(Not) Talking Turkey

I'm ready for spring, because spring means summer is just around the corner, and summer means a wedding and a honeymoon spent halibut fishing in Alaska. I can't wait to get out on the water and try some serious sea fishing for the big, ugly, bottom-dwelling white fish.

Of course, I pretty much want to try everything outdoor related, from hunting javelinas in Texas to fishing for marlin off the coast of Florida. Maybe I've watched too many outdoor shows, but there isn't much I don't want to try at least once in my lifetime. So hunting turkeys seems like a logical aspiration, considering you can find them here in Wyoming, the license fee is reasonable and it's something to entertain me until July gets here and it's time to hook some halibut.

There's just one problem.

To be an effective turkey hunter, you have to be quiet. And you have to sit still for long periods of time.

Make that two problems.

There's the rub. I can't be quiet. In high school, my teacher once told me that God only gives us a certain number of words to use in our lifetimes and at the rate I was going, I'd be mute by the time I was out of college. I've grown out of the need to chatter incessantly, but I still can't be quiet for very long. My brain keeps on plugging away, even if my mouth isn't moving, and before long, I've got a thought in my head that I just HAVE to share. It's like a sneeze, I can't hold it in.

A wild turkey's senses are extremely keen. Its eyesight and hearing are amazing. There's an expression I've heard from many long time turkey hunters - if a turkey could smell, you'd never kill one. Turkeys will flee at the first hint of danger. One cough, a slight shifting of your weight and there goes dinner.

All the turkey hunting tips that I've read say your best bet is to zero in on some turkeys, then get set up in the open and call the turkeys to you. Ron Eakes, a wildlife biologist in Alabama, offered this piece of advice for beginning turkey hunters in an article I read recently.

"Sit against a tree, stump or other object that is wider than your back and taller than your head. It will hide your outline and protect your back from a hunter who might move in behind you. Face the turkey's direction with your left shoulder (for right-handed shooters), this provides you with a greater mobility of your gun when aiming. Above all, be quiet and keep your movement to a minimum as you call. If the gobbler is working toward you, then goes silent, don't move. Sometimes gobblers will sneak in quietly."

Even when I'm not talking, I'm making noise. Antelope hunting last fall is an excellent case in point. We belly crawled for about 20 yards to get in position on a nice buck in southeast Wyoming. The buck was traveling right to left and in a few minutes, he'd be in a perfect position for one of my companions to take a shot. I hunkered low to the ground, careful to stay behind Michael and Wendy. I inhaled deeply, catching my breath. Soon, my eyes started watering and the urge to cough overwhelmed me. Within minutes, I was in an all-out hacking fit, wheezing and drooling like a dog gone mad. It took me ten minutes to stop coughing or clearing my throat. The buck got away and I found out that I'm allergic to sagebrush.

And it's not just allergies. I hiccup, my stomach rumbles or I to step on and crack the only branch within miles, scaring birds and any other critter in the vicinity away. If a turkey has keen hearing AND vision, I'm toast.

"If you were a predator, you would starve to death," a good friend told me when I bemoaned my bad luck. "You can't sit still to save your life. You fidget like a fart in a skillet."

While I've never particularly understood that expression, it still stung a little. I'm not a child, I know the importance of staying motionless, and I told him so.

"Tell tell you what," he said. "Find a comfortable position and just sit there. I'll time you. If you make it for even ten minutes without moving, I'll take you turkey hunting."

I lasted exactly four minutes and twenty-two seconds. Maybe I can serve halibut at Thanksgiving.

Greenery Vs. Gunpowder

There's a vase of flowers sitting on the edge of my desk. Bright, happy, sunshiny flowers that make me long for spring green-up and gurgling trout streams. I'd spent the holiday weekend packing all my worldly possessions to go to Ten Sleep and moving the rest from my house to my parents' house, where I'll be living the next few months. I kept it together right until the last load of stuff was packed in the pickup and covered with a tarp for the 350 mile trip to my future home. About halfway across town, I started to cry.

Tears, apparently, render even the toughest outdoor men helpless. Particularly Outdoor Guy, who tried to not make any sudden movements or say anything to make it worse. He sent the flowers the following morning, just to make me smile. Not only did they make me smile, they've given me great insight into the male-female dynamic, and a new way to acquire my dream shotgun.

Women walk into my office, notice the flowers and immediately ask if it's my birthday. When I say no, he sent them just because, they smile and tell me how lucky I am.

Men walk into my office, notice the flowers and ask, "What did he do?"

Men don't buy the argument that the flowers were just to make me happy. "We always have a reason," said one coworker. "Either we've made you mad and we are trying to make up for it, or we plan on making you mad and the flowers are a preemptive strike."

They muse as to what Outdoor Guy might have done, or what he's plotting that he knows I won't like. He could be planning some sort of large, expensive hunting expedition to which I'm not invited; he spent money for the honeymoon on any number of outdoor items – a boat, a gun, a gun safe, a 4-wheeler, a hunting dog, a new spotting scope; he invited his ex-girlfriend to the wedding; he invited his ex-girlfriend to be IN the wedding.

I'm sure none of those are true. Pretty sure at least.

My favorite response, however, came from a former coworker who dropped into the Game and Fish for business and stopped by my office to say hi.

"Birthday? Anniversary?" he asked.

"No. Just to cheer me up?"

"So he sent them just because? Wow, he's making the rest of us look bad," he said as he stooped to sniff the cheerful bouquet.

"Everyone else seems to think he's trying to get out of the doghouse."

"Nah," he replied. "I've seen you when you get really mad. If he'd really messed up that bad, he would have sent you a shotgun."

Flowers or firepower? It's food for thought for this outdoor girl. I better hurry up and decide. Pheasant season, I mean Valentine's day, is almost here...

Resolutions Revisited

I have a Sunday ritual that I follow, almost without fail. I sleep in till around 9 a.m., get a breakfast burrito from a local burger shop and head to my parent's house, dogs in tow, to visit and read their newspaper. The dogs love occasionally getting fresh bacon from the burger shop, and it's generally a good time to catch up with my folks and on current events.

Last week when browsing through the ads from the big box stores, I couldn't figure out why all of them were advertising treadmills, athletic shoes and yoga mats. It was only after passing the gym I should be frequenting did it dawn on me-- it was a New Year and that mean resolutions to get in shape. Very clever marketing, indeed. Either I'm a total slacker because I didn't bother making resolutions, or my life is so perfect, I don't really feel compelled to change.

Life is pretty great these days. But I could stand to lose some weight, exercise more, floss every day, take library books and movies back on time. I guess I'm just a slacker.

But last night, a good friend sent me an e-mail that made me stop and reconsider setting New Year's resolutions. It was a copy of my very first e-newsletter "column," where I shared my resolutions on learning more about the outdoors, or as I put it, finding my inner-outdoor woman.

"So, how'd you do?" The friend asked in the e-mail. "Think all that you've accomplished in the last two years has you ready to become Mrs. Outdoor Guy?"

His tone was teasing, but the gauntlet had been thrown. I reread my resolutions, contemplated them one by one, and gave him an honest assessment of my progress.

I will not stick my tongue out at, roll my eyes at or resort to "I know you are but what am I?" phrases when the fifth graders in my hunter safety class mock my age and incompetence.
I have to admit, I was intimidated at the thought of sitting in a hunter safety class with pre-teens who knew ten times what I did about hunting, and I worked for Game and Fish. So I took the Internet course and completed an Internet Field Day one Saturday to demonstrate safe firearm handling techniques. But I can proudly say I'm a card-carrying hunter safety graduate, and getting more confident in my shooting abilities all the time. Deer might actually begin to fear me.

I will try as hard as I possibly can to not burst into tears the first time I actually shoot a living creature. I will not tear up, gag or become squeamish in any way when dressing said creature.
I did get a little teary after shooting my first buck last November, but they were happy tears. But the experience of hunting doesn't make me sad. Actually, it's made me more aware and respectful. Usually I just mindlessly gulp down a Big Mac, never thinking about the anonymous cow that died so I could enjoy that Extra-Value meal. Its cool knowing you harvested the animal on your plate. I can't explain it.

I will not shriek when one of my guy friends throws a worm down my shirt.
I can bait my own hook. But I still make Outdoor Guy kill the spiders.

I will set aside a small portion of my paycheck each month to pay my insurance deductible so I'm covered when I hook my own ear learning to fly fish.
Two words...barbless hooks.

I will watch a hunting, fishing and outdoor show for one full minute before switching back to the Bronco game.
These days I prefer Who's Wedding is it Anyway?, but I've been converted to an outdoor TV watcher. I even slipped and called football tight-end Jeremy Shockey, Jim Shockey once.

I will learn what Cabela's Club Points are and why they are so important.
So much cool stuff, so few points on my card. I'm saving for a drift boat.

I will not forget the can opener. Again.
Can opener...check. Socks? Not so much.

I will try rabbit, quail and pheasant for dinner. I will wait at least 45 minutes before hitting the McDonald's drive-thru.
So I still haven't tried quail, but I'm game for just about anything these days, pun fully intended. I even found myself wondering what mountain lion tastes like (pork, according to those in the know). Nothing beats a big ol' juicy prime rib, but now deer and antelope are welcome staples in my diet. This summer I had my first breakfast of fried brook trout and waffles. A weird, but not entirely unpleasant, flavor combination.

And finally,

I will approach each new situation, whether hunting, fishing, camping or hiking as an opportunity to have some fun, appreciate this great state we live in and test my own limits and skills.
I can get frustrated with myself when I'm hunting, fishing or basically trying anything new. I'm competitive and a bit of a perfectionist, so it drives me absolutely crazy when I'm not good at something. I have a tendency to feel like a bit of a moron around Outdoor Guy and his crazy best friend because they make everything look so easy and I struggle with even basic outdoor skills.

When I stop to think about it, though, I can be proud of what I've accomplished and how much I've learned the last two years. I don't know that I'm a certified Outdoor Woman yet, but with patience and time, I'll accomplish that resolution eventually. Practice makes perfect, and what's more fun that practicing in a beautiful place like Wyoming, surrounded by family and amazing new friends. I'll let that be my resolution for 2009.

Of Whitetails and White Dresses

I hate being the center of attention. In a family with three older sisters and an older brother, being the center of attention generally meant you were in trouble, and that was not a good thing.

Add that to my gawky, self-conscious teenage years, and I'm more than hesitant to be in the spotlight, especially just for the sake of being in the spotlight.

So it was with great reluctance that I found myself on an elevated platform in 1-inch heels trying on wedding gowns. The salesladies oohed and ahhed, flitting about with veils and gloves and...

"Let's try a tiara on you," said Jessica, my personal bridal attendant for the afternoon.

A tiara? Oh for the love of Pete, this was getting worse by the minute. What part of nothing fancy or uber-girlie did this woman not understand?

"Try it and you'll pull back a bloody stump," I wanted to hiss. Summoning my most gracious bride-to-be smile, I calmly replied instead, "No tiaras, a simple veil will be plenty."

Hearing what sounded like a pod of dolphins on crack, I turned to the platform to my left. The bride next to me had apparently found "the dress," and was twirling and rocking in the three-way mirror while her mother and about twenty friends watched. All of them were crying and carrying on. "I'm so proud of you," the mother gushed.

"Oh honey, you look radiant," one saleswoman cooed at me, apparently trying to make me feel as special as the other girl. Sure, she was trying to be nice, but I pretty much just felt like a tablecloth, I was adorned in so much lace. I just smiled again and made a beeline for the comfort and safety of my navy Wyoming Game and Fish Department sweatshirt and blue jeans. I felt like crying too, but in relief at finally having the experience over with.

Friends had told me trying on wedding gowns was one of the most fun parts of planning a wedding. Most had cried when they found their perfect dress, describing it as feeling like the ultimate princess or the most beautiful creature in the whole world. "I was glowing," said one friend.

Yuk, yuk, yuk.

What was wrong with me? Why wasn't I more excited by finding a dress? Shouldn't I be crying, my hands shaking as I was overcome with emotion? Was I missing some gene that made this whole thing something other than absolute torture? I must be lacking some critical chromosome that compelled me to spend at least half my annual salary on a tiara and teacakes and have the ultimate wedding.

A few weeks later, Outdoor Guy and I headed for Sheridan, Wyo., for some whitetail hunting. I'd shot an antelope last fall, but was eager to try something new. This would be my first time hunting deer, and our first hunting trip together. I'd been inundating him with questions about what to expect, what to pack, how to prepare, etc. Antelope season came and went, and it dang near killed me not to be out with the Game and Fish girls getting a goat of my own again.

Finally, the season opened and my big morning came. As first light approached, we headed to "the deer hole," a piece of private land where we had permission to hunt. My eyes were still adjusting to the pre-dawn light as Outdoor Guy began pointing out deer to me.

"There's a doe and a fawn at about 60 yards right in front of us and a decent buck and some does out about 300 yards to our left," he said, binoculars pressed to his eyes.

I raised my own binoculars to my eyes and looked for the deer. Those were deer? I saw mostly darkness and some brown shaped lumps that could have been deer or bushes or a water tank for all the detail my untrained eyes could detect.

"Ahh," was all I said. Sure enough, several minutes later, animals materialized before my eyes as more light peeked over the horizon. By golly, they were deer! Soon I could see some mule deer does grazing on the hillside and cows and antelope in a far pasture where just moments ago there had been nothing. What felt like an eternity later, a line of seven bucks came strolling up over the hill, down the fence line and into range.

"Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo right there," I yelped, pointing wildly.

"Okay, get your gun and get set up. Use the fence as a rest. I'll stay here, you don't need me breathing down your neck," Outdoor Guy replied calmly, laughing at my first-deer delirum.

And so I sat, rifle trained on a decent buck, waiting for him to just take a step or two forward to clear a fence post end give me a safe shot. And I waited and waited and...dang it, he didn't just take one step, he took a GIANT leap and fled across the pasture, around the corner and out of range. No worries, I thought, there's another buck hid in the trees, I'll just wait for him to come into the clearing.

As I went to reposition, Outdoor Guy touched my elbow and motioned for me to get up and follow. We snuck across the yard, me crouching low behind him, to reposition and set up on the group that had fled my sights only moments before.

"Take the one on the right," he said, pointing to a 5-point I'd asked about earlier. The buck had an unusual rack, with the top half of his antlers an almost pristine white. I sat down on the ground, using the corner of a shed's foundation as a rest.

"Put your crosshairs right behind his shoulder and shoot," he said. Easy as pie. Except that I couldn't get calmed down. One look at the critter through my scope and I got buck fever. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, my hands shook with each breath I took. I could never hold steady to take a good shot, and soon the beautiful buck with the crazy white antlers disappeared around the bend.

I waited for an admonition from Outdoor Guy about letting him get away. Instead he squeezed my shoulder. "Try lining up on the buck to your left," he encouraged, and put his folded-up jacket between my hand and the foundation. "Try this, it might make you a little more steady."

Whether it was his calm support or the jacket, I'll never know, but it worked. A few deep breaths and a quick prayer to the hunting gods and I pulled the trigger.

"PERFECT!" Outdoor Guy whooped as I reloaded. "Good shot!"

A strange yipping noise interrupted us as we started to gut the buck. It was Outdoor Guy's best friend, come to see the carnage, as he so eloquently put it.

"I see legs! I knew TC wouldn't let me down this morning," he hollered across the pasture, using his self-appointed nickname for me as he crossed the pasture. The next few minutes were a blur as the boys bantered back and forth, Outdoor Guy explaining what he was doing as he gutted the deer for me. Darrell insisted I give him a play-by-play, and offered to mount the antlers for me, in triumph of my first deer and buck.

"Want pictures of the two of you?" Darrell offered, gesturing to my camera sitting on the edge of the pickup.

We knelt behind the buck as Darrell barked instructions like he was a fashiopn photographer on assignment, taking pictures of runway models. "Okay, now turn his head to your right, good, good. Now tilt his chin down just a little. Perfect."

I felt Outdoor Guy's hand on my back and the buck's hair beneath my own hand. "I'm so proud of you sweetie," Ben said as we grinned for the camera. "That was awesome, I'm pumped."

With the two of them oohing and ahhing over me I felt like a rock star. I was the center of their attention, and I loved it. I was excited because now I was confident we could share hunting together in the future. And it felt so good, knowing Outdoor Guy was proud of me, and feeling confident once again in my abilities. Suddenly, my breath caught in my mouth and hands shook. Tears sprang to the back of my eyes, threatening to spill over in this great moment of happiness, confidence and pride.

There on a hillside in Sheridan County, I finally had my weepy girlie moment, complete with tears, shaking hands and feeling like a mighty huntress, if not exactly a princess. I guess I'm just one of those girls that gets emotional over whitetails, not white dresses. And I don't think I'd want it any other way.

Confessions of a secret gun nut

I stood, poised in the back of the room, ready to snap some photos of our 2008 Becoming an Outdoors-Woman workshop. I was sitting in the Introductions to Firearms course, listening to the instructor explain the purpose of a choke in a shotgun.

"So in reality, you could buy a gun with the interchangeable choke, and that gun could handle most any hunting situation you might need it for," asked one woman.

"Sure," replied Ken, the instructor.

"So instead of a gun safe full of guns, my husband could have a single gun and still be a successful hunter. One gun should really be all he needs," the woman continued.

"Uh, well now, I didn't say that..." stammered Ken.

"Oh I know," echoed a different classmate. "My husband must have a dozen different guns and that doesn't include the pistols, and he's always looking for another one. What's with that? Why do they think they need so many guns?"

A chorus of yeahs, I knows and me toos made their way around the group. At the front of the room, Ken was laughing, realizing he had just opened Pandora's box and perhaps set in motion a few divorces.

I used to feel the exact same way. I'd roll my eyes when the boy-du jour in my life would start salivating over the Cabela's catalog or insist on stopping at a pawn shop because "you just never know what you'll find!" Then I started shooting and hunting and I soon discovered a universal truth in my quest to find my inner-outdoor woman...

You can never be too rich, too thin or have too many guns.

My modest collection includes a Remington 7mm.08, a Winchester .22 and a massive 12 gauge side-by-side shotgun my father donated to the cause. My wish list includes a .22 handgun and a 20-gauge shotgun and maybe a .270 in case I decide to try hunting elk.

I got my first inkling that maybe I had a problem was when I was looking at shotguns with Outdoor Guy this summer. I'd narrowed down my selection and was explaining to him that the gun was on sale and the manufacturer was offering a $30 rebate as well.

"That's the same gun I own, just go ahead use mine for a while," he offered.

That would be a practical and cheaper solution. But for some reason I felt like stamping my foot like a petulant child.

"But you don't understand. I want my own shotgun," I wanted to whine. Luckily, I got distracted by all the other cool stuff in the store before I could work up a good pout. I'm sort of like a crow - I'm easily distracted by shiny objects.

The next of my symptoms surfaced a few weeks ago. I met a few coworkers for dinner after they had spent the day hunting antelope northwest of town. They hadn't had much success, but I received high praise for my rifle, which I had lent to Rebecca for the short season.

"That is one sweet gun," Dave told me. That just made my night. My gun was considered cool! You would have though he had just praised one of my children, or told me I was prettier than Jennifer Aniston the way I grinned.

It was a non-hunting friend who finally helped me accept my condition . She and I were discussing my pending nuptials and the merger of stuff between me and Outdoor Guy. I told her I was excited because I would inherit all of his guns, at least quadrupling my current selection.

"I don't get it. How many guns does a normal person really need?" she asked.

Sure, if you want to be practical, my friend and the women at BOW had a valid point. There are versatile guns out there that can handle lots of different types of hunting. A person could get by with just a rifle or two and a versatile shotgun. But where's the fun in that? Every gun is unique. Each feels and handles just a little differently, and is designed for specific conditions. And even just after a few uses, I have great memories tied up in my guns - reminders of special people, special times and beautiful places. But how do you explain that to someone who doesn't hunt or shoot without sounding like a pistol-packing right-wing nutcase?

"You could play a pretty decent round of golf with just one driver, one iron and a putter, but I'm guessing you carry more than three clubs in your golf bag," I replied.

I saw her start ticking off her clubs on her fingers. When she got to twelve, she abruptly stopped.

"So where are you going on your honeymoon again?"

Hello, I'm Teresa and I'm a gunaholic. Could you please point me to a therapy session, maybe near a Sportman's Warehouse?

Camping: Couples Therapy for the Outdoor Minded

Each time I told family, friends or coworkers of my impending camping trip to the Big Horn mountains with Outdoor Guy, they responded the same way.

"You're going camping? Together? For the first time? That'll be interesting," they would snort with a knowing, skeptical smirk on their face. Even my mom had her doubts, saying we'd soon figure out if we could spend that much time together. It's never good when Mom, a.k.a. the Wisest Woman in the World, says something like that.

Apparently outdoor adventures, when tackled as a couple, have ruined more than one previously stalwart relationship. I heard horror story after horror story, enough to fill an hour-long episode for the FOX Network -- "Relationship Roadkill: When Good Camping Goes Bad." As we packed for our end-of-summer getaway, Outdoor Guy joked that we'd either be broken up or married by the time we came off the mountain.

Three days later, we'd seen our share of stunning vistas, moose, elk, deer and little woodland critters. As we traipsed up one side of the range and down the other, I saw some beautiful places and even learned a few lessons about myself, and coed camping along the way.

Lesson Number One - Anything he can pack, I'll probably pack two.

We were "sissy camping" as one friend put it, using a fifth-wheel camper as our home base. Even without the tent and associated accoutrements, we had a lot of stuff. Or more specifically, I had a lot of stuff. As I looked at our mountain of gear to go to the mountain, I noticed that my pile was significantly larger than his. He had one backpack. I had a big duffle and an overnight case. He had the pair of boots on his feet and his wading boots. I had the shoes I was wearing, my hiking boots, my wading boots and a pair of flip-flops. He had a wallet. I had a purse loaded with money, snacks, my I-pod, my cell phone, tissue, lotion, mosquito repellent, sunscreen and a notepad.

As we headed out for our last day of fishing and I handed him an extra sweatshirt, pair of pants and shoes, just in case, he just smiled and shoved it in his pack.

"Women and your wardrobe changes," he sighed. "Remind me to rent a pack mule if we ever go out for longer than two days. Or a U-haul."

Lesson Number Two - Spam is a Manly Meal

Outdoor Guy should open an outfitting business, because this trip was entirely his doing. I basically said, "Let's go camping!" then delegated the rest of the work to him, right up until we started talking food. Then I got interested in a hurry.

"If it were just me, I'd throw in some Spam, Vienna Sausages, a few cans of pork and beans and call it good," he told me.

I know I'm playing the princess card here, but Spam? Honestly? There is just something unnerving about your meal making the sound of a shoe being pulled out of three feet of mud. I had visions of s'mores, pan-fried brookie and good old fashioned elk steak. While we settled on some Hamburger Helper and canned veggies, I told him he could buy me a Dutch oven for Christmas. If this relationship was going to survive, and if I wanted to eat something other than meat by-product, I'd need to take over camp cooking duties.

"No complaints about that from me," he said, smiling slyly. "I'll even buy you a cookbook to help get you started."

Drat. I think that was part of his plan all along.

Lesson Number Three - The phrase "a short walk," has many interpretations.
Our first morning, he told me we were going to his favorite brook trout stream, one he grew up fishing as a kid. "It's a short walk down to the creek, but this place has never let me down. It'll be a fun place to dunk some worms."

He wasn't kidding. It was an awesome little stream to fish, with active, hungry brook trout in every pool and riffle. It took me a while to warm up, but soon we were catching right and left. Most of the fish were on the small side, so we only kept a few. As we moved downstream, Outdoor Guy entertained me with stories of a misspent youth hunting mountain lions and bobcats with his Black and Tan hound. After a couple of hours, we decided to call it a day and head back to camp to eat a late lunch and get ready to go scout elk that evening.

It was a short walk down to the creek. It was the hike back up to the pickup that might have been the death of both me, and the relationship. Nothing will illustrate exactly how far you've let yourself go than a "short walk," straight up a hill at 9,000 feet. I had to wave the fat-kid white flag several times and stop to huff and puff before I blew my lungs out.

He could have made fun of me. He could have told me to lay off the ice cream and pop and I'd be able to keep up. He could have reminded me that it was my brilliant idea to wear new hiking boots that weren't quite broken-in. He could have rolled his eyes each time he had to stop and wait for me to catch up. But he did none of those things, which was good because: A.) he would have been absolutely right; B.) I would have had to tell him he was right; and C.) I had neither the desire, nor breath, to do so.

The next night, when he suggested putting the sneak on a group of bull moose for a better look, I sent him off alone, up the hill and into the timber at an easy trot. Best to not tempt the heart attack gods again. Instead, I busied myself contemplating some sort of outdoor survival school for couples. Forget the therapist's couch, give those couples a tent and a compass and send them to the hills for a weekend. Some couples might even pay big bucks for just such an experience.

I now understood all the dire warnings. I didn't have any horror stories to tell, but we'd definitely seen a different side of one another. I was way out of my comfort zone, and he was right smack in the thick of his element. I had to ask lots of questions, and sometimes even ask for help. He had to slow down and be patient, remembering that I hadn't been doing this my whole life. Putting someone else's need first can be tough when you are used to living on your own and only taking care of yourself.

And without cable, phone or Internet for distraction, the only thing we had to entertain ourselves was the great outdoors and talking to each other. Small talk and superficial attraction can only get you so far, and without substantive things in common, we would have been sick of each other before we even reached the campsite.

The whole experience would definitely test the strength of any relationship, be it between a couple, or among friends, family or coworkers.

But it was a test I must have passed, because when I got bored of planning couples camping counseling, I whiled away the time reading a book and contemplating our future as a couple. Turns out we really would come off the mountain either married or broken-up. A proposal on a ledge overlooking the prettiest spot in all of Wyoming sealed the deal. Relationship rescue camp will have to wait...I have a wedding to plan.

Lights...Camera...Wildlife! Helicopter Stocking and the making of Wyoming Wildlife Television

The morning dawned bright and clear, with no winds and near cloudless skies. It was August, but in the mountains, the temperature barely eeked above 40 degrees. Men in red shirts and green vests busily organized buckets and clipboards, stopping every few minutes to puff in their hands, fingers cold from splashing water and a crisp mountain morning.

"I hear him!"

Ten heads suddenly snapped to attention, eyes searching the skies. A hush fell over us as we strained to see the star of the day's show. No, we weren''t waiting on an elk or a moose. We were eagerly awaiting a red and white whirly bird - a small helicopter that would help the Wyoming Game and Fish Department's fish culture section stock the high elevation lakes of the Big Horn Mountains.

Wyoming Wildlife Television, the Game and Fish Department''s new television show, debuts Sept. 7 on Casper's KCWY Channel 13. The series is just one of the many new tools Game and Fish is using to reach out to our customers and Wyoming's citizens to tell the story of what's going on with wildlife in our state.

I had the opportunity to tag along with the film crew on two occasions - a bird banding in Laramie and helicopter fish stocking in the Big Horn mountains. While I hope my less-than-stunning visage appears nowhere on Wyoming Wildlife Television, I am excited to see the final cut of those two episodes and share with our viewers the great work being done by Game and Fish and our partners on behalf of your wildlife.

Now I have to admit that I'm biased, but helicopter stocking was one of the coolest things I've done this year. The morning began with a pre-dawn trip up Ten Sleep Canyon and over Powder River Pass. Elk, deer, moose, marmots, porcupines, golden eagles and hawks greeted me along the way, testing my high-speed wildlife identification skills. When I pulled into Circle Park, the site of the staging area for the day, the fish culture section crew and our cameraman were already there, waiting for the excitement to begin.

I busied myself setting up a tripod and getting last minute instructions from Jim Barner, the Assistant Fish Culture Section Supervisor and boss of the day. I wanted to make sure I stayed out of the way of the guys who were working and far, far away from the danger zone of the helicopter. The last thing I wanted to do was hinder the project or lose a limb.

We heard the helicopter before we saw it. Soon it appeared, first just a fleck on the far horizon. As the noise got louder, the bird began to take shape. So it was almost directly overhead, the blades whirring, a swath of blown grass several dozen feet in diameter below it. I felt like I was in an episode of M*A*S*H, as I was reminded of the show's opening sequence when all the doctors are waiting for the helicopter to come in, transporting injured military personnel. Actually the vision was so clear, I had the show's theme song stuck in my head the entire day. Catchy, but annoying after an entire morning.

The helicopter hovered just a few feet above ground, while Jim ran out to meet it stabilize the bucket as the big bird touched down. The noise from the helicopter's blades, the wind blowing in my face, the beautiful sunrise...¦it all made for a spectacular beginning to a great day.

As glamorous as the thumping helicopter was, the true genius of the helicopter stocking was the tedious organization that went into the morning. As the chopper waited, the fish culture guys started the process of loading the fish onto the helicopter using buckets. Fish were loaded from the hatcheries' stocking trucks into a bucket on a scale attached to the truck. Each bucket contained a pre-determined poundage and species of fish bound for a specific water. The buckets were then poured into a numbered tank in a big buggy-like apparatus that was would dangle below the helicopter, connected via cables and some sort of pneumatic release device.

The stocked fish I saw were all trout, including the native Yellowstone cutthroat trout, generally about 3-5 inches in length, or what are known as fingerlings. To make sure the fish are healthy when they reach the water, fish culture personnel closely monitor the oxygen level and water temperature of the transportation tanks. The temperature of the tanks are matched as closely as possible with the temperature of the lake or stream where the fish will be planted. This helps reduce the thermal shock to the fish. Fish are also taken off feed a day or two before planting to reduce their demand for oxygen. Very few fish die during planting operations.

Once all the fish were loaded, Jim would hand the pilot his order for this specific run. Up to eight waters could be stocked on each separate flight. State rules prevented me from going up in the helicopter (that and a serious fear of death by crashing), but Jim explained what happened after we lost sight of the helicopter.

The pilot was armed with a notebook with GPS coordinates and an aerial photo or drawing of each drop sight. The pilot would locate the site, hover the chopper anywhere from two to twenty feet above the water, then flip a switch on a numbered panel to release that tank and dump the fish. Once all his tanks were empty, the pilot would return to our staging site and the fish guys would start the process again, reloading to stock eight new waters. The crew would coordinate five separate runs from Circle Park that morning, then stock out of Dubois and Laramie the next two days.

As if keeping track of fish were bad enough, these guys also had a video camera in their face and a pesky information and education supervisor tagging along. Matt, the camera man, shot the action. I peppered the crew with questions and snapped photos right and left. Not exactly a comfortable situation for personnel who spend most of their days at a quiet fish hatchery or logging road miles in a stocking truck. But they pretty much just ignored us, focused on loading the right fish in the right tank and getting the little fingerlings into the air safely.

Paying for a helicopter for three days may seem expensive, but according to Barner, it's actually an incredibly efficient way to stock high alpine lakes. The drop sites are rugged, remote areas not easily accessed on foot or even horseback, let alone a fully loaded fish stocking truck. It would take several weeks or more stocking these ponds using traditional methods, tying up manpower and equipment and stressing the fish for a long period of time. It only took the fish guys about ten minutes to load the helicopter, and another 30 minutes for the chopper to stock the fish. Over the three days the crew aerial stocked more than 80 different waterbodies.

As I watched the whole process five separate times, I had a new found admiration for our fish division. If you watch this episode onWyoming Wildlife Television, chances are the helicopter stocking segment will only be five or six minutes long. The whole morning of stocking lasted only a few hours. But the planning of those three days takes place almost a year in advance.

Fisheries biologists from each Game and Fish region determine the species, volume and location they would like stocked each year and submit their requests to the fish culture personnel. Wyoming's ten fish hatcheries and rearing stations then spend the next year working together to raise the types and number of fish to be stocked to meet angler needs. In the case of high alpine lakes that require stocking by helicopter, it's an even longer wait, because those lakes are only stocked every two years.

Raising and stocking fish has played an important role in Wyoming's fisheries management, especially in areas with high fishing pressure or where habitat limits sufficient natural reproduction to meet angler demand. The Game and Fish raises and stocks more than 311,000 thousand pounds of fish each year for Wyoming anglers.

As I drove out of the Big Horns and headed home to Cheyenne, I contemplated my recent television induced road trip. I'd been on the run or on the road with the camera crew for about four days solid and I was exhausted. Images of passerine birds, BLM interviewees, mule deer habitat and flying fish were all whirring around in my head like the blades of the helicopter. I wanted nothing more than to get home and fall into my bed for a week. Then I imagined the tiny Yellowstone cutthroat trout fingerling I'd held on my palm that morning.

He'd been snagged in a net from his home at the Wigwam Fish Rearing Station, loaded in a stocking truck, netted again into a big orange bucket, dumped into a metal tube with a few thousand of his friends, iced, then flown thousands of feet in the air only to be dumped into a brand-new home 30 minutes later. Now he would have to find food, avoid predators and eventually learn not be tempted by an angler's offering. And I thought I had it rough!

So keep your eye on the skies next summer. That helicopter you hear in the distance just may be carrying a future trophy fish to your favorite honey-hole, courtesy of the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. And don't forget to watch Wyoming Wildlife Television this fall and see your favorite wildlife species make their small screen debut. Ready for your close up?