Tag: hunting

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Close Encounter at Choteau Creek

By Roger Wiltz


When I fell through thin ice into Choteau Creek, I thought deer hunting was over for the day. My only hope was to escape the icy water alive and retreat to home and hearth.

As I settled into the water, I instinctively raised the rifle over my head. Maybe I did it because I had read about outdoorsmen who were saved from drowning when their rifle or shotgun straddled a hole they had made in the ice.

My stupidity bothered me almost as much as the cold water. Any fool should know a creek with moving water might have thin ice. By good fortune, my accident occurred in a creek less than 15 feet wide and shallow enough that my feet hit bottom while my head was still above water, which I am sure is more pleasant than a full bath.

Still, hypothermia didn’t feel far away so I wasted no time in wading toward shore. The depth didn’t change much with the first step, but I was pleased that it became more shallow with the second and the third. I broke ice with the butt of my gun as I proceeded to shore … or should I say, to the icy wall.

The creek bank was so steep and slippery that repeated attempts to climb onto solid ground seemed futile. A rope would have been good. I looked at my rifle sling and decided it wouldn’t be much help to a cowboy catching a steer but it might be enough of a rope for me.

I took the sling off my Ruger and threw the rifle onto the bank. To add some length to my rope I took the belt off my pants. (You probably don’t know this, but it’s not easy taking a belt off wet trousers with cold fingers.) Finally, I connected the belt to the sling and my first cast at a close-by tree branch was successful. I pulled my frozen self onto the snow-covered bank.

I had propped myself up on my elbows and was wondering whether I could make it to the farmhouse a half-mile away when I heard a crash in the brush and looked up to see a big whitetail buck charging my way. He was less than 30 yards away and it seemed he was intent on running right over the top of me.

Maybe all this reads like a scene from an Indiana Jones adventure but I was a high school principal in Wagner at the time, and went hunting and fishing to get away from the routine stresses and strains of small town life. I had been looking forward to the East River deer season for weeks and my father and I spent opening day together, hunting Missouri River bottomland. We held out for bucks but all I saw were does, a two-pointer and coyotes.

The temperature dropped with the sun on that November Saturday afternoon and the stirring winds and ashen-grey sky suggested snow. Sure enough, I awoke Sunday to a foot of snow and a raging blizzard. Only a fanatical hunter would consider venturing out in such conditions. I pulled on my boots and stepped outdoors.

I knew of an abandoned farmstead northeast of town where a four-point buck often bedded down. Certainly he would seek shelter there in this storm. I didn’t plan to drag the deer back home in the minus 50 degree wind chills. I’d just field-dress him and hang him in one of the vacant buildings.

The half-mile hike into the wind was brutal but I knew it would ensure that I arrived ahead of my scent. There must have been 100 pheasants in the jungle of cedar, lilac, mulberry, honey-suckle and Russian olive that formed a perimeter on three sides of the farm place. The birds were reluctant to fly and they dodged behind or under the boughs. I’d never seen pheasants act like that.

After a thorough search, I realized the buck was not there so I returned home, with the wind. The storm howled all night and continued Monday. No school for this principal. The house across the road was nothing more than a fleeting mirage. The Dakota winds played eerie notes into the night on our home’s north rain gutter.

But, as with all prairie storms, it stopped as quickly as it had begun. The dead stillness was accented by bitter cold and starlit skies. County and township snowplows would start their rounds at daybreak but school was called off for Tuesday.

Thus it was that opening weekend of the deer season stretched into a fourth day for me.”What luck,” I thought to myself as I filled the pickup box with snow so that the added weight would keep my back wheels gripping as we headed for Choteau Creek. There was not the faintest whisper of a wind and the 15-degree temperature felt unseasonably warm. Against the white background of fresh snow, I expected to see deer everywhere. But after three hours of checking favorite whitetail haunts I hadn’t seen any.

A South Dakota blizzard will leave 10 feet of snow in protected areas while open areas will be relatively free, so I was able to walk over open prairie that separated the wooded bottoms from the giant bluffs that overlook the Missouri River.

I wondered whether ducks or geese were sitting on the river, and how much of the water was still free of ice, so I hiked to the bluff’s top, momentarily forgetting about my search for deer. From my high vantage point I soon discovered why I hadn’t found deer earlier. They were all gathered together in a cattail slough about 40 yards below me — maybe 50 in all.

Taking a shot was out of the question. There would be no practical way to retrieve the deer. More important, my license was for Charles Mix County and I was standing on the wrong side of Choteau Creek, in Bon Homme County. However, I figured the deer might work their way to the mouth of the creek and into fields of alfalfa stacks and corn piles where I had permission to hunt so I took a stand along the most likely route.

I waited for two hours … more than enough time to wonder whether I knew anything about deer and their habits. Finally, I begrudgingly worked my way back to my pickup in the yard of the Soukup family farm. I half-heartedly worked at slipping my rifle into its case when I caught some movement on a hill above the creek — a half-mile to the south. My naked eye told me it was a deer and reflected sunlight off an antler indicated it might be a big buck.

Fresh excitement came over me and I decided to walk down the Choteau Creek so I could hide as I advanced. Yes, I checked the firmness of the ice with my first few steps, but my worries were forgotten as I neared the spot where I thought the deer might have been.

I was looking for a place where I could climb onto solid ground when the ice broke. I thought my problems were over for the day as I finally crawled out of the cold water and prepared to rise up and hustle, as quickly as frozen legs would allow, toward the pickup.

That’s when the deer charged. I grabbed for my rifle when I realized he was going to run over the top of me. Much of the rifle was covered with snow. Would snow in the barrel cause the gun to rupture if I fired it? It’s funny how many questions enter your mind when you’re in a hurry.

I raised the rifle and held it at arm’s length with my right hand while supporting myself with my left elbow. The buck was close enough to detect his bad breath when I squeezed the trigger and a four-pointer tumbled, literally, at my feet. Soaked as I was, a warm feeling swept through my body. At the farmhouse, dry clothes and a warmed-over Thanksgiving dinner offered still more relief.

Was the buck the same one I had seen earlier? I don’t know. I didn’t retrace his steps. Did he see me lying in the snow? Was he going to intentionally run over the top of me? I don’t know that, either. I’m guessing he just happened to be running full-out. Perhaps he felt like running after being huddled down so long in the storm. Deer are like kids in that respect.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 1991 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Big Shots

South Dakota’s ring-necked pheasant population has lured out-of-state hunters for years. You may even know the names of some of them — Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Kirby Puckett, and Dick Cheney have all taken aim here. These celebrity hunting trips were short, but the South Dakotans who hosted and guided them will never forget the experience.

E. Boyen Beckel remembered Ward Bond, the star of 1950s television show Wagon Train, visiting Madison in the 1940s.”I had the privilege of guiding Bond on one of his trips, and despite my young age, partied with Bond and his group at the hotel by the depot on Egan Avenue. Bond knew how to hunt, but even more, how to party.”

We checked the South Dakota Magazine archives and found the following tales of fame and pheasants.

Oh Sure — And I’m Babe Ruth

By Merland Howe


The thirties were a decade of dust, blizzards and poverty. But there was relief from grim times at the Center Store, located in northern McCook County, especially during pheasant season. Locals and out-of-staters gathered for gas, soda, ice cream and shotgun shells.

Everybody knew Bob Feller, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians. He hunted every fall between Center and Howard with his uncle, who delivered gas and oil to the store. But nobody recognized the stocky, middle-aged hunter who strolled in one day.

Kenny Knutson was there when the stranger appeared. He’d stopped on his way home from a baseball game in Salem, still wearing his uniform.”I see you’re a ball player,” the visitor said.”I used to play a little ball myself.”

“Yeah, when?” Kenny asked, looking at the old hunter with doubtful eyes.

“It was a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m Ty Cobb.”

“Oh, sure,” Kenny replied,”and I’m Babe Ruth.”

Cobb, who had retired in 1928 after 24 seasons with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics, and who in 1936 came in first in the first ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, didn’t say another word. He just pulled out his hunting license and presented it to the gape-mouthed Kenny.


Hemingway’s Lake County Hunt

Adapted from the Sept/Oct 2006 story by Ardyce Habeger Samp, Eugene W. Larsen, Sr. and Roger Holtzmann

For author Ernest Hemingway, hunting was a celebration — of life and death and his own manhood. But he didn’t want to let everyone in on the party when he came to the Girton Lodge near Wentworth to hunt pheasants in 1936.

Lodge owner Bill Girton and Ole Hagen, the Lake County game warden, had hoped to promote hunting in Lake County by inviting celebrities to visit during pheasant season. Hemingway accepted,”but the plan to use his visit as a tourism promotion fell flat,” said Eugene W. Larsen, Sr., author of Hemingway in South Dakota.”Hemingway insisted on complete privacy, with absolutely no press coverage.” The Wentworth residents Hemingway met complied with his wishes.”It was a real hush-hush situation at the time,” recalled Helen Pringle, the widow of Warden Hagen.

A few locals got to know the famous author on his ten-day visit. Eugene Larson was nine when he and his father, farmer and Girton Lodge guide Alfred Peter Larson, met Hemingway’s entourage at the Wentworth depot. Hemingway’s baggage included a box of bear meat that he promised to share with the party, though no one really appreciated the gesture. He loved it; the rest thought it was stringy and greasy. Hemingway also brought along a supply of Havana cigars, which he handed to Larsen with instructions to take care of them.”A black man put the luggage into our car, and Hemingway told Dad the man was his chauffeur,” said Larsen.”I didn’t know what that meant, but I found out the man intended to drive our car.”

Hemingway’s personal chef was also present, but he wasn’t ready to cook for such a large party, so Larsen’s mother was pressed into service for the first evening’s meal. With 13 children of her own, Mary Larsen was used a crowd around the table. She provided fried chicken and apple pie, and Hemingway provided the entertainment: he regaled his fellow diners with the tale of how he killed two grizzly bears before coming to South Dakota.

“Hemingway was always the center of attention,” remembered Gene’s older brother, Carl.”He loved it.”

The hunting was good in 1936 — an estimated 1.75 million ring-necked pheasants were taken that year. Lake County was abundantly favored with birds, with the Girton property’s drainage ditch being an especially promising hunting spot. This ditch and the adjoining farm lands were reserved for Hemingway’s group during his stay, though not everyone got the message.”One day the lodge hunters, including my father, were stalking a corn field,” says Gene Larsen.”Unbeknownst to them, a group of hunters was trespassing the field, walking crosswise to them. One of these illegal hunters heard rustling and shot toward the Hemingway group. Pellets came flying through the air! My dad had his gun up and at least a dozen pellets hit his gun and stuck in the wooden stock. Some of the shot hit Hemingway’s hunting vest. He let out a string of expletives. After hearing the screaming and swearing, the unseen violators quickly disappeared. I still have Dad’s gun and the pellet marks are quite visible.”

Hemingway’s trip looked like a vacation, but looks can be deceiving.”He said he had just ‘put his Morgan novel to bed’ in Wyoming, and that he’d handwritten 50,000 words…working like a bastard,” said Larsen. (The novel was later published as To Have and To Have Not.) Even though he wasn’t busy with any particular project in South Dakota, Hemingway never stopped accumulating the images and ideas that were his stock in trade. He took an interest in every detail of the prairie environment,”land contour, flowers, plants…things most people take for granted,” said Larsen. After evening meals he would sit in a corner and scribble notes on this he wanted to remember.”

But all vacations must end, and Hemingway’s prairie idyll was no exception. One evening the Larsen boys came home from school, and Hemingway was gone. He left Alfred Larsen $19, a small fortune in those days, and a hunting jacket that became a treasured family keepsake.

Editor’s Note: These stories are revised from the July/August 2003 and Sept/Oct 2006 issues of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.


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No Limit to the Fun

By Lee Schoenbeck

The Benedictine sisters of Mother of God Monastery have been embracing life on the prairie in South Dakota for over 100 years — a little longer than South Dakota’s most popular game bird, the Chinese Ringneck Pheasant. Being that steeped in South Dakota history, it should come as no surprise that their activities include hosting an annual pheasant hunt. This year’s September hunt, the sisters’ eleventh foray into the charity ringneck hunting world, was again held at Oak Tree Lodge near Clark, South Dakota. That the local business community and faithful would support the sisters and the good works they do by participating in the event should also come as no surprise.

MOTHER OF GOD

The Benedictine sisters have a rich history, reaching back to Italy in 529 A.D., with a focus on life organized about the Rule of Saint Benedict. The Rule, a guide for organizing a Christian community around the precepts of work and prayer, continues to direct the Benedictines to this day. The sisters made their way to South Dakota, near Zell, in 1874 — a full forty-five years before the first ringneck season. In 1967 the sisters established a convent in Watertown, on a hill overlooking the Sioux River. Today, Mother of God is home to 54 sisters.

Through the years their mission has changed. In the early years their focus was on education and health care. Several of the participants in the Nun Hunt were the beneficiaries of Benedictine religious education. (Full disclosure: this writer was educated by these nuns at St. Otto’s in Webster.) A major focus of the sisters today is the Benedictine Multicultural Center, a facility aimed at encouraging understanding of our area’s many cultures, and providing assistance to those newer South Dakotans that may be in need and find navigating South Dakota a little challenging.

OAK TREE LODGE

The Makens’ family roots at Oak Tree only reach back to 1901, making them the younger South Dakota members of this nun-pheasant-landowner partnership. While the family makeup there has changed through the decades, Bill Makens is the current patriarch. He started making the move back to South Dakota, and Oak Tree Lodge, in 1998. The Makens family are dedicated and faithful Catholics, who host this hunt as one way to participate in their faith. The patriarch, Bill, had a long history of fundraising for Catholic schools in the Twin Cities, so the Nun Hunt was a natural fit.

THE HUNT

The Nun Hunt takes place at the Oak Tree hunting preserve northeast of Clark. Over thirty hunters and a pack of trained hunting dogs partake in the hunt. Oak Tree’s hunting ground is in close proximity to its lodge, and the layout shows a love and attention to hunting and the husbandry potential of the land. Oak Tree’s 8,000 acres are dotted with food plots, sloughs and standing bean and corn fields. It is a hunter’s dream land, because it has been designed to be a pheasant’s dream land.

While challenged this year with winds of over twenty miles per hour, the hardy crew harvested 62 pheasants — and all the fun that was legal to have. While the wind makes the hunting more challenging, no South Dakotan ringneck chaser would allow limits on the fun at a Nun Hunt.

THE SOCIAL

The hunters that come to the Nun Hunt enjoy the hunt, the outdoors and the camaraderie — but they also understand that the event is about raising funds to help the sisters continue their ministries, and the hunters are fully invested in that cause. Like all good charity events, there is an auction. Auctioneers Randy and Chris Owen donate their services, bringing both a humorous and ecumenical flair to the hunt. For example, while raising one’s own bid is frowned upon at most auctions, it may be the norm at the Nun Hunt!

On one occasion, local OB/GYN hunter, Dr. Flaherty, raised his bid after winning in exchange for a hug from the sister assisting with the auction. A successful hunter, at this auction, is likely to come home with a basket of nun-baked bread and sister-pickled preserves. The only rain that falls on this event is the inevitable ability of the Vikings to lose on the Sunday of the Nun Hunt, but there are some things even the Sisters’ good cheer and preserves can’t remedy.

GOOD THINGS HAPPEN FOR A GOOD CAUSE

Outside of South Dakota, it probably seems a little odd for a pacifist group of prayerful ladies to raise money with Mr. Remington’s finest, but here it makes perfect sense. The sisters, the ringnecks, and the landowning Makens have deep roots in our state. A day in the field hunting pheasants is among the finest blessings to bestow upon a South Dakota hunter — well, a hunter from anywhere, for that matter. The sisters caring for our people, birds that inspire our state, and the landowners that create the habitat for those birds all nurture parts of what is best about life in South Dakota. When all these come together for a good cause, many good things happen — and, well, that’s why there’s no limit on a Nun Hunt: because the nuns have never put a limit on the good they would do for those they have touched along their journey here at home in South Dakota.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.


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The Right to Bear Arms

By Ken Blanchard

I don’t hunt. It’s not that I have any objections, moral or otherwise, to hunting. A friend of mine who is a vegetarian for health reasons once informed a waiter that he didn’t eat anything with a face. I eat things with faces. There are three reasons I don’t hunt. One is that several of my friends hunt and, much as I love these guys, when they are abroad with firearms my instinct is to stay home and clean up the basement. Another reason is that I just don’t have any desire to kill animals. Finally, I am just plain scared of guns.

When I was a kid, pretty much every TV show I watched involved people getting shot on a regular basis. The violence was about as realistic as a roadrunner cartoon. The good guys got shot plenty, but always recovered in time for the next episode. The bad guys sometimes died, but they died without bleeding. Gun shots sounded like firecrackers.

Then I finally fired a real honest-to-Charlton-Heston shotgun outside the liquor store where I worked. The kick was powerful. What it did to the barrel I aimed at would be a crime if barrels had lawyers. It didn’t sound like a firecracker. It sounded like a bomb. That was reality. While I am grateful for the experience, I did not acquire a taste for it.

I have friends who like and own guns and friends who would abolish gun rights quicker than Wild Bill pulled the trigger, if only they could. They can’t. In the first place, there is an insurmountable obstacle to abolition in the Constitution. As the Supreme Court recently recognized, the Second Amendment says what it means and means what it says. The right of the people to keep and bear arms, like the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, is protected against government interference.

Some gun control advocates have imagined indirect ways of banning guns, such as prohibiting the sale of ammunition or laying prohibitive taxes on guns. Sorry, but constitutional rights do not allow for back door limitations. Just as you can’t prohibit the New York Times from advocating gun control, you can’t tax their ink to accomplish the same thing.

A second reason that gun rights can’t be abolished is that they are far too deeply embedded in American culture. Any attempt to prohibit handguns, let alone rifles, would trigger massive resistance. The mere possibility that real gun control might be on the horizon now has resulted in a spike in gun sales. I passed by a local gun shop several times recently and business was booming. This might be because it was almost Christmas, and it might be because the President promised real action on gun control.

I don’t like guns but I like a lot of people who do. I also like to see things the way they are. Guns and gun rights are not going away.

Editor’s Note: Ken Blanchard is our political columnist from the right. For a left-wing perspective on politics, please look for columns by Cory Heidelberger every other Wednesday on this site.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is a professor of Political Science at Northern State University and writes for the Aberdeen American News and the blog South Dakota Politics.



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The Blogmore Hunt

By Lee Schoenbeck

Photos by Jeremiah M. Murphy

For the last several years, sometime in November on a farm southwest of Holabird, a not-so-secret conclave gathers. Ostensibly their mission is to chase and bag the wily South Dakota ringneck. The Mount Blogmore hunt accomplishes that mission well each year and, even with loaded weapons in hand, it proves that the divide between red and blue in South Dakota is not too wide.

The Origins of the Hunt — a Wosterism

Somewhere along the interstate of life near Reliance, one of the infamous Woster brothers, this time Kevin, came up with the outrageous idea that political bloggers across the political spectrum could join together civilly, be properly armed, and share the bonds of friendship that are a natural by-product of a South Dakota pheasant hunt. Kevin is the founder of the political blog Mount Blogmore and the outdoor blog Take it Outside, hosted by the Rapid City Journal. Kevin is one of South Dakota’s founding brothers, the Wosters: Jim, Terry, Kevin and probably a few other siblings that haven’t been quite as newsworthy. Kevin’s politics lean a little left of center, he claims. But when you’re talking about somebody from Lyman County, left of center may just mean that they were a few days late with their annual John Birch Society dues.

The Place — as Blue as you can get in Hyde County

Kevin’s wife hails from Highmore, and through that relationship, Kevin is friends with Holabird rancher Nick Nemec. Nick’s not much into hunting, but he and his wife Mary Jo are lots into company and political talk around the dining room table. Nick’s got plenty of pheasants, which he is about as interested in chasing as he would be the beautiful blue jays that populate the shelterbelts by his home. But if company wants to visit and chase around his fields, then for a day, Nick’s a pheasant hunter. Between shelter belts, a few cattail sloughs, and sunflower fields, the Nemecs have the kind of traditional pheasant habitat that you only find with a real farmer who practices real conservation. It’s easy to find the Nemec farm in the fall in even years — just look for the only Democrat signs along Hwy 14 between Holabird and Harold, and turn south!

The Crew — Eclectic, Political and all South Dakotan

Birds, dogs and hunters of all political stripes at the 2009 Blogmore Hunt.

Kevin handles the invites. Just about anybody that’s posted on a blog and cared about South Dakota politics appears to be eligible, although the size of the crew of actual attendees ranges from 5 to 15. Tony Dean was at the first hunt. John Thune and Tom Daschle have been invited. This summer George McGovern was anointed the 2012 hunt captain — unfortunately that couldn’t come to fruition. Jon Lauck, Pat Powers, Bill Fleming, one of the Nielson brothers (of polling fame), and Doug Wiken are a few examples of politicos who have graced the hunt. Each of these would be colorful in his own right, but a few others stick out.

My son, Jake, has been along and asked me if the guy that said he was a Methodist-Buddhist (Todd Epp) really was such a thing. (And if so, what is that?) Jake also wanted to know if that Cory guy (Heidelberger) was serious when he said he didn’t carry a gun and shoot pheasants because he was a pacifist. (I assured him he was.) But my all-time favorite may have been the first year, when staunch defender of the right, Sibby (Steve Sibson), attended the hunt and missed five consecutive roosters my dogs put up in front of him. When I poked him later about the Second Amendment also including the requirement that you know how to bear a firearm well enough to hit a barn from the inside, he seemed to laugh along — but he never returned to another Blogmore hunt.

The Hunt — Who Could Captain this Ship?

Every good hunt I have ever been on has, at least unofficially, a person in charge to provide some order for these armed primates. Blogmore is an exception. The unofficial hunt photographer, Jeremiah M. Murphy of Rapid City (he’s not a pacifist — he’s just excellent at self-assessment and knows which weapon he shoots most capably) captured the organized disorganization in one of his candid shots accompanying this article.

In past hunts, I’ve gotten the credit for laying out a successful plan for hunting large sunflower fields with small groups (section it off and hunt it cross rows). Plus, since most of the dogs are mine — and all of the ones that behave are — I get to have my share of input. This year our gracious landowner did lay out a plan of attack that on its face looked crazy, but in spite of our inartful execution, worked brilliantly.

The temperature ranged from 9 to 17 degrees, and the wind was at least a steady twenty miles per hour from the west, with even stronger gust. With dogs, you always hunt into the wind so they have their best shot at trailing the birds’ scent. But Nick convinced us that when the birds flushed at Mach 1, the cover we wanted them to land in was his and it was to the east, so we needed to push them with the wind out of a cattail-filled dam and draw. Skeptically, we started into the cattails. To the east we had only three blockers, who were spread out over several hundred yards of pasture and draw. The walkers included me and my three labs on the north side, and Kevin, Nick and one very rangy spaniel thing named Rosie on the south side. What Rosie lacked in discipline she made up for in raw energy. Within less than two minutes Rosie had put dozens of pheasants into that jet stream headed east. Kevin and I each dropped one, and the blockers enjoyed many opportunities to fire their weapons — unburdened by the task of recovering downed birds.

And never bet against the landowner — the birds all came down in the shelterbelts to the east, still pleasantly huntable on the Nemec land.

The Meal — Stories Shared, Friendships Made and Renewed

Kevin Woster and Bill Walsh in the Nemec dining room.

After the hunt, the group gathers at the Nemec dining room table for a feast of chili and whatever else Mary Jo has chosen to warm the hearts and stoke the bodies for the discussions to come. In years past the debates and discussions have included such diverse topics as everybody telling their favorite Frank Kloucek story (that should be a book), to assessing the fall of Tom Daschle and the rise of John Thune on the political landscape. This year, for the first time, former congressional candidate Bill Walsh joined the hunt. It took some prodding, but he shared recollections from the 1978 Democratic US House primary.

With Woster moderating the discussion, as long as the chili holds out, the South Dakota stories flow at the Blogmore Hunt. Real friendships are made by the most unlikely of people. Personally, there’s a strange character from Rapid City named Bill Fleming that has become a close pen pal (or whatever we call keyboard friends now) ever since meeting at the early hunts.

The Secret to World Peace

As hunts go, when the wind chills are below zero, 5 hunters yielding 10 birds — and missing another hundred — is a good day. It may be a few days before the frostbite goes away, but the friendships, camaraderie and experience hand around for a lifetime.

The real magic of the Blogmore Hunt is the Red and Blue sharing that takes place at the Nemec dining room table. History is filled with examples of the healing power of this phenomenon. Senator Karl Mundt and his colleagues used a weekly poker game. President Reagan and Speaker O’Neill shared a bump on the back porch at that white house. So here’s my thought. Senators Johnson and Thune and Representative Noem should get the Nemecs to lend them the dining room table for a week, ship it to DC, have Mary Jo make a roaster of her chili and get Harry and Nancy and Mitch and John all together for a little bonding and bridge building, Blogmore style. It can’t hurt, and if they play nice, Kevin might invite them to the real Blogmore Hunt next year.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.


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Old Timer On Skates Outshoots Them All

By Roland D. Sherman

When we lived in Wessington Springs many years ago, my dad was a druggist and hotelkeeper. When he had time he went duck hunting. He would pick my brother and me up after school. Sometimes his partner and erstwhile cowboy Slim Carothers came along.

When the ducks came in to roost at dusk the shooting was fast and furious and ducks would rain down. My brother and I would scurry out to retrieve them and get back for the next flight. We always wanted to go along when the big northerns came down but dad said it was much too cold for us that time of year.

He told me once that he and a party of hunters had dragged straw onto the ice for warmth on a hunt for northerns. They used the straw to make a blind near the only open water on the frozen lake.

The shooting was fabulous, mostly green mallards, when suddenly an old-timer, bundled to the eyebrows, bearing a 12 gauge single shot, came skating towards them on rocker skates that curled up over the laces of his boots.

“Hey! You’re on my land,” said the old-timer.

“It’s water and not much of that,” said dad.

“Well, I own the land around it.”

“Join us. There are plenty of ducks and help yourself to our shells,” said dad, then he tugged at the old-timer’s coat. “Get down! Here comes a flock of ducks.”

The old-timer dropped into the blind and blasted away. “I got that one,” he cried every time he shot. Often he was wrong, but he always skated out and retrieved the downed duck.

At noon he tied all the ducks he could hold onto his belt and skated for home. One of the other hunters suggested they had better hide some of their ducks because their host might be back. Sure enough, after lunch he appeared again and was successful as ever.

Editor’s Note: Roland Sherman shared this 1920s hunting tale (back when the bag limit was 20 ducks) in the November/December 1995 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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A Terry Redlin Moment

By Lee Schoenbeck

This past weekend was the in-state opener for pheasant hunters. We now have a preserve opener, a youth opener, an in-state opener and an out-state opener. This is too much red tape for a traditionalist like me, so generally I just wait for the High Holiday of the opener on the third Saturday in October. But I am a traditionalist — not a fool! This year, with all the beans and corn out and the CRP hayed, the in-state opener promised to be an opportunity to hunt virgin birds on public lands in ample numbers, so I was all in.

WHERE TO HUNT

The waterfowl hunters are a good resource. My duck hunting buddies said that all the birds they heard or saw were near water, and one suggested Long Lake. Long Lake is about 4 minutes from the edge of Watertown, the state’s fourth largest city. From my home, it is an equal distance to Long Lake or Wal-Mart! That just didn’t sound like a recipe for a successful hunt. But I checked with another buddy and his advice echoed the first — take the Memorial Park road from town until you hit Long Lake, and then north until you find a place to park. That seemed like odd advice, but I took it.

For the in-state opener you can only hunt public areas, which lends itself to a concentration of hunters. Pick a public spot four miles from the city of Watertown, and you’re asking for something that looks like the Oklahoma Land Rush. As I drove north, there were multiple pickups parked every quarter-mile. This didn’t look promising, but since I mostly just wanted to get a chance to work my three dogs without being shot at, I was flexible. I saw an area with two trucks and room for me to park, so we were in. As I parked, I notice to my right a monument — I was at the Terry Redlin Wetland Area.

TERRY REDLIN — ONE OF THE GREATEST

Terry is a Watertown native that lost one leg as a high schooler in a motorcycle accident. The state agreed to send him to art school as part of a vocational retraining program, and at first blush, the rest is history. He learned to paint wildlife scenes that captured the beauty of the upper Midwest like nobody had previously imagined. He became so popular that more people bought copies of his work than almost any other artist to ever walk the face of the earth –seriously. But Terry Redlin was different. He never forgot what the people of South Dakota did for him, and he was determined to repay the debt he felt. He returned home. The Redlin Art Center, and many other charitable contributions, are monuments to his commitment.

Not surprisingly, Ducks Unlimited and the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks recognized his support of the outdoors with a monument and the dedication of a public hunting area near his hometown of Watertown.

THIS CAN’T ACTUALLY WORK

So I got out with my three dogs — with two hunters and their sons and dogs to my left and another group a quarter mile to my right. On the first pass towards the water, the only scent the dogs picked up was towards the dads — and no good hunter will crowd a dad taking his kids on a hunt. After a swim for the dogs in Long Lake, three quick flushes yielded two roosters, two shots and a pretty good day. On the swing back to the pickup, about 40 yards from the Terry Redlin marker, one more rooster decided to give it a go, and a quick bark from the over-and-under finished the day. According to the satellite time on the iPhone, my anticipated two-hour walk with my dogs lasted all of 31 minutes!

ASSESSING THE HUNT

My hunting buddy Yseth had to go out later, hunt longer and had less success. When I told him about my hunt, his quick retort was,”You got lucky!”

Personally, I think he missed another obvious answer. Terry Redlin painted the beautiful and multi-colored pheasant like nobody before or since. Maybe, just maybe, the birds hang around his monument because they appreciate his work too?

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.


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What’s the Limit on a Bishop Hunt?

By Lee Schoenbeck

My neighbor claims to have started his own church: SOW, which stands for Saints of the Outdoor World. His collection plates aren’t real great, but attendance spikes on Sundays in the fall — about the time of the duck and pheasant openers. In our neighborhood, we understand that hunting is a religious experience.

For Catholics in eastern South Dakota, hunting is embedded in our faith. Seriously. There is a stained glass window in St. Joseph’s Cathedral that depicts a hunter. The bishops assigned to this diocese have embraced the relationship. It’s not likely that there are many dioceses in America where funds are raised for seminarian education by arming the faithful and sending them out in the field to put wings and lead in the air. But in South Dakota, it makes perfect sense. This past month, the 17th Bishop’s Annual Charity Hunt was held at the Horseshoe K Ranch near Gann Valley.

HISTORY and LOCATION

The hunt was started in 1996 by Miller businessmen Jim Hart and Dr. Wayne Carr. In the early years there were a few dozen hunters at Carr Farms, under the spiritual — if not hunting — direction of then Bishop Robert Carlson. Bishop Carlson took up pheasant hunting later in life, when his papal assignment landed him in South Dakota. He became an avid hunter — at one point threatening (tongue in cheek) to put his Bishop’s Hunt head-to-head against Bill Janklow’s Governor’s Hunt for want of an invitation to that South Dakota ritual.

Over time, as the hunt grew, its location moved to venues that could accommodate larger and larger groups. Korzan’s near Kimball were gracious hosts for several years. Most recently, the Grohs family has extended their hospitality to the event at their Horseshoe K Ranch.

“BE SAFE OUT THERE”

In 2006 Bishop Paul Swain took over the reins of the Sioux Falls diocese, coming from Madison, Wisconsin. Bishop Swain was a former military officer, practicing attorney, and advisor to a governor — but never a hunter. His first experience with pheasant hunting was to host and participate in the hunt that he inherited with the office.

Now for your average non-South Dakotan, the concept of a pheasant hunt is more than a little strange. Think about it. You tell them that they can be a”blocker” or a”walker.” The walkers will carry their shotguns and start at one end of the field — walking towards the blockers. When a pheasant gets up, which it will between the blockers and the walkers, they are told to shoot it. To the uninitiated, at first blush it seems that they are being told — unbelievably — to shoot at each other. After appropriate inquiry, their worst fears are confirmed — they will be shooting at and be shot at by the rest of the group! But they are instructed to find solace in the part of the safety lecture where the hunters are all told to be careful to not shoot anybody as they put 240 pellets into the air with each pull of the trigger on their 12 gauge.

The Bishop’s Hunt starts with a Mass each morning of the two-day hunt. No hunter ever prayed as fervently as Bishop Swain that first morning of his first Bishop’s Hunt. For those fans of the old TV show Hill Street Blues, Sergeant Phil’s admonition to his officers at the end of the morning briefing to”be safe out there” had nothing on the passionate”God Bless You” that came from the lips of Bishop Swain that day — at what surely must have seemed like a pre-emptive dispensing of the Last Rites.

PURPOSE — THE SERIOUS SIDE

Through the sponsorship of organizations like Avera, Tessier’s and Muth Electric, the hunter’s registration fees and proceeds of the banquet auction, the Bishop’s Hunt generates funds. Initially the funds went to the support of the Catholic elementary school in Huron, and later the general mission of the Catholic Foundation. More recently, the funds have had a more focused purpose.

Bishop Swain came from a military background and South Dakota had many families affected by military deployment when Bishop Swain arrived here. Understanding the helplessness of a family crisis for a soldier deployed a half a globe away, he created the St. Raphael’s Fund to meet any needs of soldiers or their families — without red tape or reservations. If a soldier found out that his wife was in turmoil because a fridge had died in the home back in South Dakota, with no way to pay for it, then without regard to denomination, the fund paid for it. From the tragic to the mundane, St Raphael’s Fund is there to step in and help the families of soldiers. The hunt was so successful, within a few years the fund accumulated more money than it could spend — and the hunt took up a new mission.

Educating seminarians is a blessing — but an expensive one. For the last two years, the hunt’s goal has been to raise enough funds each year to pay for the education of one seminarian for one year.

TIES THAT BIND

Every hunt we partake in generates memories and relationships that survive and transcend that one day in the field. What hunters understand is that the hunt isn’t about killing. It is about camaraderie, it’s about an experience. Lives in houses and hallways and highways don’t create that personal bonding experience that Mother Nature presents as an opportunity out in the fields enjoying all the smells and tests and contours she has to offer. The hunt is about working with dogs and people, and facing the surprises the good Lord has created for us out there on the land. You get to know people on a hunt.

Tom Walsh would be a character in any crowd, but armed and given a field for a stage he rises to the part. Bishop Swain has recorded one pheasant kill. This writer was there to see it. The bird rose in front of the walkers, the bishop’s gun went off, the bird fell — and Tom Walsh yelled,”Nice shot, Bishop!” To this day the Bishop wonders about the smile on Tom’s face and the twinkle in his eye (and maybe the smoke from his barrel), but the seal of the confessional is absolute … so,”nice shot, Bishop.”

Major Martin Yost was leading forces in the Middle East when Bishop Swain started the St. Raphael’s Fund. On two separate tours his service there coincided with the Bishop’s Hunt, and Captain Yost got up at 2 a.m. to appear by Skype at the hunt banquet, providing the gathered with insights into the lives of our South Dakota soldiers serving in those desert stations. Last year Major Yost, now home in South Dakota and serving full time with the Army Guard, was a guest of Bishop Swain at the hunt. This year Major Yost was last seen late at night by the bonfire, plotting with a dozen other new hunter friends on how an Occupy Blue Cloud movement had real possibilities to succeed with the right strategic deployments.

Dick Muth is one of those unassuming, polite guys that isn’t prone to talking about his accomplishments in life, which are many. Dick has been a team leader and catalyst of the hunt for many years. But in those times you get to spend with new friends around the banquet table you learn things. There was a hunter that had just returned from serving in Iraq, and Dick walked up to thank him for his service. As you listened, you heard this hunt leader relate how he understood the challenges because — right out of a small town in South Dakota — he had found himself in the jungles of Vietnam, relying on his rifle for survival. You’d never imagine that surviving that experience unquestionably shaped the work ethic and drive of a young boy that returned home to South Dakota a man. Hunts provide the opportunity to learn about the people that are about us.

A LASTING REWARD — TAKE TO THE FIELDS

So this fall, take part in the hunt. Spend time afield with friends and family. Learn something about them, your state and yourself. If you get lucky, be a part of making your hunting experience a lasting reward for some bigger purpose. Take a young person out and mentor them. Take a disabled vet out and make a down payment on repaying them. Go to a charity hunt, as you will unquestionably be blessed with more than you give. While — if you’re a hunter — you can hunt any time and save the coin, you don’t always get the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others you share this earth with. A charity hunt is an opportunity to reap and share the bounty we have been so richly blessed with here in South Dakota.

There is one other charity hunt that my buddies and I take in each year — the Mother of God Monastery Charity Pheasant Hunt at Oak Tree Lodge near Clark. We refer to it as the”Nun Hunt,” but that’s a story for another dayÖ.

Lee Schoenbeck grew up in Webster, practices law in Watertown, and is a freelance writer for the South Dakota Magazine website.

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Do You Remember Opening Day?

By Bernie Hunhoff

Anyone who has lived in a small South Dakota town has experienced the flurry of excitement generated on Opening Day of the pheasant hunting season. Sportsmen and sportswomen hurry from store to store, gathering licenses, shotgun shells, sweet rolls and orange caps — all required gear these days if you are to successfully pursue the wily ringneck.

It’s the same in almost every town, varied only by the weather — cold drinks for warm autumn afternoons and coffee or hot chocolate for the gray, brisk days.

When my brothers and I were growing up on a Utica farm, Opening Day seemed festive because dad took off work to guide our city uncles who came to hunt. Any day that dad wasn’t on a tractor in spring, summer or fall was like a holiday and good reason to celebrate. Since no one had a hunting dog, we got to tag along to beat the bushes, find the downed birds and then carry them. Why did that seem like fun?

When we were old enough, we’d hurry home from school during hunting season to change into some clothes that didn’t matter if they got “stick-tight” on them, then grab a 20 gauge and head for the nearest cornfield.

Those were the days when shells were cheap and pheasants plentiful. I could take a box of shells out and shoot all 25 of them — sometimes all at the same pheasant — in an hour or two.

We had a sharpshooter in the family. Dave had a double barrel 12 gauge, and could generally get his three-bird limit without leaving the end rows. Maybe that’s why he was county sheriff for 32 years and I’m still trying to hit the right key on my laptop?

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Hunting For a Sensible Policy

By Ken Blanchard

Environmental policy conflicts can sometimes be easy to solve when you are looking for a tradeoff between well-defined goals and interests. They can be almost impossible to resolve when impressionism trumps analysis.

Several years ago I spent some time in Yellowstone with a group of professors and students. Our task was to study three environmental issues. One was the conflict between snowmobilers and”quiet park” advocates. The second was the conflict between ranchers and wolves. The third involved the threat of brucellosis, a disease that might possibly be communicated between Yellowstone’s bison and ranch cattle. A week of watching wolves and buffalo, talking to ranchers and listening to lectures, hardly makes me an expert; however, I came away thinking that all three problems were manageable.

By restricting the snowmobiles entering the park to the quieter models, limiting the number of machines admitted and confining them to established roads, a reasonable balance had been struck between those who want to cross silent winter spaces on skis and those who want to roar through such spaces in a train of rockets.

The ranchers I talked to did not like wolves one little bit, but they were largely reconciled to the fact that wolves aren’t going away again. Wolves are everywhere now as a result of an extremely successful reintroduction policy. Ranchers want a little more freedom to kill wolves that are preying on their livestock and maybe they should get it. Apart from that, there is little to fight about.

The brucellosis problem is more difficult but it may be manageable. This disease is a great threat not only to ranchers but to the entire cattle industry in states where it appears. Ranchers fear that Yellowstone’s bison herds might infect their cattle and they want those herds to be better contained. In addition to buffalo, elk also carry the disease. That is a touchier issue as everyone likes elk. Some ranchers we talked to earn extra income guiding parties of hunters. There is evidence that artificial elk feeding grounds, intended to keep elk numbers up over winter, are a major cause of infection among those animals.

There is hope that Brucella abortus can eventually be eliminated from Yellowstone animals. In the meantime, slaughtering bison that leave the park and eliminating elk feed grounds may be both necessary and sufficient.

For a lesson in how not to approach such issues as these, consider the Chicago Tribune’s recent editorial: “The War on Wolves.” The Trib has its fur up over the legal hunting of wolves. The editorial begins with a misanthropic musing on the misbehavior of the human species. It then proceeds to articulate an environmental version of original sin,”How could the feds tolerate the hunting of an ecologically important creature that, by the mid-1900s, was hunted almost to oblivion?”

Apparently the Trib thinks that we should not ask whether hunting limited numbers of wolves is a threat to the recovered wolf population. The editorial never raises that question. Instead we should consider the guilt we bear for our past sins. We shouldn’t hunt wolves now because we were bad to them in the past.

The Trib lumps ranchers who fear wolves preying on their herds with hunters who want a chance to put a wolf head over their dining room tables as a vast alliance bent on the extinction of all things lupine. This is noxious numbskullery. Most ranchers would indeed like to see wolves go away altogether. Hunters by contrast would like to see the population of wolves increase so that their chances of bagging one would go up. Hunters and conservationists are natural allies whenever they are willing to look each other in the eye. That, of course, is the problem.

The Tribune’s editors assure us that”We aren’t anti-hunting.”

No. They are anti-hunter, as is clear from this gem:

The conflict pits people who would enjoy shooting wolves — think Sarah Palin, firing from an aircraft — against what a Montana wolf hunter interviewed on The Sportsman Channel called “a bunch of wingnut screwballs from wherever (telling) us how to manage wildlife.

I am not sure what the Chicago Tribune thinks about ranchers, but its editorial is dripping with loathing for hunters and trappers. It is altogether innocent of the simple question whether the hunting of wolves makes sense as ecological management. That might not be the best way to consider conservation policy.

I don’t hunt but I have no objections, moral or otherwise, to hunting. I am just plain scared of guns. As for wolves, I think they are about as cool as any animal that walks the earth. I spent a marvelous day at Yellowstone watching them through scopes. I chanced to see a pair of them digging for something only a few feet away from my car. I think that the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone and elsewhere was a great achievement. I hope that their populations flourish and increase.

If hunting wolves is a threat to wolf populations, then we should not allow it. If it is not such a threat, then we certainly should allow it. Adding hunters to those who want to see more wolves strengthens that constituency. If you want to find a reasonable solution to such conflicts, perhaps reason ought to be your guide. What you think of Sarah Palin might not be so helpful.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is a professor of Political Science at Northern State University and writes for the Aberdeen American News and the blog South Dakota Politics.