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Note:  In the 15 years I served as an Air Force Public Affairs Officer, I was privileged to oversee and supervise several base newspapers.  Because I was the boss, I could impose my will and have the editor print a weekly column that I wrote.  The column was called “Meandering” because my thoughts meandered from topic to topic, usually about things outdoors.  Here is a short group of the columns that I’ve somehow held onto.

 

A sight for sore eyes

 One of the regular outdoors articles that you can count on seeing at least once a year is the piece on using ear protection while shooting.  Invariably, the author proclaims himself a near-deaf victim of his own ignorance who now swears by his muffs and plugs for all his voluminous shooting.

 What you won't read is an article by a blind writer who now swears by eye protection for all his shooting.  The reason?  Anyone who has lost his eyesight in a shooting accident is NO LONGER a shooter.  You can be deaf as a post and still shoot, but if you're only partially blinded, you are out of the shooting sports.  Period.

 Yet, I have yet to read a single article about the absolute necessity of wearing eye protection while shooting.  Some authors mention eye protection briefly in association with ear gear, or as an aside in an article on reloading, but that's about it.  But don't let this omission cloud your judgment.

 The single most important piece of gear you own may be your shooting glasses.  I consider mine to be more important than my guns.  I can get other guns.  I can't get new eyes.

 And shooting glasses aren't expensive.  I have priced plastic models by several manufacturers at under $10.  Top of the line, UV-protected models with polycarbonate lenses can be had for under $35.  No model I have priced tops $100 from any maker.  Buy the best that you can afford, but buy them.  And use them.

 I put on my shooting glasses before I pick up a gun, without exception.  I wear them while at the range and in the field while hunting.  I keep a spare pair in my truck's glove box, so I can't accidentally leave them behind at any time. 

 And yes, they have in fact saved my eyes.  On two occasions, I have been struck in the face by spent shotgun pellets while waterfowling, twice more while dove hunting, and once when a pellet bounced back at me while patterning a shotgun at close range. 

 I can't count the number of times I've felt burned powder strike me in the face while shooting.  Last year, my single shot pistol flew open somehow when I fired it and the entire rear portion of the cartridge struck me right on the bridge of my nose.  

 And it isn't just during actual shooting that I've been saved.  Untold snapped branches, blowing sand, flying insects and other debris have been harmlessly deflected by my glasses. 

 You can choose among glasses of numerous tints, frame styles, lens shapes and more.  Just don't choose not to wear them.

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Stuck in my craw

 Growing up in southern Illinois, I was used to seeing their little volcano-like chimneys of mud globs sticking up from the marshes.  I'd find them in culverts and lakes, swamps and streams.  Sometimes I'd catch them and sometimes they'd catch me.  They were called crawdads. 

 In the years since, I've heard them called crayfish, crawfish, mudbugs, craws, and other names, but they're still the same crustacean best described as a miniature freshwater lobster. 

 And they thrive here in Utah.  Abundant in a number of reservoirs such as Willard Bay, Pineview, Bear Lake, Flaming Gorge and Deer Creek, they can also be found in the Green, Virgin, Bear and other rivers.

 Fishing for the little critters is legal, easy and great fun.  Kids especially have a ball in catching crawdads, because it requires almost no skilled technique and next to no equipment.  You can catch dozens with nothing more than a chicken leg on a string.  Best baits are any kind of meat, especially liver.  It helps to place delicate baits like liver in a small mesh bag.  The toe of a nylon stocking is perfect.  Add a small rock for weight.

 In practice, you simply lower or toss your bait (no hooks allowed!) to a rocky bottom near shore.  If you can see the bait, fine; otherwise wait a minute or so, then gently lift the bait towards the surface.  Crawdads will be attracted to the bait by smell and will greedily hold onto it with their claws.  Don't try to lift them clear of the surface, or they'll let go and escape.  If you are quick, you might be able to flip them from the surface to the bank, but the best way is to slip a net under them and lift.

 In Utah, no more than five such lines may be used to catch crayfish, and anglers must be licensed.  You can also use wire traps, liftnets or seines shorter than 10 feet.  You may not use as bait any game fish parts or any substance illegal for angling (such as corn).  Morning, evening and night are best, and there is no limit.  Keep crawdads on ice until you get them home.

 Note, however, that it is strictly illegal in Utah to transport live crayfish.  The reason for this law is to prevent the unwanted spread of crayfish to other waters. 

 The easiest way to kill and clean crawdads is to simply slip a thumbnail under the shell at the rear of the head portion. pull forward, and the head and insides come off, leaving the tail and claws attached.  These are the parts you eat. 

 To prepare, bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil and add one package of crab boil spices from the supermarket.  Drop in half of the craws, return water to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes.  The crawdads will turn a beautiful deep red.  Immediately return the water to a boil for the second batch.  Eat the first batch while the second one cooks.

 Peel the tails or extract the meat with a lobster fork.  Dip in melted butter if you wish.  Crack the claws with your teeth or pliers, and suck out the delicious morsels therein.  It's messy, unsophisticated and absolutely wonderful.

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Finding some old fossil

 When I was young, I had a burning desire to become a paleontologist.  Just like today's kids, I was nuts about dinosaurs.  Then I learned that paleontologist wasn't exactly one of the world's highest paying jobs, and I changed career goals.  But I'm still nuts about fossils.

 In the flatlands of Illinois, my passionate search for fossils was limited to probing the waste piles of coal mines, neither especially productive nor safe.  Still, I found enough fragments of ferns, fish and shells to keep me enthused.

 But now, as I head towards fossil status myself, I live literally surrounded by possibility.  Utah is fossil heaven.

 In the northeast corner of Utah, near Vernal, is Dinosaur National Monument, possibly the world's richest deposit of vertebrate fossils.  This awesome bed of fossils is displayed in situ, just as it was discovered.  Real paleontologists can be observed extracting, preserving and studying fossils.

 But perhaps the biggest thrill is in discovering your own fossils.  In Utah, that can be as simple as turning over a rock.  Climb the Wasatch front between Brigham City and Honeyville and crack apart any piece of shale you find.  You are as likely as not to find a fossilized trilobite, one of earth's most primitive and oldest creatures. 

 If your find is a plant or an invertebrate, an animal without a backbone, you may legally remove and keep it.  Vertebrate fossils must not be removed from the site where they are found, as they are valuable to science.   Any of several small field guides can be purchased to help you tell the difference, and to provide interesting data about any fossil you are likely to encounter.

 Finding a fossil can be a humbling yet uplifting experience.  There can be no doubt, upon opening a shale-entombed trilobite, that you are the first human ever to lay eyes on this animal.  This animal whose fossil now lies in your hands was a living creature which roamed a sea bottom perhaps 600 million years ago. 

 Perhaps it crawled unknowing across fossils of even older, more primitive earth creatures.  What twist of fate allowed its remains to become covered with mud and slowly replaced, molecule by molecule, by stone?  What other creatures, not so randomly preserved by fate, remain unknown to us today?

 I find it awe-inspiring that the web of life stretches invisibly but unbroken between these rock remains and myself.  I wonder if, in some dim, distant future what being might hold the fossil of a trout, or me, and feel the same awe.

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A place to hunt, a friend forever

 When I moved to Utah five years ago, I faced a dilemma common to every sportsman - finding a place to hunt. 

 Oh sure, Utah has jillions of acres of public land open to anyone.  But I was also a brand new Westerner, and hadn't the foggiest idea about where or how to hunt mule deer.  So I did two things:  I joined a hunting club and I started looking for a hunting friend. 

 The club's lease allowed me several great years of hunting, and taught me enough to tag a couple bucks, including a nice six-pointer.  But I felt limited by the club's strict rules and property lines.

 Then, at a Ducks Unlimited banquet, I had the good fortune to sit at a table with a rancher.  We exchanged the usual "call me and we'll go out some time" courtesies that are generally forgotten by the next day, except that I actually did call him, and soon. 

 My first visit to Arthur's ranch was for a dove hunt to which I had brazenly invited myself.  During the visit, I was extremely careful to let him know that I was strict on gun safety, that I could tell the difference between a dove and one of his cattle, and that I could be relied upon to close any gates I had opened.  I also made sure to "accidentally" leave behind a box or two of dove loads when I went home. 

 I called back to thank him a few days later, but didn't ask about the chances for other hunts.  Instead, Arthur surprised me with an invitation to join him for a combined pheasant hunt and community social he and his neighbors hold every year. 

 That first pheasant hunt got me introduced to dozens of Arthur's neighbors, family members and other ranchers.  But it was the next spring when I became more than just a visiting hunter.  I'd asked Arthur several times if there might be some work I could help with to repay his kindness.  Spring calving sound OK, said Arthur?  Sounds like fun, said I.

 I learned that calving is, if anything, even more of a social event than the annual pheasant hunt; with virtually everyone in the valley rotating from ranch to ranch on successive weekends until everyone has his herds done.  I had never done any real cowboying, so I didn't know much about the details of calving.  So I naturally ended up the butt of a few tricks and jokes that day.  I also got sunburned, kicked, bloodied, and thoroughly coated with cow you-know-what.  But I loved it.

 That was three springs ago, and I haven't missed a pheasant hunt or a calving since.  The friendship I've built with Arthur and his family has grown tremendously.  Now my wife and sometimes my daughters are part of the activities.  We're treated as if we were a regular member of the community.

 Last year, Arthur begged me to come out and eliminate one of the doe deer that regularly decimate his alfalfa fields, and I did.  This year, Arthur has asked me to help him guide a party of Texans who come up to hunt muleys on his ranch every year.  Me? Guide some mule deer hunters?  Why sure!

 And so there will be another vacancy in the hunting club this year.  I've found not only a place where I'm welcome to hunt, but where I'm just plain welcome.  And I learned that there's no secret to doing it, either.  All it took was courtesy, good habits, and, perhaps most of all, the willingness to give back generously for what is received.

 That's a formula that will work for any area of life, not just finding for a place to hunt. 

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Too many gizmos

 OK, I'm a gadget freak.  I like having gizmos that make my chores easier, do little things that would be more difficult otherwise.  I even like to make gizmos: little one-function tools with no better name.

 But sometimes I wonder whether these things make my life any simpler, whether I really need all this stuff.  I especially wonder about gizmos and gadgets when I'm trying to huff a backpack up a ridge someplace.  Do I really need all the stuff I have crammed in that pack?

 When I'm getting my stuff together for a trip, I tend to fall into the just-in-case mode.  Better take my fly tying kit, just in case the fish are hitting some fly pattern I don't have.  Better take my electric socks just in case it's colder than I expect. 

 Fly fishermen are particularly addicted to gadgets, it seems.  Why else do fly vests have 28 pockets, pouches and assorted D-rings?  Does it really take 10 pounds of gear to cast a fly that scales 128 to the ounce?  But hunters aren't immune, or at least I'm not immune when I hunt. 

 I once inventoried my hunting pack and found: a deer call, water purification tablets, an insect hood, a snake bite kit, a first aid kit, a butane lighter, a bag of handy-wipes, an extra compass, a bottle of deer attractant, a face camouflage stick, a gut hook knife, a spare regular knife, a sharpening stone, a drag rope, and a rifle cleaning kit.  I'd never actually needed ANY of these things while hunting.

 But I'd carried them untold miles and hoisted them up dozens of trees.  Why?  Just in case.  But all I really need in that pack for a day hunt is a survival kit, some lunch and perhaps a roll of bath tissue.  I know I'll use the lunch, and the survival kit and tissue will take care of the most likely emergencies.

 Likewise all I really need on the stream is one box of flies, a spool of tippet material and a hook forceps.  The rest would be far better left in the truck rather than hanging around my neck.

 But will I change?  Probably not.  I have on occasion gone off with nothing more than my rifle, a knife and a spring in my step.  But I've also been out when it suddenly blew up a rain, and a plastic parka fished out of my bulging pack kept me dry and warm.

 On the other hand, the deer call has gone to its reward, the bottle of attractant has leaked for the last time, and the rifle cleaning kit has been reassigned to the camp box.  Gee, that might make room for my folding wood saw.

 Just in case.

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Give nature your stamp of approval

 It's no secret that the continued decline in duck populations will of necessity mean drastic changes for the waterfowler.  This year's hunter will be faced once again with short shooting hours, fewer hunting days and a lower bag limit, all because there are fewer ducks. 

 The continued drought, destruction of breeding habitat and many other factors are all contributing to the duck decline, but it is time for us to admit that hunting pressure certainly isn't helping matters.  Some hunters, myself included, have decided to give ducks a better break at breeding success by skipping this year's season altogether. 

 What I won't be skipping, however, is the purchase of a migratory bird stamp.  Duck stamps, as they are called, help in the fight to restore waterfowl because a portion of the funds collected through the sale of the stamps goes to maintain critical duck habitat.  Studies that focus on the waterfowl decline and how to reverse it are also funded partially through the sale of duck stamps. 

 But more than ducks benefit.  The wetlands that stamp money preserve also are home to nongame species.  Herons, rails, snipe, blackbirds, woodcock and dozens of other birds call wetlands home. So do fish, crustaceans, muskrat, mink, and more.  Then there are the hundreds of plant species that actually create and maintain wetlands.

 Even non-marsh species of plants and animals benefit from wetlands, either directly or through complex food chains and species interaction. 

 People, on the other hand, do little with wetlands except to damage or destroy them.  Every day, more and more wetlands disappear under the plow and the paving machine.  Against the delicacy of nature we wield the chain saw and the bulldozer.  In fact, about the only human program that actually benefits wetlands is the sale of duck stamps. 

 The lesson here is clear.  Even if you don't hunt, and perhaps especially if you don't hunt  buy a duck stamp.  Better yet, buy two.  It's an investment in nature.

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Cookin' in a can

 In my never-ending quest for a bargain, or better yet something free, I recently stumbled upon a jewel of an idea.

 I'd gotten a nifty little backpacking stove for Christmas, a Coleman Peak I, and was trying to find a combination storage container and cookpot for it.  Yes, I know that there's a commercial model made of aluminum that even comes with a handle, but the darn thing is nearly 16 bucks, and that's about 15 too many to my way of thinking.

 Anyway, over my morning coffee one day, my eyes settle on the coffee can.  I wondered.  I tried.  It's perfect.  My Peak I exactly fits inside a 26-ounce coffee can.  All I had to do was to very slightly bend one of the control levers inward.  The original plastic lid snaps on tight and there's room down the sides for a book or two of matches and a tube of starting paste.

 Then my mind turned to how to use the can as a boiling pot.  To make a handle, I carefully punched two small holes exactly opposite each other and about a quarter inch below the top rim.  This distance would allow the plastic lid to seat solidly. 

 Next I bent a length of heavy copper wire (from an electrical cable) into a half circle around the can and bent the ends through the holes.  This forms a handle that folds down out of the way for packing, yet rotates up over the pot during cooking.  I left the electrical insulation on the wire to keep it from becoming too hot to touch. 

 If you have a similar backpacking stove and need a container/pot, just search for a 26-ounce can the next time you shop for coffee.  This perfectly sized container/pot packs well, holds more than a quart of water, and best of all does everything in the best possible way -- for free. 

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Improved, better than ever!

 My wife long ago began calling me "The Rocky Raab Improvement Society," because I just can't seem to leave well enough alone.  No matter what it is, I just can't use it as is:  it has to be improved.

 Nothing I own is just the way the factory made it.  Oh, I thoroughly read assembly instructions, and follow them.  But when something is all assembled, something in my head starts to see that if I just added a bracket here or changed this angle, the whole thing would suit me better.

 And it usually does.  After all, factories churn out stuff that's designed for the average buyer with average needs.  But that's not me.  I'm a specific guy who needs something done in a specific way to fit a specific situation.  So I improve.

 I've learned to glass-bed my rifles so they shoot better.  I change my fly reels to left-hand retrieve so they match my spinning reels.  Heck, I even fiddle with the recipes I use to make beer.

 In the process, I have not only learned an awful lot of what you might call kludge engineering, but I also have equipment that suits the way I do things and fits the way I live.  When I squeezed a lump of clay, then carved a pistol grip to match the resulting shape, I wound up with with a gun that no one can hold perfectly -- except me. 

 I think the "improvement society" is a bit like an alterations tailor.  I make little changes here and there to turn an off-the-rack item into a perfect fit.  In the process, there's a little bit more of me in all those things. 

 I don't believe in ghosts, at least not when the lights are on, but it seems to me that people who leave a little of themselves in the things around them are creating their own ghosts in a certain kind of way.  And when I'm gone, maybe, just maybe, there'll be a shadowy something left of me in that fly rod.

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I CAN DO IT MYSELF!

 In addition to being the kind of guy who can't leave well enough alone and is always tinkering with things to improve them, I also am addicted to making my own.

 It doesn't matter what, I just think I can do it better if I make it myself.  And I enjoy using self-made things more than store-bought.

 There's just something about fooling a trout with a fly that you tied.  Even better, a fly pattern that you created and tied.  And no rod ever flexed as sweetly, delivered a bait as delicately as the rod you made yourself.

 You're a shooter?  There's no confidence like that when you've reloaded your own ammunition, no pride like a difficult shot done well with that same ammunition.

 Would anyone argue that store tomatoes taste better than home-grown?  Who'd say that home-cooked soup isn't as good a canned?  And if you've never had real homemade beer...well, let's just say it's comparable to backyard tomatoes.

 Still, there are some things better left to the factories.  I doubt I'll ever be able to make any of those miracle fabrics we have for outdoors clothing.  I won't be able to make graphite shafts for my rods, being content to fit handles and line guides.  And Uncle Sam still frowns on making your own whiskey.

 But by and large, if it's possible, I'll probably make it myself. 

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 October in the Land of AHHHs

 As you read this, I am just beginning my annual pilgrimage to Montana in search of blue sky, yellow leaves and brown trout.  I'm smiling; the trout are here.  And Montana is...well, Montana.

 They call Montana the Big Sky Country, and it is.  I don't know how they do it with all these mountains around, but the sky here really IS bigger.  The minute you enter, the sky seems to stretch from there to all the way over there, passing through what can only be described as WAY the heck up there in the process.  There's no freedom like the sky, as any pilot knows, and there's no sky anywhere like in Montana. 

 And there's a lot of room under that cobalt heaven.  Room for lots of other big things.  You could call this Big Trout Country, or Big Deer Country, or Big Mountain Country, or even Big See Country.  They'd all be true, and they'd all sound like so much Chamber of Commerce jive unless you'd been there once yourself.  Then you'd just close your eyes and get far-away half-smile that says, "Yes...oh yes."

 And in October there's an almost audible sigh that Montana makes when it finally wins out over the heat and dust of summer.  There's a taut crispness to the air; the razor-honed edge of what will soon be blue-steel winter.  There's the knowledge that things today are glorious, but two months from now a moment of daydreaming could get you killed.

 Oh, and this is definitely Big Smile Country.  And it's not just simple friendliness, although that's easy to find.  No, it's the kind of self-assured smile that originates not just in but deep down behind the eyes.  A warm smile from eyes that have seen a Montana winter. 

 Yes, there's something about Montana.  It's a soothing paradise tempered by wind and ice, a heavenly vision tinged with quick death.  It's a land of hearty people and brawny wildlife.  A land of harshness and humanness, grief and grandeur.

 Perhaps that's what always draws people back: the knowledge of how fine the line is drawn here, how quick the beat between vital and fatal.  Above all, no matter where you might reside, Montana is where you live.

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Fit to be

 I once thought that to pump iron, your head had to be denser than the weights.  For 42 years I held that disdainful opinion.  I heard Neil Armstrong say that every human being has a certain maximum number of heartbeats -- and he wasn't about to waste any of them running.  I chuckled.  I heard Red Skelton say that the only time he exercises is when he's a pallbearer for his friends who exercise.  I chortled.

 Then I heard my doctor say, "You're 42, with a cholesterol count of 240.  Every male in your family has died in his 50s of heart attack.  Either exercise or start your countdown."  I stopped laughing.  Heck, I stopped smiling, even.

 Knowing that I would have absolutely no will power for this kind of thing, I went to a health club and asked for help.  They've seen my kind before, and they understood.  They also were smart enough to tell me that I'd have to find some aspect of exercise that I'd look forward to, or else I wouldn't last long.  That the vast majority of those who start exercise plans with nothing but good intentions end up with nothing but good intentions.

 The first day, I started off pumping air.  I know that sounds pretty wimpy, but this club has pneumatic-powered machines.  You dial in an air pressure resistance and work against it.  The instructor said that the best part is that no one can see the dial but you, so you don't have to feel embarrassed when the girl on the next machine is out-doing you. 

 Right away, I'm relieved, cause there are some pretty robust looking women in this place.  And after a few trips back, I find I'm dialing in higher numbers and getting more "reps."  (That's jock talk for repetitions.)  This is cool.

 So I plug along for a couple months of this, moving to free weights a little, doing some aerobics, power-walking around the track, things like that.  Suddenly, my family is calling me Mister Muscles and not laughing.  My pants fit looser and my shirts tighter.

 Then comes October.  Fly fishing in Montana, and the river current doesn't feel as strong as last year.  I can paddle my float tube for hours.  The deer hunt opens, and I still huff and puff a little, but I get all the way to the ridgetop.  I'd never gotten more than half way before.

 And it's still fun.  I look forward to my three nights a week.  And I've started using hotel exercise rooms when I travel.

 Sorry, Neil.  Too bad, Red.  I think this healthy body stuff just might work.  I'll let you know for sure in about 40 years.

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Catalog Fever

 They're here.  The annual avalanche of slick paper, color illustrations and easy payment plans.  It's catalog time.

 Along with the first snows and the first Christmas sales come the first catalogs.  Outdoor catalogs with imported wool shirts and down vests and synthetic underwear.  High fashion catalogs with imported wool shirts and down vests and synthetic underwear.  Gift catalogs with imported wool shirts and...well, you get the idea.

 Then there are the catalogs jammed with weird, useless stuff that nobody in their right minds would buy for themselves.  Which makes them perfect gifts, right?  So now you know where your electric soup spoon, your combination back scratcher/boat anchor, and your handsomely monogrammed nose hair trimmer came from. 

 Still, there are the occasional finds.  Last year I saw a pair of "the world's lightest, toughest" boots advertised.  On the arrogantly rugged-looking model they certainly went well with his imported wool shirt and down vest.  The uppers were said to be made from the leather of unborn bats, the soles from titanium chain mail handwrought by Swiss jewelers, and insulated by material found to be more effective than necessary for the Space Shuttle. 

 The boots were said to weigh just under three ounces -- per pair.  Including socks.  They cost $69.95 -- per boot.  Satisfaction guaranteed.  I ordered a pair. 

 Six months and three demanding letters from me later a box appeared on my doorstep.  It contained two pounds of styrofoam packaging and a note saying those particular boots were backordered, so the company had sent a substitute item.  Under separate mail.

 Another two weeks and another box appeared.  Inside were the apparently obligatory two pounds of packaging and one pair of olive green, war surplus sneakers.  Both of them right footers.  Two different sizes.  Both wrong.

 Four months and three more demanding letters later and I have my cheerful refund.  Except of course for the $49.95 “restocking” fee plainly spelled out in microscopic print and disappearing ink inside the catalog's binding. 

 This year I've learned my lesson.  No more catalog ordering for me.  On second thought, this solar-powered ear wax remover would be perfect for my brother-in-law.

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