By: Bears Butt

AllansTruck

For what it’s worth, I’ve been driving this truck for Allans Plants, delivering flowers and bedding plants to mostly the Salt Lake City area.  I can usually make two trips from Pleasant View to SLC and make a couple of stops in SLC at each delivery.  It takes about an hour each way and usually 15 to 30 minutes at each drop (nursery) to unload carts full of plants.  It’s actually a pretty easy job, but does require some upper body strength to keep the tall carts from tipping over with the load of plants while pulling them off the loading ramp.  Other than that I get a lot of free time to think while driving both directions.

I have to say the Allan family works VERY hard at this and it’s obviously their true love.  To plant, grow and nurture what every gardener loves…flowers and vegetables.  I call them “babies” and you might say I’m sort of a doctor who delivers babies….just saying.

Yesterday was a big day for the delivery service I’m in, because tomorrow, May 8 is Mothers Day, and what better for Mother than flowers!?!  I made 3 stops but had to make two runs into town.  My first two stops took me to about 3300 S. and 9th East and I dropped off eight full carts of plants.  Hanging baskets make wonderful Mothers Day gifts and this nursery got a few yesterday.  Then it was off to Tooele for my drop off there.  Mostly vegetables at this place and the rain was just beginning to fall when I got there.  The rain wasn’t so bad, but the lightning was sort of scary.  I was on one end of the metal cart while a nursery worker was on the other.  He made a remark about lightning and how it was not a comfortable feeling holding onto a metal cart while it was hitting around us.  I reassured him he would not know it struck if it did in fact hit the cart.  He was less than amused.

From Tooele is was back to the plant plant for another batch of carts full of Mothers Day fun!

This last run took me to 9000 South and then West to a fairly large nursery there.  This one probably does the bulk of nursery business in that neck of the Salt Lake Valley and they were busy as heck when I got there.  I was even being asked by customers if we had any “red flowered plants with green leaves”…..That is a joke among us….I had to even tell some shoppers they could not take the plants off the racks because they had not been inventoried yet.  People are funny.  One young lady even waited while I pulled a cart off the truck because she could see some pink flowers on them and wanted to see them up close.  She went off and bought something else, even though those pink flowered plants were very pretty and of course they had green leaves as well.  Have you ever seen and pink flowered plants with green leaves?  Everyone should have some of them.

OK, now for the reason for this posting.  Traffic!  My late afternoon trip began about 3 p.m. from the Ogden area and scooted me into the Salt Lake City rush hour traffic on Interstate 15, the major carrier of traffic North and South through the state.  For those of you familiar with the Interstate situation in SLC, it includes a major junction of Interstate 80 which runs East and West across the nation and carries millions of people from one end of the country to the other.  And of course this is Mothers Day weekend and more people want to get back to see Mom, which added somewhat to the traffic situation.  The SLC area also has a stretch of Interstate 215 in it (called the Belt Route), which skirts the town of SLC itself, but connects all the surrounding towns as it goes.  Each town needs an exit and entrance and that adds considerably to the traffic issues.  The locals call the junction of I-15 and I-80, the “Spaghetti Bowl”!

Spaghettibowl

Photo courtesy of the internet.

I forgot to mention State Highway 201…That is a major highway that routes folks East and West out of and into downtown from the western part of the valley.  Sort of a quicker way to get to the Jazz games if you live out by the Bingham Copper mine area or Tooele area.

With all those lanes of highway, you would think the traffic would flow like water through a pipe.  Each driver picking their lane that would take them to their destination and off we go at just over the speed limit of 65 mph.  Zip, Zip, Zip!

As I travelled South through this spaghetti bowl, my exit was 9000 South, the split off for I-80 is about 2500 South, no problem because I still have a goodly distance to go before I have to insure my big old truck is in the far right lane and ready to exit when I get there.  But wait!  Around 3300 South, or is it 4500 South, there is a bottle neck that gets folks on and off the Belt Route.  If my travel takes me South toward Las Vegas and I need to go West on 215, I have to get over to the right lanes pretty quickly or I will miss my turn.  There are three exit lanes going that way.  Oh, yes and of course there are three lanes coming off 215 that will take that traffic to the South….hey that’s the direction I’m trying to go!  Those guys are merging into my lane!

Well, everything was rather congested before I got to 4500 South and then it seemed like everyone wanted to be on the same road and in the same lane at the same time.  HOLD ON FOLKS!  I’m in this lane!  Around the 7000 South area I was able to take my phone out and snap a couple of pictures.  You can see “I’m not driving” at this point in time.

May6,4pmTraffic.

I see open space…close it up people!

May6SLCTraffic

Add a little bit of rain to the mix and there you have it!  Wet spaghetti!

This is only part of the issue.  I’m still trying to get to my drop off point.  The busy little nursery that carries all the plants mom wants for mothers day.  Maybe all these people are trying to go where I’m trying to go…?!?  Well, I made it about 4:20 and was able to unload my 4 full carts of goodies.  I’ve already told you about the shoppers.  I didn’t get away from there until nearly 5 p.m.  As most of you know I retired about 12 years ago and have not had to deal with traffic like this for that long and now I find myself back into it with a big old truck at my disposal.  When I look in the rear view mirrors of that truck, it looks like the back end of it has just left Willard, while the front is almost to the 9000 South exit.  I need to get over.  Make space people, I’m coming over!

Back on the freeway (freeway….sounds like a joke this time of day) and headed North….back to home!  The red and green lights are flashing at the end of the “on ramp” telling me when it is my turn to “go for it”….only two vehicles per light change and don’t you move before the green is in your lane or the automatic ticket picture taker will get you!  ZOOM!  I’m off as quickly as a 40 foot truck can zoom!  I turn my left blinker on as soon as I clear the solid line, indicating I can change lanes as soon as someone will be kind enough to make a space big enough.  Nobody seems to want to move or give up their position in this congestion, but soon a smallish black car decides he is going to lose in the battle if he doesn’t hit his brakes and let me over.  AHHH!  Now I’m in a lane that will take me all the way home.  As I sit there waiting for the millions of cars ahead of me to decide it is time to push on the gas a little, I check the time on my phone…5:05 p.m.  I should be home by 6!  Granted I’m still just a bit North of 9000 South.  Suddenly I realize I’m going almost 10 mph!  Hey folks we are beginning to move!  YEAHHHHaaaa!  At 6:10 my phone buzzes me that I’m getting a text….sitting in traffic, I see it is Sherry…”Are you OK”?…is the message, and since I’m not moving I hit the call button.  “Hi Hon, what time is it?  6:10; I should be home in an hour.  Ya, I’m just past Lagoon.  See ya, love ya”!   Just past Lagoon!!!  From 9000 South to just past Lagoon in an hours time.  I do recall getting the truck up to 35 mph in the Centerville area, that seemed like we were cruising pretty good.

Well, I made it home about 7:30, so that wasn’t too far off my guess.  There is something magic about the West gate of Hill Air Force Base that is a magnet for slow moving traffic.  From that point to home it was 60 to 60 mph with the rain beating down so badly you could not see anything in front of you, but that did not matter to the traffic…gotta make up for the lost time back behind us!  ZOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

OK, so I had a lot of thinking time and I decided we, the people, are our own worst enemy!  My observation was that over 90 percent of every car on that road, going North and South, East and West had ONE PERSON in it!  From Clearfield to 9000 South and I’m sure from Tooele to Park City had the same.  Talk about air pollution, wasted time, the few wrecked cars I saw (which was amazing in and of itself).  People!  WE have to do something about this!  I don’t have the answer, but it’s pretty bad when a little old Willardite can see what is causing the problem on our interstate system.  I’m certain the same issue takes place in the morning hours as people “try” to get to work….everyone is late (as usual), which causes road rage, overzealous driving habits and of course the major crashes that take place.  Going home, people are exhausted from there daily work routine, tired from lack of sleep (last night, which caused them to be late this morning) and because it is Friday night, there isn’t any big hurry to get home anyway.

Puttzing along as I was I thought, people could car pool, but then everyone in the car pool would have to have the same work ethic.  The work place could promote car pooling and give extra money to those who do!  There is an enterprising tool….management….Green thinking, green palming!  Work places could alter their start and end times to miss the major commuting hours!  Here you go management folks!  I guess the bottom line is people need to give up “their freedom”, in order to gain more time to themselves!

Happy Mothers Day all you mothers!

May 7, 2016

Bears Butt

Written on May 7th, 2016 , Uncategorized
By: Bears Butt

MyBowInBush

You have probably read about my new arrows, Carbon Express Thunderstorms and how I shot them bare shaft (no fletchings) and how they went crazy wild and didn’t fly straight through the paper.  Well, Weasel and I went together and purchased a Bitzenburger fletching jig, then set up the jig to mount right helical feather fletchings to my new arrows.  It took me awhile to figure out this new jig and how to use it properly, but with a little adjustment here and there I managed to get all six arrows fletched up pretty good.  I’m sure I will learn more about how to do this as time goes on, but for now the feathers seem to stay on the arrow shafts pretty good.

Well, with working for a local nursery delivering plants to the Salt Lake City area and the weather, I haven’t had a chance to shoot my bow for over two weeks.  I don’t like not shooting my bow.  Well, last night, after getting off work a little earlier than usual, I went to the field to try out the newly fletched arrows.

These arrows come pre-vaned, with plastic vanes and they are all cut at 29 inches ready to shoot out of the box….They consider them youth arrows and we all know how youth are about getting new stuff and wanting to play with it until they break it.  I’m no different, but plastic vanes don’t shoot from my recurve bow and I had to wait until the feathers were on them before I could try and break them.

I put 100 grain tips on 3 of them and 125 grain tips on the other three.  This archery stuff is still new enough to me that I need to experiment with different things in order to see which works best for me and my bow.  I shot for a couple of hours and during that time I took a few pictures of some of my ends.  Of course I’m not going to show you the ones with the WIDE groupings.  To make this story shorter, I’ll show you the ends I shot and you decide what is good or bad.  To me, none of them are bad.  All shot at 20 yards and all shot with a canted bow, while I stood.

EndWithNewCEThunderstorms

End2CEThunder

End3CEThunder

You are probably thinking, “there is always that one arrow that falls away from the rest of them”….Well, I can assure you that it isn’t always the same arrow that does that.  For some reason, I just have to have a “flyer” in each of my ends and it doesn’t matter if I’m shooting three arrows or thirty.  At least the bulk of them are falling into a group.

Well, I’m pretty happy with my new arrows.  I think they are a bit light weight for hunting and so I’ll still be looking for a heavier arrow for shooting at big game this fall.  For target shooting these are pretty good for being inexpensive arrows.  Also, as you can see, it doesn’t make much difference on 100 or 125 grain tips.  Soon, I’ll do a FOC on them and report it to you on Bears Butt Dot Com!  Every good arrow is FOCed.

Well, part of my shooting was to put on the broad heads that were so kindly donated to the Brigham Bowmen Club by the Badger Broad head company, and the Dirt Nap Broad head company.  I put one of each of them on my Warrior Arrows, and since I’m shooting right helical fletchings, I put on right bevel broad heads.

RightBevelBadger

Right Bevel Badger!  Looks mean doesn’t it?  Two cutting edges.

RightBevelDirtNap

Right Bevel Dirt Nap!  This little baby has two bleeder blades at 90 degrees to the two main cutting edges.  I’m not so sure I won’t change my mind before the hunt about these little guys.  I’ve been favoring the Badgers just because they look more traditional, but after shooting the Dirt Naps, that little bit of extra cutting surface does lend itself to more damage on the terminal end.

Well, I was pretty excited to give these guys a fling and here is the results!

FirstTwoBroadheadShots

To say I was surprised that both arrows hit the mark is an understatement!  I figured the first one was an accident but when the second one punched it as well, I felt like Robin Hood!  I took close up pictures of the cuts made by the broad heads and for sure you can see the extra cuts from the Dirt Nap broad head.

BadgerCut

I didn’t realize until this morning that my picture angle was bad and only shows the one side of this Badger broad head cut.

DirtNapCut

Dirt Nap is sure showing it’s (4) mark here.

Another thing I noticed when I pulled the arrows out of the bale, they both had to turn as they were backed out.  Much like riflings make your cleaning rod turn when you are cleaning the gun.  I’m impressed!

So, folks don’t give up on me about my archery shooting.  I’m still trying to figure it all out and at the same time get better about hitting that target with every arrow.  At this point in my archery endeavor, I have to say a deer or elk is in some kind of serious trouble within 20 yards.  30 yards is too far for me right now, but I’m still practicing out that far and will continue to shoot even out to 40 yards and try to get my groups tight.

May 5, 2016

Bears Butt

Written on May 5th, 2016 , Archery stuff
By: Bears Butt

It’s May 2nd, 2016 and the opening day for the general turkey season here in Utah.  Since it’s a Monday, most everyone I know that hunts is either working or too wrapped up in yesterdays wind damage to go out and enjoy a day of hunting turkeys….So….Off I go by myself.  There are advantages and disadvantages to going alone, but one thing for sure, I’ll be out there.

I have a plan to hit an area I have never been before.  Sort of a scouting, hunting adventure.  I know there are birds there because we heard them Saturday and I have studied Google Earth enough to know the lay of the land.  Now it’s time to put the boots to the ground and go check it out first hand.

I’m hoping to take a few selfies to show you how it looks as well and maybe even with a bearded bad boy.  Wish me luck!

More to come once I’m back.

May 2, 2016

Bears Butt

DecoyHead

I had considered using my hen decoy today but chose not to….This is the look she gave me.

I got back home right at 1 p.m.  And what a beautiful day it was to be out in the hills.  Cool this morning and quite warm by noon.  Let me tell you about being out of shape….I’m out of shape!  My trek took me to places I have only visited on Google Earth and it was everything I imagined.  A trail that follows a steep hill and there was turkey goo everywhere!  I was very excited when I got there and set up.  My timing was perfect, as I placed my butt on my cushion seat I heard the first gobble of the morning.  He was behind me slightly and up pretty high.  His home was near this little basin.

CoolLittleBasin

And probably very close to those tallest trees you can see.  I positioned myself behind where the camera was to take this picture and I was just around the bend from a nice little corner in the hill.  A perfect ambush spot should a turkey come along that trail.  As my luck would have it, the bird flew down to the left of this picture and he went beyond the public land and onto private.  I saw him at one point and at 100 yards I could clearly see a long beard!  He’ll make a mistake one of these days.

I sat there from just before light until the sun had me almost to go to sleep from the warmth and then I got up to go explorer around.  I sat with my newly made ghillie hat on to help hide me from the turkeys.

GhillieHat

As I wandered around I found this really nice little trail that screamed turkeys!

TurkeyParadise

As I went along I would set up at pinch points and corners and would call.  Every once in awhile I thought I could hear faint gobbles in the distance.  I knew they were not answering my calling, but as I snuck along I kept thinking those bad boys would walk right into me.  I was ready.  The trail got extremely narrow and tight against the uphill side, downhill was brushy delux and I couldn’t see down into it very well.  Suddenly I heard the yelping of a hen!  It was very deep sounding and at first I thought it was another hunter, but as it walked along it continued to sound off.  I followed the sounds and then saw two hens working their way below me.  They hadn’t seen me and I was glad for that.  With them moving off, I found a nice sitting spot and waited for a tom to come walking along behind them.  A half hour later I moved on.

Changing the subject a little; about a month ago I bought myself some “hearing aids”.  These are made for hunters and they enhance the sounds of the woods for most people, but for me, they allow me to hear what the heck is going on.  I had both of them in my ears today.  I was walking in some crunchy oak leaves along the trail and it was nearly impossible to remain quiet, but even with the hearing devises I was going slow enough to be pretty quiet.  About 100 yards past where the two hens were I entered into somewhat of a grassy clearing in the oak trees.  It screamed turkeys to me and so I stood on the edge of it and peered into the openings looking for movement and listening with all the listening attention I could get.  10 minutes of looking and listening and I would move forward a few feet and stop and look and listen some more.

I had gone about 30 yards into this semi-clearing when up ahead a few yards, maybe 20, a hen sounded off with some very loud putts!  She putted and putted but stayed in one spot as she did it which is not like any putting I’ve heard before.  Usually they are moving away or up hill or somewhere getting away from danger (me).  But this one was different!  Then I heard wings beating the air and suddenly the gobbling of three distinct toms just off to my left and up hill a bit.  The putting continued ahead of me.  With all the commotion I wasn’t sure what I should be doing, so I went carefully up the hill toward where the gobbling took place.  Then I heard a hen clucking below me and I froze!  Two hens were moving up the hill from below me and would cross somewhere near the hen that was putting.  I froze as I was in a place where I could be easily seen by the two birds below.  She continued to putt and then I saw a coyote run across the opening and down toward the valley below!  The coyote had been gone a good minute before the putting stopped.

The two birds moved up and joined with the putting bird but I could not see them.  I moved up the hill carefully and as quietly as I could.  The gobblers had to be very close but I didn’t know where exactly.  I positioned myself with a small clearing about 10 yards in front of me and let out a “Darin Gardner” series of very quiet putts and yelps…..The woods came alive with Gobblers sounding off and they were very close, I just didn’t know where!  And then I saw some movement ahead about 20 yards…it was the back of a gobbler and he was strutting his stuff.  I sat still and raised the gun ready to fire when he came over a slight rise between me and him.  My arms soon became very sore and I could hardly hold the gun up.  The gobbler would strut and turn but did not come any closer. I held the gun up for about 20 minutes and then I couldn’t take it any longer.  I slowly lowered it and kept my eye on the bird ahead.

I was not in a very good spot for an ambush and if he came over the rise and happened to look down the trail he would see me for sure.  I had to make a move to the side of the trail.  At one point I thought I could just stand up and blast him, but I didn’t know if he was alone or with a hen or the other gobblers.  The sounds told me there were for sure 3 different gobblers and they were all pretty close to one another.  It just wasn’t worth shooting and hitting more than one bird.  I’ll wait for a better chance.  I moved slightly up hill off the trail but the brush blocked me from seeing the bird.  Again, very carefully, I pulled out the call and striker and sounded off a very soft yelp.  All three gobblers burst into cadence!  My heart was racing and my mouth began to dry up noticeably.  Then the worst thing that could happen began to swell up in my throat….a cough….NO!  I thought to myself and I fought it off.

I kept thinking about some of the things I’ve been told about turkeys….you make a turkey sound and if they gobble back, they know exactly where you are and they will come, just have patience.  I waited and waited and waited.  Two hours I waited expecting them to pop up within 10 yards at any moment, but nothing came.  I tried my soft call again, this time nothing.  I let out a series of yelps just a wee bit louder….nothing.  It became obvious by this time that the hen they were parading around had lead them off and up the trail somewhere.

It was getting late in the morning and was very warm so I decided not to try and cut them off and just leave them alone for another day.  I carefully stood up, stretched my legs and made my way quietly down the mountain and back to the truck.

A fine day indeed!  4 gobblers, 5 hens, several deer and lots of other wildlife viewed.

Bears Butt

 

Written on May 2nd, 2016 , Hunting Stories

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BearsButt.com | Stories, Ramblings & Random Stuff From an Old Mountain Man

Just some of my old stories, new stories, and in general what is going on in my life.