Lots of things happen after the sun goes down, often when you have just sat for hours in a hot and dusty blind without hide nor hair of a beast with horns.
Still, there is hope in the air, all around. The elk are close, somewhere, just out of sight, but obtainable.
With luck, you may catch them soon, early in the morning, or late in the day, with enough shooting light left to seal the deal.
I hope to see you again, soon, brother elk – and don’t forget to bring along your grandfather.
Wildlife Photographer Frank Donofrio of Glenwood Springs, Colorado caught this band of Bighorn Sheep on an island in the middle of The Frying Pan River above Basalt.
Enjoy!
Heading For the High Country. Photo by Frank DonofrioCome On In. The Water’s Fine. Photograph by Frank DonofrioMY, My That Water’s Cold! Photograph by Frank DonofrioJust Another Day on The Frying Pan River. Photograph by Frank DonofrioAlmost There! Photograph by Frank DonofrioHeading In! Photograph by Frank DonofrioThere’s Some Good Rams in Unit S44. Photograph by Frank Donofrio
In the past, some limited resident and nonresident licenses for archery and rifle hunting have been available by lottery in Bighorn Sheep Unit S44 of Colorado.
Did you know that you may be a deltiologist? Would your next question be, just what in the heck is that?
As it turns out, I may be one too, and I had thought that I just liked many of the images which can be found on old postcards.
Deltiology is the study and collection of postcards, and of course a deltiologist is one who collects. If you do, you are far from being alone. It is the third largest collecting hobby after stamp and coin collecting.
How about that?
I am particularly drawn to images relating to natural history and wildlife, and even more so to vintage hunting and fishing scenes.
My collection is not that big, and I don’t know all that much about the collecting field in itself. My only real motive to this point is that I bought them because I like them. I suspect that some of the images are rare. No doubt, some are not. Most are completely fascinating, at least to me.
I do know that picture postcards fall into categories based on the time period produced and published. The years 1898 to 1919 are considered to be the Golden Age of Postcards, followed by Linen Postcards (1930-1950), and the Modern Chromes (after 1940). There are further differentiations within these categories.
I found this particular postcard in a second-hand store, and I was astounded at the sheer size of the fish. My first reaction was to wonder – were they real?
Well, of course they are, and it is not an optical illusion. Photoshop and other photo manipulation programs had yet to be imagined.
But what about these magnificent fish? Could the largest of them depicted here really have weighed in at 320 pounds?
The postcard simply states “A Catch of Black Sea Bass”, and that would appear to be quite an understatement for fish of this size. It is a species that until this time I was completely unfamiliar with, and that in itself was a big surprise. But then again, I was born and raised on the East Coast, and they are found primarily off of the coast of California, and south into Mexico.
Obviously, they would not be an easy fish to miss, though their true name is the Giant (Black) Sea Bass. To this day very little is know about their biology and habits. They may be capable of reaching lengths of up to seven or eight feet, and one specimen was reported to have weighed nearly 800 pounds. Now that’s a fish that can really get your attention, which sometimes is not such a good thing.
By 1915 both commercial and sport fisherman had taken their toll on the population. By 1935 most commercial fishing was no longer viable, and by the 1970’s they had all but disappeared. Finally, in 1981 the state of California closed all fishing for the Giant Sea Bass, although no official conservation status has ever been designated.
Postcards can be difficult to date. This one was easy, since the postmark tells us that it was posted in 1909. And we know that the charter was by the Office Meteor Boat Company, which was an established company on Catalina Island at the time. One must wonder if the participants ever had an idea that the best sport fishing years were nearly at an end?
No one knows yet if the king of the kelp forest will ever make a full recovery, but from what I can gather there is still hope. Until then, we may have to be content with known historical reports and the photographic record, such as it is.
And that’s another great reason to collect postcards…
Powerful, brutal, beautiful, and at times, enchanting, winter in Yellowstone National Park is a world unlike any other. It is a season both abstract and profound, where super-heated water erupts into arctic air, where wildlife pushes snow in a constant struggle to survive, and where silence and solitude dominate the park’s deep wilderness. Photographer Tom Murphy has experienced Yellowstone’s winter wilderness as few others have, skiing far into the backcountry with heavy camera gear, an uncanny ability to weather cold and snow, and an artist’s eye for the sublime. His photographs reveal a majestic land where the air is clean and clear and where a wolf’s throaty howl carries for miles on a still day.
“Silence & Solitude: Yellowstone’s Winter Wilderness” shows us the splendor and force of Yellowstone’s long cold. In 130 photos we begin to understand the lives of the wildlife that must endure it; we begin to feel the inspiring power of a landscape still wild and pure; and we see nature’s beauty in things great and small. These photos are accompanied by Murphy’s thoughtful words that take us into the time and place of each image. The captions allow us to smile at a fox’s serious hunt for a mouse, to understand why bison stand stoically in geothermal steam, and to marvel at a sudden shift of subtle light that brings breathtaking grandeur to a nondescript little tree and just as suddenly takes it away.
As popular author Tim Cahill observes in his foreword, “These are photos that mirror a man’s passion, and I know of nothing like them anywhere. Murphy’s photographs are not simply stunning or striking: they are also knowledgeable and even wise.”
See You in Hunting Season, or Not. Photo By Brenda Bell.
The living is slow and easy in the lazy days of summer, and it’s time for rest and recovery from a long, cold winter and spring as the blood flows to a head full of antler.
They grow wide, or tall, and sometimes both. Take your pick, if you are good, and lucky, come the fall.
Meanwhile, the mule deer bucks grow ever bigger in Colorado…
One of The Smallest Bucks in a Bachelor Group, But The Only One To Pose…Photo by Ray Seelbinder.
