| "Wow! What a great hunt! Memories of a lifetime. The white ghost gobbler will live on in our memories around campfires & water coolers for many moons to come. Thanks for the privilege. Thank you for those memories and your wonderful outfitting operation. Sure enjoyed hunting with you & Lee. "
- Best Regards, Rob Keck
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| NEWS FROM THE MUSSELSHELL -- 2008 Winter Newsletter
The 2007 General big game season is over and it is time to get ready for the 08 seasons at this time. From the spring turkey season to bow elk , to rifle mule deer and whitetail, to pheasants, we had another great season. We are so lucky to be hunting such a great area and to have the numbers and quality of game that we have. Thanks to all the wonderful clients, both new and returning clients for such a great and enjoyable season. Also, thanks to all the landowners that take such good care of the land and for creating such a great experience to our clients.
As we look back over the season there are so many things we could write about. The good times and excitement of all the hunts could never be captured with pen and paper, but I am sure those memories will live on with our clients as they will with me.
It's about spending time with an NFL quarterback and showing him OUR world. It's about spending time scouting in the preseason to give your clients a fair shake. It's about going back to camp after dark and watching a grown adult tell everyone about how he got his buck. It's about taking from the land what it can give and putting back more. It's about watching a big buck the day after season is over and knowing he escaped the fair chase for another year. It's about putting up a treestand in September with the smell of bull elk in the air and a distant bugle. It's about calling in a big spring gobbler and watching the hunter shake so bad he misses. It's about talking to thousands of hunters at sportshows and listening to some say "if you can put a bull elk in front of me at 30 yards I won't miss!!!!!!!
It's about stopping to help a neighbor fix a flat tire at 4 am on the way to the hunting area while a paying client holds the flashlight and feels good about helping someone out. It's about taking 4-H youth pheasant hunting and watching them handle their shotguns like professionals. It's about a hunting client you had 8 years ago who calls you up on New Years Eve and tells you "Happy New Year". It's about hearing a landowner thank you for a payment that helped her drill a well or helped her pay for a new ranch horse when her old one died. It's about identifying noxious weeds that take over valuable native grasses and stopping their spread. It's about calling the sherriff's office to report a lightning fire at 2 am. It's about taking care of the land that takes care of you. It's about driving to Nashville Tennesse to the National Wild Turkey Convention to donate a hunt where proceeds go towards conservation of natural resources across the country. It's about having a hunter in camp who has hunted with you every year for 15 years and every year he says "I won't be back next year, my health wont' let me." It's about being polite when a local resident asks, "what do you do in the off season" and you jokingly tell him "I didn't know there was an "off season".
It's about the memories of the hunt living on in so many people around the country. It's about the local real estate agent who campaigns that outfitters and non-resident hunters are "ruining the country" while he sells another piece of raw land as 20 acre parcels to the highest bidder!!!! It's about trying to get along with everyone and realizing life is too short to let gossip slow you down. It's about dealing with people face to face, for better or for worse, and just telling it the way it is. It's about changing with the times and realizing that we are an important, but small part of the world's make-up. Everything we do is about Life and Land. This is why my cap says Musselshell Outfitters, "LIFE AND LAND."
The young hunter finished his second cup of hot chocolate and did have some questions about all this information. He was quiet for awhile then he said, "well if I don't shoot a mule deer buck this year and I spend some time picking up trash along the county road and help you find some more of those bad weeds do you think I could hunt for that monster elk next year if I can get the tag?????" |
This young hunter was very serious and very sincere. He was proably summing up the mental image that many people of all ages have about outfitting and outfitter's clients. Outfitting can mean alot of things, but to a full time, year round resident Montana Outfitter what does it really mean?? Well, this young hunter was ready for the answer. I told him lets get a cup of hot chocalate and sit in the lodge, this might take awhile. I then proceeded to try to explain "outfitting."
As for "monster elk and big bucks" everybody doesn't end up with one of those, and if they get lucky and do harvest a nice animal, thats a small part of the picture. Outfitting is more about bringing people together to make memories and enjoy the land as it was created. It's about waking up at 3 am in the morning to eat breakfast, more excited than if it was Christmas Eve. It's about spending time in beautiful country while the rest of the world is hussle bussle. It's about helping another person stop to enjoy life. It might be a young persons very first hunt. It might be a person with lung cancer and you know its his very last hunt of any kind. It's about trying to help him have that last memory he has dreamed of for years. It's about fathers and sons, and mothers and daughters getting together and spending time in the backcountry where the cloud of modern society isn't distracting them. It's about a grandfather bringing every grandson and granddaughter he has to enjoy a hunt with him. It's about learning more about the earth. It's about learning more about wildfires and noxious weeds. It's about picking up other peoples trash along the county roads that we travel. It's about talking to a worn out hunter and keeping optimistic and ready to walk another mile and glass another ridge. It's about helping a hunter who worked two shifts as a janitor for 10 years to save up for a once in a lifetime hunting trip. It's about talking to the Dairy Farmer from Wisconsin who might lose his farm, while you help him glass for mule deer.
