Last summer, I checked the Moose/Sheep/Goat results while at one of my daughter's many travelling fastpitch tournaments.
I was stunned to see the "Successful" next to the results for my moose permit. Pretty lucky. Only took twenty years of applying.
Stoked, I ran through the results for the kids and was even more shocked to see the "Successful" result next to my 12 year old son's bison results.
Looked like the freezers were going to be full, hopefully.
A little background on me and this area:
Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's I lived and worked seasonally for the USFS in West Yellowstone. It was a great job, and I got to know the surrounding country pretty well at the time. I also got to meet tons of tourists, and one pretty eclectic group of animal activists that went by the group name of Buffalo Field Campaign. Most of these folks were not form the area. Most came from urban areas of the West Coast and were pretty idealistic about protecting bison from all the screwing up that people did. At the time, most of their "operations" revolved around trying to interfere with the Department of Livestock's hazing efforts to keep buffalo away from cattle.
I ran into BFC people occasionally and they were pretty eager to let me know how I was messing things up for bison as a Park Service employee. I wasn't a Park Service employee, but that particular fact didn't seem to get through. Then, as now, I was a pretty adamant hunter, and I spoke to some of the BFC people, finding out some were also hunters. In particular, one activist spoke often of the excellent elk hunting he had found near their facility. Generally, my impression of the BFC was they were an idealistic group deadset on a misguided cause, and would end up doing little for bison, but helping out local bail bondsmen on occasion.
After I moved on to other endeavors, Montana decided to put out some tags in the area and let hunters take home some of the bison that would otherwise be herded up and shipped to slaughter as a method of population control. I understood the idea of using the public for population control was probably a good one, but I wasn't really interested in the hunt as it seemed kind of like a "fish in a barrel" situation. I didn't put in for the tags, and the BFC decided to make a stand against bison hunts, including harassing and following hunters on occasion, so I felt like it was the right choice.
Later, I got some wild bison meat from a friend, and after consuming said meat, my mind was changed, and I started putting in ... solely as a grocery-getting endeavor. When the kids came along, more names in the hat meant more chances to put some bison ribs in the freezer, so they got put in too.
With that history in mind, my mouth was watering at the thought of a moose and bison smorgasbord as I was looking at our MT FWP results in the summer of 2017.
I was stunned to see the "Successful" next to the results for my moose permit. Pretty lucky. Only took twenty years of applying.
Stoked, I ran through the results for the kids and was even more shocked to see the "Successful" result next to my 12 year old son's bison results.
Looked like the freezers were going to be full, hopefully.
A little background on me and this area:
Back in the late 1990's and early 2000's I lived and worked seasonally for the USFS in West Yellowstone. It was a great job, and I got to know the surrounding country pretty well at the time. I also got to meet tons of tourists, and one pretty eclectic group of animal activists that went by the group name of Buffalo Field Campaign. Most of these folks were not form the area. Most came from urban areas of the West Coast and were pretty idealistic about protecting bison from all the screwing up that people did. At the time, most of their "operations" revolved around trying to interfere with the Department of Livestock's hazing efforts to keep buffalo away from cattle.
I ran into BFC people occasionally and they were pretty eager to let me know how I was messing things up for bison as a Park Service employee. I wasn't a Park Service employee, but that particular fact didn't seem to get through. Then, as now, I was a pretty adamant hunter, and I spoke to some of the BFC people, finding out some were also hunters. In particular, one activist spoke often of the excellent elk hunting he had found near their facility. Generally, my impression of the BFC was they were an idealistic group deadset on a misguided cause, and would end up doing little for bison, but helping out local bail bondsmen on occasion.
After I moved on to other endeavors, Montana decided to put out some tags in the area and let hunters take home some of the bison that would otherwise be herded up and shipped to slaughter as a method of population control. I understood the idea of using the public for population control was probably a good one, but I wasn't really interested in the hunt as it seemed kind of like a "fish in a barrel" situation. I didn't put in for the tags, and the BFC decided to make a stand against bison hunts, including harassing and following hunters on occasion, so I felt like it was the right choice.
Later, I got some wild bison meat from a friend, and after consuming said meat, my mind was changed, and I started putting in ... solely as a grocery-getting endeavor. When the kids came along, more names in the hat meant more chances to put some bison ribs in the freezer, so they got put in too.
With that history in mind, my mouth was watering at the thought of a moose and bison smorgasbord as I was looking at our MT FWP results in the summer of 2017.
. Hey, I bought 2 tickets so my odds are better than some. 
Congrats to you and your boy on a great year
