The culprit

Things got pretty wild in Seward, Alaska last Thursday evening. They have bear trouble in Seward and lots of it. In fact there were three sightings that night. According to the Anchorage Daily News, the city’s residents say the place is swarming with them. That night the first report came in saying that a black bear was near a small boat harbor at about 10 p.m. Police showed up and tried to run the bear off. It didn’t work.

Naturally all the excitement drew a crowd. They were having a great time watching the bear ignore the police but after some encouragement the animal started running. At this point, unsure of what the bear intended to do, an officer decided to shoot. The first shotgun slug winged the bear but he kept on running. A second shot was fired.

City Manager, Phillip Oates, later explained to reporters, “I think it went through his ear and maybe out one side of his head. And then, like I say, it ricocheted off something and then hit the bystander.” That’s right one of the crowd took the slug to the belly. Luckily the slug was so spent by the time it went through the bear that it just bounced off the young man’s stomach. There are a lot of goofy things going on in Alaska.

It Got Wild

Maplewood is a suburb just east of St. Paul. Cedric Newton was enjoying a quiet evening in his townhome this past July 24 when he was called upon to defend his wife. An intruder had suddenly attacked her and Newton reached for his .38 revolver. In the excitement several shots were fired and the attacker was wounded and fell to the floor.

Unfortunately there were also bullet holes in the wall of an adjoining townhouse, a dent in a closet door, and a dent in the side of the stove. According to the Star Tribune, Mr. Newton was later charged with reckless discharge of a firearm which is a felony. He is scheduled to appear in court Sept 20. Police were called to the complex by the manager of the property and the story unfolded.

It all happened around midnight. The intruder was a small brown bat and it no doubt did scare Newton’s wife. He admitted to officers he shot at the bat several times and did hit it at last. Police were concerned that Newton “gave no consideration to the surrounding townhomes.” If you are wondering if he gave any consideration to his wife, he did at least tell her to go upstairs before he opened fire.

Home on the range

You have heard of the legendary King Ranch in southern Texas which onetime consisted of over 1 million acres and even today totals 825,000 acres. Although no member of the original King family is involved in the operation today, the name still carries such recognition that Ford produced some “King Ranch” edition trucks in recent years.

Here is one ranch you probably haven’t heard of. It’s the Bell Ranch in northeastern New Mexico and you could have bought it but someone beat you to it. After being on the market for years, the sale was closed on August 17, 2010. According to official records the ranch consisted of 290,100 acres of contiguous deeded land most of which is situated in San Miguel County about 40 miles north of Tucumcari and 150 miles east of Santa Fe.

It may be small compared to the King Ranch but it is believed to be the single largest   block of deeded land to sell in the United States since 1950. The Market Financial, an investment guide, said that the Bell Ranch features Bell Mountain and a 10,832-square feet hacienda with swimming pool and tennis courts. It also has a general manager residence and lake house, ranch offices, stables, barns, garage and storage facilities and its own 8,200′ x 75′ lighted dirt airstrip with a large hangar.

The original asking price was $115 million back in 2007 but was dropped first to $103 million in 2009 and then to $83 million this year. The final selling price was not disclosed. See… you missed out again!

Zumach's photo

Bruce Chandler lives in the little community of Holmen which is just north of La Crosse, Wisconsin. Two weeks ago Chandler was bass fishing in a slough of the nearby Mississippi River.  He decided to use a lure called Ish’s Phat Frog which, as the name implies, looks like a frog with plastic streamer legs. He was in his boat and casting toward shore. What happened next surprised Chandler so much he just sort of sat there.

A coyote was lurking in the weeds along the shore looking for a frog leg dinner. The animal jumped in the water and grabbed the Phat Frog. The battle was on. Chandler, who is 62,  told the La Crosse Tribune, “All I thought was that coyote had my $9 frog that I had just bought and I wanted it back.” At that point Chandler turned on his trolling motor and pulled the coyote around until he gave up.

Chandler’s friend, Darren Zumach, was fishing nearby in another boat when his cell phone rang. It was Chandler and he asked him to motor over and help. Zumach told the Tribune, “I never saw anything funnier. Here was Bruce, holding onto the pole and motoring slowly down the slough, with the coyote trailing behind.” Zumach took a picture with his cell phone.

Luckily the coyote was tired and perhaps in a little shock because he let the men free the hook from his mouth without fighting back. He was last seen walking into the weeds. Chandler remarked, “I doubt it will ever go after another frog.”

Photo by Patti Winterrowd

Brady is a small town maybe 50 miles north of Great Falls and is right in the heart of the farm country of central Montana. Grain farmers there grow mainly wheat and the fields are vast and almost ready to harvest. But last week some unwelcome guests showed up and started picking the wheat themselves and eating it on the spot.

Farmer Gus Winterrowd told the Great Falls Tribune, “We’ve never seen anything like that before. Wasted the whole morning watching them.” He was talking about the intruders and they were a pair of young grizzly bears. They were also the first ones Winterrowd had seen in the area. Even old-timers claim grizzlies have never been seen that far from the Teton River which is about 3 miles away. The Tribune also interviewed Byron Grassman who works at a nearby grain elevator. He saw three which he believes to be a mother and two older cubs. Winterrowd apparently saw the two cubs in his field.
After they chowed down on some wheat, the bears ambled back toward the Teton River and disappeared.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the combine.

Where's Joey?

A Tennessee man keeps meticulous records of his fishing trips. Joey Monteleone of Christiana  writes down  when he catches a fish, the location, exact time, wind direction, moon phase, what type of lure, water depth, and the temperature. Not only that but he’s been doing it since 1974.

Monteleone told the Nashville Tennessean, “I like numbers. I just like keeping a record of things.” Keeping those records has been a lot of work Joey said he used to go fishing around 125 times a year but now he’s down to about 50 outings. He has caught 28,250 fish of all kinds. In the bass category alone he has caught 1,048 largemouth, smallmouth, or spotted bass that weighed over 5 pounds. The total of those fish is 5,974 pounds. In other words it won’t be long until Joey has caught 3 tons of bass over 5 pounds.

He wants to get to the following goals: 1,500 bass over 5 pounds (he needs 452 more) and 30,000 total fish (he needs 1,750more). Joey is 59 and I’m betting he makes it and keeps right on going.

American crocodile

It may surprise you to know that we have crocodiles in the United States. Most American Crocodiles are found in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean but there is a small population in southern Florida. There are also many alligators across the gulf states and even up into the Carolinas. Which one do you think is the most dangerous?

Then let’s consider the shark. Are you more likely to be killed by a shark or a marsh monster like the croc or the gator? According to information obtained from the Florida Museum of Natural History and the DNRs of both Florida and Georgia, in the last ten years more Americans have been killed by alligators than sharks with 9 killed by sharks and 13 drug under by gators.

But what about the croc? In Africa there are hundreds of people killed by crocodiles every year and even in Australia 1 or 2 a year is common. But the US? There is no record of an American Crocodile killing or even biting a single person even though there is estimated to be about 1,800 of them. As for the alligator, despite those numbers above it isn’t likely you have to worry. The Discovery Channel interviewed Florida Fish and Wildlife Agent Lindsey Hord who is widely regarded an expert on the reptiles and he said, “I think you’re more likely to be killed by a falling vending machine than by an alligator.”

Just the same…I’m staying out of their territory and buying the Coke.

Girl's best friend?

Chances are you bought a bottle of gun cleaning solvent when you acquired your first shotgun. Maybe you bought a whole kit complete with various rods and cleaning patches but I would wager that the solvent was Hoppe’s #9.

According to the Hoppe’s company, Frank Hoppe experimented with different chemicals until he came up with a mixture of nine different ingredients and ended up producing “The world’s most potent gun cleaning solvent”. Hoppe’s is still an industry leading manufacturer of gun cleaning chemicals and equipment. You probably have a bottle of No. 9 in your closest right now and I know you would remember the smell the second you catch a whiff.

Now Bushnell Outdoor Products is offering an air freshener with that old No. 9 aroma. They describe it as “evoking fond memories of fathers, grandfathers, memorable hunts and great days in the field”. You can hang it by a string just like the little pine trees you see at the car wash. Single women should look into this. Maybe a man would really go for that smell. At least it would be better than carrying around bacon chalupas like those girls in the bar for the Taco Bell commercial.

Sean on left. KTLA photo

There is something fascinating about sharks. Kids like them almost as much as dinosaurs and it seems there is a shark TV show somewhere on cable every night. A Mako shark is one of the real scary looking ones and they grow up to 10 feet in length and weigh up to 1,000 lbs. and over. They have been known to attack humans and a Mako was the star of Ernest Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea”.

In a recent fishing tournament a Newbury Park, California man caught a huge one. According to Los Angeles television station KTLA, Sean Carlsen Gizatullin landed what could be the largest fish ever caught in state history. Carlsen Gizatullin was fishing off the coast near Oxnard, which is about half way between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, when he hooked the 1,098 lb. monster.

He told the television station, “It went under the boat a few times, came out twice with its jaws open towards the boat. It didn’t lunge out or anything crazy like Jaws but it was still intense.” Oddly enough, it took him so long to land the shark that he missed the deadline for the weigh-in and didn’t win a thing. Luckily, the state record is pending and Sean’s story will last forever.

I wanna go home

Bears have made several headlines this summer from a black bear taking a vacation in Iowa to a grizzly which unfortunately killed a camper in Yellowstone. Last Tuesday in New Hampshire a black bear decided to make a visit and take home a souvenir.

Laconia is a town in the central part of the state where Mary Beth Parkinson has a house on Holman Street. She and her two sons, ages 6 and 9, left to run some errands and someone left the door open. At just that time a black bear happened by and decided to go in to see what he could find. According to the Associated Press he ate two pears, a bunch of grapes and had a drink from the family’s aquarium. He was probably getting ready to leave when the Parkinsons returned but he did have time to pick up a memento.

Mary Beth thinks she scared the bear off when the garage door opener started chugging away. She saw the shambles in her house and called 911. When police arrived they were thinking the intruder may have been a bear when they received calls about a blackie not far away. The bear did finally slip into the woods and get away but in his haste he dropped his souvenir…the Parkinson’s teddy bear.