Colorado Just Voted Down the Right to Hunt

Most weeks I can promise you a laugh right out of the gate. This week starts with a heartbreaking one out of British Columbia, so we’ll give it the respect it deserves.

After that, things get strange. We’ve got a Montana outfitter, a $400 set of bighorn testicles, an Idaho hunter who smelled something awful in the woods, and a Colorado vote every hunter in the West should be talking about.

Here’s what’s in the truck this week:

Jennifer Balcarras, 48, and her daughter, Selah Reed, went for a walk on Saturday on the Snooka West Trail near Bella Coola, B.C. It was a familiar route, just minutes from home. They never came back.

Search crews found Jennifer on Monday afternoon and Selah on Tuesday. Evidence at the scene points to a grizzly attack, and B.C. conservation officers say more than one bear may have been involved. Officers are working to find and capture any bears tied to the attack, and the trail area is off limits while they do.

Their family says this wasn’t some remote backcountry route. That’s the part that sticks with me.

It’s also the second serious grizzly attack in this small coastal community in about a year. Last November, a grizzly attacked a school group on a trail near town and injured 11 people. Teachers drove it off with bear spray and a bear banger.

If you hunt, hike, or walk the dog in grizzly country, keep your spray on your hip where you can reach it, even on the short walks close to home.

Our thoughts are with the family and everyone in Bella Coola.

👉 Read the full story at CBC News
👉 Why officers think multiple bears were involved

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It wasn’t close.

Amendment 83 needed 55% of the vote to get into the Colorado Constitution. Unofficial results have it around 45%, with roughly 55% voting no. It would also have made hunting and fishing the preferred way to manage the state’s wildlife.

Don’t read this as “hunting is now banned in Colorado,” because nothing changes for your tag this fall. Hunting stays legal under existing state and federal law. But 24 states have some version of this protection, and Colorado just said no.

The strange part is that this wasn’t simply hunters vs. antis:

Each side is also telling a different money story. Wayne Pacelle of Animal Wellness Action says the yes side outspent the no side more than 3 to 1. The NRA blames late spending by anti-hunting groups for moving voters on the Front Range.

👉 Read the results at Summit Daily
👉 Read the NRA’s take

I’ve read a lot of poaching stories. This is the first one where the evidence came on ice.

John Lewton of Belgrade, Montana, was just sentenced in federal court in Billings to a $20,000 fine and a year of probation. He also can’t outfit or guide hunters for a full year.

Back in 2019, one of his clients legally killed a trophy ram on BLM ground in the Missouri River Breaks. Lewton took the testicles and sold them for $400 to Arthur “Jack” Schubarth, the Montana rancher behind the infamous cloned “Montana Mountain King” giant sheep operation. Selling game animal parts is illegal in Montana.

Lewton’s defense was a beauty. He told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that the $400 was gas money for the drive, not payment for the gonads. Hey, diesel isn’t cheap.

And the story isn’t over. A hybrid ewe went missing from Schubarth’s place near Vaughn in early September, and wardens say they heard about it from someone else about a week later. He’s now charged with failing to report the escape within 48 hours. He told Outdoor Life he figures a coyote got her.

Montana FWP isn’t laughing. Wild bighorns live 20 to 30 miles away, with the Rocky Mountain Front herd not far beyond, and one sick contact can wipe out a herd.

If you’re in central Montana, watch for a lone, mostly white sheep of about 120 pounds with a red ear tag. Call FWP Region 4 at 406-454-5840.

👉 Read the full story at Outdoor Life
👉 The gas money defense at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle

At least 81 grizzlies had died in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as of Oct. 21, and Wyoming Game and Fish knows of one more that hasn’t been logged yet. That beats last year’s 74 and 2024’s 72, and some bears are still out there before denning.

Here’s what’s killing them:

Now, here’s the fight. Conservation groups say the numbers show grizzlies need more federal protection, and they’re pushing back on changes to the Endangered Species Act. Wildlife managers say the deaths were somewhat predictable with this many bears on the landscape, and that the population has so far absorbed them without declining.

Both of those things can be true for now. But a record death toll with a stable population is exactly what each side will wave around in the delisting fight.

👉 Read the full story from WyoFile at Cap City News
👉 Why groups are pressing on the ESA at Missoula Current

👣 Idaho hunter reports knocks, gibberish, and the smell of death. A deer hunter near St. Maries told the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization he was on a trail around 5 p.m. on Oct. 20 when loud knocking started in a creek bed 200 to 300 yards away. It went on for up to 10 minutes. Then came an overpowering stink of rot with no carcass anywhere, plus a deep voice he couldn’t make out. Maybe it’s a squatch. Maybe it’s a guy from Boise who’s lost and hasn’t showered. Read more at OutKick or read the hunter’s report

🙏 Two Idaho teens found safe after a night search. A 13- and 14-year-old got separated from their hunting party in Boise County on Halloween and never made it to their pickup spot. With the temperature dropping, crews searched through the night with a thermal camera on a helicopter and teams on the ground, and both were found safe. Hug your search and rescue volunteers. Then give your kid a whistle and a plan before the next hunt. Read more at KTVB

💵 USDA puts another $21 million into hunting and fishing access. The money pays for 10 more projects that help open private land to the public, including work in Arizona, Washington, and Wyoming. Washington’s $2.655 million will help launch a new hunting reservation system. That brings this year’s total to $70 million across 29 projects. Read the USDA announcement

🕵️ Two bull elk shot and wasted near Kenel, South Dakota. Standing Rock Game and Fish is looking for whoever did it. Rangers were notified on Nov. 1. If you know anything, call Ranger Garry Weasel at 701-301-1315 or the department at 701-854-7236. Read more at KX News

🕯️ Oregon hunter killed in UTV rollover, two months after his wedding. Stephen Roberson, 51, of Prineville died Oct. 29 when a UTV rolled north of Tollgate and threw all four hunters on board. He and his wife, Jennifer, had just married in August. The crash is still under investigation. Friends have set up a GoFundMe for Jennifer. Read more at the Central Oregonian

Reasonable hunters landed on both sides of Amendment 83, and you can argue about it all night. I’m more interested in who actually decided it.

It wasn’t us. Most Colorado voters don’t hunt, and they do not spend their evenings studying the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. They form an opinion of hunters from whatever comes across their phone.

So look at what came across their phone this week. A guy selling ram testicles to a sheep cloner. Two bull elk shot and left to rot.

None of that has anything to do with the hunter packing out quarters in the dark. But the guy who doesn’t hunt can’t always tell the difference, and he has the same one vote you do.

After 18 years of guiding, I can tell you the public judges your whole industry by the worst guy at the boat ramp. Hunting works the same way.

No amendment fixes that, whether it passes or fails. What fixes it is turning in the poacher, pushing back on the idiots in your own camp, and sharing your elk backstrap with the neighbor who’s never been hunting.

Win the guy next door, and the ballot takes care of itself.

A few more reads that earned a click this week:

That’s the week. Carry your spray, call in what you see, and be the hunter you’d want a non-hunter to meet.

See you out there.

— Matt

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