Finding nice weather Saturdays in early spring in eastern Idaho is rare.

It’s as rare as a running Chevy Corvair automobile. The word Corvair shakes loose an old memory.

My high school friend Rick owned a Corvair that, when we could get the thing to run, we proudly drove around our tiny Oregon town. He thought it was his good fortune to have bought it for $100 back in the early ‘70s, even though the car was only a few years old. The rear-engine car had the dubious honor of being named one of the most unsafe machines in America. Rumor was that if you had a head-on collision the force could send the steering wheel shaft like a javelin through the chest of the driver (I usually sat in the passenger seat). It was engineered with the precision of a homemade go-kart. Other awesome features included push-button dashboard shifting, a radio that got one station and bald tires — we loved it (when we could get it to run). We never seemed to get any girls to ride along with us (but that may not have been just the car).

But back to our outdoor activities: Last Saturday, my sweetheart and I had a few hours available on a rare sunny Saturday afternoon, so we headed over to the Menan Buttes. The north butte, on Bureau of Land Management land, boasts a fun trail leading up from the west side.

When we arrived, there was a massive trail run race finishing up, and cars were parked for a hundred yards along the road. Normally, the paved trailhead parking lot is enough to accommodate the usual amount of visitors.

The trail runners were doing the Spitfire Ultra Challenge race with distances ranging from 5K to 50K.

The 3-mile trail starts off steeply up the side of the extinct volcano and eventually tops out on the rim of the butte. From the rim, the trail circles the volcanic crater and offers great views (on clear days) of the surrounding Snake River Plain. There are a few trail signs telling visitors about geology, local critters and history.

For more information on the Menan Butte Trail and how to get there, go to www.blm.gov/visit/north-menan-butte-trail.

The south butte is mostly private property and doesn’t offer much for hikers.

To the west of the north Menan Butte is an Idaho Fish and Game wildlife management area for those interested in bird watching and seeing other critters.

On Monday (another rare nice weather day), Julie and I and a friend spent a few hours checking out some new rock climbing routes at the Boot Camp Wall, a crag along the Blackfoot River canyon east of Firth.

I had been there a few times before, but some new routes had been installed since my last visit.

When we arrived we felt like we had stepped into a pleasant summer day. If it wasn’t for our friend’s commitment to teaching online piano classes at 6 p.m., we probably would have stayed well past dinner time.

Of course, Monday was as rare as a Corvair automobile because when the rest of the weekdays arrived, nasty chilly spring days returned.

Jerry Painter is a longtime East Idaho journalist and outdoorsman.

I struggled deciding whether to write about bear hunting this week or mushroom hunting since they are both time-sensitive topics. I think what I’ll do is to write about “baiting for bears and scouting” this week, mushroom hunting next week and then follow up with another bear article the third week.

Unless something else more fun pops up in the meantime!

So, let’s say you want to go bear hunting this spring. I’ll give you a few pointers to help you out.

Twenty years ago I’d be up bear baiting and bear hunting on opening day, which is April 15 in most units. But really, bears aren’t in the groove, eating good until later in the season in most units.

Think about it for a minute. They’ve been hibernating and fasting for nearly six months. If you’ve ever fasted then you know that day one after the fast you might not feel like eating a bowl of salsa and chips along with a plateful of spicy enchiladas! Your stomach is a little off kilter. Same with bears. They come out and eat grass/flower tops at first and pass their plug. Which basically corks them up for the hibernation period.

As a general rule, right when they come out of hibernation you’ll see them at the snowline, right? That’s because the vegetation is springing up when the snow melts and is tender. When I say at the snowline, I don’t mean within two feet of the snowline. But as the snow melts and tender green grass pops up, they do follow that. I don’t know their scientific name but they go along eating the yellow flower tops as the snowline melts and moves uphill.

The first thing we have to do is determine where you’re going to bait. You don’t want to waste time baiting where there’s no bears, do you? Think back to last year where you were seeing bear signs. Or go out scouting now. Bears eat high-fiber diets so they leave a lot of signs. Find where there’s a lot of signs or a dark secluded canyon and hit it.

You don’t want to bait too close to a road/trail or hound hunters can drive by and run your bears after you’ve done all of the hard work to get them coming in. You also don’t want to park your truck out in the open where everyone passing by knows that you’re baiting in that area.

You don’t want bears free feeding. Chain a barrel to a tree so they can’t drag it away. Cut a hole about 10-inches in diameter about two-thirds of the way up. This way bears will have to stick their paws in the hole and dig out bait. If you just dump it in a pile they can come in, gorge and leave. You want to slow them down and make them hang around longer. Can you just dump it on the ground though? Yes, it’s just not the preferred method. You’d be surprised at how much bait the ravens can carry off. And barrels also prevent foxes, coyotes and wolves from eating your bait.

A barrel also protects your bait from the rain so it doesn’t mold or rot as fast. A snap top lid is nice. That way you can remove the top, fill the barrel and then snap the top back on. If you bait correctly and get four to six bears coming in, they can put down the chow!

Their stomachs are somewhat queasy at first when they come out of hibernation. I have hauled literally tens of thousands of pounds of meat up to the mountains for bear bait, but in early spring, meat is not necessarily the best bait.

In late summer when bears are binge feeding, storing up fat for the winter, they will eat virtually anything. But given a choice, I still say that they can be selective. One time I laid out a bushel basket of fruit, melons, peaches, vegetables, cereal, donuts, etc. A bear went through and picked out what he preferred. So given a choice I am convinced that they have preferences. Years ago I’d buy loads of old bread and donuts from a day-old bread company. I’d dump out piles and they’d dig through and eat all of the Hostess Twinkies. But if nothing else is available, yes, they will eat anything. Make sense?

A lot of times what bait you use is really determined by what is available to you. If available, small bait is nice. Like let’s say dog food. That means they have to stick their paw in and scoop up food. They can’t gorge and run. If you put out big chunks of meat they’ll come in and grab a piece and take it off in the brush and only afford a fast shot.

I love baiting because it allows you to study a bear. You have time to ensure that it’s not a sow with cubs. You have time to make sure it isn’t rubbed bad. Is it the color phase that you want? Is it big enough?

There’s a misconception out there in the bunny hugging world that all you have to do is to hang a donut on a limb out in the forest and Boo-Boo and all of his buddies will come stampeding in. It’s not quite that simple. It takes a lot of hard work and strategy. And after they start hitting your bait you need to refill it every two to three days.

Good luck!

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@aol.com.

It was the afternoon of Friday, April 8, in Yellowstone National Park, and all traffic on the road along the Madison River came to a screeching crawl, like blasting down Interstate 15 into Salt Lake City and hitting rush hour traffic.

The traffic on this day was mostly bicyclists riding the road between West Yellowstone, Mont. and Mammoth Hot Springs. The road is open during the first two weeks of April to bikes and authorized park vehicles only.

This traffic jam was caused by the locals. In this case, a few dozen bison decided to take a casual stroll down the road as they moved from one meadow to another.

Being caught behind the giant, shaggy animals was both exciting and frustrating. It was cool to join the herd as it moved down the road in the direction I was going — toward West Yellowstone — but my stomach was telling me it was time to get back and fill the empty space.

I had planned on riding with some friends on April 9 (a Saturday) from West Yellowstone to Mammoth Hot Springs and back, about a 97-mile round-trip, but the weather forecast for that day was dismal — cold, windy and messy. The day before, however, looked promising. Nearly 60 degrees and sunny was in the forecast, but I would be on my own.

I started out solo from the West Yellowstone visitor center parking lot at about 9:15 a.m. with bright sunny skies and freezing temperatures, but with the promise of warmer times ahead. Few people were on the road during that chilly hour, and I was struck by the amazing beauty of the park when it was waking up on a bright spring morning.

The first animal (other than birds) that I saw was a coyote darting toward the road. When it saw me, it did 180 degrees and sprinted back into the forest (I often have that effect on folks).

A few miles from the Madison Junction, I passed a small group of bison off in the meadow along the river. They were standing like statues, sleeping in the frosty morning.

Along the way, I only passed the occasional biker or pair of bikers up to the Gibbon Falls area. Most of the time I was riding in the park by myself. It felt exhilarating. When I arrived at Madison Junction (about 14 miles in), I stopped to take a layer of clothes off. I was about to head up the long hill next to Gibbon Falls and didn’t want to break into a big sweat. About 20 miles later, I started passing riders coming the opposite direction from Mammoth Hot Springs. Some were guided groups on e-bikes. At about mile 44 or so, the road drops sharply for a few miles down to the community of Mammoth Hot Springs. I made a beeline to the General Store.

It was 12:15 p.m. when I sat and ate a salty turkey sandwich I bought from the dairy case. Another guy showed up who had also ridden in from West Yellowstone. He reported getting a flat on the steep downhill.

After sitting and relaxing and texting my sweetheart, I began the steep ride up the hill out of Mammoth Hot Springs. It didn’t help that a headwind was starting to pick up. Thankfully the ride back to West Yellowstone is mostly a gradual downhill, with a few uphills to keep you working hard.

Partway back I met a guy from Rexburg who knew me somehow and we rode back together. It’s always helpful to take turns drafting in the headwind.

Just past the bridge over the Madison River, we rode into the bison jam. A couple of brave souls biked up to the bison on the right side of the road and squeezed past the herd. The bison slowly, politely opened up a path and the group of bikers flooded past.

When I arrived in West Yellowstone, my bike computer said I had gone 97 miles. Because I’m a bit crazy, I decided to ride across town and weave in and out of the blocks until I had an even 100 miles logged. I pretty much saw everything the town has to offer.

Jerry Painter is a longtime East Idaho journalist and outdoorsman.

Turkey hunting has gotten wildly popular in Idaho the last 15-20 years and there is no sign of it slowing down. Many people look down their noses at the intelligence of turkeys. It is even derogatory to call someone a turkey. For you, come see me in a couple of years after you’ve tried to outsmart an old gobbler.

Why is turkey hunting so popular? After thinking on that question for a minute I’d have to list multiple reasons. First, many people compare it to elk hunting. Many people hunt turkeys in the mountains. You’re setting up and trying to call them in just like when elk hunting.

Secondly, even if you set in a blind you’re using decoys and calling. So you’re interacting with them which makes it fun. In some ways it’s like a chess game. The old lead hen starts talking and you start calling over the top of her. She comes prissing over to set straight what she thinks is a mouthy little hen.

And of course the gobbler is following right behind her. So, there’s a lot of angles that you play.

I’ve hunted with people that have access to farmland where there are a lot of turkeys. In those scenarios it works to set up a blind. You’ll want a chair and a tripod to shoot off of. You’ll want to throw out a few decoys. There’s some realistic 3-D decoys now.

But if I’m hunting up in the mountains, I’m running gunning so you can’t lug around a heavy 3-D decoy up there. The best decoys I’ve found for this type of hunting are made by Montana Decoys.

They’re a one-dimensional lightweight cloth decoy. It has a rod in it that you stick in the ground to hold it up.

Montana decoys has one that pops up in a square type of shape. I was up bear hunting a few years ago and set one up where I was baiting for bears. I figured I might as well multi-task. I put a rock in it so it’d stay up on a stump that I had set it on.

The next morning my decoy was AWOL. If you picked it up due to the rock bouncing around in it, I guess it would of felt like a real turkey was bouncing around trying to get away. I can only assume that a wolf did a drive-by on my decoy. With the rock bouncing in the decoy, he probably thought he had hold of a struggling turkey. I never did find that decoy.

Turkeys have unbelievable eyesight so you’ll want to camo to the max. Wear a facemask to cover your face and gloves since your hands will be the major source of your movement. I don’t worry about wearing all one pattern. I may wear one pattern for my cap/facemask, a different one for my jacket and a third one for my pants. Nature is not all one pattern, is it? No, it’s a splash of green, a splash this and a splash of that.

If you’re using shooting sticks try to set up so the birds will be coming in from your left and set up with your shooting sticks slightly to your left. Have your gun leaning on the shooting sticks ready so you don’t have to move excessively when they come in. But they don’t always cooperate. I’ve had to shoot them at all positions. I shot one a long time ago leaning upside down out of the window of a blind left handed with my rifle. So don’t expect them to act according to your playbook.

CALLING

You’ve got to learn how to call. When I was a kid, you learned on your own but now there are a million YouTubes, tapes and seminars to help you learn how to call. Ed Sweet, that was an Idaho State champion turkey caller and one of the best turkey callers that I know makes fun of calling unmercifully.

He used to always give me grief. But despite my horrible calling (according to him), I’ve called in a lot of birds.

So here’s my philosophy. Don’t worry about doing perfect textbook calling. People talk different don’t they? So do animals. I’ve called in I don’t know how many totally weird sounding elk that I thought were some new-to-Idaho California hunter that when they appeared turned up to actually be an elk. So here’s my advice. Learn how to gobble, cluck, purr, etc. Learn how to make the various sounds and when to use them. Don’t worry about sounding perfect.

There are a lot of calls out there. Which one should you use? Sixty years ago all we had were box calls.

They’re old-school and I still favor them. You have to chalk them up and if it was raining you had to keep them in a bread sack so they wouldn’t get wet or they’d quit working but now some of them have a coating on them so they’ll work even when wet. For instance, the Quaker Boys Hurricane or the 4-Play call which employs a forward mounted wheel that allows use of four striking rails.

So I love box calls but they keep your hands tied up so you’ve got to learn how to use a reed. That way you can have your gun up and still be calling. The push box call is so simple that a kid can use it to call turkeys. And you can tape it to the forestock of your shotgun so you can be calling right up until you shoot.

You’ll for sure want to carry a locator call. For whatever reason if you hit a locator call it will prompt a turkey to gobble which helps you locate them. I like a coyote howl but crow or peacock calls are also popular locator calls.

SHELLS & CHOKES

Sixty years ago we used our leftover lead 2-shot duck shells but now there are turkey loads that are super-efficient. HEVI-Shot, Kent and nearly all of the big boys make turkey loads.

You need to use a turkey choke which are super tight chokes. Aim at the neck, about 3-4 inches below the head. If you aim at the head half of the BBs go whistling harmlessly overhead.

Well, I could go on for another 500 words but we’re out of room so let’s end on a note of safety.

Everyone tells you to sit with your back against a tree so a hunter sneaking in doesn’t shoot you. Also, don’t set on a flat spot level with your decoys or another hunter may come sneaking in and shoot your decoy with you in line behind it.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@aol.com.

I got home from the Texas hog hunt after midnight on a Saturday, unpacked, repacked and took off for South Dakota Monday morning for a couple of weeks. I don’t want to say that it was frigid but it did blow and snow last week in South Dakota. I arrived back home this past Friday and it was warm and sunny.

Wow! I was suddenly jolted out of my frigid winter mode and had woken up in a spring paradise. And it just hit me: I’ve got to hit ram speed and get my spring lined up right fast. First the dirty work though.

According to Uncle Sam I’ve got to get my taxes filed so that will take most of this week along with the 12 to 14 articles that need to be submitted. I think this week I’ll focus on those two tasks and maybe getting out and whacking some whistle pigs. They should be out big time. Hopefully I can get two days in of whistle pig hunting.

For whistle pigs this spring, here will be my arsenal. I’ll start off with my Gauntlet .25 cal. airgun. JSB just came out with a new pellet called Hades. It’s supposed to be an awesome small game pellet. Then I’ve got a new Anderson 5.56 with a Riton 4-16x scope. Can’t wait.

Then bear season is right around the corner. I used to always start baiting on opening day but usually it’s tough to navigate around the snow that early plus, the bears are hardly out and not eating much. So, I’m going to wait until the end of April to start baiting. I think I’ll check and see if the Umarex Air Saber is legal for hunting bears with and use it this spring. Or maybe I ought to try with a Henry’s lever action 45- 70. That’d be cool to shoot a bear with one of those.

Normally I always hunt bears out of a ground blind but this year I got a Primal Treestands SINGLE VANTAGE blind. This will be a big update for me. Being up high slightly defuses your scent and aids you in hunting. OK, and I’ve got to admit — You always slightly worry that a cub will stroll in beside you with the sow not far behind. How many times have I had a sow and cubs within a spitting distance of me?

Numerous! It’ll be nice to hunt out of a ladder stand.

I fly out in a week and as warm as it is I’m betting the mushrooms will be out big time by the time I get back. What to do, what to do. I think I’ll go up and put out my bear bait and then mushroom hunt for a couple of days. I didn’t do very good mushroom hunting last year so I have to make up for lost time.

We’ll write more on mushroom hunting at a later date.

That may sound like plenty to fill up the calendar until June but don’t forget-Crappie Fishing! I think I’m out of crappie. I’ve got to dig down into the freezer and see if maybe there is one or two last packages of crappie filets. (I panicked and ran out to check. Good, there was one package left for dinner tonight.) Walleye is the best freshwater fish and then probably perch but crappie is for sure third best and maybe they split the second and third spots with perch.

Crappie fishing is low key. When the bite is on you can slay them. I do good during the pre-spawn, spawn and post-spawn season. So you want to make sure you’re hitting them early so you don’t miss out on the pre-spawn bite.

There’s not a better species of fish to take your kids out fishing for. They’re easy to catch so it doesn’t take a lot of skill. And, the tackle is simple. For lures use some light jig heads, some kind or plastic Mister Twister tails. Carry a variety of colors because you never know what is hot. I like silver, red, yellow and black. I just met Proline Baits and am going to try their scents this spring.

The longer I fish, the more I put stock in scents. Sixty years ago, you never heard about scents other than when carp or catfish fishing but I’m now convinced that I’m missing a lot of hits if I don’t use scents, especially on some species of fish.

After writing this article I’m even more excited than when I started it. Hmmm, I wonder if they’d really throw me in jail if I skip the tax deal for a couple of months and go hunting and fishing for a while? They’re letting all the non-violent criminals out of jail anyway in some states. Surely if I showed them some pics of the mushrooms, coolers of crappie and my bear they’d let me off the hook, wouldn’t they?

Oh no, and what about turkey hunting? We about skimmed right over them. I’ll wait and do a whole article on turkey hunting. I’m definitely going to have to go underground and put the taxes off for a while.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@aol.com.

One thing I’ve noticed about humans is that they love to name things. Since rock climbers are sort of human, too, they also engage in this phenomenon of giving everything a name.

It shouldn’t be a big surprise. Most recreations give their equipment, participants, locations and actions goofy, descriptive or clever names that require explanations to folks out of the loop.

One common name for a typical belay device — that piece of equipment that catches a falling climber attached to a rope — is called an ATC. ATC stands for “air traffic controller.”

Names in the newish Teddy Bear Cove climbing area near American Falls have a mostly classic rock theme. Some kooky names of climbing routes around eastern Idaho include Seeking Sleazy Squeezes, Mr. Hanky, Who Killed Kenny and Make Love Not Warcraft. Sometimes you have to climb a route because the name is so funky. Other times you may avoid it because of the name. Like the route named “Clip Me Deadly.” I climbed that route and thought I was going to fall and hurt myself trying to clip the next bolt hanger.

Last week I was climbing with my sweetheart and friends at an area called The Playground in the Blackfoot River canyon. This wall has been established for decades and has several fun routes worth climbing over and over again. (One is named Cure for the Hangover — a route that goes under a huge overhanging rock.)

While we were climbing, my friend Billy was up the canyon a few hundred yards at a wall called Boot Camp Wall. He was busy bolting a new route and adding new routes to the climbs already there. He and a friend started bolting routes on the wall when they discovered its potential a couple of years ago. They named the wall Boot Camp because Billy’s son was at the time going through military boot camp.

Bolting sport climbing routes was a new thing (and controversial) with the traditional “place-your-own-protection-as-you-climb” crowd in the United States in the mid 1980s. About that time a French climber came to eastern Oregon’s Smith Rock State Park and bolted hangers onto a nearly blank wall that was impossible to protect traditionally and showed North Americans how things were being done in Europe. The name of the route captured climbers’ imagination: To Bolt or Not To Be.

Since those days, sport climbing around the world has become the most popular form of rock climbing. To Bolt or Not to Be is still mega hard (5.14a/b) and not often repeated because the rock texture resembles an asphalt street turned vertical.

Naming rock climbing routes, similar to naming mountain bike trails or classic races, has become a thing usually done by the first ascensionist.

After Billy was done bolting his new route, he showed up at The Playground where we were climbing and asked me if I wanted an “FA?” (first ascent).

“I think it’s a pretty easy 5.8,” he said. “And you’ll get to name it.”

Up until this time, the only thing I think I’ve helped name was my children (and they’ve never forgiven me for that).

So, trusting that Billy’s bolts would hold should I happen to slip and fall (in climber lingo: “take a whipper”), I launched off on his new route. The route was a bit easier than his other routes on the Boot Camp wall.

“I thought it would go at 5.8,” he said of the difficulty rating.

“You could make a case for it being 5.7,” I said. “But 5.8 works.” There was a spot or two where you had to puzzle it out a bit.

“So what do you want to name it?” Billy asked. “It should have a military theme since it’s the Boot Camp Wall.”

I thought of my grandfather who served in World War II and him telling me of recruits getting extra “KP duty” when they were in trouble with the officers. KP stood for kitchen police and meant you would be tasked with cleaning dishes and peeling potatoes for the whole barracks.

“How about ‘Stuck on KP duty’?” I asked Billy.

He approved.

Other names at the Boot Camp Wall include: Buzz Cut, Boots, Lock n’ Load and The Reaper.

I’m not sure if the name I gave the route will inspire folks to climb it, but since it’s still new and still dirty in spots, it could use some cleaning.

Jerry Painter is a longtime East Idaho journalist and outdoorsman.

While at the SHOT Show, I visited the Umarex booth and checked out their Air Saber. It’s like a PCP airgun except that it shoots arrows. It has an aluminum tube which a nockless arrow slides over. When shot, a blast of regulated compressed air spits the arrow down range.

Shortly thereafter Bill Olson, the publisher of “Texas Outdoors Journal” called and invited me to go on a Texas Aoudad and hog hunt. Heck yeah, can I hunt with an Air Saber? We scrambled to get everything lined up and then one week before the hunt the guide called and canceled. But Bill hustled and got us a hunt lined up on the 2Morrow Ranch.

I flew down to San Antonio after midnight on Sunday and Air Olson (Bill’s pickup) picked me up and we drove as far as Uvalde. The next morning we drove on to the ranch. The first afternoon was scheduled for filming. We had to do some photo shoots on the Umarex Air Saber, Master Cutlery knives, Morrell Target and Wasp Broadheads.

We completed our filming, and Weston, the ranch owner’s son, asked if I wanted to hunt that evening.

Of course. Most of South Texas has thick mesquite brush, live oaks and all manner of prickly pears but this ranch was exceptionally brushy which didn’t afford for many long shots. Which was fine since I was going to be using the Air Saber, which is advertised as only having a range of 70 yards.

While filming I’d sighted in the Air Saber and at the moment only felt comfortable taking 50-yard shots, but later in the week after more shooting, I felt good out to 70 yards. I saw some game that afternoon but no hogs. No biggie, we had a week to hunt.

At first Bill and I were the only hunters in camp. It was great. They had a camp cook named Karen that kept us well fed. In fact, we gained weight. The food was a lot better than me and my buddies get to enjoy when up in the high country elk hunting. Some nights elk hunting you stumble back into camp well after dark and just want to skip dinner and go to bed. I could get used to having a camp cook!

I forget the whole series of events but Bill and I would head out an hour before daylight every morning and then come in for lunch and then head back out in the afternoon and hunt until dark. Hogs like feeding late afternoon into the night and if hogs are hunted much, they go nocturnal but we didn’t have any night vision gear.

We were having a hard time finding any hogs. I lose track but I believe it was Wednesday afternoon. … Right at dusk I looked around and saw two hogs to our left. I nudged Bill and threw up the Air Saber. They were a little fidgety and moving around feeding semi-fast. I ranged them at 65 yards but wanted to wait a minute to see if they wouldn’t feed in closer.

By this time, Bill was running the range finder which was a tremendous help. If he hadn’t been running the range finder it is likely that I would have missed my shot as fast as they were moving around. Bill whispered: 50 yards. I put the cross hairs behind the hog’s shoulder but in a hot second he was out to 65 yards. That would be somewhere around a 12-16-inch drop in the trajectory of the arrow.

Oh no, was he going to feed out further and not offer a shot? Then suddenly they started feeding back in closer. They stopped for a second and Bill hissed: 50 yards. Would they come closer or should I not chance it and take the 50-yard shot? I looked above the scope and noticed that the darkness was growing thicker by the second. I didn’t have but 2-3 minutes before there wouldn’t be enough daylight to take a shot.

The hog with a unique white shoulder had moved out further. The closest one turned broadside, Bill said “50 yards” and I squeezed the trigger. Wow! The Air Saber thumped the hog and slammed it to the ground.

The arrow passed through, severed the bottom half of the spinal column and landed 15 yards past the hog. No wonder the hog had been flattened. The Air Saber travels over 400 fps, which is why I used a heavy-duty Morrell target to sight it in. With a regular target it would have buried the arrows and the fletching would have been ripped off when pulling them out. Talk about power.

The last night, we saw two Nilgai cows at dusk. They were out 100-150 yards, too far for the Air Saber but Bill did get one with his .338 Win. Mag. We skinned it and then the next morning I got up at 5:15, and guide Kendall and I boned it while Bill was packing.

We split the meat up and Bill dropped me off at the airport and it was back to Idaho. The next day after church, I smoked a Nilgai tenderloin on my pellet grill. Bill assured me that Nilgai would be the best wild game that I’d ever eaten. After Katy, Kolby and I ate the whole tenderloin, it was hard to argue!

What a great hunt.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@aol.com.

Visiting desert national parks was a joyful experience. Sleeping in desert campgrounds turned out to be a mixed bag.

Recently my sweetheart and I visited two national parks in the southwest — Joshua Tree and Saguaro national parks.

Joshua Tree is a rugged desert area in southern California in an area where two deserts meet, the Mojave and Colorado deserts. Two major features about this park stood out to me: The vast tracks of large Joshua trees and giant boulders and rock formations of a coarse type of granite.

I had seen Joshua trees before, but never so many and so large. Many of the “trees” were as big as a house. Joshua trees are not a true tree, but a type of yucca plant that grows to the size and similar shape of a tree. The area also has junipers and piñon pines and a variety of cactus plants.

We met my daughter and her family who flew in from Wisconsin to Palm Springs, California and chased two small grandsons on some of the trails in the park. The boys had fun scrambling up rocks, talking to lizards and watching jackrabbits dart away.

The next day, my wife Julie and I returned to Joshua Tree to sample some of the thousands of rock climbing routes in the park. I was not feeling as spunky as I had hoped. Poor sleep the night before caused by noisy campground neighbors and a giant desert rock concert with sound that carried throughout the region turned my sniffles into a bigger deal.

We did manage to find some wonderful climbing routes and have an enjoyable time.

After a couple of days in Joshua Tree, we traveled to Tucson, Arizona to visit in-laws and sample the sights.

In the Tucson area, the dominant exceptional plant is saguaro cactus. They look like giant green cigars covered in spines and standing straight up. I was told that they don’t start growing arms until they are about 70 years old. Many are two stories tall.

Saguaro National Park celebrates this exceptional plant and protects it along with petroglyphs and a unique desert environment. The park is actually two separate land sections, one on the east side of Tucson and one on the west side of the city.

I rode my bicycle from my in-laws’ home through the town over to the east side national park and then rode the one-way loop road (about 8 miles) through the park. The total distance was 29 miles door-to-door, and I was so proud of myself for not getting lost and having to phone a friend for directions. (Tucson seems to be easier to get around in than Albuquerque.)

Riding a bike through Saguaro National Park was sheer joy, and I found myself grinning most of the time. There are pullouts along the way with a few desert trails to explore.

Besides the rabbits and lizards that I saw along the way in Saguaro National Park, I’m told that there is a full complement of other desert critters, including cougars, tortoises, snakes, birds and the coatimundi — a funky looking cat-like animal that has a long tail that sticks straight up. My in-laws said they’ve seen one pass through their yard along with javelinas — a mean little wild desert pig with dark hair and weapon-like tusks. They’re so tough that they munch on cactus, and most everything gets out of their way.

It seems every type of plant in the desert southwest has spines or quills growing on it. My worry was riding a bike down here and having enough spare inner tubes. But so far, I’ve yet to change a flat. Just dumb luck no doubt.

The Tucson area brags that it is prime cycling country. There is a huge network of mountain biking trails and almost all of the streets have well-placed bike lanes. A cyclist could get used to this town quickly.

Jerry Painter is a longtime East Idaho journalist and outdoorsman.

I first became acquainted with the Scooters Youth Hunting Camp back in 2004 or 2005. My wife came home from school one day and told me that she’d signed up two kids in her school in some kind of youth hunting camp named Scooters Youth Hunting Camp and that I had to take them to it. What! The camp is held the first Saturday in May every year. That is right in the middle of primo bear and whistle pig hunting and crappie fishing … and turkey hunting … and morel mushroom picking seasons!

I don’t want to sound self-centered but I was stuck no matter how much I whined. So, I dutifully took the two young boys. Little did I know that I would end up liking the camp better than they did. In fact, I’ve been a volunteer ever since. And the two young boys have grown up to be good young men and I later got to take them both on their first deer hunt.

I conduct 40 to 60 outdoor seminars/speaking engagements per year all the way from Texas to Alaska. I had five in Vegas in January alone and yet the SYHC is the coolest deal that I do all year. Scott McGann originally did it to help single moms. But he couldn’t deny kids with two parents to come but his heart was originally to help single mom’s in getting their kids in the outdoors to help them stay out of trouble.

In the beginning, kids mailed in applications and all were accepted. I think in those days we had about 140 kids. Finally, it kept growing until we had to hire someone to do a call-in registration. Last year it filled up with 250 kids in 47 seconds. It is the coolest deal in the world.

Here’s the format: The kids show up and sign in and are divided into six groups. To begin, we meet and say the Pledge of Allegiance, a local pastor says a prayer and then group one goes to the first station, group two to the second one and so on. There are six stations.

• TRAP SHOOTING

•.22 RANGE

• BLACKPOWDER RANGE

• ARCHERY RANGE

• SURVIVAL RANGE

• GUN CLEANING/KNIFE SHARPENING

After 45 minutes all groups reconvene in the meeting area and a seminar is put on by a pro staff member. They are great seminars and I always learn a lot at them. When the seminar is over, the kids rotate to their next station.

At lunch time, we break and eat lunch that has been prepared by a group of volunteers. What makes the camp really cool is that, due to generous local businesses, the food and snacks are all donated and cooked by volunteers so they eat for free. After lunch the kids rotate to their next station.

After the kids have hit all of the stations they reconvene in the meeting area for Scott’s favorite event The kid’s drawing. Due to local businesses and major companies donating items every kid draws a gift. And I meant nice gifts. Companies and local businesses are over-the-top generous. Companies like Knives of Alaska, Smith’s Consumer Products, Spyderco, Swab-its, Otis, Umarex Airguns, Swab-its and the list goes on and on.

All of the kids get to go free due to the generosity of local and national businesses and volunteer help. Where the heck was the SYHC at when I was a kid!!!

Here are a few general rules but check the website below to ensure that you don’t miss the registration!

• Registration opens April 1, 2022, at 10 a.m.

• Kids must be 9 to 16 years old

• Camp will be held rain or shine. Nothing short of the rapture will stop the camp from occurring.

• The camp will be photographed by various media sources. If you do not want your kid filmed, then DO NOT attend.

It will take place in Emmett at the Gem County Rod and Gun Club.

(Ok, I hate to be juvenile but, here’s the highlight for me. HeBrews coffee in Emmett sets up a donut trailer at start-up. Let’s just say, I eat more than my fair share of sugar/cinnamon donuts).

Go to the website to register: scootersyouth hunting.camp.

Tom Claycomb lives in Idaho and has outdoors columns in newspapers in Alaska, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana. He also writes for various outdoors magazines and teaches outdoors seminars at stores like Cabela’s, Sportsman’s Warehouse and Bass Pro Shop. He can be reached via email at smileya7@aol.com.