Gone Grousing Colorado Style...Stay Tuned!

Colorado Greenback Cutthroat

About The Western Native Trout Initiative
With few exceptions, native trout populations have declined across the West, usually due to two general factors: habitat alteration and introduced non-native fish. Remaining native trout populations are often isolated from one another and exposed to increased predation, competition, and hybridization. Continued human population growth, coupled with potential habitat damage from a warming climate, has increased the urgency of securing and improving the status of western native trout.

The 15 native trout addressed by the Western Native Trout Initiative have long been considered as biologically, recreationally and culturally important. While local conservation actions have occurred, overall range-wide recovery and coordinated management of western native trout generally has been addressed in a fragmented approach.

The Western Native Trout Initiative (WNTI) provides a new perspective and impetus to improve the return on investment of the time, money and manpower dedicated to native trout conservation over the next decade. WNTI is a collaborative, multi-state approach that requires the involvement of a wide range of partners – from private individuals to conservation–minded organizations and corporations.

The Western Native Trout Initiative was formed in 2005 to address these issues, and is endorsed by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. WNTI is recognized as a National Fish Habitat Partnership by the National Fish Habitat Action Plan. We have partnered with all the western states, 5 federal agencies, numerous Native American Tribes, local enthusiasts,Trout Unlimited, Simms Fishing products, the Federation of Fly Fishers, the Klamath Basin Rangeland Trust and the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission to further our cause with their direct support.

Become a WNTI Partner! You have the opportunity to play a key role in guaranteeing our native trout heritage in America. WNTI Partners are the keystone for on-the-ground projects as well as being the local eyes and ears of the partnership. WNTI Partners will receive and be provided information that is important to native trout management in your area, as well as across the West. (Copied from WNTI's website)




I recently became a member of WNTI and would encourage anyone with a passion for wild/native fish (or birds for that matter) to become a member and be an active participant in any organization in which you strongly believe in.

The grousing season is now upon us! My brother Andy from the Upland Equations Blog opened Idaho's season yesterday and harvested a nice blue grouse. I am leaving at O'Dark-30 tomorrow morn'n for Colorado blue grouse country with 10 to 12 metabolically charged bird dogs. Stay tuned for adventures and misadventures from the fields and forests...

Setter Feathers...

Canine Reproduction Article on Strideaway

Grouse River Gretchen


Here's my latest article on Canine Reproduction for Strideaway.com

Artist Bob Bertram

MY NOVEMBER GUEST

by: Robert Frost (1874-1963)

MY Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She’s glad the birds are gone away,
She’s glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.





Bob Bertram is an AWESOME BIRD DOG ARTIST! Photos reprinted with permission from the artist(CLICK HERE TO GO TO HIS FACEBOOK PAGE)

Trout Hunting Colorado Style

One of my favorite upland pursuits is stealthily hunting native/wild trout on small streams in my beloved Sangre De Cristo Mountains here in Colorado with dries. Mayflies, caddis and stoneflies are still hatching in the high country above 10,500 ft...altitude more suitable for white-tailed ptarmigan, but loaded with beautiful natives. While on the lonely Arkansas below, the fish are keying on grasshoppers and other terrestrials.

Soon, the aspen will turn to gold, but as the poet prosed...Nothing Gold Can Stay. There will be bird dogs in the rim rocks in search of chukar partridge and bird dogs consuming sage seeking loafing blues. But until then, I'll be found among the clouds tricking Colorado greenbacks with stimulators and sallies...


Setter Feathers...

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

First Light by Mike Gaddis

This is a reprint with permission from Bernard & Associates from the August 2010 issue of Sporting Classics' First Light by Mike Gaddis...I hope you enjoy Mike's writing as much as I do!






Among the many stones in my country canine cemetery are a select few which stand to their own.
Apart, as the dogs beneath them did, the moment they were born. They number only four and sooner than later now – when my own days are spent, and the better part of me lies there with them – I expect at most but six. Could I live long enough to breed and have and hunt over another hundred, I know as a dog man there could be only a small few more.
A great and ancient cedar tree soldiers and shelters their graves and a small lamp collects the sun each day, to push aside the darkness from their nights.
Of the scores of pointing dogs that have bettered my life, they were the most virtuous. They are The Honesty Brigade. Within my heart, the warmth of their memory fuels a grateful, eternal flame.
I’ve had dogs that split the wind, that scorched the ground with hot, blistering speed, that would carry an edge until they knocked a hole in the horizon. Dogs so strong and driven they could bring a hard-and-ready walking horse to a lather in the space of an hour. Dogs so bold and independent that to break them required an agent and a contract. Dogs so brilliant they could put your heart in your throat with the savvy of a single find.
Glory dogs.
Dogs so handsome and fiery on birds they set the leaves aflame when they came to a stand. That carried you to mountain tops and lifted you on past the clouds. That churned up your heart and courage somewhere close to theirs, gave you to look trouble in the eye the breadth of your being, and never walk away. Dogs that made you to reach inside yourself, and find the same, never-say-die spirit and determination that sent them forever on – hard and on and away.
Home-run dogs. Dogs that put the bow in your sails. Dogs, should ever you want for an electrifying synonym of “inspiration,” you have only to say their name.
But dogs, all, whose genius walked a fine line. That, however great and thrilling, would now and then, this way or another, venture a lie. Small and white, or black and bright.
Nothing polite folk would notice. But evident to a dog man in a South Georgia minute.
Dogs that would ask you along, if you could manage where they’re going. That would hunt to the gun, except when it was great fun to hunt on their own. Old dogs who knew better, that would sneak a glance over their shoulder . . . see you weren’t up looking – and blow the birds out. Then whoa-up up proud as Patty – wind in their nose – and swear it was a stop-to-flush.
Dogs, whitleather tough, that would take a whipping, get up – shake it off –
say to hell with you, Jack . . . and do-it-the-blazes over again. That kept you mumbling at night over the board of chess between brass and broke, wondering when and how ingeniously they’d call “Checkmate,” once more. Flim-flam artists, when nobody but the Lord was watching, would filtch a bracemate’s point, then stand on a Bible it was a divided find. Dogs, when it suited ’em, could ignore a bird like it never crossed their nose.
But under the rarest moon, when you treat your wife right and rub down your horse when he’s ridden in wet, is born a pup that is chaste. Virginal as the Mother Mary. In my experience, at least, she will be female.
A girl pup that is betrothed to virtue from the moment she’s whelped. So it’s never in her to lie.
A pup that’s born gentle and kind. That cares who you are and wants to know where you’re going. Cause she wants to go, too. That from the moment her heart started beating was born a bird dog. I mean, a bird dog.
A pup that is easy to heart and ready to hand. That looks you in the eye, licks you on the nose and tells you she adores you. And will. As long as there is the breath to let it be. That wherever you bide, so also will she.
A pup, grown to a lass, that from the day you show her a gamebird, knows it is her life’s calling. Her supreme reason to be. That it is the only thing that will draw her from your side, except that she will never allow herself to forget you are there. That you are meant to do it together. So that she promises herself faithfully to check back. Enough that where you are, always she will know.
A lady that’s born with a clock, set permanently ten-to-two. That keeps her true to the front, regardless how the land swings, steady as the day is long. That’s born with a compass, to point her where to go . . . to always where the birds are. That takes her, with needless a word, to where they will be.
She may be the fanciest dog in your kennel, or only a penny prouder than plain. It will not matter. Still you will cherish her. Where there is love, there is understanding. And the thing you will understand most is that she is infinitely special.
From the moment you ask her, she will heed your every word. You have only to show her what you want; only, softly, to ask. She will put her everything into pleasing you, and should she not . . . there will be only the once or twice she will fail. Because it will trouble her to the quick that she has disappointed you, and there shall not be the need to remind her again. For she is honest and will never again allow herself to forget.
From there, there shall be for all the days of her hunting life a season of joy and completion. You have only to go with her. She will show you, as reliably as the sun and the moon, the closest thing to Paradise.
There will be no need to direct her. She will know where to find it. She will take you to it on her own.
Let her hunt. When she is missing, you have only to look for her. When she stands, there will be birds. She will hold them for you. For as long as it takes you to come.
Upon occasion, they may leave. But they will jump of their own.
She’ll be waiting still, flagging an apology that they are gone.
You are the Master; her’s is to serve.
As humbly as you shall ever be reminded, she will bring you to consider . . . that for all its opulent riches, constancy is the greatest treasure the world shall know.
You will marvel time and again at how rarely she has happened. Of how naturally she came to be. At what little of it was because of you.
Over and over, you will thank the stars for the wonder of her. Time and again, you will ask of the Heavens, for just one day more.
Tragically, it cannot matter.
How short, how painfully, wonderfully, achingly short . . . the time shall be.
Until one day you will lift her gray muzzle and look into her dimming, ever-trusting eyes, and know it is gone . . .
There is nothing anyone can say, or do, to soothe the passing. As truthfully as she lived, you will know to the depths of your being, that it is the hardest loss you can ever know.
It will haunt your life. It will trouble your dreams. Nothing can truly help, unless it is to ultimately accept that there cannot be life without death, and to remind yourself of how empty your life would have been, had never she lived.
Bear her gently, gently to rest, my friend. Pay to her the greatest compliment a dog man can bestow.
Bury her softly, and thankfully, on Honesty Row.


Grouse Season is just around the corner!



Setter Feathers...

September 1st Address Change

29 more days to glorious grouse season...time to begin the begin. September 1st is the opening of blue grouse season. I have lived to see another gunning season, and the aspens will turn to gold. All is good in the world of setters and pointers! I will be in the grouse woods the next few weekends training and exercising my bird dogs (& self) and enjoying life!


I was extremely disappointed to read Colorado DOW's sage grouse decision this year for my beloved North Park:



Season Change for Greater Sage-Grouse
The greater sage-grouse 2010 season has been reduced to two days in game management units 6, 16, 17, 161 and 171 (collectively known as North Park). The North Park season begins Sept. 11 and closes Sept. 12. The daily bag and possession limits are 2 and 2, respectively. These reductions are in response to declines in the annual lek counts in
North Park and subsequent requests by the local working group to limit harvest.


In GMUs 3, 10, 11, 18 (except east of Colorado 1-25 in Grand County), 27, 28
(except north and east of County Road 50, Church Park Road), 37, 181, 201, 211,
the season is seven days (Sept.11-17) with a daily bag and possession limit of 2 and 4.

The Divison of Wildlife (DOW) actively monitors and manages sage-grouse, and this reduction in season length will allow the Division to maintain recreational opportunity while evaluating the bird’s status in Colorado. Sage-grouse hunting seasons will be reevaluated
for 2011.

When I passed this information on to my hunting partners, here's the response that I got from one of my dearest friends, hunting partner, client and grouse-dog affectionado:

Not necessarily surprising… when over the last 4 years there have been two significant impacts on the populations, outside of mother nature.
1. The Coalmont Lek – residential development right over the top of the largest lek in North Park (over 35 males on this lek) All of the jurisdictions; CDOW, Forest Service, BLM, USFWS, and other “oversight” organizations didn’t even make an attempt to stop this!
2. The destruction of the large sage (chopping) in significant spanses of sage-plateau country. There wasn’t any mature large sage left in large enough areas for winter/storm protection for the birds.
3. The spraying of vegetation that kills all vegetation… sage, forbes, etc., and even the insects for the purpose of “getting more grass in a couple years” for livestock grazing.
It’s a shame, but the trend all across the west for Sage’s. And all across the country for most grouse species. Now you know why I have been so aggravated at what I have seen develop over the last 8-9 years up there.

All I have to say is… enjoy it while you can!
These seasons probably won’t be there for much longer.



Dead on...and, I couldn't have stated it better!



Setter Feathers...