James McKew

Last week started rough.

The Lee Fire north of Rifle, Colorado, threatened to end my deer hunt for the year. The fire had raged on for the entire month of August. Once the fire was ruled 90% contained, the torrential rains came on quick and flooded drainages, spilling across the highway, creating a natural disaster for the ranchers in the area. With a mountain of doubts about getting to hunt, I headed south to meet up with a friend for some fishing and a fall turkey hunt.

Sunday afternoon, with heavy Labor Day weekend traffic between Telluride and Montrose buzzing along the highway, I met up with my hunting buddy, Andrew Mull at a dirt pullout on the San Miguel River. First time in waders this year, and within a few minutes we were standing in water that was like watching rippling shapes through a discarded Heineken bottle. Stones in the riverbed were shades of rusted car fenders. Silverly riffles stretched from bank to bank like necklaces for sale at a swap meet. The air was hot, the water no deeper than my knees, and the fishing was expectantly slow, but considering we were floating grasshopper dry flies in the afternoon sun, I couldn’t expect it to be anything more than an opportunity to practice my casting. In the shadows of the river, I saw the ghost of my grandfather, Alfred Goddard, slowly making his way upstream, hip waders worn without a belt, the loose rubber gathered around his thighs. He wore an old-fashioned canvas creel slung across his chest, a spinning rod in his right hand, a limit of trout dangling from a stringer. He smiled at me from under a plantation hat that leaned to the side. He gave me a wink and lifted the fish in a greeting before fading back into the shadows. Such is the way of life and the movement of water.

Long shadows stretched across the water by the time we left the river and drove south across ag-fields, following dirt roads up into the pines, a place where the air was thin and ponderosa trees filled the hillsides. We put miles on the trails for a day and a half but didn’t find a single turkey. This hunt wasn’t so much about harvesting animals as it was about spending time together with a friend. We had a great time catching up.

Tuesday morning I had a new plan. I headed home for a quick change of clothes and was off to my deer hunting spot outside of Meeker. The roads were open and the county was busy cleaning mud off the asphalt. On day three, I shot a mule deer doe on a high saddle. This is an either sex unit, and I am a meat-eater. Horns are fine, but I want a freezer full of wild game before the snow comes.