One of the Great Ones

     Many of us have those special souls in our life who have the impressive ability to put us in a good mood no matter what we are dealing with.  This past week two of those souls in my life left this earth. 
     Leo Balcer passed away last Tuesday and for those of you who did not have the privilege of knowing Leo I can tell you that he will be missed by many people for a long time!  He owned a small in and out restaurant in my hometown of Glendive called Frosty's, which will forever be at the top of my list of favorite places to eat for two items on the menu, potato salad and milkshakes!  My family has been friends with all of the Blacer's for as long as I can remember and one of my fondest childhood memories was when Curt and I were lucky enough to join Dad at Leo's to watch a pay per view boxing match on the big screen!  Leo had one of the original big screen TVs, you know the ones that they pretty much had to build your house around they were so big, and I remember sitting in front of that TV feeling like Evander Hollyfield's right hook was going to hit me he seemed so big!  Leo was also a very avid golfer and with as much time we spent at the course we got to play a lot of golf with him.  It's funny how little tiny details of our lives stick with us forever, like how every single putt I stand over with the same old Wilson 8802 putter I've had for 15 years I give myself the confidence to make the putt by hearing Leo's voice in my head the time he said, "you have one of the smoothest putting strokes I've ever seen", just after I made a 25' snake on number 5 during men's league.  Or how to this day when I'm playing in a scramble and we have a long approach to a par five I still use an old trick, a completely legal trick by the way, Leo taught me in the hospital scramble one year when I was just 17, I can't tell you the trick of course cause I still like to think I'm the only one he ever shared this with:)  Later in life when I had a place of my own I was lucky enough to live just a couple blocks away from Leo and our friendship continued to grow, as I matured I began to realize just how special of a person he was, always in a good mood and never putting himself ahead of anyone.  The world truly will miss Leo Balcer, he was a man we could all learn something from and should aspire ot be more like.  All I know is right now he's undoubtedly up in heaven helping God work on his Texas wedge game, sinking putts from off the green on all of the great courses of his dreams!

     Jill and Ryan's dog Pugsley had to be sent ot heaven last night and if you ever met Pug's you know how great of a loss this is for sure.  Pug's came into the Nagle family way back in Jill's law school days.  He was adopted from a shelter and in no time at all became one of the family.  He and Ryan became best buddies immediately, almost as if they'd known each other their entire lives.  Pugsly was a mix between a boxer and a pug and he had probably the biggest heart of any dog I've ever met.  He was about 35 pounds or so, and if you let him he would climb up on the couch with you and snuggle in to share his love with you whenever he could!  Our dog's came to know and love Pug's like a brother, every time we'd take them to the ranch he would run around with them happily showing them every square inch of his playground.  After we moved here he would even come over for some sleepovers when his family went on vacation which only strengthened his bond with his cousins.  He was one of the most protective, caring dogs I've ever seen, not letting anyone suspicious get close to his family.  He would go on runs with Jill to get a little exercise and protect her, and then come home and literally lay at the foot of the kid's bed's as they wen to sleep making sure no one was going to come in and harm his family!  The last few weeks of his life here on earth were kind of tough as the tumors grew faster each day, all of that pain is gone now though as he has passed over to eternal life.  There is no doubt in my mind that he is up there with Ryan's dad right now roaming around his new playground pain free!  

     These two souls both meant so much to me that words simply could not describe, they truly were each respectively one of the great ones!   

Remember, all of us know on of the great ones, cherish them and treasure each moment you share with them while they are here!

FFF (Fall Fishing Fun!)

     Yesterday morning I had a sscheduled check up on my ear with my ENT doctor over in Missoula so Kelli and I decided to take advantage of it by spending the weekend in Stevensville with her parents.  It was the perfect opportunity for the girls to do a little shopping and the boys to do a little fishing!  Dan has been fishing the Bitteroot river about 3 times a week and has become quite familiar with a few really good holes that consistantly produce fish.  So Saturday morning Kelli and I drove over and I dropped her off in Missoula with Donna and raced down to Stevi to meet up with my guide for the weekend.  We quickly got our fishing gear put togethor and headed down to Dan's favorite spot, a hole where he almost always catches fish.  

     We got to the spot, suited up and waded out across the frigid waters to access the hole.  After surveying the hole we could see some fish feeding on the surface so at my guides request I tied on a purple haze dry fly while he gave the nymph he had on already a try just upstream of me.  It wasn't long before Dan had us off and running by pulling a whitefish out of the top side of this hole.  Moments later I was hooked up in battle with a nice littel rainbow!  In the next 2 hours we each got into a great number of fish, I landed four rainbows all in the 13"-15" range and Dan caught 2 bows of his own along with a few more whitefish!  For fly fishing in October we were pretty excited about our day!

     On our way back to the car forthe day Dan wanted to give another hole he's had success in one quick try cause he's caught a 16" cutthroat out of it before.  After I gave his nymph a few tries he took over and on his last cast of the day hooked up with another nice 16" fish!  It was a great way to finish off a fantastic day on the water!

     The next morning we came back to the same spot and continued upstream fishing the whole way up.  Dan once again got into the whitefish and when we had fished our way back to the original spot we both got back into the rainbows, catching 3 more, these ones caught in a Cowboys jersey by me as it was game day!  We then went back home so I could get settled in for the game and after eating some of Dan's world fameous ribs we watched the Cowboys roll their way to a much needed win!  All in all the weekend could not have been too much better, spent some quality time with Kelli's parents and had a ton of fun the whole weekend!  We always have fun when we go over there but it certainly is a little more fun for me at least when we can have days like this on the water!:)

Remember, your only goal when fishing in October is to stay upright, anything else is just a bonus! 

Unexpected perks

     Last weekend Kelli and I volunteered to help our friends the Ralston's move the rest of their belongings from Missoula to their new home in Seattle.  It was a no brainer for us since they're some of our best friends and it gave us a good opportunity to go back to Seattle, a town we simply love spending time in!  On Friday morning before we left for Missoula I was over working at dad's when I got a rather nice unexpected change in plans.  One of the grape growers in the San Juan islands that we insure had turned in a claim and needed a field visit!  This would have taken quite a bit more planning had I not already planned on being a couple hours away from the vineyard.
     So we headed out to Missoula, spent a short night with Kelli's parents, then loaded up a trailer and a 20' Uhaul and headed west.  We had all hands on deck in order to get it all loaded and still get on the road at a decent time, Bryant and Hailey, her parents, Kelli and I, and the Dobson's.  Unfortunately for Dan and Donna we don't really feel right doing a move of any kind without involving them:)  They were troopers though and greatly appreciated as always as Dan, the tetris master, was finding spots for items that simply didn't exist to the normal eye!  By the time we got loaded up and made the roughly 9 hour trip over to Seattle, it was all we could do to muster enough energy to move at least the mattresses in so we had something to crash on.
   

Our moving crew found some killer eye wear!

    The next morning we got up fairly early and went for a walk around Greenlake, it's a small lake near their house that has a 3.5 mile walk path around it and a Starbucks on the corner, the quick walk loosened our muscles back up and the coffee helped kick start a full day of moving!  We had to rush when we got back to the house cause the Cowboys played in the afternoon and since Bryant is as big of a Dallas fan as I am we weren't about to let moving in prevent us from watching the game!  We took a break in the afternoon and went to a local sports bar where I literally lost my voice yelling at a TV as my beloved boys gave the Broncos a run for their money!  Much like many times before the game ended in heartbreak for me but never the less I remained optimistic about my team, pretty much a necessity if your going to be a Cowboys fan!
     After unpacking the rest of the stuff and putting bed frames and furniture together I finally got to bed around 11, normally not a problem but I had to be on the road for work by 4 the next morning!  Thus far in my short crop insurance career I had yet to experience a claim anything like this one.  This vineyard visit would require punctual timing in order for Kelli and I to make it back to Spokane before the wee hours of Tuesday.  First I would have to drive an hour and a half north of Seattle to the town of Annacortez, there I would board a ferry out to the island, I would have exactly 2 hours to complete my tasks in the vineyard before the ferry left for the mainland, finished off with about a 6 hour trip back home.  Luckily I made it to the ferry on time, having never taken a car on a ferry before I allowed myself a little extra time, then the visit at the vineyard went exactly as planned and I left the growers driveway at 9:08 for the ferry that left at 9:20!  When I got back to the ferry it was 9:12 and I figured they had to be boarding but I had no idea which line of cars I needed to be in, there are ferry's going to 3 different islands so I had to make sure I was on the right one!  I drove past a huge line of cars before finally spotting a sign telling me the line of cars is where I needed to be, so I turned around and by the time I got to the back of the line one more car had slipped in front of me!  I was kind of sweating bullets cause the grape grower had just told me that this 9:20 ferry only takes 50 cars and the next ferry isn't until 1:30.  If I didn't get on this one we wouldn't get home til the wee hours since they shut down I-90 for 2 hours right when we would be getting there to blow up rocks!  When the line started moving I felt pretty good about my chances until they stopped the car right in front of me.  I was thinking they were making room for one more, him, and I would be screwed.  Turns out they were making room for two more and I was the last one on!
    

 Last one on, last one off

 nice little getaway

another giant water taxi

    

viewing deck right above the cars

     Once on the ferry and headed towards the mainland again I got out of the truck and went up to the cafe for a hot cup of coffee to sip while I walked around the viewing deck and took in what I couldn't see in the morning when it was still dark.  I was shocked at how beautiful the ferry ride was, every island we passed was covered in such a dark green they appeared like life sized 3-D paintings!  When I got back to the city and picked up Kelli, I couldn't help but reflecting on just how lucky I am to be able to do what I just did for a day job!  I am extremely blessed an many ways and almost every single day I am reminded of this by yet another one of life's unexpected perks!:)

Remember, the only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday!!

Pandemonium

     Last Thursday Ryan and I had planned on returning to Boulder for one final crack at filling our freezers with elk meat with a bow.  Our hunt was slightly postponed because of an apple appraisal that we had to help out with over in Quincy, WA Thursday morning but even though we knew we would be in for a long day we were excited and up for it!  We hit the road  just after 5 am and were picking apples in near 70 degree weather by lunchtime.  After a quick trip back to Spokane we loaded up and headed towards camp just after 3 pm.  Now earlier in the week Ryan had asked his brother to ship him a wall tent that was hanging in the barn at their shop for years.  We'd been looking at them for a year, nearly buying a couple different ones, before Ryan remembered about the one in the barn.  The only glitch in our plan was his brother didn't find time to ship it so Ryan had to get it on the Greyhound last minute and we were to pick it up in Butte on the way through!  Luckily the tent caught it's connection bus from Glendive to Butte and made it just in time for Curt's wife Jen to pick it up for us, you'll have to ask her about the Butte bus depot if you want the rest of that fun story:)  So with tent in hand we were off to camp.  
    Butte had seen some abnormally early winter weather last week and the closer we got to camp the colder the temp got as well as the more snow we ran into!  Curtis had pulled the camper into a good spot just about a mile lower than where we had intended on setting up the tent and as we crept up the mountain road towards Curt I anxiously watched the temp fall lower and lower.  By the time we got to the tent site the truck temp read 28!  So we did what any clear thinking people would do and began to set up our tent at midnight under the lights of the truck in sub freezing weather.  We really lucked out though and the tent was an external frame style, much like the ones I guided out of years ago, so with some help retrieving lodge poles from Curt along with the pent up excitement of 11 hours of windshield time thinking about elk we went to work and had the tent ready for use around 1:30 am!  Curtis headed back to the camper for bed and Ryan and I spent the next hour and a half trying to find wood dry enough to keep a fire going!  

  

Base camp

One happy elk hunter

    So we finally got to sleep and began dreaming of stalking a big bull, that was until Ryan started dreaming that he was on fire only to wake up to a wall tent full of smoke and canvas on fire!  The tent never had a stove pipe jack on it, just a hole cut through the front of the canvas, and as we stoked up the fire the pipe got hot enough to ignite the canvas!  Once we got that situation under control we were back to bed.  The next morning we slept in for a while from our late night excursion, and took a short still hunt through the timber behind the camper.  We saw nothing and Curt had the good idea to take the quads for a cruise to some different areas and see if we can use the snow to our advantage and try to spot some fresh tracks to at least see where the elk had been.  So we split up and Ryan went one way and Curt and I the other, after a short while Curt and I got on top of a big hill and as soon as we shut off the quads we heard a bugle!  Then another, and another, over and over again, bulls just talking to each other all over this small ridge in front of us!  We waited for Ryan to meet up with us then raced back to camp because dad was on his way in and we knew just where to go for an evening hunt!

    

Action, Curt, and Me

     Around 4:30 we all four headed in from the bottom of the ridge up towards all the action.  I left my bow in camp as I was going to attempt to lure one of these bulls in front of one of the other three.  We had to cross over a little finger ridge to get into the draw that I knew we had to be in and as soon as we did we began to hear the elk again.  We worked up the draw slowly closing the gap between us and the elk and we'd been on this ridge enough in the past to know that at the top of this draw was a huge meadow, it certainly sounded like all of the bulls were in or near this meadow.  

     I waited until we were a few hundred yards from the meadow and began bugling back and forth to the other bulls.  One responded immediately, then another from my left side, then a third from behind the first one!  I played cat and mouse with these three bulls for about 20 minutes with the three shooters fanned out in front of me and after none of the bulls came in any closer we decided to slowly close the gap.  We crept up the draw fanned out like a front line of soldiers, me bugling back and forth to the bulls the whole way up.  The closer we got to the meadow the more elk we were hearing!  Once we got on the edge of the meadow we could hear cows out there with the bulls and we noticed that there were pockets of pine trees scattered through the meadow along with 5' high sage brush!  The elk were nearly impossible to see!  Dad and Curt had swung to my right side to get to the other side of the meadow and I went over to Ryan's side to follow him up the left side.  All three of our shooters had begun cow calling a little bit and just as Ryan did a nice bull came walking down the edge of the meadow and stopped just in front of him.  Ryan had no time to use his range finder and guessed the bull to be 40 yards and shot, he must have been a little farther cause his shot just missed low and the bull spun and lunged into the protection of the thick timber!

     Ryan stayed there to look for his arrow and make certain he drew no blood and with darkness approaching us I swiftly moved farther up the meadow, keeping the rest of the bulls interested.  I had no idea where Curt or dad were by now but i kept working towards this small thicket of pine trees where I had the attention of a bull that sounded too good to not see with my own eyes!  I kept inching my way from sage brush to sage brush bugling each time I would move, getting within about 30 yards of where I knew the big boy was, and with no shooter anywhere near me!  To my surprise I then heard the unmistakable sound of Curt's cow call!  He was no farther than 50 yards to my right!  I thought this is it!  It was perfect, Curt cow called one more time and I moved about 20 feet closer to the bull and screamed a big challenge bugle at him, he immediately replied, almost covering me up and I thought I was going to see him come out of the trees any second.  He never came out though, only causing my heart to skip a few beats and the hair on my neck to stand on end.  I left him alone and worked my way over to Curt and by now it was dark enough I couldn't see him until he looked at me.  I bugled one more time to see what else was out there and a nice 5x5 came charging in right at Curt only to turn and head the other way when the wind switched directions!

     We turned on our head lamps and reconvened, Ryan never found any blood from his shot on the powdery white snow so we headed down the mountain.  Dad filled us all in on the way down of how good the bull I was tormenting was as he had a real good look at the bull and all the action from across the meadow, all we could do was shake our heads about what just happened.  By my count I had 6 different bulls respond to a call, all of them no farther than a 100 yards from each other!!!  I had never seen nor heard anything like it before in my life!  

     We got a good nights rest, all I could hear were bugles as I drifted to sleep, and then next morning we woke up to go try to find a mule near the camper while we waited for the evening hunt on the elk.  Ryan got a mule doe mid morning, made a fantastic shot on her from 43 yards, and once we had her hanging back at camp it was time to go in again. 

    

     We went to the same ridge as the night before because that afternoon we had spotted a huge 6 point feeding out into a meadow up high so we knew the elk were still up there!  This time we hiked to the top of the same meadow from a different angle and split up, dad and Curt went low and Ryan and I went high.  Dad and Curt saw no elk and three other hunters so they're hike was cut pretty short.  Ryan and i got up in the same meadow we'd seen the big bull earlier, I asked Ryan which way he thought the bull had fed, across the meadow or back into the timber.  He said he had a hunch he went back into the timber and his hunch was right cause we weren't 200 yards into the timber and we found him!  He was feeding his way down the mountain with two cows.  We glassed him for a minute, ranged him at 118 yards, and I bugled at him with nothing more than a look back!  I couldn't believe it, we knew this was the same bull I had all riled up the night before because he was exactly how Dad described him and in practically the same spot, and he wanted nothing to do with me tonight!  So we followed him and his cows down the hill, never getting any closer than we first were right up until dark.  

     As Ryan and I worked our way off the mountain I told him this was one of the best elk hunts of my life.  Ryan is a true bow hunter so no words were necessary to explain why the best hunt of my life didn't involve killing anything!

     We spent another good night in the wall tent and instead of still hunting timber after elk opted to rest our bodies and minds a little before tearing down camp and heading back home.  I've thought about that Friday night hunt every single night since then and no matter how many times I play it over in my head in an attempt to figure out what we should have done differently I keep coming up with the same answer, nothing.  God puts these majestic creatures on this planet not just to provide nourishment to our families, but also to allow us to feel as thought we are one of them, even if it's only for a second.  In my opinion there is not many things on this earth more humbling and spiritual than holding a conversation with a big bull elk on his turf, on his time!  These experiences make me feel both extremely large and yet very tiny.  That will only make sense to a few of you but for those of you who don't understand what I'm saying, trust me it is a very powerful experience!  So the book is closed on another bow season and once again my mind is filled with happy thoughts from both the hunts and the camp, now I just have 350 odd days to calm myself down until next season!

Remember, if looked at in the right way every hunt is successful, sometimes the ones where nothings brought home are the most successful!