Lohre received NRA’s prestigious Silver Bullet Award in recognition of taking the top whitetail in the nation during the 1968 season.

east of the Cumberland Plateau have produced some whopper bucks.

It has been said that a record-class buck could pop-up virtually anywhere in the state. And considering that 115 of Kentucky’s 120 counties have recorded at least one B&C deer, it would be hard to argue otherwise. n Buy before July 31 and get a free tripod adapter. Visit http://bit.ly/CRF1600deal

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Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 55

P hoto essay H U N T IN G T H E C A S S I A R

L. VICTOR CLARK

B&C Official Measurer Photos courtesy of author

These photos were taken on a Stoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sheep hunt during late summer and early fall of 2010. I hunted with my good friend and guide Mike Kabanuk. Floatplane landings, long horseback rides, and backpacking over the crags and peaks of British Columbiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Cassiar Mountains provided adventure after adventure.

Hopefully these photos will let me share with you some of the places and moments I experienced.

56 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

M O U N T A IN S Background: The beauty of this wilderness extends beyond the horizon as does the hiding places it provides to the Stone’s ram I seek.

Top Right: Mike Kabanuk glassing for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Right: We started a backpack hunt from here. Hopefully the bears won’t try to make lunch out of the plane.

That would make a long walk back to base camp.

Bottom Right: I stumbled onto the remains of a nice ram. Judging from the surroundings it appeared that this ram met his demise in an avalanche.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 57

58 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Background: This photo says a lot about mountain hunting. Long horseback rides, picturesque settings with a pristine mountain lake, and getting ready to start the steep climb into the lonely basins that should hold a herd of mature rams.

Top Right: Hopefully this chute guards the back door to the basins and ridges that hide the apparitions we seek.

Right: Back at base camp a beautiful backdrop of the distant mountains and river provide a stage to display and admire the fruits of a successful hunt.

Bottom Right: Mike

(right) and Neil (left) absorb the contentment radiated from a campfire’s warmth. The fires yellow and orange flickers of light bring the shadow dancers to life, their performance providing comfort and cheer to the soul.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 59

Generation Next: Essay New Series

R

ecognizing that the future of our Hunter-Conservation legacy is dependent on passing this tradition down to our young hunters, the Boone and Crockett Club and Fair Chase Magazine have invited youth hunters (hunters 16 years and under when they harvested their trophies) who have made our record book to submit articles about their hunting experience.

Starting in this issue of Fair Chase we will feature these hunting essays. At the end of each awards entry period (3 years) the Fair Chase staff will select an outstanding author to receive the Fair Chase Youth Literary award for the top article in that awards period. It is our pleasure to present our first contributor Joshua C. Hamat who took a marvelous black bear hunting with his father on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska.

In conjunction with these essays, we will also highlight outstanding groups that are contributing to this youth legacy. These persons or groups have taken the extra effort to ensure the hunterconservationist tradition is passed down to the next generation. The first to be recognized is Ted Nugent’s Kamp for Kids. For nearly a quarter century, Nugent’s camp has introduced, promoted, and brought recognition of our North American wildlife model to thousands of our younger generation. This is the future heritage of our conservation and hunting legacy.

60 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Submitted by: Joshua C. Hamat Age: 15 Trophy Type: Black Bear Location: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska – 2010 When the trip to Alaska was first mentioned, I thought to myself, there is no way this will ever happen. Missing a week of school to go bear hunting? No way! My parents would never let me go.

However, my parents realized this would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the outdoors and convinced my school of the benefits of experiential learning. I promised to get all of my assignments completed in advance of the trip, and the next thing I knew I was getting outfitted for my great Alaskan adventure.

My father and I were going with very close friends, another father and son from Houston. We arrived in Ketchikan, where we boarded the Tamarik, a 65-foot yacht that would be our home for the next week. The Tamarik, owned and operated by Tam and Erik Johnson, provides fishing charters in Alaska during the summer and black bear hunts in the spring and fall seasons. When we first got onto the boat I imagined how great this trip would be—seven days exploring the southern part of Prince of Wales Island for trophy black bear. In addition to hunting, we would be fishing too. Accompanying us on our journey was deckhand Jake Barfield, a highly experienced guide who had worked with Tam and Erik for several years.

After we all got acquainted, we were off to Prince of Wales Island.

After a long and sometimes rough journey, we anchored in a quiet cove. We were all tired, and after a hearty dinner I went to sleep with thoughts of bears on my

mind. When we awoke the next morning, Tam had already prepared a huge, hot breakfast for us. We filled our stomachs, then it was off to find bears.

Spring bear hunting on the Tamarik involves cruising up and down the coastlines while glassing for bears that have just emerged from hibernation and are looking for food on the rocky beaches. Once a bear was spotted, we would hop into a rubber skiff to get closer to see if it was a shooter or not. Two or so hours into our first day we spotted our first bear! Creed and I flipped a coin to see who would go on the first stalk. I won the coin toss, so I put my waders and boots on.

My heart was racing so fast when my father and I jumped into the skiff with Erik. When we got to within a hundred feet of the coast, Erik was able to tell that the bear was a small sow, so we passed on her. We stayed on the skiff most of the day looking for more bears.

We saw one more from a distance, too far to see if it was a shooter. We also saw deer, sea lions, some really cool birds and lots of bald eagles. Just being outside in the vast Alaskan wilderness was an incredible experience!

The next day was a beautiful sunny, southeast Alaskan day. Soon after breakfast we spotted another bear and Creed and his father went off with Erik to stalk it, while my father and I stayed on the boat to fish. After a few hours, Creed came back without firing a shot because his bear turned out to be a small sow. After Creed came back on the boat we spotted a pod of killer whales. We got on the skiff to get a closer look. As we were approaching the whales, one breached 10 yards in front of us! It was the most amazing sight one could imagine—a killer whale in mid-air right in front of us! Although no bears were taken that day, we had seen some pretty amazing things and were looking forward to what would lay ahead.

The next day the weather turned bad and we decided to do a little fishing. We dropped some lures and started jigging for rockfish and halibut. That day we caught about 10 yelloweyes, as well as black bass and other rockfish. Creed caught a 103-pound halibut. We also set out some shrimp pods and were happy to find them a little later full of shrimp. It was hard work bringing them up from 400 feet down, but it was worth it.

Those were the best shrimp I had ever tasted.

The next morning was another beautiful day, sunny and warm. In order to increase our chances of spotting a trophy bear, our groups split up. My father and I went with Jake on the skiff, while Creed and his father went with Tam and Erik on the big boat. My dad and I cruised with Jake up and down the inlets. Jake yelled to us, “Guys, I see a big one, get ready!” My heart started to race and I

started to get my hopes up about getting a huge bear. I could tell by the look on my dad’s face that he was just as nervous as I was. We rode toward the shore slowly and we finally got onto the beach downwind of the bear. It was time to make the stalk. When we got to within 90 yards of it Jake whispered to us, “It’s a big sow.” My heart dropped because I knew I wanted to shoot a boar. Jake said that because it was an older sow, and it would still be a great trophy. I was thinking about whether to take this sow and had my crosshairs on it. After what seemed like hours, I pulled up. I knew this was not the bear I wanted to shoot. It was the hardest decision I had ever made, but it turned out to be the best decision I ever made, too. That day on the skiff we saw six different bears, but none worth shooting. It was getting late in the day, so we decided to go back to the boat.

When we got back we saw a huge bear spread out on the stern! Creed had shot a big black boar.

We celebrated that night and watched the video Erik had taken of Creed’s stalk. That night was very hard for me because time was running out for me to get my bear.

The next day was our last day of hunting. I knew this was my last chance but the weather turned bad again, it was very rainy and cold. At about 11 a.m. we spotted a huge black bear on a beach about a mile away. I put on my waders and boots and got on the skiff with my dad, Erik, and Jake. As we were making our way over to the bear, it went up the beach and into the forest, out of sight.

My heart dropped as low as it could possibly go. Usually, when a bear gets spooked it does not come back. However, time was running out, so we decided to go sit on a small island a few hundred yards away from where we saw the bear and wait to see if it would come back out. My emotions were going crazy. To everyone’s surprise, after about an hour the bear came back!

We were determined to get this bear so we got back in the skiff and rode about 200 yards downwind from the bear on the beach. We started the stalk. After about 20 minutes of slowly crawling and walking towards the bear, we found the bear eating crab on the beach, oblivious to our presence. It was a huge, mature boar! The one I had been

waiting for. I had my .338 set up on a fallen log, crosshairs on the bear waiting for him to turn broadside so I could take it. After what seemed like forever, he finally turned.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger. I hit him, but he did not drop.

The bear started running towards us. I stood up, reloaded, and squeezed the trigger again.

He dropped right then and there. Erik yelled, “Great shot!”

It was only then that I realized that I had just shot a trophy black bear. What a sense of accomplishment and relief. As I

Joshua C. Hamat with the black bear he harvested on Alaska’s Prince of Wales Island in 2010. The bear’s final score is 20-3/16 points. Hamat also snapped this shot of these killer whales from the boat. walked towards the bear, I had the best feeling in the world, knowing I had taken a worldclass Alaskan black bear. The pressure was off. Now we could just celebrate, and head back to Ketchikan the next day!

Going bear hunting in Alaska was one of the best experiences of my life. It has left me with many amazing memories and an appreciation for all the beautiful things that Alaska has to offer. Every time I look at my bear mount I am brought back to the cold and rocky beach where I was able to take him. I am so glad I was able to experience this hunt with my dad and close friends in a part of the country where few people go. One day, I would love to go back and take another one, but for now I am more than happy with my Boone and Crockett trophy black bear. n Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 61

Generation Next: Youth Program NUGENT CONNECTS WITH KIDS

By Ward Parker

In the history of hunting/shooting sports, the Ted Nugent Kamp for Kids (TNKFK) may be the greatest hunting story never told—or at least not reported on by the majority of the hunting press.

If recruitment of new hunters is indeed a committed goal by the hunting community, then TNKFK is one platform to have cracked the code. To put it in perspective, the 2011 TNKFK in Nebraska sold out in just six hours. Parents stayed up until midnight to begin registering their children online. By 6 a.m. the first day, all 100 slots were gone.

And the waiting list is almost as large.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Tim Oran of the Papillion, Nebraska Parks & Recreation. “We always start taking calls from parents literally months before registration—which is literally months before the actual event. By far, the Ted Nugent Kamp for Kids is one of the most sought-after programs— by both parents and kids—of any youth event we’re involved with.”

“I started our Kamp in 1989 with a simple goal—to introduce kids to the great outdoors,” said founder Ted Nugent. “I made a promise to Fred Bear before he passed away that I would get kids involved. And here we are 22 years later.”

Since 1989, well over 4,000 kids have attended a Nugent Kamp session. In 2010 alone, more than 500 kids attended a TNKFK. Projections for 2011 indicate more than 700 kids will participate. And the mission doesn’t stop there.

TNKFK President Kevin Markt not only runs the Papillion Kamp, he has provided hands-on archery instruction to more than 14,000 kids in Nebraska schools and at other events.

“Kevin Markt is a volunteer stormtrooper for all things good. He is one of the best of the best,” said Nugent.

The Nebraska Kamp is a one-day event providing fundamental outdoor instruction to kids aged 9-14. The core of the instruction focuses on archery, fishing, BB gun shooting, first aid, and traditional forms of conservation such as trapping and game calling. It’s safety first, fun second, said volunteer Paul Milone.

Experts in each of the instruction areas provide one-hour instruction blocks to the youth. “We stress the fundamentals in a fun way. We have contests to determine who catches the biggest fish, is the best BB gun shot, and the best archer, and we then award medals. The competition can get pretty intense and fun,” said Milone.

“We follow the KISS principle – keep it simple stupid. You have to reach a balance by trying to find just the right amount of necessary instruction and then letting the kids just have fun for the remaining time by flinging arrows, shooting BB guns, etc.,” said Markt.

Gary Brunberg is a certified bowhunter-education instructor and has taught archery to Nebraska Kampers for more than 10 years. “There are things each of us can do to reach out to kids. All it takes is a little dedication and commitment to make a big difference in a young person’s life.”

“I’ve been hunting and fishing for over 35 years and realize the future is not in my hands but in the hands of the young people, the new hunters, trappers, and 62 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

fishermen. If we fail to reach and recruit them, then we have failed as conservationists, and I don’t subscribe to failure,” said Jeff Micek, TNKFK mentor.

“I’m convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone were still around, they’d be instructors at our Kamp,” said Nugent.

When lunchtime rolls around, there’s no drive-thru in sight. The Kamp menu includes wild game meat and fish, in addition to traditional camp fare. “I like cooking wild game and fish to serve the kids and staff,” said Mike Trummer, Kamp cook. “This shows the kids how we utilize the game and fish that Nebraska has to offer.”

The Nebraska TNKFK event has been held for the past 15 years. Due to its success, others in the area are taking notice. For the past two years at the Nebraska Big Buck Classic event, the proceeds from the auction have all gone to TNKFK. “We looked around for a bit about who we could help from the proceeds of the auction and we quickly realized that there was really only one program that was truly reaching out to youngsters – TNKFK. We’ve got a long-term commitment to TNKFK because they are making a difference,” said Jason Schendt, founder of the Nebraska Big Buck Classic.

Other organizations such as the Nebraska Bowhunters Association, Full Draw Archery in Omaha, Papio-Missouri River NRD, Orion Archery Club and individuals like Mike and Cindy Tomcak provide donations to the Nebraska TNKFK. “We are blessed that so many organizations and businesses help us out with their donations and time,” said Markt.

Carol Ashurst of the Colorado Bowhunters Association has also organized and hosted a Ted Nugent Kamp. “We are losing our youth little by little to video games, television, drugs, alcohol—you name it.

Colorado is a state filled with outdoor opportunities and yet we are seeing participation in them steadily decline. Camps such as the TNKFK provide us an avenue to pass on our outdoor passion and instill the hunting and fishing tradition that we all live for,” said Ashurst.

The real proof of whether TNKFK is a success or not comes from those who attend: the youngsters. One young TNKFK participant summed it up best, “This was way cool!”

In addition to 2011 TNKFK events in Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Colorado, plans are underway to host Kamps in Michigan and Texas in 2012. The ultimate goal is to have TNKFK events in every state, with some states holding multiple events.

Nugent makes it a point to personally

“I’m convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that if Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone were still around, they’d be instructors at our Kamp,” said Nugent. attend as many Kamp sessions as possible.

“While my schedule does not permit me to attend all of the events, I take this stuff very personally. Our Kamp for Kids matters. It changes young lives for the better,” said Ted. In addition to providing hands-on instruction, Nugent also performs a campfire rendition of his popular hunt songs and talks to Kampers about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. “It is impossible to have fun by poisoning your sacred temple with dope and booze. I get high by sitting 20 feet up in a tree with my bow and arrows,” quipped the lifelong outdoorsman.

Nugent also believes introducing kids to the outdoors provides an excellent way to introduce them to physical fitness. “We have a pandemic of childhood obesity. Getting kids involved in the outdoors ultimately gets them involved in hiking, climbing trees, and other physical pursuits that will make them healthier. TNKFK may be the first step on this critical lifelong journey of a healthy, wealthy, and wise lifestyle,” stated Nugent.

The Nebraska Kamp is a one-day event providing fundamental outdoor instruction to kids aged 9-14. The core of the instruction focuses on archery, fishing, BB gun shooting, first aid, and trapping and game calling.

Nugent is perplexed that the hunting press has largely ignored TNKFK. “Here we have a tremendously successful program for more than 22 years that reached out to youngsters who will ultimately buy the very hunting gear advertised in hunting magazines, and the hunting press writes another article on how to bugle an elk. This is status-quo journalism at its most counterproductive.”

“I’m not interested in plaques, praise, banquets, or awards. I’m only interested in results,” states Nugent. “I get all the rocket fuel motivation I need to keep moving forward when a smiling young kid comes up to me at Kamp and says he or she can’t wait to go fishing or hunting.” n Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 63

Generation Next: In the Field Quintin P. Keith

Zackery A. Green

James H. Mason

64 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

28th Awards Program Youth Hunters Accepted trophies as of May 19, 2011

Ryan B. Girres

Brandon D. Kaehr Karsten B. Petersen

Hunter Category Cameron M. Adovnik typical Columbia blacktail Skyler N. Alderton non-typical whitetail deer Kyle S. Bolen non-typical whitetail deer Austin Buller typical whitetail deer Walker C. Carswell black bear Blane M. Cowley pronghorn Logan Cox typical whitetail deer Jasper D. Deaton typical whitetail deer J. Collin Denneny Canada moose Elijah G. DePover black bear Hunter E. Doeden pronghorn Hunter A. Eytcheson non-typical whitetail deer Justin G. Fazenbaker typical whitetail deer Andrew France typical whitetail deer Ryan B. Girres typical Columbia blacktail Zackery A. Green typical Columbia blacktail Jeffrey D. Grissom typical whitetail deer Alex N. Haag typical whitetail deer Joshua C. Hamat black bear Mark C. Harris typical whitetail deer Canaan W. Haywood non-typical whitetail deer Jordon Henri non-typical whitetail deer Alex E. Howell pronghorn Johnathon J. Huber non-typical whitetail deer Alex M. Huesman typical whitetail deer Cole D. Johnson non-typical whitetail deer Brandon D. Kaehr typical whitetail deer Quintin P. Keith non-typical whitetail deer Trey Kempker typical whitetail deer Nicole L. Kennedy pronghorn Cole P. Kennedy typical whitetail deer Mitchell T. Krause non-typical whitetail deer James D. Kristofzski, Jr. non-typical whitetail deer Charles L’Allier black bear James H. Mason pronghorn Mitchell C. McElmeel typical whitetail deer Kelsey M. McKay non-typical whitetail deer Christopher C. McMellon black bear Wyatt A. Medema non-typical whitetail deer Cole G. Medlin typical whitetail deer Clay L. Miller typical mule deer Will R. Minear typical whitetail deer Michaella D. Monroe non-typical whitetail deer Alek S. Muladore non-typical whitetail deer Colton W. Olson black bear Trevor J. Olson black bear Zachary S. Parker Shiras moose Karsten B. Petersen typical whitetail deer Mason J. Petrzilka typical whitetail deer Joseph A. Raber non-typical whitetail deer Morgan V. Reed typical whitetail deer Emily A. Reish pronghorn Nathanuel Z. Ridenour typical whitetail deer Brandon E. Ross typical whitetail deer Luc Runyon non-typical whitetail deer Brooke A. Seward pronghorn Josh N. Shank typical whitetail deer Tyler G. Shelton black bear John M. Sims typical mule deer Alek Sparboe grizzly bear Tyler L. Steinbrink non-typical whitetail deer Drake Stracener typical whitetail deer Carter D. Tjensland typical Columbia blacktail Zac B. Waters non-typical mule deer Brandon Z. Werner typical whitetail deer Grant West typical whitetail deer Jason R. Wogsland typical whitetail deer Kyle N. Wold typical whitetail deer Alex C. Zimmerman non-typical whitetail deer NOTE: Trophies listed in orange are shown at left.

Location of Kill Clackamas Co., OR Scotland Co., MO Noble Co., IN S. Saskatchewan River, SK Washington Co., NC Carbon Co., WY Garrard Co., KY Marshall Co., OK Nelson River, BC Burnett Co., WI Custer Co., MT Sawyer Co., WI Wayne Co., OH Prairie Co., AR Clackamas Co., OR Linn Co., OR Hardin Co., KY Sherburne Co., MN Prince of Wales Island, AK Gentry Co., MO Wabash Co., IN Chitek Lake, SK Lincoln Co., WY Crawford Co., WI Bracken Co., KY Eau Claire Co., WI Wells Co., IN Shelby Co., MO Miller Co., MO Carbon Co., WY Dunn Co., WI Holt Co., MO St. Joseph Co., IN St. Croix Co., WI Carbon Co., WY Dubuque Co., IA Coal Co., OK Howard Co., AR Aitkin Co., MN La Salle Co., TX La Plata Co., CO Lewis Co., MO Spencer Co., KY Highland Co., OH Pine Co., MN Marinette Co., WI Spokane Co., WA Polk Co., WI Saunders Co., NE Coshocton Co., OH Warren Co., MO Natrona Co., WY Wyandot Co., OH Bayfield Co., WI Woodruff Co., AR Sweetwater Co., WY St. Joseph Co., IN Wythe Co., VA El Paso Co., CO Unalakleet, AK Fillmore Co., MN Jefferson Co., AR Jefferson Co., WA Iron Co., UT Webster Co., NE Webster Co., IA Schuyler Co., IL Clearwater Co., MN Sheridan Co., KS

Date 2009 2009 2010 2010 2009 2010 2009 2007 2007 2010 2009 2010 2010 2009 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2006 2009 2009 2010 2010 2010 2007 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2009 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2009 2009 2009 2010 2008 2010 2010 2010 2009 2010 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010 2008 2010 2010 2009 2007 2009 2009 2010 2009

Final Score 125 1/8 199 2/8 213 6/8 171 3/8 21 6/16 83 6/8 166 7/8 163 1/8 193 3/8 20 5/16 80 2/8 208 4/8 161 2/8 164 127 4/8 136 5/8 163 4/8 176 5/8 20 3/16 170 7/8 200 4/8 212 1/8 81 4/8 191 3/8 167 6/8 216 178 2/8 188 2/8 160 1/8 80 160 4/8 204 7/8 185 3/8 20 6/16 80 6/8 170 2/8 200 7/8 21 1/16 195 1/8 180 1/8 181 162 7/8 219 5/8 190 3/8 21 2/16 20 3/16 156 2/8 165 3/8 166 5/8 244 4/8 175 2/8 84 162 4/8 166 4/8 186 5/8 81 2/8 174 21 4/16 196 24 192 7/8 162 1/8 126 5/8 225 1/8 160 2/8 165 3/8 160 7/8 164 186 2/8

If you are a youth with an accepted trophy in the Boone and Crockett Club’s 28th Big Game Awards (2010-2012) and you do not see your name on this list, please contact B&C Headquarters immediately so we can update our files.

By phone: 406/542-1888 and ask for Justin (ext. 204) or By email: jspring@boone-crockett.org

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 65

BY JUSTIN E. SPRING | ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF BIG GAME RECORDS

Barri Twardoski – Montana Special Draw Elk Elk hunting for a Montana resident generally involves buying an over-the-counter license with most of the state being open for general season, though there are a few areas that are a fairly difficult draw. Last year Barri Twardoski was one of the fortunate hunters to have his tough-draw hunt listed as successful on the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks draw results page.

Still riding high on his enthusiasm of drawing the tag, his first trip into the mountains was more of a scouting trip to get an idea of both the area and the number of elk. He also had a mountain goat tag in his pocket, which was filled with an awards-book billy the same year—but that’s another story.

The first day he and his hunting partner Paul Cockrell spotted a group of bulls on a ridge, and spirits were high as they turned in for the evening. The next morning, Barri was into elk right away and even attempted a stalk on a great bull but could never close the distance closer than 80 yards. He did get some great photos of this bull but was pretty sure that was the last he would see of him.

The next day they filmed numerous herds of elk and bulls with their harems while scouring the hills for a bull worthy of the tag that Barri had in his pocket. In addition, they saw some bands of mountain goats and photographed them as well.

Day three started out the same as usual but in the afternoon they heard a familiar bugle. Barri and his hunting partner slowly worked towards the bugle, carefully checking any opening they could see. Soon, a bull materialized all alone in a high mountain meadow in a small opening of about two acres. He was the focal point of a picture right out of a Lambson drawing. The grass was split by a small brook running along its edge and the bull stood broadside in the afternoon light. Barri took a knee by a small tree and estimated the bull at about 40 yards. He slowly drew back and found the bull in his peep sight. It was mostly broadside with a slight angle away for the perfect shot.

66 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

The release was good and the bull bolted for the dark timber.

The two hunters waited about 45 minutes and then began trailing, assuming the bull would be lying nearby. While the blood started out strong, they were surprised by the distance he had covered. This is when they were faced with a dilemma that no archery hunter every wants to face—one that tests the will and character of anyone who has ever taken to the woods with a stick and string. The blood was becoming sporadic, and soon a snowstorm covered the little sign he was putting down. Barri had a terrible, nauseated feeling and began to worry he could not recover the bull that day.

After trying to locate the bull with any sign having been covered by snow, the two regrouped and picked a line to follow back to camp. As they worked back, Barri heard something off in a ravine and peeked over to discover the bull. When they approached, they witnessed a bit of a gruesome scene, not typical of a good archery kill, which he had achieved. He assumed the bull had thrashed around before expiring, but later investigation opened the possibility that coyotes or wolves had perhaps discovered the kill prior to them.

Fortunately the only thing that was damaged was the cape, and Barri was rewarded with a fine bull that any hunter would be proud of. n Twardoski with his Montana typical American elk scoring 366-5/8 points.

This column is dedicated to those trophies that catch our eye as they come across the records desk at Boone and Crockett Club’s headquarters. Some score high, some are downright entertaining, and many are just unique.

Thomas Vaida – B.C. Rocky Mountain Goat I was once told that “sheep hunting was for goat hunters when they got too old.”

While I am not sure if there was ever a goat hunter who “retired” to sheep, I do know that mountain goats inhabit some of the steepest, toughest, most remote, and most rugged country found anywhere on the North American continent.

Hunting for these animals is, in almost all cases, extreme, and I have talked to a few people that said after taking one goat, they are never going back.

Tom Vaida was on such a hunt in the Skeena Mountains of British Columbia in September 2010. After hoping for 40 years to take a goat, he finally booked a guided backpack hunt with Double Eagle Guides and Outfitters as a 60th birthday gift to himself.

On September 7th, Vaida loaded his 40-year-old Kelty pack and began the grueling five-hour climb 10 steps at a time to timberline. After setting up their spike camp, they crept up into the nearby basin and glassed a group of 19 goats, which all turned out to be nannies and kids.

The following morning the duo awoke to find a tremendous black bear near camp, which guide Troy Ronald estimated a height pushing eight feet. Vaida had a bear tag, but he was there for goats, not big old bears. That morning they decided to hunt up the left side of the basin working their way up rockslides and cliff faces until finally getting cliffed out.

They sat down to both rest and glass and soon spotted a pair of good billies in the distance, one bedded and one feeding. As they sat resting their legs, the bedded goat arose and surveyed his realm. Satisfied with the state of things, he moved towards the other goat and joined him, feeding. There was no way to approach the goats with the amount of daylight left, so the two elected to take the long way back to camp to avoid sliding down the talus slopes.

Day three again began with a quick breakfast and coffee at 7 a.m., then a hike up the right side of the basin where they were greeted by a nanny and kid who had to be shooed off so they could continue their climb.

They reached a knife-edged ridge, and Tom was far less confident on this than his

seasoned guide. He inched his way along the ridge on his tail-end with legs hanging off the cliffs on both sides. Further up, the ridge top mellowed slightly to where he again felt confident on two feet, but the steep incline was still extreme. As they continued up to reach a good vantage point, Troy was well ahead of Tom. He looked over and was soon excitedly scurrying down the hill to report a shooter billy in good position for a shot. He instructed Tom to leave his pack, take his bipod and rifle, and be as silent as he could. Other than the slight sounds of Tom passing gas and almost invoking a laugh, he obeyed, and Thomas Vaida with his record-book Rocky Mountain they were soon crawling goat taken on a once-in-a-lifetime hunt in British into position on the oblivi- Columbia. The billy has a score of 48-2/8 points. ous billy.

Tom positioned himself but couldn’t started to slide. He almost made it in time. use the bipod due to the angle. Once steady, The goat slowly began to slide and continued he got the shoot order and slowly began the to gain momentum until it came to rest on squeeze that he had practiced countless times some scrub trees 200 yards down the hill. at a goat picture on his wall back home. The Fortunately when Tom got down to it, the bullet did the job and the goat dropped his billy was in fine shape. He surveyed his fine head instantly. A quick congratulations and goat, which stretched the tape to 48-2/8 Troy was off to go grab the goat before it inches after the 60-day drying period. n

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 67

The following pages list the most recent big game trophies accepted into the Boone and Crockett Club’s 28th Big Game Awards Program, 2010-2012, which includes entries received between January 1, 2010, and December 31, 2012. All of the field photos in this section are from entries that are listed in this issue and are shown in bold green text.

This listing represents only those trophies accepted since the Spring 2011 issue of Fair Chase was published.

ABOVE This Roosevelt’s elk, scoring 362-5/8 points, was taken by Kevin T. Klumper while hunting near Sayward, British Columbia, during the 2010 season. below Michael S. Browne was hunting in Humboldt County, California, when he harvested this typical Columbia blacktail deer scoring 137-2/8 points.

BEAR & COUGAR FINAL SCORE

LOCATION

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

black bear 21 15/16 Mendocino Co., CA Robert A. Larson II 2010 21 6/16 Menominee Co., MI Jed L. Comyne 2010 21 5/16 Craven Co., NC Andrew T. Perry 2009 21 1/16 Carbon Co., WY Charles W. Nation III 2010 21 1/16 Mariposa Co., CA Gareth Chin 2010 21 1/16 Sherridon, MB Shannon R. Nielsen 2010 21 1/16 Polk Co., AR J. Heath Martin 2009 21 Lincoln Co., WY Douglas A. Brown 2010 20 15/16 Oneida Co., WI Rita L. Johnson 2010 20 15/16 Rio Blanco Co., CO Kelly Lyon 1977 20 14/16 Prince of Wales Jack L. Nelson 2010

Island, AK Riding Mt., MB Patrick J. Miller 2010 20 10/16 Bayfield Co., WI Robert E. Terry 2010 20 9/16 Perrault Falls, ON Logan D. Knepp 2009 20 9/16 Stanley D. Welton 2010 20 7/16 Ouray Co., CO Burnett Co., WI Elijah G. DePover 2010 20 5/16

Dean J. Brunner 2010 20 5/16 Oconto Co., WI Salmon River, BC Lora Mae A. Wickware 2010 20 5/16 Montrose Co., CO Wesley G. D’Andrea 2010 20 4/16 Falher, AB Jade J. Collins 2008 20 4/16 Hancock Co., ME Michael E. Jacobs 2010 20 3/16 Prince of Wales Joshua C. Hamat 2010 20 3/16

Island, AK Sawyer Co., WI Glenn E. Mentink 2010 20 1/16 Rimouski, QC Claude Brillant 2010 20

D. Turner D. Wellman M. DeAngury J. Mankin E. Fanchin W. Novy M. Stewart J. Spring A. Loomans S. Grebe R. Rockwell B. Novosad J. Senske R. Graber S. Grebe K. Zimmerman S. Zirbel R. Berreth S. Grebe J. Knevel A. Wentworth H. Monsour W. Resch L. Soucy

grizzly bear 26 2/16 26 25 8/16 24 4/16 24 2/16

Inklin River, BC Kaltag, AK Nulato Hills, AK Kitwanga River, BC Del Creek, BC

Kenneth A. Kitzmann Michael V. Ambrose Tony R. Milliken, Sr. Roy LePage Kaitlyn L. Anderson

2010 2010 2010 2010 2010

C. Sawicki R. Boutang F. Noska D. Watson B. Churchill

Wayne F. Farnsworth, Jr. Richard E. Peterson Glenn Bailey Todd A. Kisling Marc A. Arnold Robert M. Eikey Isaac M. Bell

2010 J. Pallister 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2010

S. Wilkins B. Trumbo R. Deis K. Witt D. Razza G. Anderson

Montezuma Co., CO Martha B. Neely Colfax Co., NM John A. Woodhall III Iron Co., UT Randy D. Oleson Uintah Co., UT Jeremy A. Suelter

2009 2003 1999 2010

G. Glasgow R. Rocheleau J. Ramsey S. Grabo

Alaska brown bear 28 Cold Bay, AK

27 9/16 Uyak Bay, AK 27 1/16 Uganik Bay, AK 26 15/16 Kejulik River, AK 26 15/16 Pedro Bay, AK 26 14/16 Ugak Bay, AK 26 1/16 Aleknagik Lake, AK

cougar 15 6/16 14 15/16 14 9/16 14 9/16

ELK & MULE DEER

FINAL GROSS SCORE SCORE LOCATION

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

David J. Skorupa Joel T. Nicholson

2010 F. King 2010 L. Schlachter

typical American elk 377 2/8 397 6/8 Park Co., MT 376 6/8 409 2/8 Hilda, AB

68 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

typical American elk continued

typical Columbia blacktail continued

375 3/8 393 370 2/8 380 6/8

370 388 4/8 366 5/8 376 5/8 366 1/8 378 2/8 364 369 4/8 361 7/8 372 3/8 361 368 2/8 360 3/8 370 360 1/8 362 7/8

129 3/8 127 5/8 127 4/8 127 2/8 126 5/8

Uintah Co., UT Lewis & Clark Co., MT Elko Co., NV Gallatin Co., MT Coconino Co., AZ Park Co., WY Pennington Co., SD Catron Co., NM Gallatin Co., MT Piute Co., UT

Alison J. Workman 2010 K. Leo James W. Gillespie III 2010 J. Pallister Gregory B. Faux Barri R. Twardoski Dan J. Helm Lisa M. Pascadlo Vance T. Alexander Jamey K. Finstad Kurt D. Rued Ryan A. Paxman

2010 G. Hernandez 2010 R. Schoon 2009 M. Golightly 2010 R. Hall 2010 L. Jass 2010 O. Carpenter 2010 F. King 2009 D. Nielsen

Tom R. Truman

2010 L. Hill

Kevin T. Klumper David F. Law Brian J. Swift

2010 J. Weise 2010 S. Boero 2010 F. Pringle

non-typical American elk 388

400 3/8 Bombi Pass, BC

139 5/8 138 5/8 130 7/8 151 1/8 129 2/8

Siskiyou Co., CA Humboldt Co., CA Clackamas Co., OR Humboldt Co., CA Jefferson Co., WA

Dave E. Scheve James R. McBeth Ryan B. Girres Michael S. Browne Carter D. Tjensland

1996 2008 2010 2010 2010

K. Evanow G. Hooper L. Griffin S. Boero D. Sanford

non-typical Columbia blacktail 167 6/8 171 3/8 Humboldt Co., CA

Morgan Randall

2010 G. Hooper

typical Sitka blacktail deer 111 7/8 114 5/8 Woronkofski

Island, AK

Eric B. Lund

2010 J. Baichtal

Rooseveltâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s elk 362 5/8 375 1/8 Sayward, BC 356 4/8 366 Trinity Co., CA 356 1/8 400 2/8 Oyster River, BC

FINAL GROSS SCORE SCORE LOCATION

tule elk 321 301

328 Solano Co., CA 312 7/8 Colusa Co., CA

Patrick E. Butler Joey J. Cavazos

2010 D. Biggs 2010 B. Abele

typical mule deer 203 1/8 200 6/8 198 3/8 194 5/8 194 1/8 191 4/8 190 5/8 190 1/8 190 187 7/8 187 3/8 185 7/8 185 5/8 185 3/8 185 184 7/8 184 3/8 183 3/8 183 3/8 182 6/8 181 1/8 181 180 7/8 180 3/8 180 2/8

216 209 211 7/8 228 6/8 200 4/8 209 2/8 197 4/8 193 7/8 208 200 7/8 192 3/8 191 5/8 219 5/8 192 3/8 188 192 2/8 191 1/8 190 2/8 189 1/8 214 2/8 190 5/8 185 3/8 186 3/8 201 5/8 184 1/8

San Juan Co., NM Jeremy D. Dugger 2010 T. Chapman Great Sand Hills, SK Meghan E. Seidle 2010 J. Clary DeBolt, AB Kevin J. Gustafson 2010 W. Paplawski Rio Arriba Co., NM Ashley L. Gonzales 2010 T. Watts Great Sand Hills, SK Brian G. Dueck 2010 B. Seidle Rio Arriba Co., NM Lowell L. Ferguson 2010 R. Silvester Jefferson Co., CO Timothy Hass 2010 M. Thomson La Plata Co., CO Randy W. Bongard 2009 D. Merritt Frenchman River, SK Natalie R. Romaniuk 2010 P. Mckenzie San Miguel Co., CO Anthony F. Pierino 2009 O. Carpenter Utah Co., UT Bart Christensen 1985 D. Nielsen Cherry Co., NE Kohl W. Johnson 2010 M. Dowse Archuleta Co., CO Carl Van Ravenswaay 2208 R. Rocheleau Lincoln Co., NV Tommy C. Caviglia 2010 C. Lacey Pennington Co., SD Todd W. Oman 2010 R. Rocheleau Archuleta Co., CO Joseph E. Harrison 2010 E. Widder Carbon Co., WY Galen E. Bortner 2010 J. Creamer Lincoln Co., WY Aaron B. Florian 2010 R. McDrew Montezuma Co., CO Daniel R. Boenig 2010 J. Stein Las Animas Co., CO Richard G. Wydoski 2010 P. Allen Grand Co., CO James W. Baerren 2004 M. Thomson Delta Co., CO Robinson F. Dean 2010 M. Cooper Grand Co., UT James R. Winder 1993 T. Sanders Douglas Co., CO Katie S. East 2010 P. Allen Grand Co., UT James R. Winder 1982 T. Sanders

non-typical mule deer 246 251 4/8 239 5/8 248 1/8

237 5/8 244 3/8 231 7/8 236 2/8 231 234 1/8 231 235 3/8 230 236 7/8 228 5/8 230 7/8 222 229 4/8 217 3/8 222 4/8 215 4/8 225 5/8

La Plata Co., CO Mount Blackstrap, SK Rio Arriba Co., NM Coconino Co., AZ Kit Carson Co., CO Moffat Co., CO Mohave Co., AZ Garfield Co., CO Morgan Co., CO Albany Co., WY Mohave Co., AZ

Jeff M. Cooper Terry D. Redpath

1979 K. Asbury 2010 J. Clary

Paul W. Lewis 1973 O. Nalos Pete Johnston 1985 R. Hall Joe L. Foster 2008 R. Newman Glenn Pritchard 1964 R. Hall Cleveland B. Holloway 2010 S. Stiver Bruce H. Johnson 2010 D. Waechtler Jessie Ruiz 2010 S. Grebe Todd R. Cowan 2010 D. Turner Doug Berg 2010 M. Thomson

typical Columbia blacktail 141 2/8 139 3/8 138 1/8 137 4/8 137 2/8 136 5/8 136 5/8 136 4/8 135 5/8 131 2/8 130 4/8

145 5/8 149 154 1/8 141 6/8 141 4/8 143 1/8 144 141 3/8 139 3/8 136 1/8 150 1/8

WHITETAIL DEER

Jackson Co., OR Trinity Co., CA Trinity Co., CA Siskiyou Co., CA Humboldt Co., CA Linn Co., OR Mendocino Co., CA Glenn Co., CA Clackamas Co., OR Trinity Co., CA Pierce Co., WA

Lee Frudden Brad W. Criner James R. McBeth Dave E. Scheve Michael S. Browne Zackery A. Green Leo Bartolomei Michael D. Simmons Brian Maguire Richard Banko Kurtis L. Muller

2010 2010 2010 2008 2010 2010 2010 2010 2009 2010 2010

R. Boyd B. Abele G. Hooper K. Evanow S. Boero D. Poole D. Turner R. McDrew T. Rozewski G. Hooper R. Mayton

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

typical whitetail deer 202 6/8 227 6/8 Saunders Co., NE Kevin S. Petrzilka 2010 190 1/8 202 1/8 Otter Tail Co., MN Chad L. Widness 2010 187 5/8 193 6/8 Moose Mt., SK Nolan M. Balon 2010 2010 187 5/8 199 2/8 Waushara Co., WI Brian J. Inda Troy J. Babin 2010 184 5/8 192 7/8 Dimmit Co., TX Lance M. Gebauer 2010 183 6/8 186 2/8 Aitkin Co., MN 206 Cortland Co., NY David J. Edwards, Jr. 2010 182 Jacqueline A. Hunter 2010 181 6/8 184 7/8 La Salle Co., TX N. Saskatchewan Jason Gray 2010 181 4/8 210

River, SK 2010 178 6/8 186 5/8 Kanabec Co., MN Robert B. Haugen Picked Up 2009 178 2/8 181 2/8 Fremont Co., IA Brandon D. Kaehr 2010 178 2/8 181 1/8 Wells Co., IN

Scott W. Powers 2010 178 1/8 193 5/8 Pierce Co., WI Taylor D. Sannes 2010 177 7/8 188 4/8 Polk Co., MN Patrick G. Cowan 2010 177 2/8 179 3/8 Juneau Co., WI Mike Meyer 2010 176 6/8 201 2/8 Peace River, AB William U. Elza 2010 175 6/8 201 7/8 Pulaski Co., IN 2010 175 6/8 198 1/8 Washington Co., WI Mark V. Falkner Earl D. Spitsnogle 2010 175 5/8 195 6/8 Gage Co., NE Justin D. Morrissey 2010 175 3/8 199 2/8 St. Croix Co., WI Morgan V. Reed 2010 175 2/8 186 6/8 Warren Co., MO 179 4/8 Cass Co., IA Spencer A. Funk 2009 175 Rick Bramwell 2010 174 7/8 178 2/8 Madison Co., IN James F. Carvalho 2010 174 6/8 184 6/8 Stevens Co., WA Kevin R. Baechle 2010 174 5/8 179 3/8 Licking Co., OH John K. Taylor 2010 174 4/8 180 1/8 Lewis Co., MO Licking Co., OH David M. Marion 2010 174 4/8 179 174 2/8 178 6/8 Mason Co., KY Charles C. Campbell 2010 Tyler Dillon 2010 174 2/8 200 7/8 Kelowna, BC 192 4/8 Jasper Co., IN Timothy J. Howard, Jr. 2010 174 173 7/8 183 2/8 Stark Co., OH Bradley J. Cheyney 2010 Jan B. Shenberger 2010 173 4/8 194 6/8 York Co., PA 2010 173 2/8 176 4/8 Francois Lake, BC Doug R. Shopland Kerry T. Cronk 2010 173 1/8 186 1/8 Erie Co., OH 172 6/8 191 6/8 Pike Co., IN James C. Edwards 2010 Sawyer Co., WI Craig A. Olson 2010 172 5/8 186 178 6/8 Macon Co., MO Picked Up 2008 172 183 2/8 Carrot Creek, AB Troy S. Brochu 2010 172 171 6/8 177 2/8 Androscoggin Lawrence J. 2010

Co., ME Chicoine, Jr. Michael N. Maigatter 2010 171 6/8 179 2/8 Waupaca Co., WI Mark D. Green 2010 171 4/8 173 4/8 Perry Co., IN Raymond G. Gray, Jr. 2010 171 4/8 177 7/8 White Co., IN 171 3/8 183 5/8 S. Saskatchewan Austin Buller 2010

River, SK Curtis R. Theisen 2010 171 2/8 177 2/8 Dunn Co., WI Todd J. Satrom 2010 171 2/8 182 4/8 Steele Co., ND 1987 170 7/8 180 4/8 Missoula Co., MT Daniel F. Gallacher Harrison Co., KY Darren S. Collins 2010 170 5/8 179 Robert J. Hardy 2010 170 4/8 174 1/8 Cherry Co., NE Steve E. Holloway 2010 170 4/8 178 1/8 Maverick Co., TX 170 4/8 196 3/8 Smoky Lake, AB Scott P. Gaebel 2010 Kelly D. Smith 2010 170 3/8 175 7/8 Hinton, AB Charles C. Duchsherer 2010 170 3/8 181 3/8 Renville Co., ND

R. Krueger M. Harrison P. Mckenzie W. Resch H. Saye R. Berggren J. Dowd H. Gore B. Seidle M. Beaufeaux J. Ohmer J. Bronnenberg C. Fish R. Dufault J. Ramsey B. Novosad J. Bogucki D. Bathke T. Stanosheck S. Ashley J. Davis D. Clayton L. Lawson L. Carey E. Robinson L. Buck C. Kreh W. Cooper R. Berreth J. Bogucki R. Pepper L. Myers B. Mason J. Knevel M. Verble J. Senske J. Martin W. Paplawski A. Wentworth S. Zirbel M. Verble R. Graber B. Seidle B. Tessmann J. Zins J. Reneau J. Lacefield R. Nelson D. Draeger G. Dennis J. Graham J. Zins

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 69

recently accepted trophies typical whitetail deer continued

top Samuel J. Hill harvested this pronghorn, scoring 834/8 points, in Carbon County, Wyoming, in 2010.

above Lisa G. Reed was hunting during the 2010 season in Clark County, Nevada, when she took this desert sheep scoring 172 points. below This Quebec-Labrador caribou was harvested by Andrew G. Riehl while hunting near Mistastin Lake in Newfoundland during the 2010 season.

The bull scores 369-6/8 points.

170 1/8 188 3/8 Trempealeau Co., WI Jeffrey L. Steinke 2010 170 175 5/8 Adams Co., OH Steven A. Kinker 2010 170 174 5/8 Dunn Co., WI Richard A. Bygd 2010 169 7/8 188 5/8 Baca Co., CO Ricky L. Mason 2010 169 2/8 172 6/8 Lac La Biche, AB Robert D. Moyer 2010 169 1/8 177 1/8 Crawford Co., IA Hamp Bass 2010 168 7/8 171 5/8 Cowley Co., KS Matthew A. Tyree 2010 168 6/8 188 6/8 Sullivan Co., MO Brett J. Monzyk 2010 167 7/8 187 4/8 Becker Co., MN Nathan L. Fetting 2010 167 7/8 182 7/8 Dryden, ON Timothy A. Noyes 2009 167 3/8 175 3/8 Barron Co., WI Eric J. Schalley 2010

167 3/8 176 1/8 Onondaga Co., NY Robert J. Dillabough 2010 167 2/8 191 6/8 Christian Co., KY Ed Stiles 2010 167 2/8 176 3/8 Miller Co., MO Joyce F. Brumley 2010 167 171 7/8 Live Oak Co., TX Newman F. Baker III 2010 166 5/8 170 2/8 Saunders Co., NE Mason J. Petrzilka 2008 166 4/8 198 6/8 Bayfield Co., WI Brandon E. Ross 2010 165 7/8 183 4/8 Warrick Co., IN Joshua R. Wire 2010 165 6/8 180 4/8 Macon Co., MO John Cozart 2010 165 5/8 172 5/8 Carroll Co., OH Joseph E. Miller 2009 165 5/8 182 3/8 Piscataquis Co., ME John G. Guyotte 2010 2009 165 5/8 169 5/8 Schuyler Co., MO Riley J. Nevins Tim T. Parker 2010 165 5/8 171 3/8 Shawano Co., WI Ryan D. Resac 2010 165 5/8 186 2/8 Vernon Co., WI Karsten B. Petersen 2010 165 3/8 174 3/8 Polk Co., WI Donna M. LaVictoire 2010 165 2/8 171 6/8 Sweet Grass, SK David W. Stevens 2010 165 2/8 175 3/8 Parke Co., IN 192 4/8 Wayne Co., IA Lee V. Huffman 2009 165 Shawn D. Kempker 2010 164 7/8 185 7/8 Miller Co., MO 172 1/8 Clearwater Co., MN Kyle N. Wold 2010 164 184 5/8 Gameland, ON Norman H. MacDonald 2010 164 Glen A. Monson 2010 163 7/8 171 6/8 Youngstown, AB Jeffrey D. Grissom 2010 163 4/8 171 1/8 Hardin Co., KY 2010 163 4/8 167 4/8 Nodaway Co., MO Shane P. Kimble 2010 163 3/8 170 4/8 Marquette Co., WI Mark A. Baker 2010 163 2/8 167 4/8 Marshall Co., MN Bradley W. Nelson 170 Clay Co., AR Charles P. Wheelis 2010 163 187 5/8 Columbia Co., WI Randall J. Attoe 2009 163 166 1/8 Nez Perce Co., ID Gregory L. Bryant 2010 163 Ken Landry 2010 162 7/8 165 3/8 Fulton Co., KY 2009 162 4/8 165 7/8 Highland Co., OH Jim E. West David A. Walters 2010 162 2/8 175 6/8 Allen Co., OH 2010 162 1/8 172 1/8 Jefferson Co., AR Drake Stracener Gary L. Harlan, Jr. 2010 161 7/8 170 3/8 Franklin Co., IN

Fulton Co., IL Patrick G. DeCarolis 2010 161 7/8 179 Michael R. Keil 2010 161 6/8 165 5/8 Aitkin Co., MN Donald S. Combs 2010 161 4/8 178 1/8 Douglas Co., NE Richard A. Macomber 2010 161 4/8 167 5/8 Lincoln Co., WI Justin G. Fazenbaker 2010 161 2/8 175 4/8 Wayne Co., OH 175 4/8 Isanti Co., MN Scott A. Olander 2010 161 183 3/8 St. Charles Co., MO Eric L. Cassinger 2010 161 160 4/8 177 5/8 Buffalo Co., WI Terry M. Van Asten 2010 160 4/8 165 3/8 Elk Co., PA Thomas H. Grotzinger 2010 James H. Walker 2010 160 2/8 171 3/8 Bolivar Co., MS 160 1/8 165 5/8 Adams Co., WI Brad A. Bauer 2009 Lyman Co., SD Brian J. Brossart 2010 160 1/8 175 Miller Co., MO Trey Kempker 2010 160 1/8 178 Tim Wadkins 2010 160 1/8 164 3/8 Warren Co., IN 179 7/8 Atchison Co., MO David L. Rhoades 2009 160 166 6/8 Butler Co., PA Alfred C. Brown 2010 160

C. Rotering S. Smith S. Ashley S. Grebe D. Mitchell W. Walters J. Bowers B. Harriman C. Kozitka C. Smiley K. Zimmerman J. Dowd W. Cooper L. Redel B. Wallace R. Krueger S. Zirbel D. Belwood J. Mraz R. Stephen A. Wentworth A. Vest S. Zirbel J. Ramsey C. Cousins R. Boucher R. White F. Fanizzi L. Redel G. Fausone D. Nuttall J. Cook W. Cooper D. Merritt S. Zirbel R. Dufault D. Boland J. Ramsey S. Wilkins W. Cooper R. Perrine M. Wendel L. Cates K. Bumbalough F. Giuliani T. Rogers R. Krueger T. Heil R. Pepper R. Berggren J. Detjen S. Zirbel M. Blazosky W. Walters J. Ramsey L. Jass L. Redel J. Bogucki K. Zielke A. Brunst

non-typical whitetail deer 251 2/8 256 3/8 244 6/8 249 5/8 244 4/8 256 4/8 241 4/8 250 5/8 228 233 7/8 226 6/8 243 6/8 223 2/8 233 3/8 222 7/8 227 4/8 221 2/8 229 4/8 221 2/8 233 1/8 219 6/8 227 217 3/8 230

216 7/8 219 214 7/8 221 4/8

70 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

White Creek, SK Buchanan Co., IA Coshocton Co., OH Ross Co., OH Warren Co., KY Mahaska Co., IA Davis Co., IA Grafton Co., NH Lincoln Co., OK Milwaukee Co., WI Licking Co., OH Rocky Mountain House, AB Jackson Co., WI Pottawatomie Co., OK

Curtis Narfason Kelly W. Doyl Joseph A. Raber Jason C. McClintic David Gregory Ronald DeJonge J. Ron Poole John Gravelle Michael M. Cole Picked Up Jeffrey L. Kaiser Anthony J. Rumsey

2010 2010 2010 2009 2010 2010 2010 1950 2010 2010 2010 2010

L. Schlachter P. Farni R. Pepper D. Haynes W. Cooper D. Merritt E. Earls B. Emerson D. Jilge R. Krueger M. Wendel D. Powell

Kris Graff Shane D. Dockrey

2010 S. Zirbel 2009 D. Jilge

non-typical whitetail deer continued 213 6/8 219 3/8 Noble Co., IN Kyle S. Bolen 2010 213 221 5/8 Delaware Co., IN Jeffery J. Harty 2009 212 4/8 221 2/8 Sheboygan Co., WI Adam P. Mentink 2010 212 1/8 217 2/8 Dunn Co., WI Dennis A. Rhead 2010 211 1/8 215 7/8 Clark Co., IL Picked Up 2010 210 219 Goodhue Co., MN Nathan C.J. Walker 2010 209 1/8 215 3/8 Cass Co., NE Neil T. Johnson 2010 208 5/8 213 5/8 Owen Co., KY Greg A. Reinhardt 2010 208 4/8 217 6/8 Pottawattamie D. Scott Simpson 2010

Co., IA 208 4/8 214 3/8 Sawyer Co., WI Hunter A. Eytcheson 2010 208 3/8 216 6/8 Riley Co., KS Mark E. Johnson 2001 208 2/8 213 2/8 Morgan Co., IN Dean L. Hudson 2010 207 7/8 218 6/8 N. Saskatchewan Jim Dawley 2010

River, SK 207 3/8 210 1/8 Neosho Co., KS Dennis D. Steinman 2009 206 1/8 215 4/8 Marshall Co., KS Travis J. Champlin 2010 204 2/8 208 Marshall Co., IN Picked Up 2009 203 3/8 213 3/8 Waupaca Co., WI William E. Malm 2010 203 1/8 208 7/8 Jefferson Co., IN Kody E. Coles 2010 202 207 3/8 Becker Co., MN Steven R. Kozitka 2010 201 4/8 207 2/8 St. Clair Co., IL Chris D. Goodwin 2009 201 3/8 209 Scioto Co., OH Kevin D. Woody 2010 201 208 3/8 New Castle Co., DE Nick J. Pruitt 2010 200 7/8 208 1/8 Coal Co., OK Kelsey M. McKay 2010 200 6/8 210 3/8 Jefferson Co., MO Jacob D. DeRousse 2009 James F. Kosier 2010 200 6/8 208 1/8 Mason Co., IL 200 4/8 206 2/8 Lewis Co., KY David M. Harrington 2010 Sharon I. Lane 2010 200 2/8 202 7/8 Navarro Co., TX 199 206 3/8 Houston Co., MN Jeffrey B. Bunke 2010 Robert C. Stadler 2010 198 3/8 205 6/8 Brule Co., SD 198 3/8 206 6/8 Stark Co., OH Mark A. Grunder 2010 198 2/8 205 5/8 Bath Co., KY Denver R. Crouch 2010 197 7/8 200 4/8 Brooks Co., TX Rolanette S. Lawrence 2010 Vance S. Vanderburg 2010 197 5/8 203 4/8 Gray Co., TX 197 4/8 207 4/8 Waldo Co., ME Lucas S. Clark 2010

197 2/8 202 6/8 Crawford Co., WI Jerad N. Peak 2010 David Novak 2010 196 7/8 213 1/8 Fraser River, BC 196 3/8 198 6/8 Marion Co., IL Kelly J. King 2010 196 3/8 203 5/8 Shawano Co., WI Michael A. Kroll 2010 196 212 3/8 Scott Co., MN Jeremy M. Bester 2010 Jeremy D. Hurlbert 2010 195 6/8 202 5/8 Neebing, ON 195 4/8 206 5/8 Crawford Co., WI Chance L. Zimpel 2010 Bryan R. Boise 2010 195 4/8 204 4/8 Decatur Co., IA 195 3/8 199 2/8 Cass Co., MN Terry L. Ausk 2010 195 202 3/8 Harrison Co., KY Chris Denniston 2010 194 6/8 198 2/8 Waupaca Co., WI Travis M. Bronk 2010 194 3/8 204 5/8 St. Joseph Co., MI Ryan N. Glass 2010 194 2/8 201 Warren Co., OH Michael A. Rowe 2010 193 1/8 197 1/8 Sauk Co., WI Richard R. Dobratz 2010 192 2/8 198 4/8 Hubbard Co., MN Tamra M. Dietman 2010 192 2/8 201 1/8 Saunders Co., NE Charles M. Heuring 2010 192 1/8 195 4/8 Suffolk Co., NY Peter A. Cuervo 2010 191 202 2/8 Stevens Co., WA David R. Zickler 2010 190 5/8 198 7/8 Adams Co., OH Anthony W. Amyx 2010

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W. Novy J. Bogucki S. Zirbel S. Ashley M. Kistler L. Streiff S. Cowan J. Phillips C. Pierce J. Senske R. Walters P. Hawkins B. Seidle L. Fox C. Pierce J. Bogucki S. Zirbel S. Smith C. Kozitka L. Smith P. Thompson W. Jones J. Edwards D. Roper D. Kennedy J. Shaw B. Lambert D. Boland L. Jass M. Kaufmann K. Ison S. Fuchs M. Sumner T. Montgomery L. Miller R. Berreth M. Kistler S. Zirbel D. Boland D. Nuttall L. Miller D. Coker R. Dehart W. Cooper S. Zirbel J. Bogucki R. Perrine J. Ramsey M. Harrison T. Korth F. Giuliani L. Carey G. Trent

190 4/8 195 Randolph Co., IL Lori F. Oakley 2009 190 4/8 195 6/8 Walthall Co., MS Dwight Shaffer 2010 190 3/8 201 6/8 Highland Co., OH Alek S. Muladore 2010 190 3/8 196 6/8 Trigg Co., KY Clay Ryan 2010 190 2/8 197 4/8 St. Louis Co., MN Kyle D. Thostenson 2010 189 6/8 195 4/8 Randolph Co., MO John L. Bruno 2010 189 1/8 196 5/8 Shawano Co., WI Kevin P. Prien 2010 188 7/8 198 6/8 Calhoun Co., MI George I. Swan, Jr. 2010 188 7/8 201 3/8 Elk Co., PA Joseph H. 2010

Dellaquila, Jr. 188 3/8 198 2/8 Waldo Co., ME Darryl J. Raven 2010

188 2/8 196 2/8 Shelby Co., MO Quintin P. Keith 2010 188 1/8 196 2/8 Wright Co., MN Blaine S. Kolles 2010 187 7/8 201 Peterborough, ON Christopher R. Gray 2010 187 5/8 194 5/8 Stettler, AB Blaine P. Dietz 2010 187 191 Wabash Co., IN James R. Sorrell 2010 186 5/8 190 3/8 Woodruff Co., AR Luc Runyon 2010 186 2/8 193 2/8 Iowa Co., IA George P. Langas 2010 185 4/8 195 3/8 Saline Co., IL Jody N. Morrison 2010

J. Mraz C. McDonald G. Trent W. Cooper G. Fausone B. Ream S. Zirbel D. Merritt M. Blazosky T. Montgomery B. Ream S. Grabow P. Martin D. Powell R. Karczewski D. Boland P. Farni D. Belwood

typical Coues’ whitetail 119 2/8 128 7/8 Coconino Co., AZ 106 1/8 107 4/8 Chihuahua, MX

Michael L. Benham 2010 M. Golightly Thomas D. Lundgren 2010 R. Hatfield

non-typical Coues’ whitetail 146 3/8 154 1/8 Grant Co., NM

Augustin F. Ruiz

2010 R. Madsen

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

Ray Olson Luke R. Viravec Jeremy J. Greisen

2008 C. Walker 2010 D. Watson 2010 C. Cousins

Sylvain Caron Mark L. Hanna John T. MacNeil Thomas J. Fallon Chad E. Allen John Strong Martin Gizard

2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2005 2010

Nathan L. Harker Eric J. Wald Jeff D. Schuchard

2009 L. Hlavaty 2010 G. Ponsness 2010 D. Eider

Greg B. Buck

2010 O. Carpenter

MOOSE & CARIBOU FINAL GROSS SCORE SCORE LOCATION

Canada moose 223 6/8 239 5/8 221 4/8 236 3/8 218 7/8 227

216 219 1/8 210 212 1/8 204 1/8 208 4/8 196 201 2/8 191 7/8 194 4/8 190 194 3/8 189 6/8 199 5/8

Cassiar Dist., BC Sheep Creek, AB Tatshenshini River, BC Madawaska, NB Gillam, MB Stillwater Lake, ON Silver Lakes, BC Toad River, BC Essex Co., VT Riviére Kedgwick

L. Soucy S. Zirbel D. Nuttall A. Neilson K. Witt D. Coker R. Groleau

Alaska-Yukon moose 241 2/8 243 7/8 238 6/8 244 2/8 219 4/8 229 5/8

210 1/8 214 7/8

Nakeen, AK Saint Marys, AK Tombstone Territorial Park, YT Whitehorse, YT

Field Photography Tip No. 6

We often times poke fun at photography of yesteryear.

Just look back at your high school yearbook or prom photos for examples that will hit close to home. Across time or culture changes, our societies change, we change, and so does the equipment we use to take pictures. More often than not, photos we see taken back in the good old days are amusing by today’s standards, but this is not always the case. While it’s true, the B&C record archives are full of photos that illustrate just how far we have come, there are others that would seem out of place if not for being in black and white and demonstrating the dress or weapons of the day. Here is one example.

P.A. Johnson took this fine Dall’s ram back in 1950 from Johnson River, Alaska. His ram ranks #21 All-time at a score of 180-3/8. Whoever took this picture nailed it for a wellcomposed mountain ram photo.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 71 Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 71

MOOSE & CARIBOU FINAL GROSS SCORE SCORE LOCATION

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

Shiras’ moose 170 6/8 165 6/8 155 6/8 146 5/8 143 1/8

180 2/8 167 6/8 158 3/8 148 3/8 154 7/8

Spokane Co., WA Washakie Co., WY Sublette Co., WY Gallatin Co., MT Larimer Co., CO

Gerald L. Shepherd 2010 J. Cook Michael A. Coble 2010 J. Lesser Dawn M. Anderson 2009 K. Dana George J. Gebhardt 2010 F. King Gary E. Janssen 2010 S. Zirbel

2010 T. Grabowski 2010 R. McDrew

woodland caribou 346 4/8 356 2/8 336 1/8 352 3/8 334 4/8 351 1/8

304 3/8 315 2/8 297 2/8 307 7/8

Deer Lake, NL Deer Pond, NL Green Island Brook, NL Island Steady, NL Great Gull Lake, NL

Charles P. Dimiceli 2010 J. Messeroll Michael B. McDowell 2010 A. Hammond Eric Vreeland 2010 S. Frazier David L. Vinca Alan H. Anglyn

2009 T. Ross 2010 S. Levar

Marcia M. Everson

2010 G. Anderson

barren ground caribou 388

397 1/8 Revine Creek, AK

Quebec-Labrador caribou 369 6/8 385 1/8 Mistastin Lake, NL Andrew G. Riehl

82 2/8 81 5/8 81 7/8 81 5/8 81 3/8 82 81 5/8 81 5/8 81 2/8 81 1/8 80 7/8 80 7/8

Sweetwater Co., WY Gene H. Russell 2009 Guadalupe Co., NM John R. Dean 2010 Suffield, AB Michelle R. Schuett 2010 Carbon Co., WY James H. Mason 2010 Lincoln Co., WY Derek E. Haider 2010 Sweetwater Co., WY Frederick R. Kloos, Jr. 2010 Sweetwater Co., WY Wayne M. Richards 2009 Carbon Co., WY Patricia G. Hettick 2010 Sweetwater Co., WY Shawn E. Moore 2010 Albany Co., WY Jonathan M. Boller 2010 Carbon Co., WY Kurt D. Rued 2010 Natrona Co., WY Michael L. Lopez 2009

R. Hall V. Howard C. Dillabough B. Wilkes E. Boley E. Ford R. Black W. Hepworth B. Wilkes B. Lambert F. King E. Randall

135 121 3/8 119 2/8 115 5/8

Custer Co., SD Custer Co., SD Custer Co., SD Garfield Co., UT

G. Childers J. Reneau L. Jass R. Hall

bison

mountain caribou 412 7/8 423 6/8 Tay Lake, YT Paul T. Richardson 390 410 Mackenzie Mts., NT Aaron B. Florian

4/8 81 2/8 81 2/8 80 6/8 80 6/8 80 6/8 80 6/8 80 4/8 80 2/8 80 80 80

133 119 4/8 118 115 2/8

David M. Morris Picked Up Jeffrey B. Buck Ronald P. Mika

2010 2005 2009 2010

Rocky Mountain goat 52 4/8 53 51 51

50 6/8 51 1/8 50 4/8 50 7/8 50 2/8 50 5/8 50 50 1/8 50 50 2/8 49 4/8 49 6/8 49 2/8 49 5/8 48 2/8 48 4/8

Unknown Kenneth W. Mitchell Revillagigedo Patrick G. Heuer Island, AK Tuchodi River, BC Dustin J. Cobbett Telegraph Creek, BC Richard L. Martin Utah Co., UT Heath Cullimore Teton Co., WY Travis B. Strange Weber Co., UT Jeffery T. Hill Baker Co., OR Robert A. Quaempts Ravalli Co., MT Barri R. Twardoski Skeena Mts., BC Thomas P. Vaida

1990 D. Covey 2009 J. Baichtal 2010 2009 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010

D. Turchanski C. Wilkins D. Nielsen V. Dana R. Hall E. Buckner J. Reneau F. Pringle

2010 B. Buhay

bighorn sheep

HORNED GAME

FINAL GROSS SCORE SCORE LOCATION

HUNTER

DATE MEASURER

pronghorn 88 88 86 6/8 86 2/8 85 4/8 85 84 2/8 84 83 6/8 83 4/8 83 2/8 83 83 82 6/8 82 6/8 82 4/8 82 4/8 82 2/8 82 2/8 82 2/8 82

89 1/8 89 87 6/8 87 1/8 86 5/8 85 7/8 85 2/8 85 1/8 85 84 7/8 84 2/8 83 5/8 84 5/8 83 83 6/8 83 3/8 83 83 83 4/8 83 2/8 82 5/8

Millard Co., UT Dean H. Nielsen Sweetwater Co., WY John C. Vanko Dawes Co., NE Michael G. Raymer Washakie Co., WY L. L. Bud Skaar Sioux Co., NE Kerry G. Keane Humboldt Co., NV Gary S. Frost Fremont Co., WY Kerry J. Krings Las Animas Co., CO N. Guy Eastman Carbon Co., WY Blane M. Cowley Carbon Co., WY Samuel J. Hill Natrona Co., WY Steven J. Schulz Fremont Co., WY John L. O’Brien Hudspeth Co., TX James H. Duke, Jr. Dallam Co., TX Chris Penick Grant Co., NM Mike E. Dean Cherry Co., NE Robert J. Hardy Sweetwater Co., WY Kurt B. Johnson Carbon Co., WY Jared J. Mason Fremont Co., WY Robert W. Parish Harney Co., OR Ryan E. Torland Carbon Co., WY Ricky L. Mason

2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2008 2010 2007 2010 2010 2010 2010 2010 2009

D. Nielsen R. Stayner T. Nordeen J. Mankin M. Dowse J. Capurro R. Pesek R. Selner D. Pawlicki B. Wilkes R. Bonander H. Wilson R. Reeves E. Stanosheck V. Howard R. Nelson V. Dana B. Wilkes J. Lesser T. Rozewski B. Smith

203 6/8 198 197 4/8 194 3/8 194 192 1/8 191 7/8 190 2/8 190 189 3/8 189 187 3/8 182 5/8 181 7/8 180 5/8 180 3/8 178 6/8 176 6/8

204 6/8 198 1/8 197 6/8 195 1/8 194 3/8 192 6/8 193 190 6/8 190 6/8 189 7/8 189 188 1/8 184 4/8 182 3/8 181 180 6/8 179 3/8 177 3/8

Chouteau Co., MT Matt Q. Rippentrop 2010 Chouteau Co., MT Jimmy J. Liautaud 2010 Nez Perce Co., ID William L. Garroutte 2010 Fergus Co., MT Charles W. Barone 2009 Pend Oreille Co., WA Jerry L. Barron 2010 Sparwood, BC Picked Up 2005 Chouteau Co., MT Allen W. Schmidt 2010 Blaine Co., MT Thomas C. Mickey 2010 Blaine Co., MT Steve T. Powers 2010 Blaine Co., MT Lennie D. Buhmann 2010 Ravalli Co., MT Lena A. Wiediger 2010 Lost Creek, BC Amy Pagliaro 2010 Albany Co., WY Mike J. Stillwell 2010 Grand Co., UT Bruce W. Pargeets 2010 Deer Lodge Co., MT Wayne R. Estep 2010 Carbon Co., UT James J. Diamanti, Jr. 2010 Baker Co., OR Fred L. Riggs 2010 Chelan Co., WA Brian A. Clintworth 2010

F. King D. Morris D. Morris F. King F. King D. Patterson G. Hisey F. King K. Balfourd F. King R. Schoon L. Hill R. Bonander R. Hall B. Zundel K. Leo E. Buckner J. Cook

desert sheep 181 5/8 180 5/8 180 5/8 180 177 6/8 175 6/8 175 6/8 174 173 1/8 172 171 3/8 170 2/8 166 5/8

182 3/8 181 4/8 182 2/8 181 2/8 178 2/8 177 176 5/8 174 1/8 173 3/8 172 2/8 172 171 3/8 166 7/8

Hidalgo Co., NM Darryl J. Hastings 2010 Nye Co., NV Robert A. Johnson 2010 Tiburon Island, MX James A. DeBlasio 2010 Hermosillo, MX Gary M. Drechsel 2010 Sonora, MX Robert W. DuHadaway 2009 Pinal Co., AZ Robert Y. Childers 2010 San Miguel Co., CO Daniel R. Meadors 2010 Clark Co., NV Frank M. Flavin 2010 Washington Co., UT Michael J. Radford 2010 Clark Co., NV Lisa G. Reed 2010 La Paz Co., AZ Dwight R. Brunsvold 2010 Culberson Co., TX J.D. Woods, Jr 2011 Clark Co., NV Brian S. Smith 2009

L. Prossen T. Humes B. Penske L. Carey W. Jones M. Cupell T. Archibeque L. Clark R. Hall L. Clark C. Goldman J. Carroll J. Medici

Wrangell Mts., AK Chris E. Brough Nahanni River, NT Billy I. Dippel Arctic Red River, NT Cameron T. Foss Tatshenshini Michael E. Farrally River, BC

R. Hall S. Buchanan C. Dillabough B. Mason

Dall’s sheep 168 168 1/8 163 4/8 163 7/8 162 3/8 162 7/8 161 5/8 162

2010 2010 2010 2010

Stone’s sheep 81

72 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

175 4/8 175 6/8 Prairie River, BC 160 6/8 161 3/8 Racing River, BC

Steven D. Mulvihill Thomas P. Powers

2010 P. Bruhs 1996 P. Wright

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LEFT: Kyle M. Simmons’ First Award nontypical whitetail was one of three non-typical bucks displayed in Reno. BOTTOM LEFT: Robert J. Castle took this award-winning Alaska brown bear near Alaska’s Uganik Lake during the 2006 season. The story of this hunt, told by Robert himself, is one of many featured in this edition.

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The trophies in the field photos on the following pages have all been accepted in Boone and Crockett Club’s 28th Big Game Awards Program.

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74 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Top row

Kaitlyn L. Anderson, right, and her fiance Brandon Nelson, were hunting near Del Creek, British Columbia, when she harvested this grizzly bear, scoring 24-2/16 points, in 2010.

Anderson was shooting a .300 Winchester Short Mag. In 2010, Robert A. Johnson took this desert sheep while hunting in Nye County, Nevada. The ram scores 1805/8 points.

This Rocky Mountain goat scoring 50 points was taken in 2010 by Travis B. Strange while he was bowhunting in Teton County, Wyoming.

MIDDLE row

David M. Harrington took this non-typical whitetail deer in 2010 while hunting in Lewis County, Kentucky. The buck scores 200-4/8 points. Read more about Kentuckyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s recordbook whitetails on page 50 of this issue.

While on a 2010 hunt in Carbon County, Wyoming, Jared J. Mason harvested this 82-2/8 point pronghorn.

He was shooting a .257 Weatherby Mag. This typical whitetail deer was harvested in Ohioâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Adams County during the 2010 season

by Steven A. Kinker. This buck scores 170 points .

BOTTOM ROW

Paul T. Richardson took this mountain caribou scoring 412-7/8 points in 2010 while hunting near Tay Lake in Yukon Territory.

FEATURE PHOTO

This Alaska-Yukon moose, scoring 238-6/8 points, was taken by Eric J. Wald in 2010, while hunting near Saint Marys, Alaska. Wald was shooting a .300 Winchester Short Mag.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 75

A look back...

1958

Tom F. Bolak Polar Bear Point Hope, Alaska 28-12/16 points

FEATURE PHOTO Billy I. Dippel was hunting during the 2010 season near the Nahanni River in Northwest Territories when he took this Dallâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sheep, scoring 163-6/8 points. Dippel was shooting a .300 Winchester Short Mag.

76 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

Top row

This non-typical whitetail deer, scoring 195-6/8 points, was taken near Neebing, Ontario, by Jeremy D. Hurlbert in 2010.

Meghan E. Seidle took this typical mule deer in 2010 while on a muzzleloader hunt in Saskatchewan’s Great Sand Hills. Her buck scores 200-6/8 points.

Tony R. Milliken, Sr. was hunting in Alaska’s Nulato Hills in 2010 when he harvested this grizzly bear scoring 25-8/16 points.

Milliken was shooting a .338378 Weatherby Mag.

MIDDLE row

In the spring of 2009, Patrick G. Heuer harvested this 51-point Rocky Mountain goat with a .300 Winchester Mag. Heuer was hunting on Revillagigedo Island, Alaska.

While hunting in Garfield County, Utah, during the 2010 season, Ronald P. Mika harvested this bison with his .300 Weatherby Mag. The bull scores 115-2/8 points.

Dwight Shaffer was shooting a .35 Whelen on his 2010 hunt in Walthall County, Mississippi, that resulted in this non-typical whitetail deer scoring 190-4/8 points.

BOTTOM ROW

Thomas P. Powers took this Stone’s sheep scoring 160-6/8 points while on a 1996 hunt near Racing River, British Columbia.

Powers was shooting a 7mm Remington Mag. This pronghorn was taken

by N. Guy Eastman while hunting in Las Animas County, Colorado in 2010.

The buck has a final score of 84 points.

Fair Chase Summer 2011 n 77

B&C Books for Sportsmen Throughout the years Boone and Crockett Club books have provided hours of entertainment and

become valuable assets to many hunting cabins and sportsmen’s libraries. Since the Club offered its first book in 1893, we’ve published over 65 titles. We have everything from award-winning books about Theodore Roosevelt and the evolution of hunting in the American West to our newest records book, Boone and Crockett Club’s 27th Big Game Awards. Be sure to check out the follow-up book in our wildly popular history series – our newest installment, An American Elk Retrospective, is sure to please anyone interested in our hunting heritage.

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78 n Fair Chase Summer 2011

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Three new books including the 13th Edition of Records of North American Big Game, are all scheduled for release this fall. Watch for more information in future issues of Fair Chase and on the Club’s web site.

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