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Outdoor Writer

The Good 'Ol Days

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My brother is a dang good cowboy, spent alot of time clowning rodeos and working up in Montana punching cows. One summer inbetween ranches he was taking tourists on trail rides in Zion National Park in Utah.

I stopped off for a visit and he sent me on one of these trail rides to help keep the tourists taken care of.

We ended up on this switchback and to be honest with you, going around the corners looking over the edge was not a good idea.

We had one lady just freak out on us and start to try and get off of her horse right in the middle of the switchbacks which was the worst thing she could have done. I bailed off my horse and grabber her horse and helped her get off. She walked the rest of the switchbacks and I led her horse for her.

It was spooky when it was happening, but one heck of a laugh after the tourist were all gone.

 

That is me on the backend of the line, you can see that I am leaning into the mountain.....what a chicken.

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We ended up on this switchback and to be honest with you, going around the corners looking over the edge was not a good idea.

 

Neat photo. That trail is quite like the one where the horse with the tent went over the side -- nowhere to go either left or right. :blink:

 

I had several of those variable WA Redfield scopes in the '60s & '70s, and when we lived in Colo. my wife worked in the Redfield assembly plant in Durango for two years. At the time, all the products were U.S. made.

 

The company eventually went down the tubes sometime in the 1990s, but another company bought it. I think they had stopped making the scopes but continued to make the rings and bases, which were quite good. I heard that another company is now making Redfield scopes again, but like most of today's optics, they're made off-shore. -TONY

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Tony,

 

Your pictures bring back some great memories! I was on that Kaibab hunt with you. The best thing about that hunt was your grandfather's stories at night around the campfire. I still cook onions in the campfire the way he taught me. His vitality and love for hunting amazed me. When you and your grandfather came back to camp with those bucks I thought I would die! I was proud just to be in camp with STUD hunters! I shot a doe and couldn't have been happier. It was my 2nd big game hunt.

 

Rick

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Tony,

 

Your pictures bring back some great memories! I was on that Kaibab hunt with you. The best thing about that hunt was your grandfather's stories at night around the campfire. I still cook onions in the campfire the way he taught me. His vitality and love for hunting amazed me. When you and your grandfather came back to camp with those bucks I thought I would die! I was proud just to be in camp with STUD hunters! I shot a doe and couldn't have been happier. It was my 2nd big game hunt.

 

Rick

 

Rick,

 

Yep. That was a fun hunt. You were just a snot-nosed little brat at the time. :lol:

 

Pop was standing under the tent canopy in the very first photo. If I recall, you're in some of the photos I haven't been able to find yet.

 

Isn't that your uncle's truck next to mine in the one with the deer hanging? -TONY

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Tony,

 

That was my uncle's truck. He purchased it just before the hunt. We thought it was first class. The truck he traded in had a cab high camper and 4 of us were sleeping in it. It was not alot of fun. If you find any more pictures of that hunt or the one we went to the strip could you email them to me? I was too young, dumb, and poor to have a camera.

 

Thanks for sharing,

 

Rick

 

I will PM you my email address.

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Tony,

 

That was my uncle's truck. He purchased it just before the hunt. We thought it was first class. The truck he traded in had a cab high camper and 4 of us were sleeping in it. It was not alot of fun. If you find any more pictures of that hunt or the one we went to the strip could you email them to me? I was too young, dumb, and poor to have a camera.

 

Thanks for sharing,

 

Rick

 

I will PM you my email address.

 

Aha, I forgot we went to the Strip together. If I recall, the deer pitched a shutout on that hunt, no?

 

Didn't you tell me a while back that Bob had died -- cancer maybe?? I don't recall his son's name; what's he up to? -TONY

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Tony,

 

My uncle did pass away a couple of years ago. Liver cancer. There were 4 of us with you. My uncle, my cousins Dave, Don and me. Dave is somewhere in Phoenix and Don lives in Texas. You had a friend with you that had a Polish last name. He is the one in the picture I think. Do you remember him coming back to camp and telling us about the lion he saw chasing a doe?

 

The strip was a bust. You were gone all day and came back very tired and told us about chasing a big 4 point in the sage. To this day the biggest buck I have ever seen alive was on the strip.

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Tony,

 

My uncle did pass away a couple of years ago. Liver cancer. There were 4 of us with you. My uncle, my cousins Dave, Don and me. Dave is somewhere in Phoenix and Don lives in Texas. You had a friend with you that had a Polish last name. He is the one in the picture I think. Do you remember him coming back to camp and telling us about the lion he saw chasing a doe?

 

The strip was a bust. You were gone all day and came back very tired and told us about chasing a big 4 point in the sage. To this day the biggest buck I have ever seen alive was on the strip.

 

Yup. I thought you had mentioned that about Bob. It might have been here or on one of the other chats boards where our paths crossed a while back. It's Don that I remember. I don't recall Dave at all.

 

I think the guy you're thinking of was Ed Belinzki. He's on the right in the photo with the fish from Canyon Lake. The other guy on my Jeep with the bucks was Roger Beagle. He hunted with Pop and I a lot, especially on the Kaibab. I haven't talked to either of them in decades. I can't recall if Ed was on that Kaibab hunt, though.

 

Now I remember about chasing that big 4x4 on the Strip. I had tracked him a long ways right around Poverty Mt. somewhere, if I recall. I had only one other glimspe of him after I first jumped him. -TONY

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1 hour ago, Outdoor Writer said:

Man, you resurrected a real oldie. It was fun reliving those olden days. 👍

speaking of oldies-Tony do you remember a frustrated old writer from Wisconsin Dells by the name of Chuck Nikolai?  i shot trap with him and hunted and fished most anything with him from Ensenada to the San Juan.  he said he had hunted blue grouse with you as well as turkey on the Kaibab and shot quail over your dogs many times.

i'll see if i can dig out some pics circa 1984-1994.  he was my house-sitter for the 3 years i was in california.

lee

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Remembering Bill Quimby again.  this is the very old poem i wanted to recite at his memorial service in Greer.  i backed out i am sick of crying at funerals anymore.

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by Charles Hanson Towne, c1949

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24 minutes ago, biglakejake said:

speaking of oldies-Tony do you remember a frustrated old writer from Wisconsin Dells by the name of Chuck Nikolai?  i shot trap with him and hunted and fished most anything with him from Ensenada to the San Juan.  he said he had hunted blue grouse with you as well as turkey on the Kaibab and shot quail over your dogs many times.

i'll see if i can dig out some pics circa 1984-1994.  he was my house-sitter for the 3 years i was in california.

lee

The name doesn't click with me, and I've never hunted grouse or turkey on the Kaibab. The only writers that have ever hunted quail with me were Jim Tallon and Tom Huggler when he was writing his book on quail hunting. 

This is Huggler in the pix below. He was an English lit professor before he became an outdoor writer. He owned two English pointers appropriately named Chaucer and MacBeth. The top photo was used on a Master Card several years ago. We were hunting Mearns quail near Ruby. 

GAFP_1412_RM_2mearnssquail2.thumb.jpg.f0ebef36e60da72e1d2c37a7f5bba71a.jpg

GAFP_1412_RM_2mearnssquail1.jpg.99e0dd81203bfe9d9872016f8944b649.jpg

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3 minutes ago, biglakejake said:

Remembering Bill Quimby again.  this is the very old poem i wanted to recite at his memorial service in Greer.  i backed out i am sick of crying at funerals anymore.

Nice poem. 👍 I miss Bill. We were friends for many years. 

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