From the Rifle to the Camera Photo Safari

Those were the days!  Outfitting for Big Game in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the fall and hunting black bear in the Spring in the country closer to the ranch.  That career of mine ran for about two decades, from the early 80's into the early 21st century.  I know that time frame so well because I had always maintained that I would outfit into the 2000's and that's the way it turned out.  I was a fanatic hunter for so many years in addition to running the big game hunting business.  But that passion of mine burned out like a candle.  I'm not sure why but I sure as hell know it did.

Funny though, through all those years of hard hunting I always maintained that love of looking for animals, shootable or not.  I think that throughout that last decade of hard commercial hunting I was a better traveller of wild country while always keeping my eyes open for elk and deer but also for wolves, griz and black bears, lynx, wolverine, and more.  There's nothing like ridding the high country of the Bob horseback.  I mean, it's cool!  There's lots of open country up there.  Not a trillion Love Making Trees (more fucking trees!) ruining the scenery, snagging the horses, ripping up the gear.  I'd get above timberline and ride the high basins and ridges and stop now and again to glass sidehills and on up to the tops of the many mountain tops around me.  I loved kicking up mulie bucks bedded down in sparse brush or in the occasional pockets of fir or limber pine.  And then now and  again, we'd find elk way up high and the game was on.  Lots of frenetic movement grabbing rifles, getting dismounted, and finding a rest to shoot, sometimes losing the horses in the melee.  Oh those were the days.

On a good day, with the sun shining and the wind less than a roar I really did enjoy cruising the high country of the Bob.  There's still some real wild country up there.  Some of those hidden drainages and canyons are rarely seen much less visited by man.  Spending time in and around them is a real special feeling.  I'll bet some of that country we hunted was visited by man maybe only on a real rare occasion every few years.  Sure, there's parts of the Bob that damn well do get some serious traffic but some of that remote high country stays way in the background.

Well, as they say, that was then and this is now.  I've felt myself drawing further and further away from the hunting and killing of those animals for quite some time.  I've lost that passion for taking the hunt to the ultimate end with the harvesting of elk, deer, and bear.  I lost it.  There isn't barely a bit of wanting to pull that trigger again.  Maybe just a bit.  Possibly some fall in the future back up in the alpine country of the Bob after a long ride and a good feeling inside me.  If it feels right maybe, and I said maybe, I'll whack a mulie buck, for food.  Those high country mulies are extraordinarily superb grilled on an open fire.  Two inches thick and almost no marbled fat.  I'll add some bacon to the chops or fillets.  That'll work.  But more than the hunting I look forward to once more getting back to that big country of the high Bob that I love so much.

In any case, I'm also looking forward to a new chapter in my life and that being a "hunter for photos."  And not just for photos, cause truth be known, I'm a lousy photographer!  I don't even like to take pictures.  I'd rather focus on the moment with m own two eyes and think about what I'm seeing.  Nevertheless, I do plan on accumulating some photographic "trophies" and at the least guiding guests and photographers to the right places so they can get good shots of the critters.  Then I'll use their photo skills and put their photos on my website and walls.  How does that sound?

I've put some of those thoughts and emotions to work in a practical and business sense by offering up a "Photo Safari" week as part of our array of special events in 2012.  Oliver Klink, one of the worlds' truly great photographers will be at Bear Creek Ranch for a week beginning May 11.  Oliver will be conducting a workshop on photographing the Glacier Park area's wildlife and I'll be guiding him and his students for the big and small game animals including elk, deer, moose, sheep, goats, both species of bear, and of course the very hard to find smaller animals like lynx, wolverine, and wolf.  May is the absolute best time of year to find the area's animals as they are on very exposed habitat and feeding very heavily after a long winter of little feed.  We should have a wing ding of a time.  We're going to see alot of game.  Exactly how much and how easily our venture becomes remains to be seen.  Stay tuned!