By Kevin Woster

Old Wily is best advised to stay frosty on Jan. 12, especially if he’s in the general vicinity of Hermosa.

That’s the day of the Trails West Saloon Coyote Derby, so there’ll be plenty of gun-toting coyote hunters after old Wily’s furry hide.

The annual coyote hunt will by Trails West Saloon in Hermosa will allow unlimited hunting territory for each two-person coyote-hunting team. But hunters have to follow all government regs and rules and face checks of the animals to make sure they were shot on Jan. 12.

There’s a 100-percent payback of entry fees to the point winner, with each male coyotes worth 30 points and each female coyote worth 40 points. Team entry fee is $50.

There’s also an optional big-dog/little dog contest, with a $10 entry fee per team and 100-percent payback, as well as a Jan. 11 calcutta with an 80-percent payback. Registration is from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Jan. 11 at the saloon.

There’ll also be a buffet dinner, dance and Karaoke after the hunt on Saturday. For more info contact Lee Ann Hoffman at 255-4647.

No word on whether the Road Runner plans to attend.

Snow marks the ATV tracks through what was otherwise a dense stand of cattails in a GPA near Oral. The best cover in the GPA was criss-crossed with the four-wheeled vandalism.

By Kevin Woster

Over the years, I’ve referred to them as idiot tracks.

See the tracks, you know the idiots have been there.

They’re all over public land, made by people in motorized machines of some sort, going places where they shouldn’t go, doing damage they shouldn’t do.

Why? Mostly because they’re lazy.Mostly because they don’t care - about hunting as a sport, wildlife management as a priority, public land as a valuable resource.

Mostly because they have an inflated sense of self-entitlement. The rules just don’t apply to them. Neither do the environmental ethics.

Mostly, they’re perfectly able-bodied MEN who can’t seem to work up the ambition to get out and hoof it to hunt. So they crash through the cattails and switchgrass and and snowberry on or in one revved-up machine or another, breaking state regulations, cheating the hunters who do it right, hurting the habitat and diminishing the sport.

I ran across their tracks again late in the afternoon on Christmas Eve Day, stopping on my way back from a news assignment on the Pine Ridge for on a quick hike through the Oral GPA.

As usual, I only saw their tracks. But I know who they are.

Idiots, plain and simple.

 

It’s not a Christmas tree. It’s not a Nativity scene. And it’s certainly not chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

But it is a pretty nice glimpse of Lake Isabel lying frozen and smooth on a mild December afternoon.

I think that will do for my purpose here.

Which is to say, quite simply:

 MERRY CHRISTMAS.

The icy Little Moreau River snakes away from its reservoir in the Little Moreau State Recreation Area near Timber Lake, not far from the ranch where Tanner O’Leary grew up and now lies buried.

By Kevin Woster

I only had 20 minutes.

But I also had the 20 gauge, and plenty to think about.

More than that, I had the Little Moreau Recreation Area all to myself, except for the kids who showed up after sundown to dare each other, slipping and sliding, farther and farther and farther out on the clear ice of a stock dam.

I stopped at the Little Moreau, five miles or so south of Timber Lake, just before sundown Wednesday. I was in between a story about a women’s shelter in McLaughlin and the more emotionally exacting coverage that night and the next day in Timber Lake about a young rancher, Cheyenne River tribe member and U.S. Army soldier - Tanner O’Leary - who died fighting in Afghanistan on Dec. 9.

It was a story to soften the hardest of hearts, to shake the firmest foundations of complacency. It was a story about war and life, about cultures coming together in love and especially about the kind of loss that makes us feel weak and hollow just to ponder - the kind of loss Tanner O’Leary’s family must now carry forever.

The ranch where Tanner grew up is not far south from the public lands of the Little Moreau. And I couldn’t help but think of him, his family and their grief as I strolled the bluegrass ridges and buckbrush draws.

It was a little chilly, mostly calm, entirely beautiful.

The 20 gauge never came up to my shoulder. But the sun went down as expected, illuminating the landscape in the last warm light of day.

It was a comforting time and place, for me. But my comfort came easily. The O’Learys’ comfort, of course, will be an elusive gift for years to come.

I pray they find it, someday, out in that wild-and-lovely land where Tanner grew into the fine young man he was, the fine young man who will live forever in the broken hearts of his family.

The last warm light of day filters through pine trees at the Little Moreau Recreation Area, not far from the ranch where Tanner O’Leary lies buried.

By Kevin Woster

The news this week that U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann of Aberdeen overturned the May conviction of Pierre river guide and wild-game processor Caleb Gilkerson was a big win for Gilkerson.

It was also cause for celebration among those who hate Bob Prieksat, the federal warden who wrote the ticket in the case.

It was a loss, of course, for the U. S. Attorney’s office, the Fish and Wildlife Service and senior resident agent Prieksat of Pierre. Today, U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley said it was too early to say if his office would appeal.

I’ll be a little surprised if they don’t.

This was a high profile case involving a high-profile game warden who alleged that Gilkerson had untagged waterfowl - essentially processed geese without proper identifying tags - in his business. And the fact that Kornmann apparently overturned the May ruling by federal Magistrate Judge Mark Moreno of Pierre because federal law on possession of untagged geese applies to “facilities” not to individuals seems to beg further review - just as, I think, Moreno’s decision merited the second look by Kornmann.

I’m no legal brain, but I don’t get it, this facilities point.

We all might get to learn a lot more about the waterfowl-tagging law before it’s over.

P.S. If I’m a little slow posting comments to this thread be patient. I’m heading northeast in the morning to the Timber Lake area, for a couple of stories - in particular the funeral service Thursday of Cpl. Tanner O’Leary, who died Dec. 9 from injuries caused by an improvised explosive device while service in Afghanistan.

It’s a good reminder that there are some things even more important than legal disputes over geese.

Anyway, I’ll try to find some computer access while I’m up there, but you know me and computers…

Kit Bramblee

By Kevin Woster

Kit Bramblee. That’s who.

He’s the new conservation officer and newest resident of Philip, not long out of SDSU’s wildlife program and recently graduated from state law-enforcement and GF&P CO training.

Is it just me or are COs getting younger?

Take this Bramblee fella. He looks young enough to be my son. Wait, he is young enough to be my son. Plenty young enough.

At 24 (my son’s 25, but I have nephews who are, oooh-ouch, 40) he’s also plenty old enough to fill the CO spot in Philip, which has been open for a year or so. And GF&P regional supervisor Mike Kintigh of Rapid City is happy to have him.

“It’s been quite a while since we’ve had an officer there,” Kintigh said. “We had so many openings that young officers weren’t choosing these West River stations.”

No kidding.

The CO spot in Wall has been open for more than two years, for example - which means Teddy Hustead has been operating out in the fields without any uniformed supervision. (I tease, Ted. I know you’re every bit as respondible as I am when fully armed and dressed in orange. Which, well, OK, never mind…)

Speaking of Wall Drug, one of my favorite byway stops, I’d think the donuts alone would attract plenty of CO applicants. Give me enough of those maple tops and I’d consider going back to game-warden school…

Meanwhile, Kintigh hopes to fill the Wall spot sometime next spring.

If it takes much longer, the new CO there is likely to look like, well, my grandson.

By Kevin Woster

 OK, maybe not. But in a way, the GF&P depredation pool is similar to Clint’s 1988 move “The Dead Pool.”

In this case, it’s a pool of hunters ready to make a bunch of  big-game animals dead.

GF&P announced today that applications for the 2007-08 resident big-game depredation pool are now available. This is a no-cost program which only accepts online applications.   The depredation drawing is used to establish pools of hunters who can be called for special hunts intended to minimize damage to private crops or forage. The need is usually winter related.  A mild winter means few calls for a depredation hunt, a harsh one many. This year, hunters may choose the county or counties where they would be called on to hunt, in addition to choosing which species - deer, antelope, turkeys - they are interested in hunting. 

 “Hunters who are called must be immediately available to participate in a depredation hunt,” GF&P official Art Smith said. “Because of this, it is recommended that applicants only apply for those counties in which they reside or live closest to in order to minimize travel time and other difficulties associated with getting to a hunting area.”

To apply, interested hunters need to enter the Game, Fish and Parks Web site at www.sdgfp.info and then navigate to the “What’s New” section or go to http://www.sdgfp.info/Wildlife/hunting/Applications/Index.htm.  Paper applications will not be available for this season. Hunters without Internet access who wish to apply for the depredation pool can get assistance from their local Game, Fish and Parks office.

Either that or run up to Mount Blogmore an ask Harlan. He’s been in the depredation pool for years.This time of year, he wears a wet suit.

By Kevin Woster

The healthy - and then some - population of Black Hills turkeys has led the GF&P Commission to offer another turkey tag for the spring season.

Sort of.

Along with the regular one-turkey tag available to each hunter for the full length of the season, there will be another tag available - by drawining - for the second half of the season.

“Basically, everybody can get one tag that will run the entire turkey season,” GF&P regional supervisor Mike Kintigh said. “And in the second half of thes eason, call it a sub season, one could also pick up a second turkey license, only valid in the last half of the season. Those will be limited in number.”

The second tag, available through a drawing process, will offer hunters a chance at another turkey, and possibly trim a turkey population that has exploded in many areas of the Black Hills, in part because of recent mild winters.

In another bit of gobbler business, the commission voted to prohibit the use of rifles for turkey hunting in Custer State Park .Citing concerns about safety, as well as the notion that blasting a turkey with a rifle at long distance is less sporting than the close-up shotgun kill, the commission has in the past discussed a possible rifle ban for the general turkey season.

The idea was rejected soundly by the NRA and hunters in general.

It’ll be interesting to see how the CSP rifle ban works out.

 

Doing what he does best in a duck blind - drinking tea and munching a bagel - a 56-year-old would-be duckbuster waits near his 50-year-old Remington 20 gauge for the birds to come. 

By Kevin Woster

It’s a fair question, I guess, if you happen not to be a duck hunter:

“Why in the world would you get up at 4 a.m., drive 60 miles on icy roads in the dark, slog through slippery, rutted, uneven terrain on foot an hour before dawn, sit in a homemade duck blind so chilly that you had to soak your rubber-booted feet in the creek to warm them up, just so you can shoot one wood duck?

It’s a fair question, but not the main one - which is: “Why wouldn’t you?”

Having just done it Friday, I can’t imagine.

I was worth the drive just to make the trek on foot, following Keith Wintersteen down a maze of trails where mystery lay around each corner.

It was worth it just to hear that pre-dawn whistle of wings, to guess at the species of dark shapes overhead, to hope they would return after legal shooting hours.

It was worth it just to sip hot tea and munch a cold bagel from Wintersteen’s well-stocked cooler, with the only unwild sounds the far-off, barely discernible whine and rumble of an early morning traveler on asphalt.

And yes, it was worth it to watch the two mini-missile shapes of the wood duck pair, hurling along the creek bottom toward me, and finally flaring up hard to the right at 22 yards.

And, finally, it was worth it two hours later when Mieka, a 2-year-old German wirehair brought in late to do what human searchers couldn’t, worked her olfactory magic to find the woodie lying dead under an overhang of vegetation on the tangled creek edge.

One edgy drive in the dark. One slippery hike toward dawn. One good shot. And one especially fine dog.

Shoot, I’d get up at 3 a.m. for that.

Wouldn’t you?

Keith Wintersteen, nicknamed the “Manimal” by his daughter, Kelsey, for his species-blended camouflage gear, fiddles with the decoys.

Always willing to confuse the issue, as well as the hunt, Woster takes Wintersteen’s advice and blesses the creek with a spinning rod and floating Rap - inspiring three hits but no hook-ups.

From left:  wood duck, hatchery manager, German wirehair. At the request of a desperate duck hunter, McNenny Fish Hatchery manager Rick Cordes took a break from his work duties just long enough to take Mieka over to an undisclosed creek in the area so she could locate the lost woodie. Sweet pooch!

By Kevin Woster

As I ponder the 2008 invitational pheasant hunt, I continue to regret the holes in my helter-skelter invitation list this year.

Newland, of course, and rdennis, to whom we have already apologized. But add to the list two of the three KW’s here at the Take It Outside campsite: Keith Wintersteen and Kevin Weiland.

Wintersteen should have been invited, of course, because of his unfaltering support for TIO in its infancy as well as his expansive selection of camouflaged hunting attire.

Some days he’ s a haystack, others a tree, still others a sort of cattail-covered Big Foot, sneaking up on one wild game animal or another.

Next year, Keith, for sure. If we can manage to discern your presence from the surrounding vegetation long enough to deliver an invitation.

And Weiland. Doc, forgive me. How could I forget? You could have brought a stack of your books and served as hunt doctor, which, considering the group you’ll be tending, is only slightly different than witch doctor.

Weiland raised the issue of his missed invitation somewhat mournfully in an e-mail to my wife, Mary, over in the plush editorial office here at the Rapid City Journal. He offered, if invited next year, to bring goodies, including crushed flaxseed, fish oil and Viagra samples.

Considering the average age and gender breakdown of the group, I’d say your value to the hunt is beyond dispute, Doc. (I must warn you, however, that Old Deathwind Fleming is threatening to pack a shotgun next year…)

We’re also pondering the addition of an international component in our 2008 invitation list. Yevgeni, a resident of Moscow, Russia, has contacted us up in the high ground of Mount Blogmore to offer insights into the fall of the Soviet Union and the intrusions of the West, including the United States.

You can see his perspective over on Blogmore, under the “Putin” thread created by Gutzon Harlan, political sculptor and mount creator.

We found it all fascinating enough to invite Yevgeni to next year’s MB-TIO Invitational Pheasant Hunt.  I believe Guzton is handling our first step onto the international stage.

Just imagine Sibby and Yevgeni, side by side on the Nemec place, stalking the wily ringneck.

It has detente written all over it.

At least, I think that’s what it is.