There have been many more well-known or famous American hunters than can be discussed in the space allotted to a single column, so I’ll pick a few that have had an important impact on hunting. Some were bow hunters; others primarily used rifles; one hunted Jaguars with a spear, or zagaya; another gave up hunting dangerous game with a spear after one really close call and never let his .470 Nitro Express rifle leave his side for the rest of his hunting career.

President Teddy Roosevelt was one of America’s most famous hunters. He hunted all kinds of big game in the American West, Africa and South America. Roosevelt was also a leading advocate for the establishment of the national parks system in the United States and promoting wildlife conservation in the early 20th century. In 1909, he and his son Kermit went to Africa to hunt for big game species for the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Roosevelt once wrote, “The free, self-reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy, the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery the chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland creatures — all these unite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm.”

Ernest Hemingway was one of Americas most storied writers. He was also a skilled big game hunter in the American West and Africa who was inspired by Teddy Roosevelt’s accounts of hunting in Africa.

Hemingway wrote about his African hunting experiences in,”The Green Hills of Africa,” “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” and “True at First Light.” Unfortunately, he either accidentally shot and killed himself or committed suicide at his home in Sun Valley about the time I was a teenager wondering where I would get the money for a .300 Weatherby Magnum.

I remember thinking at the time I would miss him and his writing.

Saxon Pope is generally regarded as the father of modern bow hunting and is one of the namesakes of the Pope and Young Club, North America’s foremost bow hunting organization.

Pope developed his skills under the tutelage of Ishi, the last of the Yahi tribesmen. He often demonstrated those skills by killing grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park in the early part of the 20th century when it was legal to hunt in the area included in the park. He made his own bows and steel-tipped arrows.

Jim Bridger was one of the most legendary hunters and mountain men who explored the American West during the mid-1800s. He is believed to be the first white man to see the Great Salt Lake in Utah and then explored what eventually would become Yellowstone National Park

He was known for his great strength, endurance and excellent hunting and trapping skills. He built Fort Bridger in Western Wyoming close to the Utah/Wyoming border and was a fountain of information to the wagon trains traveling from Missouri to Oregon and other destinations in Idaho, Nevada and California.

He was also known for his tall tales, so nobody believed him when he said there were geysers in the Yellowstone country to the north of Fort Bridger.

He spoke the languages of the Sioux, the Blackfeet and the Crow and could make himself understood by the Shoshone and the Arapaho.

Fred Bear was the archer that I knew the most about as I was growing up. Although he didn’t start bow hunting until he was 29 years old, he eventually developed his own bow designs and manufactured several creative broad head designs for hunting.

He traveled the world hunting with the bows and broad heads he designed. For many years, he was the only archer who had killed every member of Africa’s big five — lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and Cape buffalo — with a bow and arrow. He also used a bow to hunt and take a Kodiak bear, Alaskan brown bear and polar bear.

Fred Bear struggled with chronic emphysema later in life and died on April 27, 1988.

Sasha Siemel didn’t start life as an American. He was originally from Riga, Latvia, moved to the Mato Grasso of Brazil and found work where he could. While in Brazil, he heard of the tigreros, Guato Indians who hunted and killed jaguars with a 6- to 7-foot spear called a zagaya, on the ground, with feints and jabs and finally embedding the spear up to its hilt in the jaguar’s chest and with the shaft tucked under their arm at the arm pit hanging on and working the spear blade into the wound until either they were knocked off their feet and the jaguar rushed in and killed them, or the jaguar bled to death and expired. This type of hunting excited Siemel, and he became an under study to a Guato Indian named Joaquim, a master tigrero who killed jaguars that fed on the livestock of the Mata Grasso’s farmers. Sasha did well and learned to fight jaguars with the zagaya until he ran into the remains of his Guato teacher, who finally lost his final fight with a jaguar.

Siemel spent many years in the Mato Grasso of Brazil fighting and killing the jaguars that fed on the farmers livestock. He finally decided he was too old to live that life much longer and moved to the United States where he made movies in Hollywood depicting his exploits in the Mata Grasso.

He finally died in Green Lane, Pennsylvania, in February 1970 at nearly 88 of age.

During the 1980s, I started reading books like, “Death in the Long Grass,” “Death in the Silent Places,” “Return to the Long Grass,” etc. The author was a most highly skilled African hunting guide and cropping officer, speaker at Safari Club meetings and one of the most passionate wildlife conservation advocates in the world. His name was Peter Hathaway Capstick, and I wanted to go on safari with him. Unfortunately he died at the age of 57 years and I didn’t retire for another couple of years. Another major problem was I didn’t have the money to go on safari.

Capstick quit a promising career as a stock broker to become a hunting guide in South America, specializing in guiding jaguar hunts, before ending up in Africa as a professional hunter, guiding those who did have the money to go on hunts for Africa’s big five as well as plains game. He also served as a cropping officer and hunted elephants, leopards and Cape buffalo that were causing problems or that had actually attacked and killed natives in his area.

He once decided to hunt a Cape buffalo with a spear. He had a tribal spear maker make for him after reading the exploits of Sash Siemel. Capstick’s spear was a throwing spear, forcing him to sneak up on the Cape buffalo, throw the spear and run the 100-yard dash faster that it had ever been run, while the pursuing buffalo bled to death. He threw the spear very well and he made a gallant attempt to break the existing record for the 100-yard dash — but why don’t you pick up a copy of his book “Death in the Silent Places,” find the chapter titled “And Furthermore” and read it yourself. Since he lived it, he tells the story much better than I can. The moral of the story however, seems to be something like, “If you are ever in Cape buffalo country, be sure your .470 Nitro Express is loaded and with in easy reach.”

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

Bow hunting season has already started, and many of us are in the process of getting ready for the any-weapon season to start in October. With the number of hunters that are now and will be taking to the field in the next few weeks, I always expect tha…

Several years ago, I asked a friend why he didn’t hunt anymore. He said he stopped hunting because the mountains kept getting steeper and harder to climb. I made a decision that day to never get to the point that the mountains would seem any steeper each year.

I am now about the same age my friend was when I asked him that question several years ago. So far, the mountains seem to be about the same angle they have always been — namely, straight up and down.

I guess my exercise program is working pretty well, but I have noticed that a bunch of teenagers that ride their mountain bikes on the same trails that I do have been passing me up and seem to be a little irritated with me on single track trails. They also call me dirty names, like “grandpa.” However, that isn’t because the mountains are getting any steeper. I’m just not in as big a hurry as those kids. I like riding a little slower and enjoying my surroundings more than they do.

I also like to stop at various points and take large gulps of fresh mountain air while looking over the ridges and valleys I can see. Sometimes after I stop for a minute, some kid rides by and wants to know if I’m all right.

Scouting for game before the hunting season starts is better. I’m usually by myself or maybe with one other person who is closer to my age than those mountain biking kids. I can walk and spend as much time as I want looking for game or signs of game with out anyone calling me grandpa or yelling at me to get out of the way.

I have also started using trekking poles while I am scouting for game or hunting, but that’s is because many outdoorsmen are advocating the use of walking or trekking poles while traveling through the backcountry. Besides, they give your hands, arms and shoulders good exercise while wearing a day pack and carrying a rifle over one shoulder.

If I am carrying food, a camp stove, extra clothes, a first-aid kit, energy bars, a tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad and other necessities such as water, binoculars, topographic map and compass into a base camp, I use a larger backpack to get what I need into camp and then I switch to a day pack for hunting once my camp is set up. Those trekking poles really help me stay stable while I climb up the mountain, getting the larger pack into the base camp. Still, the mountains are the same as they have always been. Straight up and down.

I do like to sleep in a little more than I did when I was younger, but that is because I camp pretty close to the area I plan to hunt, and the walk to where I want to be when game starts moving isn’t as far as it was when I was younger, so I don’t have to start as early as I did a few years ago in order to be ready once it gets light enough to hunt. Besides, getting out of the sleeping bag at 4 a.m. on those cold October or November mornings and waiting somewhere until it is light enough to hunt is pure lunacy.

If it is raining, I don’t bother to get up before 6 or 6:30 a.m. I don’t mind hunting when it is raining because I have good rain gear. I usually have a pretty good idea where to find game when it is raining and wet, but I’m not going to try and navigate around the area when it is dark, rainy and wet, even with trekking poles.

I’m convinced that my plan to stay active all year long where I do a workout and exercise regimen three days each week, hike, scout for game and ride a mountain bike from June to October, hunt during October and sometimes November also, start winter activities like skiing, snow shoeing, from January to March or April, and keep up my weekly workouts during May is working to keep me in good enough condition. After all, the mountains are always pretty much the same no matter what season it is or what age I am. They remain straight up and down.

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

On Dec. 7, 1941, my father was in Honolulu, Hawaii. He and a friend were sitting on the upper floor of the building they were in, when they saw what they initially thought were a large number of airplanes engaged in some kind of military exercise.

As it turned out, the airplanes were headed to Pearl Harbor, Kaneohe Marine Air base and Hickam Field to destroy America’s Pacific Fleet and prevent any American aircraft from responding to the attack. As the bombs fell and the smoke rose from Pearl Harbor and the other military installations on Oahu, Dad realized Japan had attacked our military forces.

My father and his friend were quickly drafted into a nightly patrol corps that patrolled the streets and neighborhoods of Honolulu and other communities on the island of Oahu.

America entered the Second World War, and the rest is history.

When I was in the fifth grade, my teacher asked us if we knew why Japan didn’t finish what they started and didn’t send their troop ships and carriers to invade California. The prediction from our military leaders at that time was that we might not have been able to stop them until they reached the Mississippi River.

However, those military leaders and analysts forgot something that the Japanese knew all too well.

After the war, the remaining Japanese admirals and generals were asked that question. Their answer was that almost every home in America had guns and that Americans knew how to use them.

Admiral Yamamoto who commanded the Japanese Fleet had visited and studied in America. He had always been impressed with the number of firearms in American homes and the skill that Americans had with their firearms. He knew that the Second Amendment to our Constitution gave the American public a tremendous capacity to repel foreign invaders.

Admiral Yamamoto had originally cautioned against attacking the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Pearl Harbor, saying that he believed that all they would accomplish was “to wake a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.”

It has been conservatively estimated that there are 2,308,000 hunters in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan and Idaho combined. The hunters in those five states alone would comprise the largest army in the world. The number of hunters in Texas would be the largest standing army in the world all by itself. In addition, many American citizens don’t hunt, but still enjoy owning, shooting and competing with firearms.

The point of all this information is that every country around the globe knows that America is the most powerful country in the world. We have been able to fight the wars that we had to fight and still have more firepower at home than the standing armies of the rest of the world. Those countries of the world who choose to be against our way of life may hate us but won’t invade us because so many of us own firearms and know how to use them and constitute a force more numerous than their own armies.

Our friends, on the other hand, know we love peace and try to be good neighbors, as well as standing as a formidable deterrent to those who would invade our friends.

Today, there is a push by NATO to restrict the right to keep and bear arms in America. Our enemies are also recommending restrictions of our Second Amendment rights, and some of those enemies have been elected to Congress.

Right now, the public trust still rests in the hands of the people, where it rightfully belongs, giving us the power to remove politicians that don’t share our dream and tell NATO to mind their own business, and we will take care of America just as we have every time tyrants have dared to cast their eyes toward America.

It is hard work to stay vigilant at all times, but America will always be safe from foreign and domestic invasion as long as the public trust stays in the hands of the people and the Second Amendment is not infringed.

Smokey Merkley, who grew up in Pocatello, was a member of the Health and Kinesiology Department at Texas A&M University. He taught self-defense and marksmanship with rifles and wrote text books about self-defense and rifle marksmanship. He was also a Texas Department of Public Safety certified concealed handgun Instructor. After retiring from Texas A&M, he returned to Pocatello. He can be contacted at mokeydo41245@hotmail.com.

One of the biggest mistakes I made growing up was to not take a couple of my paychecks and buy a .270 Winchester rifle for hunting deer, elk and moose.Many of my friends had purchased .270 Winchesters, and I thought they were excellent rifles, but I ha…

In September 2016 the former outdoors editor of the Idaho State Journal wrote an article titled, “The 4 best places to hunt for deer in Southeast Idaho in 2016.” He identified Unit 70 near Pocatello, Unit 73 in the Malad area, Unit 76 in the Diamond Creek area, and Unit 78 in the Bear Lake area. The good news is that those areas remain pretty good for deer hunting. The bad news is they are draw areas, and if you haven’t successfully drawn for one of those areas, you would be foolish to hunt there.

When people ask me where to find deer and elk, I usually tell them that is exactly what I’m trying to learn when I take a couple of days, grab my binoculars, compass, topographic maps, pen and notebook and scout areas that I think I might like to hunt. My scouting trips determine where I decide to hunt, even though I have been hunting for a lot of years and have some areas that I generally prefer. Scouting for game also gives me a chance to formulate a hunting strategy for the area.

Even my old haunts change from year to year in terms of amount of game and how they are moving through the area. Little things that I may not be aware of can make game change what trails they are using, where they bed down and where they forage or drink.

I don’t stop hunting when the season ends, but I don’t hunt illegally. Most of the year I scout possible hunting areas, weather permitting. Normally, when I am scouting I don’t carry a rifle, but I do like to carry a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver or a little bigger as a precaution. However, topographic maps, pen, note book and binoculars are the tools of scouting for game.

I generally start my scouting trips as early as April if possible, but the end of May, or first part of June is more likely. I like to get into the back country as much a possible and just observe what has changed and what is still pretty much the same.

The most important notations I make in my notebook concern signs. The primary signs I look for are droppings, tracks, game trails, feed areas, beds , rubs and scrapes.

The amount of droppings one sees indicates whether deer or elk are using the area and fresh droppings indicate whether the area is currently being used. Extremely large clumps of droppings may indicate that a large deer or elk is using the area.

Tracks can also be telling. If a track is dry and eroded, it was made several day before. If it is fresh and well defined, the track may be very recent or only hours old. Does usually travel in groups, so if one finds a single set of tracks, it may be a mature buck. When walking, a buck should have a little longer stride between tracks. The more you study tracks the better you will become at using them to determine where you want to hunt.

The best game trails usually lead to thick bedding cover and dense escape routes.

Night time game trails normally are open and accessible and the game will not use them during day light hours.

If you find an area where the vegetation is pressed down, you have probably found a bedding area. Don’t spend much time there, but find a spot where you can intercept game as they move into or out of their bedding area.

Rubs are a major sign of game in the area. Several rubs may show you which direction the game is moving. Pick a spot where you can clearly see any rubs and you may get your deer or elk if it returns to the rub. A rub where the tree is ripped to shreds usually indicates a mature buck. Game generally rub the side of the tree from which they approach.

Scrapes are areas on the ground where bucks have been pawing out leaves and urinating to attract does in heat. The best are damp with a tree branch bent down and scent left on the branch.

Mature bucks will usually leave several scrapes along a corridor they actively check. If you find such an area, setting up down wind where you have a good view just may be worth while.

I like to scout for game several times during the summer, but the most important trip is about a week before the season opens. After that I leave the area undisturbed until the season opens.

However, you won’t know where to look for game during hunting season if you haven’t done any scouting before hand. Remember to mark everything you find on your topographic map. then when you return during opening day of hunting season, or the night before, you will be ready with a knowledge of the area and where to find game.

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

Survival kits for traveling in the backcountry have been a topic of discussion among those of us who spend a lot of time hiking, hunting, camping, canoeing or just recreating for a few hours away from civilization. In my case, I also rode my horse on c…

I have always used the winter months from January to the end of April to ski and maintain all my firearms and make sure they are cleaned, repaired if necessary, and in good working order for the target shooting, sighting in and the scouting for game I do from May to the end of July. During August, I begin to get ready for the hunting season, which for archery season opens about the end of August and goes through September. I then have 10 days to get ready for any-weapon season, which usually starts on Oct. 10. If I haven’t harvested any game by the end of October, there are still some hunts available for elk in November. So far in my life, I haven’t done much hunting in December except for jackrabbits on the Arco Desert back in the 1950s and early ’60s with my father who loved jackrabbit hunting.

At the first of January this year, I received an email from Fish and Game suggesting I renew my hunting license. While I was considering the pros and cons of renewing my hunting license now, instead of in April when I am getting ready to scout for game in three different areas, I got another email from a local sporting goods store telling me that I could hunt predators this winter and spring bear hunting was coming up.

The second email from the local sporting goods store reminded me that all hunters are not of the same mind when it comes to what we hunt and which hunting seasons we take advantage of during the year. For example, I don’t hunt bear. I don’t have a problem with those hunters that do, and I understand that in this day and age we have to manage the game and habitat carefully to ensure that there will be enough wild places and animals for future generations to enjoy. Hunting is certainly an important tool for wildlife management, and hunting seasons have been established for each species of wildlife. I just have never hunted bear because I have no justifiable reason to kill one unless it was in self defense. So far, when I have run into bears in the wild, both grizzlies and black bears, they have never given me any reason to think I was in any danger, nor were they threatening any livestock my father or anyone else owned.

The same is true concerning wolves and mountain lions. I don’t eat their meat, and I am not in the fur business, and so far I have never felt threatened by them, and they have seemed to not want to have anything to do with me. Many years ago, a mountain lion and her offspring took up residence close enough to my father’s horse ranch that we were concerned that they might cause a problem. A call to Idaho Fish and Game resulted in a relocation operation that proved to be successful. I was pretty happy Fish and Game had the equipment and resources to relocate them without having to injure or kill them.

Coyotes are a little different. I have no reason to hunt them unless they are threatening me or livestock. We did have a few coyotes come around the horse ranch, but they scattered and disappeared when we showed up with our shotguns. We never had a coyote attack any of the foals or mature horses on the ranch. A relative of mine who has a cattle ranch near Spring Creek, Nevada, has a real problem with coyotes and has invited my son and I to come with our AR-15s and rid the place of the coyotes. We may take him up on the offer as soon as we check with Nevada Department of Wildlife and make sure what our parameters are. We have been told by my relative that we don’t need a license if we just leave the coyotes where we shoot them and inform the department where to pick up the carcasses, which they will collect. Sounds great to me, but I want to verify that with Nevada Department of Wildlife to be sure we haven’t been misinformed.

In Idaho, there is no coyote season. They can be hunted year around, but one must have a hunting license.

Nonresidents can hunt coyotes with an Idaho three-day small game license that costs $35.50. Spot lighting for coyotes is an issue that can be taken up with Idaho Fish and Game and requires permission.

In my case, if I don’t plan to eat it, or donate it to Idaho Hunters Feeding The Hungry, and it isn’t a threat to me or livestock, I probably won’t hunt or shoot it. Even the jackrabbits my father and I hunted were at the invitation of farmers whose crops the rabbits were feeding on.

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