Utah Fishing ReportsHere is some good news for us fishermen!
Posted Friday, 23 May 2014 12:21
Changes include elimination of two-pole fishing permit
Young anglers and hunters are among those who will benefit from upcoming license changes in Utah.
Young anglers and hunters are among those who will benefit from upcoming license changes.
Photo by Scott Root
And, if you like to fish with two fishing poles, you’ll also benefit — no matter how old you are.
Kenny Johnson, Administrative Services Section chief for the Division of Wildlife Resources, says the license changes will do two things: Provide anglers and hunters with new options and provide the DWR with the funding it needs to continue providing good fishing and hunting opportunities in Utah.
The changes are the first license fee changes in Utah since 2008.
“We took a fresh look at our licenses and found some new options for our sportsmen,” Johnson says. “We also found ways to save the families of young anglers and hunters some money.”
The changes go into effect July 1.
All of the changes are available in a downloadable PDF. The following are some highlights:
If you have questions, call the nearest Division of Wildlife Resources office or the DWR’s Salt Lake City office at 801-538-4700.
Yesterday I had the great opportunity to take Kenzie up to join her folks at the Cache Valley Rendezvous (CVR). This is the second one of this rendezvous I have missed in as many years and my speculation about the events for this years rendezvous were pretty much spot on. I consider myself a “shooter”….when I go to a rendezvous or any mountain man activity outside, I like to shoot, especially my rifle and pistol, shotgun too, but not nearly as much as the other two, mostly because I’m not good with it. Anyway, most of the gang that hang with the Willow Creek Free Trappers are shooters as well. More is better!
So, let’s first talk about CVR’s shooting from the past years. When we first got involved with anything doing with mountain man events, this CVR event was one that we looked forward to the most. First off it was close to where we live, second it had some very fun people running the show, and third they shot a lot and it was fun. Targets were such that anyone could win any event and the crowd that gathered just to watch could see some incredible shooting from some of the people on the line. They might also get a chance to shoot and try a blackpowder rifle out as they were right there behind the line intermingling with the shooters and it wasn’t uncommon for a shooter to offer a tourist the chance to try their hand at it. Something that really drew a big crowd. I remember once looking around behind the line and seeing a couple of families sitting on a large blanket and eating their lunch while they watched the shooting going on. They stayed there most of the afternoon enjoying themselves and the antics of the mountain men and women. A totally good time.
As the years have gone on, the CVR shooting activities have gone down hill. First it started with crappy prizes, like tubes of bears grease and “made in china” knives. With some complaining that soon changed and the prizes became more what we were accustomed to, but then slowly over the years the prizes went down hill again and even with much complaining the quality did not come back, but rather it waned even more so. The last prize I won for a first place was a very nice one, but I found out after the man passed away, that he had gotten that prize out of his own, personal stash of items he treasured, rather than give me the prize that someone from the “club” had decided would be the prize for that shoot.
Before the prize I just mentioned, and several years before, I won another first place prize and guess what it was? You guessed it…none other than Sir Butt’s “Cash” sword, named after the Cache Rendezvous. A nice Renascence sword valued at many dollars I’m sure, but I’d have been much happier winning a pound of powder or a box of round balls. My thoughts on that have always been, if I go to a renascence and participate in an event where I could win a prize, I would expect a renascence type prize to be awarded. However, this event is a mountain man event with a time line somewhere between 1800 and 1850 and prizes should be something useful in that period of American History or at least a worldly prize within that time frame.
So, last year I was not happy when I heard, through the grapevine that the prizes would be less than desirable for shooting well. But, it was tempting to go and play with the trail walk and the other events as the prizes those clubs give out are usually hand made or at least very nice prizes. But I elected to stay home instead. What I heard after it was over, by those who did go was not a good thing to happen to the CVR club. Their reputation had caught up with themselves and now they have dug a huge hole out of which it will take them many dollars and years to recover from. Here is how the shooting went “Last Year”:
Whoever called the shots (rules) really didn’t seem to have much of a clue as to how “fair” something like shooting for prizes should be done. Every shooter was given a packet of targets and the targets were marked as to what the objective was for that shoot and how the scoring was going to be done. It was up to the individual shooters to be honest in following the rules of the shoot and to make sure they had their name on the targets when they turned them in for scoring. Some of the targets had minus points involved, up to minus 100 in some cases. But, now get this, if you didn’t shoot too well on a target, you could just throw it in the trash and you would get a zero for that target….zero is much better than minus 100! So, after the two days allowed for you to shoot the targets in your packet, you went to the big council fire on Sunday night to see how you placed in the shooting. As it turned out, the winner of the whole shooting weekend ended up only shooting on Saturday and he turned in 3 or 4 of his best targets. Others who shot fairly well and followed the Normal rules of being fair, turned in all their targets and received a couple of minus 100’s….they came in last place, or at least out of the running for any prizes being awarded.
Now for what I found out about “This years CVR” rendezvous in relation to the shooting events:
The schedule of events calls for shooting a block of time on Saturday starting at 9 a.m. and again on Sunday, starting at 1 p.m. However, when Edjuakateer talked to the range master at the sign in table (sign in for the entire rendezvous) the range master told him that shooting would only be held on Saturday and the “aggregate” score winners for first and second places would be given prizes. Edjukateer told him about the printed schedule and the range master left the area to go talk to the Booshway about the printed “mistake”.
Also, there was no posting of a “Situation shoot”, usually pulled off by another club, but there was going to be a “trail walk” where each participant will walk it by themselves and keep their own score and turn in their score sheets once they were finished.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I’m an honest man and I would walk that trail and make sure I followed all the rules of the shoot and probably come out with a perfect score, but that’s just me. I think the person in charge of scoring and coming up with a broken tie for prizes will have one heck of a time doing that. Good luck, whoever you are!
Again, I’m glad I saved my money and my time attending this years CVR rendezvous and I hope everyone who did go have a GREAT TIME! Make the kids have a great time as well!
SO, why am I posting this ever so negative report about a group of rendezvous people I like? Opportunity is the word I choose at this time. For years the people who are members of this CVR club have been given notice by myself and by many others (in and outside the club) that if they don’t cater to the shooters their rendezvous will go into the tank. Last night as I drove in and out of the rendezvous area I saw the usual traders and their camps across the creek, but I didn’t see the usual numbers of “tin tipis” outside the primitive camping area. The traders are there to catch money from the tourists and the tourists are there to see and witness the “doings and goings on” of the mountain men and women and these expectations include shooting and cutting up. It’s bigger than just a camp out.
So, here is the opportunity for a group of clubs to get together and dedicate this Memorial Day weekend to a “shooting rendezvous”. Should traders come along for the ride, so be it, but make it a weekend of shooting fun for those who like to do just that. Rifles, pistols, shotguns…toss in tomahawk throwing and a trail walk/situation shoot or two and have a blast doing it! One big old scene with one big camp fire at night and loads of fun and story telling….just like it was in the beginning of the CVR way back when. Try and find a place where it doesn’t cost to camp and make the fees to shoot fair to everyone spending money on supplies for the shooting events. We need to face the fact that prices of everything is through the roof right now and won’t be dropping “ever”. Pounds of powder are over $15 in most places, percussion caps over $8 a tin and round balls are also over the $10 range. I suppose that is the price you have to pay to play. So, maybe have every shooter bring a prize for every shoot and conduct a “put up or shut up type shooting event”, or do like the Willow Creek Free Trappers do, bring a single prize worth X amount of money and register it, shoot for the two days and then the shooter with the highest score gets first pick of all the prizes offered up and continue down to the worst shooters score who picks up what is left on the blanket as their prize….everyone that plays gets a prize in the end. As for trail walks and/or situation shoots, charge a fee that “at least” covers the costs of materials and maybe even puts some money into the pockets of the club and alternate clubs who pull off those events so that at least they get to have a “relaxing” weekend for a couple of years in a row, at least….we all know how much work goes into a situation shoot or a team trail walk and for the club in charge of those their weekend is nothing but a 3 day job with little to no relaxation time.
Well, that’s what I have to say about all of that. Wish I was at the rendezvous having a great time shooting and playing mountain man, but instead I’m here typing my disgruntled feelings and looking forward to some yard work!
Bears Butt
May 24, 2014
While Weasel is out chasing the birds it seems the birds are looking for him! These two jakes walked right up the street from his house to mine this morning! Imagine that!?!
Bears Butt
May 21, 2014
Boy how time flies! It’s already the 12th of May! The turkey season is over half way done and we haven’t connected yet. Turkeys 5, hunters O,O,O……what can I say and this was supposed to be our year. Today maybe!?! Weasel and I are out to get them one more time. I have always said, You can’t get them by sitting on the couch or laying in bed.
Today’s plan is sort of the same but with a twist. Maybe the twist is what we need. The birds have been doing a little twisting of their own this year and we need to twist with them. It seems that in the past they would do what we have been trying to get them to do this season, but they haven’t held up to their end of the bargain, so we are going into their court yard and hopefully take out the king pin. It gets frustrating sitting in my blind, high on the hill and listening to them gobbling below me, hoping they will fly down and then come up the hill into my waiting 20 gauge, and then have them go the opposite direction time after time. So, this morning we are going down into their strut zone and way lay them….we think. At least we are doing something different this morning.
So, wish us luck and I’ll be adding more later on about this days hunt!
Bears Butt
May 12, 2014
I have always double tied my shoe laces to keep them from coming untied, but today I found a way to keep them from coming undone and only tying them with one knot!
Check out this site I found, there are tons of ways to tie your shoe laces!
http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm
Bears Butt
May 9, 2014
I’m always trying to figure out cheap and effective ways to accomplish something. For instance some of you will remember and maybe even still have one in your possession, my Popsicle stick range finder. I put a lot of thought and energy into that devise and it really works at telling you the distance you are from a deer. I devised it as an aid for us muzzleloader guys and gals so that we would not waste a shot on an animal too far away for an effective kill shot. Well, most have never used it and probably ended up tossing it into the fire, but oh well.
The thing was “calibrated” using a bucket that measured 18 inches tall. I measured the distance of the bucket by laying a tape measure on the pavement and marking off distances in 25 yard increments. Then while standing in one spot, I marked the top and bottom of the bucket on the stick…25, 50, 75 and 100 yards. Each set of lines got progressively closer together. The bucket being 18 inches high, represents the thickness of a deers back to brisket measurement….18 inches (average). So, when a deer presents itself (broadside of course), you take the stick, bracket the deers back to brisket between the lines on the stick that are the same as the deers thickness and there you have a pretty good idea as to how far away the deer is from you.
The stick also has to be held out in front of you at arms length. My calculations are only off by the fact that most everyone has a different arms length, I suppose that is why Dry Dog takes such long shots.
So, the bottom line of my thinking was to have myself a “range finder” and to have one at little or no cost….always a goal of mine. “Have for cheap”.
The other day I was perusing (checking things out) a classified ads site and low and behold here is a guy in Brigham City, selling an antique range finder for $10 or best offer! A range finder for under ten bucks! How can the Bears Butt pass on this deal? He can’t!
I quickly responded with “Will you take $5 for the range finder”? In less than a minute, a “like” came to my question! I responded with astonishment….”Does that ‘like’ mean you will take my offer”? He responded with a “Yes”! And then continued with “I PMed you with my address, I’ll mark the item Sold Pending Pickup”! I quickly looked at the clock and said, “I’ll be there as quickly as I can”. Hurrying to get the deal of a lifetime in the shortest time possible, I jumped in the truck with the dog and headed for town. I was there as fast as the speed limit and stop lights allowed. The guy was amazed at how quickly I got to his house. All I had on me was a ten dollar bill and I was fully prepared to give it to him in exchange for this wonderful antique range finder. After all he did advertise it for $10 OBO. But, he gave me a five in return and handed me the range finder, still in its original box and it has a leather case and instructions on how to use it!
My heart was racing and I could hardly wait to get it home to try it out! It looks really cool and the box says “Measure-Rite Range Finder. The distance meter of guaranteed accuracy. Brownie mfg. co —New York 7, N.Y.” How cool is that? My very first Range Finder and for only $5! Inside the box, I read the instructions to make sure I wasn’t going to break the thing before I ever got to use it to range the distance a deer was away from me this muzz season. The instructions told me how to use it alright, but the thing that really peaked my interest was the thing would accurately measure from 2 1/2 feet out to infinity! Holy Cow! That is better than almost any range finder out there today….well maybe not the military guys ones, but for Joe Hunter, most of them are only accurate to maybe a thousand yards. This guy will go to infinity! Do you realize how far INFINITY is? You can’t even see INFINITY! Dry Dog would never in his wildest dreams shoot that far, even if he knew how far it was!
Man o man, what a find I have here. I carefully took it out of its leather case and looked it over really good. It’s not a big thing and yet it is powerful enough and accurate enough to measure out to infinity….accurately! And for $5!
So, how does it work? Well, on one side it has an eye piece that you look through at your target. On this same side it has a dial, which you turn slowly. As you are looking through the eye piece and turning the dial, a second vision of your target slowly climbs up into your view and when the two visions come together, you read the dial and it tells you how far away it is. Cool huh? It ain’t a lazer deal, nor as fast, but for an antique it gets the job done quick enough.
The side opposite the dial just has a second lens.
So, I looked out the window of my cave at the house across the street. Their VW was sitting in the driveway, I looked at it through the range finder and began to dial up the second image. It wouldn’t quite come together, close but no bannana and the dial was maxed out. My first thought was that a lens or something inside must have come loose or something causing this problem, and I know that if anyone could fix it it would be me!
I quickly went to the web to find out if anyone else out there in the world even had one of these things. I was so happy, even if it is broken. What I found deflated my balloon.
This baby was developed and used by photographers to get the proper distance from the camera to the subject and infinity means greater than 10 feet…..input a frownie face here.
So, I must ask you! Is there anyone out there willing to trade “straight across”, a modern day range finder for a very fine and accurate “Antique Brownie Measure Rite Range Finder, in its original box and comes with its original leather case and instructions”….This thing must have a value that would exceed the value of a stupid modern day range finder, don’t you think?
Bears Butt
May 9, 2014
Went for a pleasant drive this morning with Tracker, Bones and Winemaker and while we were at it we stopped in a little store in Richmond Utah, just North of Logan because we had heard they sold goods to the general public. What we found was a very nice, EXTREMELY clean little store with TONS of good food and very friendly and attentive people manning the counter.
The store is filled with all sorts of already cooked foods, mostly meats, but I did see some cheeses and BBQ sauce as well.
I asked the lady if it would be alright if I did a little advertising for them on my web site (this one) and of course she said it would be alright….with that, I gave her one of my wonderful “Bears Butt, don’t forget the ‘s'” cards…she smiled and probably tossed it in the garbage once I was out side. Whatever she did or does with it is OK with me.
So, I decided to give them a plug on here and if you are ever in the area of Richmond and want to check out some great food, stop in there. Today, and I assume every day, they had samples of several of their food items that you could try out. We sampled the Pot Roast, Sliced BBQ Beef, Shredded Pork and Beef Taco. There was another up for sampling but I don’t see it on their list of foods. It was very good as were all the others. Now for you samplers out there, they trust you to not to over indulge in their samples and even provide you with a personal spork (spoon/fork combo) and you can have napkins as well. Please be courteous and just try a sample and not stand there and have your lunch…not that you would.
I have had their Pulled pork before and didn’t even know I was eating their food….Thanks Muskrat! And I had some of their Pot Roast and it was some of the best I have ever eaten…and this is one of the reasons we stopped in their today. We could not leave the place without picking up some of the sliced deli meats, pork roast ends and pieces and who can walk away from prime rib?
When you think about a plant that takes raw meat and cooks it to order for a restaurant or special service company that caters food, you have to figure there is going to be a certain amount of the food that will be left over from cooking that order. This is where the store comes in to play. They have tips and ends of the larger pieces of meat left over. It’s cooked up with the rest, but does not meet the standards they have to sell to the restaurant or other customers, but it’s WAY TOO GOOD to throw away. So they package it up and sell it at a very reasonable rate to people like you and I. Heck, I have NO problem eating my fill of pork roast tips. Just because when the big pork roast is sliced the pieces become to small to be made into “slices”, so they stop slicing it and toss the chunk into a pile. When the pile is big enough, they package it up and sell it to me. I like that! Now all I have to do with it is heat it up and eat it.
Ok, nuff said. Here is their current (May 6, 2014) prices. Remember they have other items that are not listed on this list that they have because of special orders and it will pay you to stop in often and check their items out. They also have daily specials and today we could buy one package of sliced turkey and get a second one free….that went for sliced beef roast as well, and they let us trade out the second package of turkey for one of the beef! Good deal huh? Also, not on the list, they had 20 pounds of “scrambled eggs”, for $15!!!!! Can you imagine how many eggs need to be scrambled to make a pound? I’d say at least two dozen! So, 20 pounds would be 40 dozen eggs…..40 dozen eggs for $15! Give me a break! That’s only 38 cents a dozen!!!!! And they are cooked! I digress.
The list is kind of small (a cross between my abilities and this web site), but save it to your computer and make it bigger.
I want you to notice something about the price list that I find funny. Everything has a “people per pound” suggested serving except the Ribs and Rib tips…..That’s because people like me just can’t get enough of good tasting ribs! So how could they put a people per pound or better yet a Pound per person statement on them? They can’t….if you are in the market for serving a bunch of people ribs, you best count on two pounds of ribs per person and then HOPE that Aunt Martha, Uncle Ben and Cousin Charlie are “no shows”.
So, give them a try!
Lower Foods Factory Outlet, 700 South Hwy 91, Richmond, Ut 84333…..Give them a call…435-258-3755! Open Monday through Friday 9 till 6!
Bears Butt
May 6, 2014
Hunting and fishing away from the crowd is always appealing. When things get crowded and you are trying to relax, it just isn’t as much fun as if it were just you and those you wish to have around you. But, in order to get away from the crowd means you have to either pack your stuff in, or do without some of the comforts of home…shower, toilet etc.
In my internet exploration I came across this little honey made in Australia and if you can afford one, it would be way cool to see your drive it into the muzz deer camp this Fall!
Enjoy!
Bears Butt
May 4, 2014
Another exciting day in the woods! We started off hearing them gobbling down in the haller and Weasel and Conner got to see them as they walked “the other way”! I just don’t get it! There were six of them! The surprising part about our first area was the lack of hunters. Only one other hunter on the whole mountain. That didn’t make much sense to us. Where were they all?
So, after a few hours we decided to go and check out some other areas we heard about. Yep! Lots of hunters were out today! We did see a Gobbler and 5 hens on our way to one of the new places…but of course there were no trespassing signs and lots of orange paint. He was safe!
And of course it isn’t turkey hunting without a little walk in the woods, calling and looking. We made the 2 mile hike to the snow line and sure enough, there was a big bird…..PUTTING and walking away from us! Busted Big Time once again. Dang!
So, 12 turkeys were spotted by us today. That is saying quite a bit about the turkeys here in the Northern end of the state. There has to be a lot of them in order for us to see that many in one day. Will we get to put a tag on one before the season is over? Time will tell. For sure, we ain’t givin up! And to add to that we think we are getting the hang of hunting them. One of these days, our “Thinking” is going to get in line with the turkey’s “Doing” and we will get a shot!
So, Turkeys 3, Butt and Weasel 0!
On a positive side, we are having a great time out hunting them. The weather today was beautiful! And my brand new boots only produced one small blister on my big toe! That is saying a whole lot right there!
Bears Butt
May 3, 2014