May 2015 Volume 5, Issue 3

What’s Inside: Humbled Hunter—By Raf Viniard

Shootin From The Hip—By Montana Mitzi

HORNS & HERITAGE SHIRT CLUB By N.K West

Recently, at the Big Horn Outdoor Adventure Show in Spokane, I came across a company that captured my interest. It was something I had heard of but never truly understood. As I talked to the owners of Horns and Heritage, they simply explained exactly how their company works. While listening, I became aware of how the company started in 2014. I was told that three buddies, all of which I was talking to, and their wives wanted to try something new to spark their lives a little bit. The six of them wanted to try something they’d heard of, but to make it their own. After bouncing ideas off one another, a lightbulb was lit and Horns and Heritage Shirt Club was born.

Their vision has grown into a thriving business. Each month a logo is chosen by the partners featuring a small country lifestyle business. The only criteria being, the logo MUST be cool!! After subscribing to the monthly club, Horns & Heritage customers receive t-shirt and a detailed postcard promoting the featured business. Each unique tee features a company based on the outdoors in some type of way. Whether it is hunting, fishing, ranching or rodeo, you name it, Horns and Heritage has a shirt featuring it!

This explains what Horns and Heritage Shirt Club members get, but there is another side to the concept and that is the giving back. All six of the partners grew up in small towns across the country. If you yourself know anything about small town America, giving back to your community plays an important part.

With every featured logo, Horns and Heritage Shirt Club gives a portion of their proceeds back to the company. This is their way of preserving a way of life that each of the partners holds dear.

Once listening to all this great information and getting to know the men of Horns and Heritage Shirt Club, I was more interested than before. With that being said, I was a bit nervous as to how much the subscription to such a cool club would cost. Turns out, it’s only $23 per month, with no commitment and you can cancel at any time! I would highly advise you to check this great idea out at www.hornsandheritage.com! Subscribe today and get a cool shirt delivered to YOUR door every month!

Publisher & Editor: Raf Viniard

406-407-0612

Field Editor: Mitzi Stonehocker

406-544-1868

Sales & Marketing, Lincoln County

Kori Erickson

406-293-1478

Director of Social Media

Misty Loveless

406-250-4191

Flathead Valley Rep: Kori

Missoula Sales Rep: Mitzi

Pro Staff Writers & Photographers:

Angela Gerych Pastor Jim Sinclair

Dan Helterline Zach Butcher

Paul Fielder Montana Mitzi

Sam Martin Jason Badger

Tony Rebo Toby Walrath

Editorial Policy: Montana Woods N Water

(MWW) reserves the right to refuse to publish in any form of

content that does not include the author’s name, complete mailing

address, and/or valid phone number or e-mail address.

Anonymous submissions will not be addressed or published.

MWW reserves the right not to publish anything we feel is not in

good taste or appropriate.

All materials are copyrighted!

To Contact Us: Montana Woods N Water

171 Clark Creek Loop Plains, Montana 59859

406-08-0576 www.montanawoodsnwater.com

Email: raf@montanawoodsnwater.com

Front Cover Photo Provided By:

RTK Photography—Tina Scott

Bull River Ranger Station

Publisher’s Notes

By Raf Viniard

Where has this month gone? This weekend is filled with fishing/softball

tournaments, graduations and Memorial Day.

Bear hunters are glassing the mountain sides looking for that elusive spring

bear as it gets closer to closing.

Fishing season opened last weekend and campers are starting to travel

Montana roads heading to their Montana favorite camping spots. Boaters

and fishermen alike are ready to start their engines in hopes of a safe day on

the water recreating and filling their creels. Please make sure Personal

Flotation Devices (PFDs) are available for everyone on board and all safety

equipment is fully operational. Do not consume alcohol and drive a boat,

water and alcohol is a recipe for disaster. Boaters remember to stop at all

inspection stations as instructed.

Hikers are hitting the trails. Please make sure you tell someone where you

are going and when you are coming back. If you change your plans tell

someone. Search and Rescue teams are hoping to spend this weekend with

their families as well and poor judgement on your part does not only effect

you, but your family, friends and rescuers alike.

Congratulations to all our 2015 graduates and we wish you the utmost

success as a college student or entering the working world from college. Life

is just beginning, plan wisely and remember to have fun.

June’s print edition is going to be packed full of stories and pictures. I have

held some stuff back so our non-digital readers can share in our coverage as

we go to print next week. Send us those pictures we love seeing them. Thank

you for supporting Montana Woods N Water and PLEASE support our

advertisers because without them Montana Woods n Water would not exist.

Be safe this weekend and keep “Living The Dream!”

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Humbled Hunter By Raf Viniard

June will mark my two year anniversary of moving to the Great State Of Montana and specifically Plains, Montana that I now call home. Good Lord willing this will be my final resting place. Moving from Georgia to Montana visions of grander filled my head about killing huge, elk, moose, sheep, deer, bears and cats. I couldn’t wait to add some new trophies to my collection. Needless to say I am glad I brought all my big mounts with me to adorn my Trophy Room/Man Cave or all I would have is last season’s unfilled tags to display.

The first year found me staring at non-resident hunting license rates that I would have had to sell a kidney to chase my highly sought after Montana trophies. Since we moved out here on a shoe string budget and a prayer that year would turn out to be my fact finding season and trying to learn the area. Note to self….tell anyone wanting to move to Montana to move out here in January / March time frame and get that driver’s license changed at least six months before fall hunting season opens. So, the first year was a bust but I was like a sponge soaking up all the information that locals were willing to give me. You have a better chance of them giving up their wife, kids and dog before they will give up their favorite hunting/fishing spots. I now fully understand that logic….those honey holes don’t come easy. Keep reading and I will explain.

I had invested hours of Googling satellite photos before moving out here and picking up scraps of information here and there on how best to hunt the majestic Montana Rocky Mountains and the plethora of big game animals it holds. Google is great for a snap shot but reality will set in real fast once your boots leave the floor board of your truck. Make sure you truly study those topography maps...those little brown lines...if they are really close together that just means you will need rock climbing experience. As seen in the picture above that grassy slope in the forefront doesn’t look that steep. Trust me I walked down the left side of that ridge and back up the center and it is a lot steeper than you may think. Throw a back pack on and head up that ridge without stopping and we will see if you have the breathe to carry on a conversation when you get to the top. Continued on page 3.

HUNTING

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Just driving around trying to look out the window up the side of the mountain caused great pains in my neck as I constantly kept looking out the drivers side window trying to find tracks or something standing in those tracks. By the end of the day your neck is in knots from twisting it trying to look up the side of the mountain. I felt like a hound dog with my head stuck out the window half the time. Another note to self...I need a Jeep so I can take the top off and look up through the roll bar. However, the first winter dampened that idea real quick. Last year my truck outside temperature gauge was reading –18 as I headed out before daylight to chase a big whitetail buck I had finally seen. I got another hard dose of reality when I started walking up and down those drains and old logging roads...I am not as young as I used to be and definitely out of shape. The Blue Ridge Mountains I was accustomed to crawling around on were ant hills compared to these huge steep slabs of rock. Those wonderful hunting shows make you think that all of Montana is open mountain sides and elk can be seen 1000 plus yards away...NOT! At least not in Northwest Montana where I live...it is heavily timbered and finding a opening in the trees to glass is a talent within itself. Old clear cut locations are prized knowledge. Plus, there is not an elk in every drain...in fact there is very few drains that hold elk! Continued on page 4.

HUNTING CONTINUED

This is an example of small openings that may or

may not hold game. This opening cannot be

seen from the main road and requires some foot

work to find. You will need a range finder!

By the end of this last season it had finally sunk in...the game animals habits, patterns and food sources were totally different than what I was accustomed to hunting back east. With the aid of friends and neighbors I have been able to start putting the puzzle together. I learn something new everyday from these seasoned Montanan sports men and women. Hunting skills you may have learned somewhere else can be very helpful but “Grasshopper” this is a different ball game.

Back east hunters have to put up with coyotes and maybe a bobcat eating a few of the animals that they pursue. Wolves again changes the entire dynamics as to where you hunt in Montana. The first year I was excited that I would get a chance to shoot a wolf...of course by the second year the only wolves I had seen was a couple laying in the back of a pickup caught by local long line trappers. Most folks back east think trophy big game animals are hiding behind every other tree out here. Let me

go ahead and burst your bubble right now...that is far from the truth. Unless you are a road hunter you are going to work your butt off and lose those extra pounds quickly and maybe a lung trying to figure it out as a green horn. So you think road hunting is the answer do you? Yes, some get lucky and drive the roads and find that once in a life time trophy but it is rare. I met a guy the first year as I was coming out the woods driving the mountain roads trying to fill his highly coveted moose tag. He had logged 3800 plus miles in two weeks trying to fill his tag and that was his last day to hunt. Two weeks later and thousands of miles later and he too was eating tag soup. After my first adventure through the dark timber full of blow downs and widow makers I was beginning to question my hunting abilities and sanity. What was I thinking? After hours of climbing over, under and through those piles of pixie sticks...I determined Basic Military Training obstacle courses were a joke. I stretched and torqued my body in ways I never knew possible. Back pack and a rifle slung across the shoulders makes this task even more problematic. You get so focused on not falling and breaking a leg or getting stabbed by a broken limb you quickly forget why you are there in the first place. The only thing you will be hunting is a way out of that mess. What really upsets you is where you have seen elk tracks going through this mess like it was nothing. It was quickly decided I would shoot nothing short of a true trophy elk or deer in that tangle. Okay maybe you would kill a smaller elk/deer in a maze of fallen and leaning trees but now you have to calculate just how you are going to get that big huge animal out of this tangled mess and don’t forget about the three ridges you just climbed over to get here. You may be looking at least 3-4 trips by yourself. Back to your truck that may be 2-3 miles away and you have no cell service to call your friends and that is if they will even answer their phone knowing where you were hunting. There are no four wheelers or golf carts to your rescue. A horse may not even be practical. You had better think about all these things BEFORE you pull that trigger when hunting Montana dark timber. If dark is getting close to setting in, you had better be comfortable and equipped to spend the night in the mountains. You might want to throw in a fork and a salt and pepper shaker in that back pack because it looks like elk/venison maybe on the menu that night. By the way Grizzlies, Wolves and Mountain Lions also love fresh meat and they don’t care if it is elk, deer or blaze orange coated homo sapiens. Continued on page 6

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HUNTING CONTINUED

Andy Pershern, a long line trapper with two Montana wolves.

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HUNTING CONTINUED

So you want to move to Montana and live right next to the public lands...I mean after all you can just jump in your truck and be in the woods in five minutes and on the game quickly. That probably is not going to happen...everything here is a long drive to go anywhere. The mountain roads are not long, smooth and straight. Yes, as a crow flies you could be in your favorite honey hole in about five—ten minutes. I have had to drive an hour just to get to a spot that is accessible that I can almost see my house from where I park my truck. I pretty much allow at least an hour to two hours to drive and hike back in to where I like to hunt. As spring bear season only has a few more days many hunters complained they just did not see as many bears this year. Many blamed it on the early green up and that the bears were more dispersed. I have hunted high, mid and low level areas and came up empty until this week. This week I have seen three bears. Two “Hosses” and one bathroom rug size. Since I am looking for that solid black, with that distinct brown nose the before mentioned bears did not fit that description. However, I am starting to re-think my wants verses reality. This week a buddy of mine called me later in the evening as I sat on the couch in my bunny slippers reading the news and thinking about crashing early. I had just ate a beautifully prepared stuff pork chop meal with all the trimmings. I knew I had to get this publication out and knew this week would be busy with sales, layout and publishing so I had pretty much decided I needed to lay off the bear hunting until I had my work done. I will call this hunting buddy “George”. He calls me all excited about seeing a nice black and a cinnamon bear and that if I hurried we could take both of them before dark. I quickly decided I can rest when I am dead. I threw my hunting boots in the truck while still wearing my bunny slippers and tore out up the mountain road with dust just a flying everywhere. “George” met me in the road several yards form where he had seen the bears. I quickly changed into my hunting boots ,grabbed my orange vest and rifle and within seconds down the steep embankment we went. We dropped several hundred feet fast. We snuck up the road and there they were. Things did not go quite as planned (story for another article) and we were both left standing on the road with our bear tags still in our pockets. The funniest part of this awesome evening and a memory I will never forget. As we started heading back to the truck it dawned on me just how many hundred feet we had dropped down off the main road. “George” decided the path back up and I followed like a puppy...after about the first 100 yards I felt my thighs and calves starting to tighten up. Now George about 10 years younger and fit as a fiddle never let up and up the side of that mountain he went. I pulled the old “binocular fake” about half way up. That is where you grab your binoculars and look back across the canyon, you know just in case, “The bear came back out.” Have you ever tried to look through a pair of binoculars while breathing heavy and fighting off cardiac arrest? It did buy me a few seconds to recompose and get my attitude right to continue the steep climb. “George” beats me to the main road and leisurely strolls over to his truck a few yards away as I continued my potential cardiac arrested climb up onto the main road. By this time I was trying to decide if I wanted to puke or call for Search & Rescue to bring oxygen. This is the best part...as I walked up to the truck “George” turns, smiling from ear to ear and says, “We made it back up here in nine minutes.” No “George” you made it in nine minutes...it took me fourteen. And I might even be fudging that number by five or ten minutes. He still had both lungs and I was wondering exactly where I lost one of mine. The past two years has been tough hunting, a steep learning curve and work gets in the way too often, but I would not live anywhere else for all the gold in Fort Knox. The scenery, experiences, memories and the friends I have made is worth no amount of money. God blessed me and answered my prayers by allowing me to move to Montana with the love of my life. I think God decided to teach me a lesson about being a humble hunter and to appreciate every breathe I take. “Keep Living The Dream!”

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Shootin’ From the Hip By Mitzi Stonehocker

Typically when you hear someone say that they are shooting from the hip you think fast

gun shooting, a gunslinger. This is true in old west movies, one that comes to mind is the

rifleman, and he shot from the hip. There are other definitions of shooting from the hip;

my favorite is how a person thinks about life; I am the person I write about today.

I love all outdoor activities, especially hunting and shooting. I have strong thoughts about

how I was raised and how the world has changed and where it is headed. Carrying a gun

is almost illegal if you are honest. Shooting at the target range has become popular, but

to go out for a drive and set up some old tin cans and target shoot is obsolete. My family did a lot of shooting;

every chance we got was spent in competition to out shoot the other family members. My mother was good. My

dad was pretty good and I practiced a lot and as I have aged I have matured in my shooting skills. My son collects

guns, my daughter hunts; my husband can shoot but would rather tend the fire. I am adamant; I will have and shoot

a gun as long as I am able! My granddaughters will grow up shooting and eventually hunting. I have visions of taking

each girl out for their first hunt, a good thought.

My life is relatively uncomplicated and relaxed, I have grown to enjoy retirement and enjoy being old enough to

“shoot from the hip”, to say what I want and to know my words will be heard and if someone does not agree or I say

something embarrassing the person will just write it off as “an old lady and her old fashion thoughts”. Not so when

dealing with the issue of hunting and having the right to bear a gun; my opinion is Government wants to remove all

obstacles in the way of complete control. Hunting has been around since the beginning of time; we hunt for food,

we hunt for sport and we hunt because we want to keep our rights free as our forefathers intended them to be. An

old saying, “why change something that works”, I agree.

Summer is a time for new birth, I saw my first baby fawn a few days ago, wobbly legs, tiny little body that will one

day grow big enough to feed my family for a season, life goes on. I am blessed to live in Montana, land of the “free”,

home of brave, my Montana is held very close to my heart and I will fight to keep it wild, remote and gun friendly!

Washington D.C. has issues with control, I do too, I want my freedom left in place, my right to bare a gun left in place

and I do not want to “change”! Stand up America, fight back and keep what is yours. Keep America alive and

thriving, not hiding in the shadows. My opinion, may not be yours but we can still have one, at least for now.

MONTANA MITZI & PINK CAMO

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