Thinking Fall

 BIG SKY PARADISE

Hunt, Fish, Play

it won't last long

ELK RIDGE RANCH

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.. Just a short ride down the road, in Beautiful Wilsall. More than 15,000 thousand acres of private deeded land. Three elk herds. Bears, moose, eagles, streams, fish = all right at home.

.. Room for 800 cattle. Perimeter fence. Close to Bozeman, Livingston, Airports, Yellowstone National Park. Cow camp improvements and barn.

.. Up for sale this week. Price reduced. Act fast. Call your California friends.

Check it out (LINK.)

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WALLPAPER: THE BEST S.O.S.

Grand Canyon Hunt

 BISON IN THE SIGHTS

Qualifying Starts Soon

are you good enough ?

GRAND CANYON BISON   ...  courtesy NPS

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.. The National Park Service along with the Arizona Game and Fish Department  announced in a 'TWEET' just two days ago a volunteer hunt to reduce the number  of bison on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon [NPS Tweet.]This will take place after the volunteers qualify. The volunteers are responsible for all expenses.

HERE THEY ARE:.

RESOURCES

>> ANNOUNCEMENT

>> ABOUT

>> NEWS RELEASE

>> FOX NEWS

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WALLPAPER:  CHEESE OMELETTE. BACON,  SPUDS, TOAST

CWD Is Here

HOW'S YOUR DEER ?

Increase In Incidence

can you eat it ?

Courtesy   The Missoulian

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.. As the booming and banging season comes to an end it looks like Chronic Wasting Disease is on the rise in deer populations.
.. Read about it HERE. We expect monitoring next season as it spreads out of Yellowstone National Park and Grand Teton National Park.

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WALLPAPER:  A PAIR TO DRAW TO

Winter Looming

SNOW ON HORIZON

Flies To Tie

fling some now !

BELIEVE IT OR DON'T

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.. Just a few days left for fishing in Yellowstone National Park. Snow will close the season and usher in a fly tying frenzy for the neighbors.

EVENING MEAL

.. Now is the time to fling a few and poke some fish in the snout.
.. Hunters are bemoaning the lack of snow for elk season. A couple of nice bulls have been dragged down from the high country and some of the neighbors have already abandoned the water for the trees.
.. Fish now or forever hold your whatsits.

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.. This may be our last tourist day for the Fall. It'll be cold and bright. The snows should be persistent for the next  week or so. It's all good. We may just do some sight seeing.

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WALLPAPER:  BEST ARM CHUCK ROAST

Anxiety Attack

VISITORS RUSH IN

Neighbors Into The Fray

the weekend looks spectacular

JUST AS PROUD AS BRONZED BABY SHOES

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.. Flipping coins to decide if it's elk or trout is a nightly ritual in the man caves and pubs of town.
.. Although fishing will continue after Yellowstone National Park closes - close it will. On the other hand, early hunters have better chances than later stalkers. It's a tough decision.
.. The young lions have already opted for the fur rather than the fin. We old farts are tottering to the park to get in a few last days of thrashing the water and punishing the fish. Codgers, eschew hollofil for wool. They prefer the soft rubbing sounds to the crinkly snapping noise of the synthetics. This is the weekend for wool: musty, aromatic, fragrant, warm-when-wet, wool.

Destination For Fall Fishing

.. The clouds spit at us: a smattering of snow and rain. A bit of wind and snow and hail is visiting us now and for the next few days.
.. The youngsters are hunkered down in the dripping woods with their eyes welded to spotting scopes.
.. The codgers are dodging mud puddles on the way to the rivers. It's a schizoid time of the year: hunt or fish, rain or snow, sun or clouds, cool or cold, truly anxiety producing.
.. The one persistent and constant element in the mix is the cold one at the end of the day. Yet, even that is polarized.
.. Weeks old hoppy beer stands in opposition to years-old malted distillates. Musty wool faces twinkly Dacron. Conversation see-saws between calibers and hook sizes. Jokes and observations alternate between between tales of spine shivering whistles just behind the next tree and wrist rattling takes of sexed-up Brown Trout. The tales, (and tails,) of Fall are in the air and in the pubs.
.. Judging by the conversations of the hunters - it's been good. Judging by the conversations of fishers it's been good and getting better. Fresh fish are still entering the rivers and the low water makes sticking them a cinch - sort of.
.. There is not too much to tell about flies and rods, and fishing locations. Use them all: all fly patterns, all rods that suit your fancy, all locations that you can get to.
.. Sort of like elk hunting: .338 Lapua, .300 Mag., 6.5 x .284, on the flats, in the bottoms, up the mountains, Sako, Savage, Remington, Winchester, Browning, Kimber, Ruger, Marlin, Weatherby, etc.
.. We've got too little energy to do both. Hell, little enough energy to do just one. We'll waddle to the water and stick a fish and wander back home. We'll find the neighbors at the watering hole. We'll listen to the cross-sport conversations. We'll have very little to add. We'll play the memory reel in our head and smile and nod. We will, however, sip with the best of them.
.. We will, also, get up late this weekend and fish the park as it closes.

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Huntin',  Fishin',  Climbin',  Scramblin' Rig - A Neighborhood Constant.

Drive By Shooting In Yellowstone

PREGNANT MOTHER SHOT DURING EVENING MEAL: CULPRITS ESCAPE UNHARMED AND WITHOUT PURSUIT,

It's an all too common occurrence in our nation's first national park. Unsuspecting residents are preyed upon by gangs of interlopers in large black sedans wielding high-tech weapons. The busy summer season is the worst and many, if not most of the residents avoid the roads at that time.

It's the early springtime days and the gentle Autumn afternoons that pose the greatest threat. Residents return to their lowland gardens to find the ambuscadoes around every turn. What's a mother to do?

Lake Fish Hatchery

nps photos

PART OF A MISSPENT YOUTH

.. The Yellowstone National Park Web Page continues to grow. It's a bit less user friendly now. However, since the revamped site was brought into line with the rest of the NPS sites, (well most of them,) there have been additions of at least 2,000 new slides and the publication of on-line resources, including Yellowstone National Park Its Exploration and Establishment by Aubrey L. Haines.

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.. The early years of Yellowstone National Park saw an attitude of exploitation and sporting hedonism prevail. The park was the playground of those who could afford a train ride, a guided tour, and lodgings in grand, (and not-so-grand,) hotels.
.. Hunting was allowed, and fishing encouraged - nay, even exploited by commercial fishing operations.:

When Yellowstone National Park was created about 40% of its waters were barren of fish. Park administrators early expressed an interest in developing these areas for additional sport. Until 1883, both hunting and fishing were allowed in Yellowstone as the only practical way to feed visitors evolving from a frontier subsistence policy. By the early 1880s there were enough hotels and restaurants to allow a ban on hunting. At the same time, fishing was restricted to sportsmen and a few commercial enterprises who supplied the hotels. This continued until 1917.

.. In 1889, the United States Fish Commission began fieldwork in Yellowstone. A fish cultural station was in operation on Yellowstone Lake ten years later. "It was the beginning of a gigantic hatchery operation that in the next fifty seven years would yield 818 million trout eggs for use in other waters (mostly outside Yellowstone.)" In 1911, the Yellowstone Park Lake Station was made a substation of the Federal hatchery at Bozeman, Montana.
.. Facilities were primitive in those days. The fish hatching ponds were wooden troughs outside. These were consistently damaged by bears and the eggs destroyed. A permanent two story log hatchery building and another log building were constructed on hatchery Creek near the Lake Hotel in 1912, along with a collecting station at Clear Creek in 1913. The Columbine Creek collecting station was built in 1914 and a cottage for the superintendent a few years later. These buildings no longer exist.
.. As early as 1920, the Annual Report of the Director of the National Parks indicated the Lake Hatchery was replenishing the depleted fish supply in the National Park Service. In 1922, the scale of the operations was increased with a new hatchery being established at Fish Lake. The annual report for that year proposed "...that a Federal hatchery be established in other national parks whenever that is feasible."
.. This philosophy of using artificial means to replenish the fish of the National Park System waters was soon to be abandoned. The old U.S. Fish Commission had been combined with the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to form the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "While on the one hand the National Park Service was suppose to be preserving native fish populations, on the other hand the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was supposed to mass produce trout."
.. The tension grew between the Fish and Wildlife Service and park managers. In 1957, the hatcheries were shut down. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel shifted their attention to research. In 1958, the artificial propagation of fish at Lake was halted and the catch limited to a figure within the natural regenerative powers of the species. In 1996 the National Park Service assumed responsibility for managing the park's fishery program. {excerpt from YELLOWSTONE HISTORY}

.. Additionally, there were railroad cars and boats used specifically for the fish planting and moving operations. The USFWS discovered "U.S. Fisheries # 40" in 1980 and had it restored. They have also restored some railroad cars that were used to transport across the country.

The first experimental transport of fish by rail from the east coast to the west was conducted by Dr. Livingston Stone of the U.S. Fish Commission in 1873. In charge of 35,000 shad fry carried in open milk cans, Dr. Stone changed the water every two hours where possible in order to deliver this shipment safe and sound for planting in California. By 1879, due to this first demonstration, fish were being successfully shepherded by railcar across the nation.

THE GOOD LIFE

nps photo
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