Just about the time we were boarding our plane for St. Petersburg, Russia, in late May, Steve Shaw passed away.  Three weeks later, I returned home to another of those empty places some people leave behind.

Not long after I returned to Paradise from decades in Colorado, late in the last century, I stumbled across the Kittitas County Field and Stream Club.

One of its officers was Maxine Shaw—Treasurer, as I recall.  She had a great smile and an easy way of dealing with the grumpy old men who had been the face of the club for many of its first 75 years.  Wilma Dloughy and Maxine were its first women officers.

Early on, at one of the club’s monthly meetings, I found myself sitting next to a young guy who smiled and nodded as Maxine gave her report.  I said something to the effect of “You certainly know how to appreciate a Treasurer’s Report…”  He smiled and said, “My mom just has a way with this.  I like how she does her part.”  I had just met Steve Shaw.

Each time our paths crossed, I had a feeling that I had known Steve forever.  There was an ease about him, coupled with a drive for life and the pleasures it offered.  I once asked him what his passions were.  Without a pause, he said, “My family, anything outdoors and my store!”

A decade ago, I walked into a Steve and Reed Larsen conversation about the 63 year old One-Shot Antelope Hunt in Lander, Wyoming.  I had been part of the Colorado One-Shot through the 1980s, and they chuckled at my angst over never making a Wyoming team for that granddaddy of One-Shots.  That was about the time that Reed and Steve formulated their One-Shot story.

Reed will tell you that Steve was unaware of that oldest organized hunt in the US until they met in 1999, when Reed was a Charter TV rep.  They bonded over their love of hunting.  Each fall, the talk about the unique and rare hunting experience of the One-Shot Antelope Hunt grew a bit.

After years of passing on invitations, in 2004, Steve joined Reed as a guest One-Shot hunter.  They headed to Lander for Steve’s first antelope hunt—each getting one of the licenses Wyoming Game & Fish allocates to the hunt.  They bagged nice bucks, and Steve was hooked.

From that time, their friendship grew into a rich brotherhood.

It surprised no one that Steve fit right into that group of strangers in Lander.  One of the more influential members of the Past Shooters Club was Reed’s father, Austin (Doc) Larsen.  Doc took an immediate liking to Steve—a rare occurrence.  In 2005, it was simply understood that the men were heading to Lander again, in an annual partnership.

To hunt in the One-shot for more than two years, Steve would need a team, since Reed was already a team member.  Thus, in 2006, Steve was working to put a three-hunter team together—hoping to be one of the six teams selected from many applications, when Reed informed him that he had been appointed to the Sportsman Team.  He would be a member of the Past Shooters Club by the end of the hunt, and could bring his own guests.  That fall, under pressure, Steve bagged his antelope with one shot (only 50% of team members accomplish that).

As a member of the Past Shooters Club, Steve quietly helped the club with its 501c3 Water for Wildlife program funding water projects for wildlife across the West.

In 2009, for the first time, brothers Casey and Rusty Shaw were on a team with Clint Larsen.  The Larsen and Shaw families became part of only a handful of multi-generational past shooters.

This year, on the Thursday of the hunt, the Chief of the Shoshone Tribe will eject a cartridge with Steve’s name on it from his rifle.  It will be placed permanently in the One-Shot museum—an honor and tribute to the departed hunter.

My Old Man always said a man’s true character shows up when no one is looking and when he is inconvenienced by family.  Steve’s son Casey passed along some thoughts.  “[It was] just the way he did things…  In 2006 dad had a bull tag in the Observatory.  A couple days into the hunt he had been out hiking for the first few hours of daylight…only cows all morning. He had gotten back to his truck and was winding down taking off his boots.  A group of hunters came by to chit chat.  They had seen a nice bull first thing in the morning not far from where he had been.  Dad decided to take one more hike…to work down a brushy draw that he hiked earlier.  Tempted to just start at his current elevation, but knowing he should just put in the work, he went to the top of the draw.  Sure enough, right at the top of the draw he threw a rock into the brush. A big 360+ bull ended up in the freezer and on the wall.  He was always the kind of guy who would go just a little further and work a little harder than the rest.

“Growing up, all of us sons enjoyed the hills and frequently got ourselves in sticky situations—stuck in mud or snow—often in the middle of the night.  Most teenagers would probably try to find a buddy to help them and avoid owning up to what they had done, but we always knew our first contact was going to be dad.  Amazingly, he was never upset, he would just get out of bed, ask us where the truck or jeep was and what we needed to do to get it out.  He might tease us later but he never got mad.”

At May’s NRA Banquet, I sat with Steve and Reed and Casey.  They were family, and as I joined them I became family, too.  I was in that easy place Steve Shaw carried with him—and passed along.  Thanks, Steve…

[Copyright James L. Huckabay, 2013]

As luck would have it, that spring we had a week of very warm, windy, dry weather.  Students squabbled over almost anything in our study rooms (“Do you HAVE to turn those *!^# pages so loud?”).  It was great.  Then, the night before an early‑morning lab with my “insulated” ones, a line of thunderstorms moved through.  It was, perhaps, the best storm line ever; two and a half hours of fireworks.  As it approached, drawing warm moist air in ahead of it, positive ions built up in our house.  None of us could sleep.  One by one, the kids drowsily wandered into our room.  “What’s Wrong?” I’d ask.  “I don’t feel good,” they’d say.  “Well, what’s wrong, honey?”  “NUTHIN’! I just don’t feel good…  I can’t sleep.”  As they huddled around the bed, each groaning in his or her own world, I turned my attention back to the show in the sky.

When the storm finally passed over us, at least a dozen lightning bolts crashed and exploded within a hundred yards of our house.  As it moved off to the east, having sorted out all of those imbalanced ions, my tribe was asleep.  Michelle conked out on the carpet near her mom, Nicole on the floor by her bed and Tim was sprawled across his bed with one foot on the floor.

My students were all yawning the next morning.  “Just couldn’t sleep ‘til after the storm,” they said.  “Not insulated enough, maybe,” I ventured.

Those Beijing fireworks were the perfect way to wrap up our amazing weeks abroad.  At some level, it probably cleared our heads to weigh what we learned about the people, cultures, history and landscapes of the countries we traveled.  And it is good to be back in Paradise.

[Copyright James L. Huckabay, 2013]

Our funniest tornado story also happened in the Lubbock episode.  Mobile home parks are often death traps, since the light metal boxes are not made to take such winds.  One mobile home park was hit, but little damage was done.  It seems a bachelor, the owner of a bright red Mercedes convertible, lived in the park.  When he had a date, especially if she was pretty, he would drive around the park a couple times.  He flaunted his women, money and shiny car at every chance.  We found his totaled home upside down on his totaled car.  No serious injury, but his was the only real damage in the park.

Looking at damage was interesting, but we always arrived after the tornadoes.  More than anything, Bob wanted to see a tornado close up.  He spent his spare time doing what he’d done for years—chasing storms.  With the top down on his little Austin-Healey, he would intercept a line of severe thunderstorms and follow them into Nebraska or Missouri, hoping to see a funnel drop out of the bottom of some bulging cumulonimbus cloud.  Bob often returned soaked to the skin with stories of crashing lightning, hail, and torrential rains.  Over hundreds of hours and thousands of miles, however, he never saw a twister.

Bob got his MBA, and took a job with Ma Bell in Boise.  One week after he drove his wife and baby out of Lawrence, we watched a tornado hang for ten minutes over the house he’d lived in for three years.

Tornadoes here in Paradise are highly unlikely—indeed almost impossible with that stable marine layer above us.  But I thrill to our lightning storms.  Sometimes I remember that, after this life, I intend to go fly with the tornadoes.

Happy almost summer…

[Copyright James L. Huckabay, 2013]

As you might imagine, from time to time, questions are posed to the Reecer Creek Rod, Gun, Working Dog & Outdoor Think Tank Benevolent Association.  I believe this is because we have gathered some of the best minds in the Western Hemisphere.

Perhaps I get the hard ones, because I am willing to devote research time to finding answers to those outdoor questions with which others can only struggle.

A homey who wishes to remain anonymous followed up on a recent column by raising some interesting points.  To wit: “I have long felt that groups of us—and even some individuals—can and do create weather, danger and other situations that society handles just with our thoughts.  What is your opinion of the role of the mass media in this?”

It seems to me that, at some point, we gave over control of our health and well-being to the American Medical Association and its lackeys, the mass media.  The media report some new outbreak of the flu—verified by some official-sounding medical association—and thousands of us dutifully fall ill with it and the rest line up for flu shots.  Some official crackpot identifies tree mold as on the rise, gets the media to “report” it (along with a suggestion that a large number of people are allergic to these levels of tree mold), and people throughout the broadcast area start sneezing and wheezing.  We pretend the media gives us all sides of issues so we can make considered judgments about our lives.  Not so; the Daily Record is the only balanced media left.

Actually, now that I think about it, I have no opinion about that, homey.

“So you are going ‘steelhead’ fishing.  What exactly are they, and how did they get that name?”
(Lois Love Brown, South Ellensburg)

I’m delighted to share my research on this, Lois.  Simply, steelhead are sea-run rainbow trout.  But it’s not that simple.  They’re anadromous—meaning that they are “bi” (liking fresh water AND salt water).  The whole thing started when a rainbow got large enough to develop a taste for ferrous minerals.  It headed for the ocean and places where the underlying rock was rich in iron.  The shrimp and salt-water prey of this first sea-run trout were very high in dissolved iron.  That iron, in turn, was absorbed into the bony parts of the sea-run rainbow.  By the time the first sea-run rainbow returned to fresh water, its bones, especially the skull, was nearly entirely iron.  As others joined that first pioneer, they became exceptionally heavy, strong, fighting fish.  Part of their beauty is the result of some of the iron leaking out through their gills, staining their sides with an almost iridescent red color.  The first European to catch one of these fish did so accidently when he dropped his magnetic watch fob into the Columbia, and immediately found himself chained to a twelve-pound trout.  The year was 1855, the man’s name was John Steele, and thus it became “steelehead.”  Really, the fish is more appropriately named “ironhead,” but you know how biologists are.  It also should be obvious to you why Washington Fish and Wildlife has outlawed the use of magnets in ironheading.

Roberto K. Pensepesca, Ellensburg, asks:  “I know that males’ contribution to fish egg fertilization is called ‘milt,’ which is released over the female’s eggs to fertilize them.  What is the source of this term, ‘milt’?”

An excellent question.  Too little has been understood about this over the years, and I’m pleased to straighten it out now.  In 1798, when the first fish hatcheries were being built, the idea of hatching and rearing fish in captivity, to then be released into the wild, was big news.  During that time, the press was very cautious about using words which might titillate emotions of America’s good citizens.  The first headline, “Fish Semen Spread Over Ova!” stirred up such an uproar, that the entire program was in danger of being scrapped.  Biologists quickly hatched a new plan.  Milton Harrison (who, you may recall, pitched in Erie, Pennsylvania’s first baseball game) was the man in charge of “milking” the males, so the semen became, euphemistically, “milt.”  Following this same logic, ova became “suzanna” after the woman in charge of stripping the eggs from the females.  Suzanna didn’t actually last long at that job, as she had great inner conflict over the whole idea of females giving up their eggs for science and became increasingly depressed.  (While her career in the hatchery was short, she became widely known as the heroine of Stephen Foster’s song in honor of her stand for the female fish, “Oh, Suzanna.”  But I digress.)  The first headline using the new euphemisms for fish sex read, “Suzanna Covered By Milt At Fish Hatchery!”  That was too much for those fine folk, and biologists decided just to call them eggs, or roe.  The “milt” part stuck, however, and we still honor Milton by using it today.

As always, submit your hard-to-answer questions (of an outdoor nature, please) to the RCRGWD&OTTBA in care of this paper or to the blog.  We are always pleased to share answers to the mysteries of the natural world.

[Copyright James L. Huckabay, 2013]