The Sharptail Caucus

As a young man, I once stood on a mountain ridge so beautiful that I now find it impossible to describe. It was summer, and a bird dog was at my side when I discovered the place that would change my life and become part of my very being. Like a military boot camp, it broke me and then built me back up—wild, harsh, unspoiled by man's hand, and owned equally by all citizens of this country.

Soon after I adopted this place as my spirit home, it came into the sights of energy companies – another place for them to drill for profit. Those big companies had guys in very nice suits to infiltrate the highest halls of government. And between those fellas with the Italian ties and the former energy bigwigs in the executive branch, they cooked up schemes to roll dozers and derricks into my sacred spot. I came to find out that my story was one of many. The only things that changed from one tale to the next were the actors who played my role and the location of the wildland. The rest of the script was the same. Sadly, the sequel is still playing out in our Whitehouse and sagebrush steppes today, and the storyline has turned very dark.

I became a fighter and a student of the fine print. A purveyor of press conferences and pithy quotes in national newspapers. A lobbyist. A student of Ed Abbey. A political animal. I sharpened my existence and my tongue. I assessed what mattered, and pressed my shoulders into saving it. Of course, politics was involved. I engaged in battles and to win wars. I committed never to shying away from either.

Montana Bird Rig and polital billboard

Those were the days that wiped the crust of naiveté from my eyes. From that time on, politics have never left my consideration because their impacts never exited my days. I’ve known people who say politics don’t matter or that people like me care too much. I don’t buy a bit of that drivel. I say what you care about shines through your political window like an old gas lamp on a pitch-black night.

I care about wild places and losing myself within them. That’s probably why I love bird hunting so much. My politics and life are one and the same, and nowhere is this more evident than during bird season. In other words, if someone wanted to do a political profile on me, they’d just need to follow me around for a couple of days in October.

They would find me hitting the road early before anyone else was up, headed to a remote chunk of public land. I’ll drop the dogs, and we’ll be gone for hours, maybe all day. I’ll rack up 10 miles or more, and the dogs will do 30. I like big tracts of wide-open country. Unspoiled. The less human intrusion, the better. I feel alive in the vastness. I am an explorer of my own land. I like going where others won’t. I imagine people in far-off farmhouses looking at me through binoculars, muttering at my stupidity, before they go back to watching the news and drinking coffee. I imagine some of them voting for people who want to sell these places; the anger drives me up the incline.

I’ll stop to examine grasses or flowers, watch deer and elk, and hope to see a badger or a northern harrier. I’m either lost in admiration for this place or laser-focused on my dogs and the terrain. My dogs have never even smelled a pen-raised bird like those city guys shoot, and that's the way it will always be. If I depend on wild places, I am more likely to fight for them.

I stand and watch as a sharptail rises from a point. I pass on the shot and just watch him flap a time or two, then hear him cluck as he starts to glide. I watch him in earnest as he gets up to speed. A marvel of aerodynamics. I’ll stand there until he is only a dot in the distance and then gone from my sight still in flight. I think how far he flew on this one small journey and how much grassy country he requires to exist. It’s fall, nearly election day, and I’ll dream of that sharptail voting his self-interests in his bird voting booth. I think I know which ovals he would blacken. I think of gathering up the sharpies into a great caucus so that we might vote together en masse.

If I see a BLM, USFS, or game warden truck, I stop and chat with them—sometimes for an hour or more. I always thank them for their work and note that I understand they have a tough and largely thankless job. I want them to know I appreciate what they do. I know this place and opportunity did not happen by accident, nor will they continue to exist if we are apathetic.

Somedays, you might find me hunting in fields that were once tilled but are now converted back to prairie by the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a visionary federal policy from a time when we cared about such things. If you were in my head, you’d see memories of my father doing his part to bandage up our great American prairie wound, planting thousands upon thousands of acres of native grass during the heyday of CRP. A disciple of Aldo Leopold on a John Deere 4230 and a 12-foot grass drill. And you’d see the resulting birds I chased, seemingly as common as mosquitoes in Alaska. Even a mediocre dog could find a limit in short order. A kid with a Model 42 Winchester could fill a vest in a couple hours. I was that kid.

A couple of kids in the Montana Prairie

I now count the acres that are being removed from this federal program and the hundreds of federal land managers being fired by an invasive species we do not yet know how to remove. I stare at a newly tilled field and remember where a covey once lived. You can hear me gritting my teeth.

I like to stop by a local bar when the bird day is done. I figure those big, national corporatized chains make plenty of profit without me. I want to eat and drink with the locals. I like authenticity and dirt under fingernails. I want to know how things are going for these folks and what beer they drink.

And if the waitress grew up on a big ranch up north that just happens to have a bunch of birds, all the better. “What’s your dad’s name again?” And, “You think I could call him?” When she hollers her dad’s name in an affirmative tone, I’ll respond, “That’s awesome, I appreciate it. Yeah, I’ll have another beer.”

And then I’ll mutter under my breath with a slight grin, “I sure hope he don’t care that I am a redneck hippie.” As I take my first drink from the beer I’ll wonder if maybe he will vote with the sharptail caucus, too.