As the Christmas season approaches, I am getting a few questions about what the best rife caliber for hunting North American big game might be. I assume some people are planning to buy their spouses or children hunting rifles for Christmas. To be hones…

Shortly after I was born, I became sick with pneumonia. I recovered from the pneumonia, but it stripped me of most of my hearing and made many of the adults in my extended family out of sorts with me because they thought I was just ignoring them until …

From time to time I am asked by someone why I hunt. If you were to ask a few hunters why they hunt you would probably get a lot of different answers to the question. However, I think it is a fair question, so I hope most hunters would take the time to give an honest answer.

One of the reasons I hunt is because the meat from wild big game is leaner than store bought meat. Three ounces of venison has about 130 calories compared to 247 calories in 3 ounces of beef.

Another reason I hunt is because hunting skills have been handed down from father to son for generations in my family. My youth was filled with hunting trips to the mountains of the Little Lost River country, Sulpher Canyon by Soda Springs, the Fish Creek area between Lava Hot Springs and Wide Hollow, as well as other places in Idaho, Utah and Texas. Hunting is part of who I am and how I define myself. To not hunt each year would require me to give up something that is truly important to me and intrinsic to my character.

Someone recently suggested that hunters could do their hunting with a camera and not kill anything. My answer to that suggestion is that a photographer is an observer of wild life, while a hunter is a participant and a part of nature. I want to be able to be fully absorbed in a quieter, deeper and older world with its rugged and consistent life cycle and primitive surroundings

Hunting also teaches us that we can work hard and still not achieve our goal. You win some and you lose some.

Some have said they hunt as a way to spend quality time with their families. That is a particularly good reason now that more women are getting into hunting. My son doesn’t hunt with me very often any more because of obligations commensurate with being deployed wherever the Army sends him. I do remember, though, the times we hunted together and I tried to teach him what my extended family taught me when I was younger.

Hunting also builds character, relationships, self-confidence and a healthy work ethic. You really get to know and appreciate people when you hunt with them.

Hunting also allows one to get away from civilization with its everyday distractions and stresses. It allows one to relax and enjoy nature for a few days, while being mentally prepared for the hunting experience and challenging oneself in a free, self-reliant, adventurous life.

If you prefer sitting by a campfire on a cold evening to watching the late movie; if listening to coyotes hunting in the distant darkness is your kind of music; if venison sizzling in butter over the campfire is preferable to the best Texas Roadhouse has to offer; if you prefer the silent majesty of the high country to the hustle and bustle of civilization; and if you would rather be chilled, soaking wet and excited than warm, dry and bored, hunting may appeal to you.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@gmail.com.

Last week, I tried to point out why hunters are the most important conservationists in this and many other countries around the world. What the hunters in the U.S. have done to bring threatened and almost extinct species back from the brink of extincti…

From time to time the anti-hunters — not to be confused with non-hunters — like to write letters to the editor of their local news papers opposing hunting and hunters for ridiculous reasons. Hunters have been accused of being blood-thirsty brutes who just can’t wait for hunting season to start so we can go kill everything in sight for a month or so each year, not to mention some species that can be killed all year long, although a hunting license is required for coyotes.

Not too long ago, a naive writer even wrote in to the Idaho State Journal complaining that there were two columns a week that promoted killing our precious wildlife. The only thing that was valid in his comments was that our wildlife is precious and should be intelligently managed and preserved.

I am almost amused by people who drive cars with leather seats, buy leather furniture, wear leather shoes, belts, hats, clothes and fur coats who then complain about hunters and hunting. It seems hypocritical to me.

I actually laughed at an individual who suggested hunters ought to go buy their meat at the grocery store so no animals would have to be killed.

The fact is that hunters are the most important group of wildlife preservationists, doing more to preserve wildlife for future generations than any other group. Let me give you a few examples of hunter’s conservation efforts.

• In 1907, there were only 41,000 elk remaining in North America. Thanks to money and hard work spearheaded by hunters, today there are more than a million.
• In 1900, there were only 500,000 white-tailed deer left. Today, there are more than 32 million because of conservation efforts spearheaded by hunters.
• In 1950, only 12,000 pronghorn remained. Conservation efforts by hunters have now increased that number to more than 1.1 million.
• Through state licenses and fees, hunters pay $796 million a year for conservation programs that have brought species such as turkeys from 100,000 in 1900 to 7 million today, and ducks from the brink of extinction in 1901 to more than 44 million today,
• Through donations to groups like the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, hunters add $440 million a year to conservation efforts.
• In 1937, hunters themselves pushed for an 11 percent tax on guns, ammo, bows and arrows to help fund conservation efforts. Because of those efforts the Pittman Robertson Act was passed and has raised more than $131.2 billion for wildlife conservation.
• All together, hunters pay more than $1.6 billion a year for conservation programs. No one else even comes close to giving a much for conservation of wildlife.
• Hunting funds conservation and the economy, generating $38 billion a year in retail sales of all kinds of outdoor and hunting equipment, some of which aren’t taxed to support conservation efforts.
• Hunting supports 680,000 jobs, from game wardens to waitresses and biologists to motel clerks.
• Hunters are the money behind the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s 7 million-plus acres of habitat restoration. About 95 percent of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s 222,000 members are passionate hunters.
• With funding from hunters The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has been able to restore wild elk herds in seven states and Canadian provinces.

As society loses its ties to wildlife and conservation, the bonds with nature developed by hunters will be the greatest hope for creating the next generation of true conservationists.

I could have described more reasons that hunters are the most important wildlife conservationists in the country and are the model for wildlife conservation efforts in other countries around the world, but I think I have made my point. If you would like to know more, I encourage you to stop in at the local Fish and Game office and talk to them about hunting and conservation, or you can look up the Idaho Fish and Game Department online and read about all the conservation projects that hunters are involved in here in Idaho and across the nation.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@gmail.com.

While growing up on my father’s horse ranch, I was in charge of eliminating all the dogs that came on to the ranch and chased the horses, trying to bite into their fetlocks and cripple them. Unfortunately, those dogs were driven out on the old Bannock Highway and abandoned along the road. By the time we saw them, they had grown into larger dogs and had formed a pack that sometimes came on to our ranch. They were vicious if approached, and my 12-gauge shotgun was generally the last thing they saw or heard. It was a job I didn’t enjoy because, like most boys, I liked dogs. However, my dad raised show horses and had a breeding program that he needed to protect.

My father also volunteered my .22 rifle and I to help the farmers in Blackfoot and Wapello, where he was born, shoot the jackrabbits that tried to feed on their crops. I actually liked the jackrabbit hunts because it was a challenge to find them in the sagebrush and then hit them while they ran through the brush.

In both cases, shooting dogs that no one owned that were chasing the horses and shooting rabbits that were eating the farmer’s crops, my father and I were eliminating vermin that were eating crops and endangering domestic animals. I imagine it might seem cruel to some people, but I doubt if those people have ever watched while their crops were being destroyed or a horse was crippled and rendered useless after the muscles and tendons in their fetlocks had been torn out.

We also had a problem from time to time with mountain lions coming down off the mountain as they followed deer that came down into the valley. In the case of mountain lions, they normally didn’t go after the horses because of the human presence on the farms and the farmer’s dogs, which sounded the alarm that the large cats were near by. If we called Fish and Game, they would come out and trap the mountain lions and try to relocate them.

I have a distant relative who owns a pretty large cattle ranch at the foot of the Ruby Mountains in the area around Elko and Spring Creek, Nevada. He invited my son and I to visit the ranch and shoot as many coyotes as we could. We haven’t done it yet, but evidently the coyotes are attacking his cattle and causing quite a bit of damage and costing him a substantial amount of money. No license is required to shoot them as they are considered vermin by the state of Nevada.

As a hunter, I had always been taught not to harm any animal that I didn’t intend to eat unless that animal presented an unacceptable danger to our animals or to people and their property. Killing an animal simply to kill it, or for target practice, or because it was there and I had my rifle with me was against the code, if you want to call it a code, that my father had taught me to follow. I simply do not understand why some have no hesitation to kill any animal that is not causing a problem.

In Idaho, Wyoming and Nevada, there is no limit to the number of coyotes one can kill, or any restrictions on the time of year one can kill coyotes. In Nevada and Wyoming, no license is required to kill coyotes, while in Idaho one must still have a hunting license and permission from the landowner and state is required to hunt coyotes at night.

Wyoming allows killing coyotes by any means including poisoning, shooting, incinerating or chasing them until they are exhausted and then running over them with all terrain vehicles or snowmobiles until they are dead.

When management of wolves was turned over to the state of Wyoming, legislators in Cheyenne immediately classified wolves as predators, which puts them in the same class as coyotes and the same unrestricted killing of coyotes now also applies to wolves in Wyoming.

The only places in Wyoming where killing wolves and coyotes is prohibited is Yellowstone and Grand Teton National parks.

Another thing that bothers me is a recent report that someone killed two elk in Southeast Idaho, quartered them and then dumped the meat rather than keep it or donate it to friends or Idaho Hunters Feeding the Hungry. Two elk were killed and the meat was just left to waste.

I believe such wanton disregard for animals that are not threatening livestock or people and their property or killing of elk or deer and then leaving the carcass and meat to spoil will ultimately bring a backlash on the hunting community by the general public and hunters themselves, who have been taught to respect the animals we hunt.

As responsible hunters, I believe we need to stand up and oppose the indiscriminate killing of any wildlife, or we are going to see more species added to the list of animals that can be killed any time, any place, with no limits or license required

I personally want my grandchildren to have the same experience I have had of camping out in the back country and going to sleep to the sound of coyotes hunting as a group during the night. The gray wolf was extinct in Idaho as I was growing up, so I never heard one in Idaho during hunting trips or camping trips into the back country. They reintroduced to Idaho about the time I returned after I retired. So far, I still haven’t seen or heard one in the wild in Idaho, but it is on my bucket list.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@gmail.com.

In 1982, there were 17 million hunters in the United States, according to records of hunting license purchases. Between 2000 and 2011, we lost 2.2 million hunters. In 2016, only 11.5 million people hunted. Obviously the steady decline of hunters over the years has fish and game departments, as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerned because the bulk of their revenue comes from taxes hunters pay for licences, buying firearms, bows, arrows and ammunition.

There are many factors that influence the decline of hunting in the United States. The baby boomers who make up 30 percent of current hunters are aging out of hunting. Within 10 years, the majority of baby boomers will have stopped hunting altogether. So the generation that was born between approximately 1945 and 1960 are now dying, have lost interest in hunting, don’t see as well as they used to, are unable to meet the physical requirements of hunting, or just feel too old to climb mountains that seem to get steeper each year. I’m a baby boomer having been born at the end of World War II, and I have seen a few of my former hunting friends stop hunting.

It is harder for those of us who are now in our 70s to stay in shape for hunting each year, but several of us are still hunting pretty much the same as we always have, albeit we may have slowed down a little. But in 10 years, who knows how many of us will still be hunting since we will be crowding 80 years or more?

Private land where hunting or crossing to get to public lands is prohibited is another concern that has frustrated hunters the past few years. In some cases, the only viable access to public land is through private land where access is prohibited. Fish and game departments are doing what they can to open up private land with the Access Yes! program, but not all private land owners are willing to participate.

I often hear frustration that the best areas for hunting are available only through the draw, where a hunter has to choose a particular area, draw to hunt the area and wait a couple of months to hear if his or her name was drawn to hunt in that area. Some have complained that they draw for a particular area year after year and never have their name drawn. Personally, while I would like the opportunity to hunt in a draw area, I believe there is good hunting in other areas of public land if you take the time to scout the area and learn where to find game once hunting season opens.

As hunters, we also have a recruitment problem. We aren’t recruiting new hunters and introducing them to hunting in such a way as to teach them to hunt and process their meat, or we are recruiting the wrong crowd who are approximately the same generation we are and will age out of hunting at about the same time as we do. We should be recruiting our children and their generation by taking them hunting and teaching them what our parents taught us about hunting

A 2016 USFWS census concluded that only Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Kentucky, had increased their hunting population by 200,000 hunters or more, based on hunting licenses sold. Some states such as Idaho were able to maintain about the same number of hunters, but the majority of states reported significant losses of hunting license sales. The overall decrease in licenses sold directly impacts management of game animals and means that funds for increasing wildlife habitat and purchasing additional public lands may not be available if the trend continues.

Although we are experiencing a decline in hunting licenses sold, firearm sales and archery sales are up nation wide. Not all people who buy firearms and archery equipment are hunters, and firearm and archery sales are also taxed, and those taxes are dispersed to fish and game departments around the country.

I think that hunting will always be an important part of game management, but I also think we will be seeing some changes in hunting and hunters in the next few years. I believe that the 23- to 45-year-old crowd will save our hunting heritage. However, they will be hunting primarily for meat instead of trophies. I also think that in the future, crossbows will be used more as additional states begin to allow crossbows for big game hunting. I also see ballistic compensating rifles such as the Remington 2020,which practically aims the rifle for you, being used by more hunters. Smartphone apps that tell you where to hunt are now being researched and developed and will be used by more hunters and the art of scouting for big game will only be done by a few purists. I believe suppressors will be used on more rifles as regulations by both the state and federal government are relaxed. More women will be getting into hunting, which is a good thing. Clothing for female hunters has been a priority of the clothing industry for several years and companies such as Weatherby are already building rifles like the Camilla to suit female hunters’ frames more comfortably. Lighter, warmer hunting clothes such as Silver Shield will be developed for hunters. I also see Chronic Wasting Disease in big game getting worse, so make sure to stop at the fish and game checking stations on your way home from hunting to check for the disease before processing and eating the meat.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@gmail.com.

I have always felt fortunate to have grown up in the Rocky Mountain North West. I was taught to hunt at an early age by my father, whom I would describe as a reluctant hunter, and two of his brothers, who were enthusiastic hunters and could hardly wait for hunting season each year.

Grandpa Merkley raised his sons to be skilled and ethical hunters, and they in turn handed down his example and lessons to his sons who in turn handed down the same example and lessons to my generation on many hunting trips and camp fire chats all over the state of Idaho.

My generation has now, for the most part, handed down the same example and lessons to their own children who now seem to think that plenty of cookies, soda pop and an iPod, are all they need in their day packs.

Jim Posewitz’s book “Beyond Fair Chase” defines an ethical hunter as “a person who knows and respects the animals hunted, follows the law and behaves in a way that will satisfy what society expects of him or her as a hunter.”

I believe that a responsible hunter will always use a weapon that is powerful enough to cleanly kill the animal being hunted without being so powerful that the hunter can’t shoot accurately because of anticipation of a stout recoil. I often hunt deer or elk with a .300 Weatherby Magnum because I am not sure at what range I will have to shoot and the .300 Weatherby is capable of reaching out with sufficient energy to cleanly kill deer or elk at several hundred yards. I do, however, normally limit myself to 600 yards based on my eyesight, skill with my rifle and the caliber’s ability to strike the target at that distance with enough energy to make a clean kill. I have been using a .300 Weatherby for a lot of years and am completely comfortable shooting it without worrying about the recoil and can do so without flinching at the shot. Many of the people I have hunted with over the years prefer .30-06s, 7mm Magnums and .300 Winchester Magnums for most of the same reasons. I even opt for a .30-06 if the area isn’t going to be very open in most places.

Along with using a rifle with sufficient power, I believe an ethical hunter will try to get within a reasonable range of the animal being hunted to make sure the shot is well paced. Taking shots at ranges outside of a hunter’s ability to consistently hit the vital zone usually means a missed or, even worse, badly placed shot that doesn’t kill the animal but cripples it. When you pull the trigger or release an arrow, you should be almost certain that you will hit and kill the animal. None of us are perfect and we all make poor shots at times, but getting as close as possible decreases the chance of a badly placed shot.

Respect for property owners and their wishes is one of the most important traits of an ethical hunter. Don’t trespass on private property, Get permission to hunt on or cross private property. If the property owner says no, don’t argue; find somewhere else to hunt. Another aspect of respecting others is remembering that not everyone wants to see a dead deer, so don’t put it on display for everyone to see as you drive home or to the processor’s place of business.

Practice principles of fair chase where the deer or elk has an advantage, but you just might get the opportunity if you are quiet and smart to get your shot. I also don’t believe canned hunts on fenced properties are ethical. If a particular elk farm guarantees you will get your deer or elk, that isn’t fair chase. If you think differently, then we disagree.

An ethical hunter uses all or as much of the animal as possible. If you hunt just for the experience to get out and try to outsmart a buck that has survived for several years, but you don’t want the meat, donate it to Idaho Hunter’s Feeding the Hungry. They have a website that will tell you how to donate the meat.

I believe that most hunters have developed their own ideas about ethical hunting and have a sense of right and wrong, but sometimes the temptation to do something that is not in keeping with ethical practices is pretty strong. We just have to be stronger because the future of hunting depends on the ethical behavior and good examples we as hunters set and exercise.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

Deer meat, commonly referred to as venison, is a delicacy loved by people all over the world with my wife as possibly the only exception. There are so many different ways one can prepare venison for consumption, making it one of the most in-demand categories in the food industry. Experienced hunters can process deer meat where they dropped it or take it to a butcher for processing.

How much meat you can get from a deer depends on several factors from the technique and skill of the butcher, to the area of bullet impact. In case you did not take a clear shot and the bullet hit the fleshy area of the body, the quantity of venison you can get from the carcass may differ. To take the perfect shot, you need to avoid creating any noise that can tip off the deer to your presence. For better spotting and aiming, you can use binoculars and a quality telescopic sight.

The question of how much meat you can expect to get from your deer is a major concern of most hunters. Studies show that on the average you can probably expect 40 to 50 percent of the total weight of the carcass from an experienced butcher.

Some basic terminology you should understand are:

• Live weight: This is the total weight of the deer prior to any processing.
• Field-dressed weight: Total weight of the deer without any innards, which is 78 percent of live weight.
• Hanging weight: Field-dressed deer stripped of its skin, head and the hooves, amounting to 75 percent of field-dressed weight.

You can use the size and weight of the deer to guess the quantity of meat you will get. The age of the deer is a mild factor that can affect the total amount of meat that can be processed.

The experience of the hunter is a major factor that determines quantity of venison. A bullet missing the sweet spots of head, neck or heart can result in a 10-pound loss of deer meat. You could also lose about 5 pounds in the butcher shop.

A poor shot can ruin fleshy regions that normally would have yielded more meat. A shot into the hind leg could result in the loss of 6 pounds of meat.

Dressing a deer involves removing inedible parts before butchering. Inedible parts are the innards, the head and part of the legs, which you have to remove in the process. Skinning is an intricate process, and you will need skill to avoid cutting into meat.

Using a sharp knife, make a cut completely encircling the anus and cut much like coring an apple. Pull the rectum outside the body and tie off with a small cord to prevent feces from contaminating the meat during the rest of the field dressing.

Another factor that can lead to meat loss is a ruptured gall bladder and bile spillage into the meat. The last thing you want to experience is bile-infused meat. It tastes awful, and I suspect that is why my wife doesn’t like, nor will she eat, venison.

Deer hunting methods and the different steps of butchering determine the net quantity of venison. A hunter should have the proper gear and weapons that help quietly get close to deer and shoot at the desired spot accurately.

Butchering requires experience and skill to avoid mistakes that result in the loss of edible meat. Attention to detail and patience will ensure quality and quantity of venison.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

During the last full month of September, My wife and I decided to get out of town and spend a couple of days in Yellowstone National Park. Annie had ordered a cabin for us online at Mammoth Hot Springs.

Early Sunday morning, we loaded up our grandson and Annie’s small lapdog and headed for Yellowstone. We stopped in Ashton to top off our fuel tank and purchase three small bottles of milk to drink with some blueberry muffins we took for breakfast.

The drive into the mountains and the trip through Island Park was beautiful as always. We drove through the area of Henry’s Fork and were able to see a little of Hebgen Lake from the highway.

As we pulled in to West Yellowstone, we decided we had more than enough fuel to drive on through the park to Mammoth. The drive to Madison Junction was really pretty, and we saw bison on the road and an elk herd in the meadows that the Madison River runs through. At Madison, we stopped for about 15 minutes to stretch our legs, take advantage of the restrooms and give the dog some water, as well as let him walk around a little bit.

From Madison, we turned left toward Gibbon Falls, the lower and upper Gibbon Meadows and Norris Geyser Basin. Norris was packed, and the line of cars trying to get into a parking spot was so long, it took us about 15 minutes to even reach the parking lot. It took another 10 minutes to find a parking spot. Norris Geyser Basin is really interesting, especially if you take the time to read the various descriptions on the information boards on the trails around the area. The spray from the geysers in the basin can damage the finish on the cars in the parking lot, so be sure to wash your car when you return home.

There was a lot of roadwork going on in the park, and we were delayed for about 45 minutes between Beaver Lake and the Sheep Eater Cliff on the road to Mammoth.

As we descended into Mammoth, we were surprised by the number of people and cars. Mammoth is also pretty well known for the elk herd that is always wandering around or lying on the lawns in Mammoth. There were park employees standing by the various concentrations of elk. It was the rut at the time we were there, and several of the bulls acted irritated with all the people walking around.

After checking into our room and having lunch at the Mammoth Grill, we headed on down to the Roosevelt Junction and drove through Lamar Valley where we have seen grizzlies on previous trips. This time, we saw pronghorn and bison, but no bears. The mountains that border the east end of the Lamar Valley were impressive and had already received snow at the 10,000-foot level.

We then turned around, drove back to Roosevelt, turned south and drove to Tower Falls before returning to Mammoth and our cabin for the night.

As soon as we entered the cabin, Annie saw a small animal sitting on top of our suitcase. She screamed that there was a mouse in the room with us, and our little dog, realizing that Annie was frightened of something, also became frightened. After my grandson and I got Annie and the dog calmed down, we realized it was a chipmunk and called the hotel to report there was a chipmunk in the room. While Annie was talking to the people at the front desk, the chipmunk ran across both beds again, and Annie screamed into the phone and the pandemonium started all over again. We were given another cabin and packed up to move, while Annie made sure the hotel staff wouldn’t hurt the chipmunk when they removed it from the cabin.

Early Monday morning, we left Mammoth and drove over the Dunraven Pass and down to Canyon, which is about centrally located in the park. From Canyon, we drove to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone to see the Upper and Lower Falls and Artists Point. As we drove back from the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, we saw a herd of deer. We then drove by Fishing Bridge, Lake and West Thumb, before turning northwest over the Continental Divide and into Old Faithful to see the geyser go off and have lunch. We weren’t impressed when Old Faithful erupted since we have seen it look more spectacular in previous trips, but lunch was really good.

We then stopped to see Fire Hole lake for a few minutes before driving on to the Madison Junction, and and on to West Yellowstone and out of the park.

It was a beautiful time to see Yellowstone. Winter will be coming, and much of the park will soon be inaccessible until June of next year. Snow has already been falling at many locations above 8,000 feet elevation.

Smokey Merkley was raised in Idaho and has been hunting since he was 10 years old. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.