Summer 2013 - The New Mexico Sportsman

Transcription

New Mexico Wildlife Federation
Reporter
Summer 2013
Made in New Mexico: Crafts of enchantment
As anyone who hunts or fishes knows,
sportsmen spend a lot of money every
year – on early morning coffee, ammo
and arrows, camp supplies and the occasional new rifle, rod or ATV.
At $10 here and $50 there it may not
seem like much, but it adds up to big
bucks. Hunters and anglers spent $90 billion in 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service says. That’s an awful lot of shotgun shells and huevos rancheros.
Hunting and fishing expenditures are
particularly high in the West, where most
of the nation’s public lands are found,
the USFWS reports. Other studies have
shown the vast majority of sportsmen
rely on public lands when they head out
to hunt or fish. Protected public lands
are helping change the economy of the
West by creating outdoor recreation jobs
and attracting new businesses in nearby
communities, which has a positive
impact on entire states.
In New Mexico more than 250,000
residents hunted or fished in 2011,
which is roughly one of out every
eight. Together they spent nearly
$620 million, USFWS says. That’s
about $1.7 million a day, which basically means that sportsmen create
and support tens of thousands of jobs
all over the state.
It may come as a surprise to many,
but a number of New Mexico businesses and craftsmen make hunting
and fishing equipment right here in the
Land of Enchantment. In this issue of
the Outdoor Reporter, we look at a wide
range of sportsman-oriented businesses
that can officially stamp their equipment
“Made in New Mexico.”
These craftsmen and women may not
renowned already.
The talented craftspeople contacted for this “Made in New Mexico” issue typically work alone. Many said
Honed on the range, Pages 4-5
they have waiting lists, and some said
Fish on! Pages 6-7
they would retire if their longtime
customers would let them. Others are
Bowing to the past, Pages 8-10
working every angle they can to sell
Special calling, Page 11
more of their products and make the
leap to full-time.
Jerry Duran, knife maker and
But they all have one thing in comSportsman of the Quarter, Page 12
mon: They’re turning raw materials
– from high-carbon steel to Chinese
bamboo – into New Mexico jobs and
be as well known as Remington or Ruger,
but who knows what the future holds? In cash flow.
Most sportsmen don’t need to buy a
the 1960s the Albuquerque-based Groves
Archery Corp. put New Mexico on the new knife or fishing rod every year. But
map with its recurve bows. Some day when that time does come, New Mexico
Albuquerque’s Taylor Reels could give hunters and anglers should think about
Orvis a run for its money, and many buying locally. As you’ll read inside, the
New Mexico knife makers are world- benefits spread a long way.
INSIDE:
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‘NM made’
got us by
in the past
By Bob Gerding
Special to New Mexico Wildlife Federation
Long before the Internet was even a
glimmer in the eye of Al Gore, there was
fishing in New Mexico and we relied on
locally produced products for our tackle.
Sure, there were nationally known
manufacturers like South Bend and Heddon, and regionally famous brands like
Eagle Claw were a part of our tackle selection as well. But for fly fishing particularly, New Mexico anglers relied on
locally produced products.
Fly selections were extremely limited
by today’s standards. When you walked
into H. Cook Sporting Goods or Mulcahy’s the fly case was probably no more
than 3 or 4 feet square. There were primarily wet flies with a few dry flies,
like the Royal Coachman, and almost
no nymphs. Sizes were 10 and 12s with
maybe a few 14s mixed in.
The fly selection was produced by local tyers like Max Jensen. Max was an
Albuquerque resident who tied five days
a week and fished two days. He always
fished during the week and his favorite
See “Made in New Mexico,” Page 10
A New Mexico classic
James Lucero of Tularosa has been making bows and arrows since he was a child. At age 77 he still makes them in much the
same fashion, with an eye toward the past and with materials he often finds close to home. A student of archeology and
history, Lucero also makes wooden arrows fletched with turkey feathers and stone arrow heads, a tradition “that should not be
lost,” he says. Read more about this New Mexico treasure on Page 9.
Forest fires neither good
nor bad, but necessary
By M.H. Dutch Salmon
Special to New Mexico Wildlife Federation
Fire is a key part of a healthy forest ecosystem. (Photo courtesy U.S. Forest Service)
I left home early, as usual, hoping to
beat the crowds to a popular stretch of
water. I needn’t have worried. My first
glimpse of the river from the high point
along the road told me there were no
crowds. And when I reached the trailhead and got a good look at the stream I
wasn’t sure I wanted to be there myself.
It all came to me then. I’d been reading about fires in the Gila National Forest
all summer that year – 2004 – but hadn’t
paid much attention. There are fires every summer in the forest and every summer individuals, groups and agencies debate the good and bad of the latest burn,
and how to manage it. Similar debates
occur nationwide.
But this fire had burned some 200,000
acres in the high country of the Gila;
with recent rains some of the ash residue
from those fires was coming down the
river and turning it a thick gray color that
threatened to ruin my day. No fish could
see a fly in that gray slurry and it looked
bad enough that it might threaten the fish
themselves.
“For two bits,” I thought, “I’d call the
whole thing off.”
However, it was a long drive getting
there and it was too late to go someplace
else. And I’m no purist; in my fly vest are
not only artificial flies, but also a packet
of hooks, sinkers and swivels. And my
See “Fires,” Page 13
President’s Message:
NM craftsmen deserve sportsmen’s support
By Ray Trejo, President
I’ve bought a lot of hunting and fishing gear over the
years – just ask my wife, Teri – but probably one of my
favorite pieces of equipment is a slingshot my grandfather made for me out of mesquite. He was always looking for that perfect mesquite bush to make slingshots for
us kids and I still have one of them. We killed a lot of
rabbits with that thing.
Growing up in Deming before the age of the Internet,
we didn’t have access to the latest and greatest in equipment. I remember making bows out of yucca and a piece
of string – pretty crude, but it gave us an excuse to get
out in the desert.
These days you can order almost anything from almost anywhere, which sure has its advantages. But I’d
say we also have lost something, too. We’ve lost the
connection that our parents or grandparents had with
the local craftsmen and vendors who provided what
they needed to hunt and fish.
In this issue of the Outdoor Reporter, New Mexico
Wildlife Federation shines a little light on those who
still hand-craft the tools we, as sportsmen, need and use
all the time. Living down in the southwest corner of the
state, I had no idea New Mexico had such talent or such
a tradition.
For example, as a lifelong bow hunter myself I was
floored to read about Harold Groves’ contributions to
archery and his efforts to establish the first bow hunting seasons.
After reading about Ed Scott and his Owl Bows, or
James Lucero over in Tularosa, it makes me want to set
aside my compound bow and try hunting with a traditional bow and wooden arrows.
Ray Trejo with a prized slingshot that was made in New
Mexico years ago -- by his grandfather.
The same goes with our New Mexico knife-makers.
After you read about them on Pages 4 and 5, visit their
websites or look for them at a knife show near you. It
makes you want to buy a knife from every one of them.
It turns out that New Mexico has rod makers, game
call makers, at least one reel manufacturer and a gun
parts maker. Who knew? (For websites and contact information for dozens of New Mexico craftsmen, look at
the free ads NMWF provided for them in this issue.)
Most sportsmen are not exactly made of money, but
this issue of the Outdoor Reporter makes a good case
for buying locally whenever you can. My parents owned
a small store in Deming so I know how important each
sale is. When you buy a New Mexico-made knife or fly
rod, you’re not only helping that particular craftsman
continue his tradition, but you’re pumping money into
the local economy.
Sure, you can buy cheap blades or duck calls from
China for a little less money, but you can’t deny that it’s
a lot more gratifying to use something that was built by
hand in New Mexico.
And in 30 or 40 years, hopefully you can hand down
that special knife, bow, turkey call or fly rod to your
grandchild and know that you gave them something
unique. Something that strengthens their connection to
New Mexico and its great outdoors.
Everyone must follow the law, like it or not
The State Game Commission went
out on a limb in May when it voted to
“Authorize Director Lane to oppose via
letter and any other means any change
in management or ownership of Valles
Caldera Preserve.” State law expressly
prohibits such votes without giving the
public adequate notice, and there was
no public notice at all on this vote in
Roswell.
Public notice is not a trivial matter.
We have a right to be heard on decisions
made by our government, but people
can’t participate if we don’t know an issue will be voted on.
Public participation also gives an
agency like the Game Commission better information on which to base its decisions. Gov. Susana Martinez this year
signed a bill that increases the public
notice requirement to 72 hours – it had
been 24 – because she, like the state
Legislature, believes public notice is
critical to good government.
So why did the Commission vote on
an important issue, in clear violation of
state law, without ANY public notice
whatsoever? Because Game and Fish
Director Jim Lane told them they could.
The Director of Game and Fish is
hired by the Governor’s appointees on
the State Game Commission and also
serves as the secretary of the Commission. It’s the director’s job to keep the
Commission running smoothly – and
legally. But at its May 23 meeting, Lane
told commissioners they could vote
because it was an “emergency,” even
though it clearly was not.
New Mexico law does allow a state
body like the Game Commission to
vote on issues that come up unexpectedly, but only on issues that, “if not addressed immediately by the public body,
will likely result in injury or damage to
persons or property or substantial financial loss to the public body.”
Lane told the Commission that the issue met the definition of an emergency
– meaning that there would be personal
injury, property damage or substantial
financial loss if they didn’t vote that day
and voice their opposition to S. 285.
He did not tell commissioners that S.
285 was not even through its first committee in the U.S. Senate, or that the
same legislation had been circulating in
Washington for three years. The “emergency” claim does not meet the smell
test, which is why the New Mexico
Foundation for Open Government also
took issue with it.
NMWF filed a formal complaint
about the vote with the state Attorney
General’s Office. In response, Commission Chairman Scott Bidegain wrote
that he “acted under a good faith belief
that the item … met the definition of an
‘emergency.’”
Lane’s response to the complaint
simply passes the buck, and fails to
point out that he actually told the Commission the situation qualified as an
emergency.
“As Director of the Department of
Game and Fish,” he wrote in response,
“I am not a member of the State Game
Commission and thus I am not authorized to take any official action on behalf of the State Game Commission by
means of voting. Accordingly, I did not
violate the Open Meetings Act …”
Sadly, this lack of respect for the law
is becoming a pattern. Following the
Las Conchas Fire in 2011, Lane approved a plan to offer refunds to hunters, even though such refunds were
illegal at the time. (The law was subsequently changed, with support from
NMWF and other sportsmen’s organizations.) Earlier this year, Lane allowed the ibex quota to be exceeded far
beyond what is allowed by regulation,
Hunters –
when
quality
counts . . .
New Mexico sportsmen protecting our outdoor way of life since 1914
Opportunity • Habitat • Youth
The Outdoor Reporter is a quarterly publication of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation,
a nonprofit group working to protect the rights and traditions of New Mexico hunters
and anglers since its inception in 1914. To join NMWF, to sign up for our Sportsman’s Alert
or to advertise in the Outdoor Reporter, visit www.nmwildlife.org.
Executive Director: Jeremy Vesbach
Development Director: Michelle Briscoe
Communications Director: Joel Gay
Conservation Director: Alan Hamilton
Sportsman Coordinator: John Cornell
Sportsman Coordinator: Max Trujillo
Ray Trejo, President
T a x i d e r m y
Serving New Mexico with
locations in Albuquerque
and Roswell
(575) 622-3640
www.outofthisworldtaxidermy.com
(505) 299-5404 • 121 Cardenas Drive NE, Albuquerque NM 87108 • www.nmwildlife.org
Page 2
without so much as an explanation.
Sportsmen are required to follow the
law in the field whether they agree with
a particular law or not. Sportsmanship
requires that we follow all game laws
and work to change those we disagree
with, not blatantly disregard them.
The same should apply to top brass at
the Department of Game and Fish. In
America we have a simple principle:
Nobody is above the law, period.
New Mexico sportsmen need a State
Game Commission that understands
and respects the law – even when it’s
inconvenient – and that is not willing to
allow laws and its own regulations to be
bent or broken under its watch.
We also need a Commission that
embraces public input and transparency, and refuses to act on matters that
haven’t been thoroughly vetted by those
who pay the bills – sportsmen.
The vast majority of sportsmen are
law-abiding citizens. We don’t poach,
don’t trespass, don’t litter, and we are
ashamed to be associated with those
who do break the law. The State Game
Commission should join us.
NMWF Outdoor Reporter • Summer 2013
Transition looming for Valles Caldera Preserve
Valles Caldera National Preserve is a step closer to
better public access and more average citizens to enjoy
its remarkable hunting and fishing after a key U.S. Senate committee approved a bill in June to transfer the
89,000-acre site to the National Park Service.
Under Senate Bill 285, Valles Caldera would remain
a Preserve, with hunting and fishing mandated by law.
“The Valles Caldera is one of the nation’s outstanding
elk hunting opportunities and a great place to fish with
your family,” said Ray Trejo, president of New Mexico Wildlife Federation. “S. 285 is important because
it puts Valles Caldera on firm financial footing for the
long term – making sure the Caldera will always have
the resources to be managed as the special place it is.”
Valles Caldera depends on congressional earmarks
for most of its funding – a shaky proposition as earmarks become a taget in Washington. Because the Preserve is millions of dollars short of meeting the mandate
to be financially self-sufficient, Valles Caldera could
stop receiving special funding and revert to the U.S.
Forest Service as early as 2015 – and no later than 2020
– with no additional funding or plan to be managed any
differently or better than the surrounding Santa Fe National Forest.
Because Valles Caldera provides critical spring and
summer range for much of the Jemez Mountains elk
herd, “It’s critical for hunters especially that the Caldera does not become just another overgrazed and underfunded unit of the National Forest,” Trejo said. “It
needs enough enforcement to keep it from being overrun and loved to death.”
The Senate bill lays out a strong plan to continue habitat restoration and creates stronger legal protections to
mandate hunting and fishing than is currently in law,
he continued. “It also presents the opportunity to expand some elk hunting opportunity into the neighboring backcountry of Bandelier National Monument.”
The Senate bill is identical to bills introduced in 2011
and 2012 by then-Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Sen. Tom
Udall. The newest version is sponsored by Udall and
Sen. Martin Heinrich. By ending the inefficiencies inherent in the current management model, S. 285 will actually save taxpayer money as well, such as eliminating
the need for Valles Caldera to buy its own insurance, at
a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
The bill passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with strong bipartisan support.
Valles Caldera National Preserve provides spring and summer habitat for Jemez Mountains elk, which makes it
important for sportsmen that the area continue to get special protection as a national preserve. Under S. 285, it
would continue to get that protection. (Photo courtesy Larry Lamsa)
mits at Valles Caldera.
Unfortunately the Trust is still charging $1,200 for
turkey hunters to access the property on over half its
hunts. S. 285 would bring full equity to the hunts at the
Caldera.
NPS Preserve model works
Under S. 285, Valles Caldera National Preserve would
become the 19th preserve managed by the Park Service
and the 18th where hunting and fishing are allowed.
(The only NPS preserve where hunting is not allowed is
Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas, of which
the NPS owns just 34 acres.)
Opponents of S. 285 say they afraid the National Park
Service will ignore the mandate from Congress and
limit hunting or fishing. Supporters, on the other hand,
can point to ongoing hunting opportunities at 17 other
National Preserves.
New Mexico Wildlife Federation has been sparring
For example, Big Thicket National Preserve in southwith the Valles Caldera Trust over hunting rights since east Texas has allowed hunting and fishing since Conthe experimental management system was created a gress created it in 1974. The Big Thicket legislation condecade ago, said NMWF Executive Director Jeremy tains virtually the same language as the Valles Caldera
Vesbach. “Our mission at NMWF is to stand up for the bill: “The Secretary [of the Interior] shall permit hunthunting rights of the average blue-collar resident hunting, fishing, and trapping on lands and waters under his
er, and that runs headlong into the pressure Congress jurisdiction within the preserve … except that he may
placed on the Trust to raise its own operating revenue.” designate zones where and periods when no hunting,
NMWF’s first battle with the Trust started over the fishing, trapping, or entry may be permitted for reasons
question of whether state law guaranteeing a certain of public safety, administration, flora and fauna protecpercentage of big game draw licenses for New Mexi- tion and management, or public use and enjoyment. …”
co residents applied to the Caldera. The Trust and the
But hunting has been allowed in Big Thicket for alDepartment of Game and Fish
most 40 years. Every year the
claimed it was exempt from the
Preserve provides 2,200 free
“Our mission at NMWF
state law. Consequently, resipermits to hunters to take white
dents got less than a quarter of
is to stand up for the
tail deer, feral hogs and waterbull elk hunts in the Caldera’s
fowl on about half of its 106,000
hunting rights of the
first hunting season in 2002.
acres.
NMWF took the issue to the
Similarly, the legislation that
average
blue-collar
New Mexico Attorney General,
created the newest preserve,
resident hunter, and
and eventually prevailed. Now
Great Sand Dunes National Prethe resident quota applies to all
that runs headlong into serve in southern Colorado, conValles Caldera big game hunts.
tains the same language and the
the pressure Congress
“At that time NMWF was run
same exceptions: “The Secreby volunteers,” Vesbach said.
tary shall permit hunting, fishplaced
on
the
Trust
to
“Seeing this little organization
ing, and trapping” … “except for
stand on principle and win a big
raise its own operating
reasons of public safety, adminvictory on behalf of the everyday
istration or compliance with aprevenue.”
hunter was electrifying. There
plicable law.”
are a lot of big, national orgaGreat Sand Dunes Nation–
Jeremy
Vesbach
nizations that do great work for
al Preserve was established in
NMWF 2004. Before that the area, some
habitat and sportsmen, but none
of them challenged the system at
42,000 acres, was in the National
Valles Caldera and some particiForest system. Hunting continues to this day, managed
pated in it. Until NMWF came back on the scene, no- by Colorado Parks and Wildlife.
body was standing up for the rights of everyday resident
“The NPS preserve model has been proven,” said
hunters.”
Vesbach. “The most important thing to recognize is
During that first season, the Valles Caldera Trust sold that S. 285 has stronger legal protections for hunting
elk hunting access permits to the highest bidder, put- and fishing rights than we have right now. It is a big step
ting one on eBay with a minimum bid of $10,000 and forward and presents us with an opportunity to expand
providing four others to Safari Club International and hunting into neighboring portions of Bandelier as well.”
Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation to auction. The organizations were allowed to keep 50 percent of auction
revenues, according to the Los Alamos Monitor.
Game and Fish also benefitted financially because
The original legislation creating Valles Caldera sadmore licenses went to nonresidents. NMWF members dled the new National Preserve with a unique mandate
later fought several efforts that aimed to change state to be financially self-supporting by 2015. The bill allows
law or bring back high-dollar elk hunting access per- for a possible extension to 2020, but Congress could
Legislation strengthens
hunting and fishing rights
Current system not sustainable
Sign up to become a member at nmwildlife.org
decide as early as 2015 that the experimental management model has run its course. Unless another plan is
in place, Valles Caldera would revert to the U.S. Forest
Service, managed by the Secretary of Agriculture.
“As hunters we use national forests all the time,” Vesbach continued. “We appreciate what the Forest Service does and continually fight to support the agency,
but it has a much more limited budget per acre than the
National Park Service. Santa Fe National Forest just
doesn’t have the resources to manage Valles Caldera as
the special place it is.”
Valles Caldera National Preserve spends around $5
million a year, yet takes in less than $1 million in revenue. Every year its funding comes through a special
earmark. But with budget cuts looming and earmarks
in particular coming under bipartisan scrutiny, Valles
Caldera could easily end up on the chopping block.
Under the current system Valles Caldera can charge
exorbitant fees to hunt and fish.
For example, a hunter can increase his odds of drawing a coveted Valles Caldera bull elk tag if he can afford
it. As part of its effort to raise money, Valles Caldera
allows an individual to purchase up to 20 lottery tickets for each of five available bull or either-sex hunts – a
total of 100 chances every year to those who an afford
$2,000 in lottery fees. In all other draw hunts in New
Mexico, hunters are on an even playing field and can
submit just one application a year.
Turkey hunts in Valles Caldera are even more skewed
toward those of greater means – a hunter can buy as
many draw tickets as he can afford.
Fishing opportunity also is priced out of reach for
most New Mexicans. A weekend day of fishing costs
$25 per person ($15 for kids), making it prohibitive for
most families to enjoy Valles Caldera’s streams.
“This belongs to everybody, and while we are charged
with protecting and preserving the land, we’re also
charged with providing access to the public,” Valles
Caldera Trust Chairman Kent Salazar told the Los Alamos Monitor earlier this summer. “By having to charge
exorbitant fees for hunting and fishing and different activities, it limits those who can participate in those activities.”
Heinrich, who has hunted for elk several times in
Valles Caldera, told the Monitor that expanding hunting
and fishing opportunities is “one of the primary reasons
I’m supporting this proposal. The preserve model ensures that hunting and fishing remain central activities
for the public to enjoy, and NPS management will help
balance expanded public access with conserving the
natural and cultural resources found in the area.”
The new bill and its predecessors have had strong local backing. The Los Alamos County Council, Los Alamos Chamber of Commerce, Village of Jemez Springs
and numerous sportsmen’s groups including Trout Unlimited and Backcountry Hunters and Anglers have expressed support for S. 285.
“Valles Caldera will become another under-funded,
over-run part of Santa Fe National Forest unless Congress does the right thing and authorizes a smooth,
planned transition outlined in S. 285,” said Trejo, the
NMWF president. “The NPS Preserve is a proven model that is a good fit to manage this national treasure,
on behalf of hunters, anglers and the American public.
I’m proud that NMWF has been and will continue to be
there on the ground fighting for the rights of the average
hunter and angler to enjoy this spectacular place.”
Page 3
Knife makers push boundaries of art, function
he said.
He still does some hand forging “the way Mr. Jones
taught me,” by monitoring the color of the steel as it
Knives have been around almost as long as human- heats, checking its properties with a magnet, then
kind – rock flakes were used as cutting tools more than plunging it into oil or sand for a controlled cooling. But
2 million years ago. Over time humans have refined he also cuts and shapes blades by hand out of bar matheir sharpened flint and obsidian into a mind-boggling terial – a technique known as stock removal, or as one
array of implements, from axes and arrowheads to maker said, “grinding away the parts that don’t look like
today’s fixed-blades and folders.
a knife.” Those he sends to Sunnyvale, Calif., for heat
One knife industry group reported nearly $1 billion treating.
in “sporting knives” sold in 2007 – a small slice of the
Whatever the method, it apparently works. “I’ve had
$90 billion that hunters and anglers spend every year on my knives hold up through four elk, three deer, two
equipment, but not exactly peanuts. And a surprising bears and even a couple of javelina – field dressed and
number of knives are made in New Mexico.
skinned – between sharpenings,” he said.
Dozens, if not hundreds of New Mexicans make
At their most basic, knives are no more than a blade
knives. Some are hobbyists turning out one or two sim- and a handle, but those two variables set up an infinite
ple fixed blades every year for family and friends. For number of possibilities. Cordova, for example, uses one
others it’s a full-time job, requiring both manufacturing type of high carbon steel for his hunting knives but anand marketing skills. A few have pushed their craft into other for Bowie knives and forged damascus for folders.
the realm of art.
Jerry Duran (our Sportsman of the Quarter, Page 12)
It’s satisfying work, said Tom Black, who has been forges Sandia Peak Tram cable or Harley-Davidson
turning bars of steel and slabs of wood into knives for chains into knife blades. Others prefer chainsaw bars.
more than 40 years. “When you can take raw materi“It all depends on the application,” said Burnley.
als and end up with something
“There isn’t really one steel
that’s not only useful but pleasthat does everything best.”
ant to look, it’s a very satisfyHis folding knives typically
ing thing.”
use CPM 154 stainless, while
Most knife makers begin the
hunting and combat blades are
same way, said Lucas Burnley
D2, which he calls a “toothy”
of Albuquerque, who started
carbide that cuts meat nicely.
Burnley Knives (www.burnBut the steel is just one facleyknives.com) a decade ago.
tor, he added. “Heat treatment,
“Everyone starts off with
edge geometry and blade
fixed-blade hunters,” he said.
shape are probably more im“Fixed-blade knives are where
portant than the type of steel.
I cut my teeth.”
It’s hard to tell the difference
These days he focuses mainbetween different types of
ly on contemporary tactical
steel in the same knife. But
knives – folders with high-end
the one that’s ground right
finishes – but he still makes A matched pair of Tom Black’s knives
and shaped right, you’ll feel
fixed blades for hunting and
it.”
other uses. And people are snapping them up. He no
Handle choice is also a key component in a custom
longer takes orders and his waiting list is about two knife. Many knife makers prefer composite materials
years long, he said. “I’ve been very, very lucky.”
such as micarta because natural materials can shrink,
Nobody is born knowing how to make a knife. Burn- swell or check.
ley said he learned the basics from books and the InOther knife makers take a different approach. Tom
ternet. But he soon learned that veteran knife makers Black ([email protected]) leans toward natural
are often happy to help those just starting out. He – and materials, such as box elder burl that has been “stabimany other makers – cite Joe Cordova of Bosque Farms lized” through pressure treating. “It’s some of the most
as a key mentor.
beautiful wood you’ve ever seen,” he says, and that’s
Cordova, in turn, said he started making knives 60 coming from a guy whose knives can sell for $10,000.
years ago in the shop at Jones Hardware in AlbuquerIronwood is another durable and stable natural mateque, where he worked as a teenager. The store owner rial, he said, but his favorite is mother of pearl. “It’s not
was a master metal worker who showed him how to only pretty; it has a satin feel that’s unlike anything else
forge an old, worn-down file into a razor-sharp blade. It I’ve ever touched.”
was astounding to see the effects of fire, water, sand and
The handle material is up to the customer, of course,
oil on a piece of steel, Cordova said.
Black said, “But unless somebody asks, I just pick it out
“I probably made 25 knives that first year and gave myself.”
‘em to my relatives,” he said. The following year a cusRuben Ramos of Jal also leans toward natural materitomer came into the store, saying he had heard that als for his hunting knives, from maple burls and mamsomeone working there made good knives and that he moth ivory to staghorn, giraffe bone and box elder.
wanted one. Cordova had three on hand and sold two,
He started making knives 25 years ago, he said, learnfor $3 apiece. That was in 1953.
ing from his father-in-law. He was a hobbyist for many
“Since then I don’t know how many knives I’ve made, years, with a full-time job and kids at home. But about
but probably several thousand. And I’m still at it,” he four years ago Ramos went pro. “This is a full-time job
said. He just turned 78.
now.”
Cordova (www.joecordovaknives.com) made knives
Making the leap from amateur to professional is not
sporadically for many years, but after suffering a back something every knife maker can accomplish, but Rainjury in 1971 he went full-time. Several years later he mos said he set out to make it and appears to have sucstudied with one of the masters of the craft, Bob Love- ceeded. These days there’s a year-long wait to get a Raless of Riverside, Calif.
mos knife (www.rrknives.com).
Although he does make folding knives and ornate
“It started out a little slow as I was trying to get my
combat knives, Cordova said most of his clientele are name out there,” he recalled. He got business cards and
hunters. “I have knives literally all over the world,” a website and started going to hunting and knife shows
– “everything a small business should do.”
But everything changed
when a hunting show acquaintance asked him
along on a Texas pig hunt –
it was filmed and televised.
When the show aired on
the Sportsman’s Channel,
Ramos Knives suddenly
had the kind of advertising you can’t buy, he said.
“The rest is history.”
These days, Facebook
and other social media also
play a role in his success,
Ramos said. “I make a
good knife and when I get
feedback, I post it on Facebook.” That, in turn, gets
picked up and reposted and
gradually turns into business.
Black, the Albuquerque
knife maker, is another
Richard Rogers of Magdalena hand made every blade on this magnificent folder,
then had master engraver Tim George do the finish work.
who built up his business
By Joel Gay
Page 4
Tom Black grinds a new blade in his Albuquerque shop.
from a hobby. Back in the 1960s he was teaching for Albuquerque Public Schools and wanted a second source
of income. A neighbor suggested they both try making
knives. More than 40 years and hundreds of knives later, Black is still at it – hunting knives, kitchen knives,
folding knives.
“It was a pretty strong business for a while,” Black
said. Now 77, he’d like to retire, “but people won’t let
me.”
Like most New Mexico knife makers, he initially sold
his knives at shows and arts and crafts fairs. Over time
he built up clientele all over the country, and eventually
all over the world. “The word spreads,” he said.
Once an agent for the Sultan of Brunei came to a
show looking for a matched pair of knives, one black
and one white. The Albuquerque knife maker just happened to have a 24-inch Damascus dagger with a fossilized mammoth ivory handle, inlaid gold, diamonds
and rubies and a $10,000 price tag. The agent bought
it without blinking an eye. Unfortunately, Black said,
he didn’t take the onyx-handled companion – it wasn’t
fancy enough.
Personal connection is often the heart of selling custom knives, several makers said. People don’t spend
hundreds of dollars or more on a knife simply because
they need to slice bread. They buy one because they like
the knife and they like the maker.
“A $25 WalMart knife could work fine for someone’s
whole life, but a custom knife is about the connection to
Eddie Stalcup of Grants has won numerous awards for
his “bird and trout” knives. Notice the scalloped notch
in the blade for holding a bird leg and the spoon in
the handle for cleaning out a fish bood line.
the craftsman,” said Burnley. “It’s the idea of an heirloom product – something they can hand down to a kid,
or something that’s been through a war or through a job
or through a bunch of hunts with them. Not only do they
enjoy the tool, they can call me and have a connection to
the guy who made it for them.”
Richard Rogers, a part-time but extremely successful knife maker in Magdalena, said a buyer will spend
from several hundred to several thousand dollars on a
knife for a number of reasons, but mainly because custom knives make connections.
“Some just want something that’s handmade, something that’s really high quality. They just appreciate
well-made things,” he said. Others have asked him to
duplicate knives like the one their grandfather carried.
And some – especially visitors – want a reminder of
New Mexico or the western way of life. “They see it as a
piece of the state,” said Rogers, “something that makes
them feel a connection to New Mexico.”
Historic rifle replica
maker switches gears
By Joel Gay
New Mexico hunters can go to any
number of gunsmiths for repairs and upgrades, but there’s just one who builds
rifle parts from scratch.
“We make everything from the screws
on up,” said Al Story of the Borchardt
Rifle Corp., located about 15 miles northwest of Silver City. That would include
actions, triggers, stocks and barrels for a
replica of one of the most accurate buffalo guns ever made, the Sharps-Borchardt
Model 1878.
For many years Borchardt Rifle Corp.
produced and sold its Sharps replicas and
other unique firearms, but recently Story
has refocused his work on the individual
components, and his business in barrels
is booming.
A machinist by trade and a hunter by
avocation, Story started building firearms in 1980 while living in San Diego,
Calif. He and his wife moved to southern New Mexico in 1990 to escape the
rat race and live where he could fire a
gun legally on his own property. Around
2000 Borchardt Rifle Corp.(www.brcrifles.com) was born.
Why build replicas of a buffalo gun?
In part because of the history, and in
part “Because nobody else was making
them,” Story said. “And now I can understand why. They’re kind of difficult to
make.”
That’s probably an understatement.
Some have called the Borchardt action
one of the most difficult to make, requiring world-class machinist skills.
“That gun was really ahead of its
time,” said Story. Unlike some other
Sharps, the Borchardt has a hammerless
striker system that ensures all the energy
goes directly down the bore. Shortly after it was introduced 135 years ago, the
Sharps-Borchardt swept the top awards
at national and international long-distance shooting competitions like the
Creedmore Cup Matches.
When he was still building rifles, competitive shooters were his main customers, Story said. “I’ve shipped them all
over – to Australia, Canada, Europe,
Alaska. So far, everything I’ve built gets
good reviews.”
Each rifle started out as flat stock and
rods of heat-treated steel. Story and his
crew made every part by hand – 39 for
each Sharps-Borchardt – including all
the components of the receiver, action
and trigger.
Borchardt Rifle Corp. stopped making
its trademark rifles last year, although
demand had already plummeted with the
economy. The Sharps started at around
$5,000 and went up from there. Over
the years Story said he built about 100
of them, both for collectors and long-distance shooters. He made other rifles as
well, including some bolt-actions.
Nevertheless, his machine shop is
working overtime these days thanks to
strong demand for rifle barrels and Ruger
handgun cylinders. “It slowed down for a
while, but now we’re backlogged about a
year,” Story said. “It’s hard for us to keep
up with demand.”
The barrel business is his new bread
and butter, he said. He buys steel rod
in lengths up to 24 feet long and 1-3/8
inches in diameter, then cuts the rods
to rough length. The barrel blanks must
be slow baked for several hours at 1,100
degrees to ensure they don’t warp when
they’re drilled and reamed to size. After
machining them to the proper caliber and
cutting them to final length, Story said,
“You look down the bore and it’s like
looking in a mirror.”
The rifling itself takes just 16 seconds
– “It takes longer to lube the barrel,” he
said – using rifling buttons and a machine Story designed and built on site.
Once the barrel interior is finished, the
exterior can be turned, tapered or milled
octagonally. Story said he is currently
working on an order of 1,000 barrels and
is hoping for more.
The shop also manufactures cylinders
Al Story made some of the most accurate rifles available
at Borchardt Rifle Corp. near Silver City, but he’s now
focusing on components such as high-end triggers, rifle
barrels and handgun cylinders. At right is a single set
trigger assembly. (Photos courtesy Ken Lewis)
and upgrade parts for Ruger handguns,
as well as muzzle brakes and a barrel
vise. Thanks to the strong sales of barrels and cylinders, Story said he’s thinking about buying additional equipment
and hiring extra staff.
But in spite of the recent uptick in business, Story said the future of Borchardt
Rifle Corp. is unclear. At 72 years old, he
said he’s not sure how many more years
he has left working in the machine shop.
His knees are still good, he said, but his
memory isn’t what it used to be – a worrisome issue in a shop where numbers
are crucial.
Hopefully, he said, Borchardt Rifle
Corp. will continue on into the future
– perhaps with a new owner – and New
Mexico can continue to hold a small but
significant place in the firearms industry.
Got quail? We do!
Where you’ll be hunting
Ladder Ranch - Located near Kingston, the
Ladder Ranch provides extraordinary quail
habitat with rolling hills, timbered draws
and grassy hillsides. Three species of quail
(Mearns, Gambel’s and scaled) are found
in abundance. This ranch is one of the very
few places where it is possible to take a New
Mexico quail slam (one of each species in one
day). In addition to the excellent hunting,
the panoramic views, wildlife and terrain are
unforgettable.
Armendaris Ranch - Located on the
Jornada del Muerto, the Armendaris Ranch
is a vast expanse of desert grasslands and
mountain ranges that hold large numbers of
Gamble’s and scaled quail. Because of
the open country, wildlife viewing is
extraordinary and includes buffalo, oryx,
mule deer, antelope and the largest herd of
desert bighorn sheep in the state.
New Mexico Quail Inc. will hold a sealed bid
auction for two very special quail hunts during
the 2013-14 season on two of the most famous
ranches in the state. Both hunts are fully guided
one-day hunts for up to three shooters, including:
• All-day hunt on a custom Humvee “quail wagon”
• Guides to assist with transportation
• Dogs and handlers (or bring your own if you wish)
• Lunch and beverages in the field
• Bird cleaning
Minimum bid for each three-person hunt is $2,400. Send bids
to New Mexico Quail Inc., PO Box 1234, Mesilla Park, NM 88047. Bids
must be postmarked no later than September 20. Winning bidders will
be notified by October 1. Each bid must contain the name, address,
phone number and e-mail address for the contact person and the amount
of the bid. Winning bidders will have 15 days after notification to forward
funds to cover the bid.
New Mexico’s Premier
Quail Habitat Organization
(575) 644-3936 • PO Box 1234 • Mesilla Park NM 88047
Page 5
Bamboo rods
not a lost art
By Joel Gay
Bamboo fishing rods used to be the norm before fiberglass and graphite came along and displaced them. But
cane rods never completely disappeared and today in
New Mexico at least one custom rod builder is breathing new life into that most traditional rod material.
Bruce Smith of Edgewood watched his grandfather
making bamboo fishing rods decades ago. Now, at age
63, Smith is carrying on the family craft as SweetRock
RodSmiths (www.sweetrockrodsmiths.com).
“It’s a personal thing for me,” he said. “I’ve been a
woodworker all my life,” so when he decided to start
making rods, bamboo just seemed like the right material. “I do it mostly because it’s natural product – a grass.
If I could mess with graphite I would, but I only have
so much time.”
He makes a range of rods, from 6-foot bass bait casters to 8-1/2-foot fly rods. This spring he designed a stout
10-1/2-footer with an eye toward king salmon fishing in
Canada or Alaska.
It can take nearly 60 man-hours to build a single rod,
stretched out over several weeks. But every one starts
with a stalk of Chinese bamboo, which he buys in 12foot pieces and stores in a rack in his tidy but jam-
Bruce Smith learned to build bamboo fly rods watching his grandfather. Now he’s continuing the craft in his
Edgewood shop, where he turns raw bamboo into heirloom-quality fly rods. Above, Smith poses with the machine he built to turn the finished rods while he adds thread. At left, he prepares to split a piece of Tonkin bamboo, an early step in a process that takes months. (Photos by Joel Gay)
packed shop outside of Edgewood.
The bamboo comes in 2-inch diameter stalks. After
cutting a piece to rough size – either 3, 4 or 6 feet long –
Smith splits the stalk into strips about 3/8-inches wide,
driving a small wedge the length as if he were cutting
kindling wood.
He sands the exterior of each strip flat to remove the
thick nodes, or knuckles, then soaks the strips in water
and runs them through a small shaper that mills each
piece into a triangular cross section measuring 60 degrees per side. That’s how six pieces form a round rod,
he explained.
But remember that each rod is two or three pieces
long, and that each gets a spare tip. He has to keep track
of as many as 24 bamboo strips for every rod he builds.
There’s a substantial amount of math involved in every fly rod, Smith said. The finished length and weight
requires that each piece must not only fit its adjoining
pieces, but also taper perfectly from end to end. A machinist by trade, Smith has made a number of his own
tools, but he bought a precision shaper to shave the bamboo strips to exactly the right size and proportion.
“It saves a lot of time and gets it accurate,” he said.
“In the old days they’d do that with a hand plane.”
Finally there comes a day when he lays out the pieces
side by side and coats them with a two-part glue – a
glue so sensitive he measures out the proportions with
a jeweler’s scale.
“If you don’t have the glue just right, your rod will
delaminate,” he said – which has happened to him more
than once. After gluing, he wraps the rod piece with
string using another home-made tool and hangs the
blanks in a curing oven for five days.
Then the finish work begins, which itself can take
months. It includes more calculations to determine
where to cut the blanks, sanding the tips for ferrules,
wrapping the guides with thread and painting on numerous coats of spar varnish.
Smith also gathers the burls and oak bark to make
wood and cork handles. He machines the reel seats, lock
rings and other hardware out of nickel-silver and sometimes gold. His high-end rods come with a cedar storage
See “Bamboo,” following page
Young Albuquerque entrepreneur reeling them in
Nationwide, fly fishermen spend millions of dollars a year on reels, and now
New Mexico is getting a slice of the
action.
Matthew Taylor, a 26-year-old Albuquerque angler who also has an interest
in graphics design, said he was noodling
around with pencil and paper last year
when he started drawing fly reels just to
see what they might look like.
“Then I started thinking, ‘I wonder if
could make one of these.’”
It turns out he could, with a little help
from a lot of friends.
In less than a year, Taylor Reels (www.
taylorreels.com) has gone from brainstorm to business. The fledgling Albuquerque company, which appears to be
New Mexico’s only fishing reel manufacturer, built and sold more than 100 fly
reels in its first few months of operation
earlier this year.
“Sometimes I’m surprised at it myself,” Taylor said. “Even my wife, when
I told her I wanted to make fly reels, she
was like, ‘OK, whatever.’ But once I actually started selling them she was like,
‘Oh, I get it now.’”
As of early July he was too busy making and selling reels to answer questions
in detail, but said, “Things are going
great. … I am not sure on the exact number of reels sold, but we have been continuing to sell at a great pace.”
After deciding to make a fishing reel,
Taylor had to figure out how to do it. He
scoured the Internet for information on
design and construction, talked to maPage 6
Taylor Reels, a new Albuquerque company, took
an unusual route into manufacturing, but so far it’s
working out well for owner Matthew Taylor.
chinists and met with an engineer.
Then came the realization that stops
many potential businesses in their tracks:
“I discovered pretty quickly I couldn’t
afford to do this because it takes money
to make money,” he said.
Being Internet savvy, however, he
turned not to the banks but to social media – specifically, to the website Kickstarter. The site bills itself as a “new way
to fund creative projects.” It provides a
place for someone like Taylor to explain
a project to the world and ask for finan-
cial support. (Since 2009,
Kickstarter has helped more
than 44,000 projects get off
the ground.)
Taylor said he made a
short video about his proposed new reel company
and set a goal of raising
$5,000. Within a month,
however, backers chipped in
more than $10,000, allowing
Taylor to make the leap.
Kickstarter funders back
projects to help them get
off the ground, not to profit financially, and project
creators like Taylor offer
rewards rather than loan
repayments. For example,
Taylor offered “my eternal
gratitude” and a personalized thank-you letter to those
who pledged $5. Bigger donors received a tee-shirt or
hat. Those who pledged $99
or more received a Taylor
reel.
Taylor, who comes from family of avid
sportsmen, has been fishing since he was
a kid. He studied marketing and graphics
design in college. With Kickstarter cash
in hand, he was able to combine his interests and create a business.
Although he eventually hopes to manufacture in New Mexico, he said economics forced him to have the work done
elsewhere. He is having the components
machined in China but assembled in
New Mexico.
As of early July he was offering two
sizes of large-arbor reels – 3-4 and 5-6
weights. Both are machined from aerospace quality bar stock aluminum and
come with a carbon disk drag system,
which he buys separately.
By next year he hopes to move the
manufacturing back to the United States,
and preferably to Albuquerque. “That’s
the ultimate goal – getting something
done here. It’s just more complicated to
manufacture things here – and more expensive,” he said.
But having a tag on each reel that says
“Made in New Mexico” is his goal, he
added. “That’s what I want. Made in New
Mexico – there’s a lot of pride in that.”
Just as his Kickstarter venture turned
out better than expected, the whole project has come together fairly easily, Taylor said. “I’ve had a lot of help along the
way,” such as a brother-in-law who introduced him to an engineer who provided
key advice on manufacturing, and a web
designer friend who helped with the aesthetics of Taylor Reels.
“A lot of people do like the outdoors
and seem really willing to help,” he said.
Earlier this summer Taylor was selling
his reels online only, but said he planned
to talk to New Mexico and southern Colorado fly fishing shops about carrying
his line.
First, however, he needed to replenish
his stock. They’ve been popular and by
early June he was just about out.
NM fly fishing business on the move since 1980
The biggest names in fly fishing –
Sage, Orvis, Winston, Loomis – are well
known among anglers, but in New Mexico there’s another name that ranks right
up with the rest: Los Pinos.
Since 1980 Los Pinos Rods has built
thousands of custom graphite fly rods for
angling aficionados as well as for small
shops in New Mexico and elsewhere.
Owners Bob and Lee Widgren made
some 600 rods a year during their heyday, even as Los Pinos branched out and
began making wooden landing nets, rod
tubes, fly-tying tables and other fishing
equipment.
Along the way they moved from San
Antonio, N.M., north of Tres Piedras,
to Albuquerque, opened Los Pinos Fly
Shop, then got out of the brick-and-mortar business and went online.
Now they’re entering yet another new
phase, focusing less on building custom
rods and more on helping others create
their own. As Custom Fly Rod Crafters
(www.flyrodcrafters.com), Bob and Lee
provide the blanks, handles and other
components to anglers worldwide.
You don’t hear any complaints from
the Widgrens, however. “We’re two happy campers,” Bob said recently as he and
Lee put the finishing touches on another
order. “We started out with absolutely
nothing,” he said, and built it into a thriving business known for high quality and
personal attention.
Bob began fly fishing in the early 1970s
when the main decision was whether to
buy a bamboo rod or a Fenwick fiberglass. “I always had a ‘how-things-work’
type of mentality,” he said, and after the
first graphite rods came out in the mid70s, he decided to make his own. Friends
then started asking him to make rods for
them, too.
At the time he and Lee were living
on San Antonio Mountain. Undaunted,
they formed Los Pinos Rods and started building custom rods using top-quality blanks from Sage, Scott and others.
What made their rods stand out was the
overall quality topped off by a phenomenal finish, they said.
Building a custom rod consists of three
phases, according to Bob. Assembling the
pieces, handle and hardware is what Bob
called “the blacksmithing.” Next comes
the process of wrapping the guides with
thread. Last is the finish work. Before epoxy, Los Pinos would give each rod up to
10 coats of varnish.
Before the last coat, Lee inscribed
each rod in fine, hand-painted lettering.
Her lettering was among the details that
always set Los Pinos Rods apart, they
said. One recent customer had his rod inscribed with his name and the fishing trip
he had it built for: “Alaska 2013, 9-foot,
9-weight.”
She also inscribes the rod’s serial number. In June they built rod No. 5615. If the
owner of No. 2 or 2222 were to call the
shop and need a replacement part, Bob
and Lee could check their files and know
everything they needed: what blank was
used, the length and weight and even
what type and color of thread.
Repair has become a major part of
the business, they said. “The more rods
you have out there,” said Lee, “the more
you’re repairing.”
Fly shops in New Mexico, Colorado
and Arizona as well as Atlanta and Chicago eventually began stocking Los Pinos Rods or having them built specifically for the shop. At one time 32 dealers
Bob and Lee Widgren have been in the fly-fishing business together for more than 30 years, as rod builders, shop owners, and
now as an online operation providing fly rod components worldwide. (Photo by Joel Gay)
carried the New Mexico brand. “Nobody
bought a ton of them,” but from the mid1980s to the late 1990s Los Pinos was
producing an average of 600 a year.
Like a tiny stream feeding into bigger
creeks and rivers, Los Pinos Rods has
been part of a major industry. The number of fly anglers is estimated at more
than 3.8 million, according to a 2012
report prepared for the American Fly
Fishing Trade Association by Southwick
Associates Inc. Together those anglers
spent almost $750 million in just small to
medium size, mom-and-pop stores. That
figure excludes sales through the large
national chains such as Cabela’s.
As the American industry grew, so
did Los Pinos. Sensing demand for high
quality products, they began making
their own wooden landing nets – Lee
hand-tied all the net bags while Bob bent
the wooden frames.
They also got into rod tubes after their
supplier became unreliable. They started a new brand, Black Guard, building
and powder-coating aluminum tubes
in Albuquerque. Initially the rods were
only for Los Pinos, but they eventually
began supplying for Scott, Winston and
several smaller companies. At its peak,
Black Guard built about 15,000 rod cases
a year. “That’s probably the only way we
survived,” Bob laughed.
By then they had moved their operations to Albuquerque. They soon saw
the need for a storefront operation, and
in 1988 the Widgrens opened Los Pinos
Fly Shop. Business was booming, but
between the shop, rods and tubes, “We
were working 24/7,” Bob said.
That pace eventually took its toll, however, and in 2008 they sold the fly shop
to Mark and Cindy Sawyer. They also
closed down their tube business, even as
they established their online operation.
They still build custom fly rods, how-
ever. “We’re down to a couple dozen per
year, but that’s great,” Bob said.
While many small businesses have
suffered as the result of the Internet, Bob
and Lee said they could see change coming and went with it. And now they’re
part of the global supply chain, shipping
everything needed for do-it-yourself rod
builders from Deming to Dubai.
Bob has been teaching rod-building
classes for many years and continues
today, passing on his passion for finely crafted fly rods to anyone willing to
make the same effort he did nearly 40
years ago. Perhaps one of them will take
it as far as he and Lee have.
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Beginner archery sets
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Open 7 days a week
. . . Bamboo fly rods not lost art
Continued from previous page
box that he builds, also.
Prices start at about $1,000. Packages
including a rod tube, Loomis reel, Cortland silk line are north of $2,400.
“I don’t recommend them for a firsttime fisherman,” Smith said.
He has sold a few rods at fishing shows,
and tried advertising in magazines and
online, but never got much response.
“Word of mouth is what works,” he said.
“It’s a hands-on type of thing – people
actually have to feel a bamboo rod to understand what the difference is.”
And “made in New Mexico” is a key
element of his marketing, Smith said.
“That’s 100 percent of the sales I have.”
But it’s a labor of love, he added. “I’m
not in business per se. If I had to count on
it for a living, I’d be out of business. It’s
something to keep me occupied.”
And to keep New Mexico on the map
in the rare world of bamboo rods.
2910 Carlisle NE • Albuquerque
(505) 878-9768 • www.archeryshoppe.biz
Page 7
Grants bowyer Scott blends history and science
By Joel Gay
Most bow hunters have embraced the
compound bow for its advantages over
recurve and long bows, but for those who
prefer a more traditional approach, New
Mexico is home to numerous bow makers, including a one-of-a-kind bowyer in
Grants named Ed Scott.
Scott is a master bow maker with an
encyclopedic knowledge of North American bows, hunting traditions and the
physics of the bow. His one-man operation, Owl Bows, has produced hundreds
of bows in a variety of styles, but mainly
what he calls “bows for the silent hunter.”
“I’ve always been interested in bows,”
said the 70-year-old Scott, who grew up
poor in southcentral Florida and helped
feed his large family by taking rabbits,
quail, frogs and fish with homemade
bows. “There were 11 of us kids,” he
said. “We were scrambling for something to eat all the time.”
An uncle taught him and his brothers
to make bows, and he continued to make
them through his early years, but Scott
said he quit the craft for 40 years after
he entered his late teens and got interested in other things. He spent time in the
Navy, then was a tree surgeon for many
years until breaking his back in a fall.
During his recovery from that accident
he made a replacement handle for an axe
and rediscovered the joy of working with
wood, he said. Using a remnant of that
project, he also built a bow for his grandson. That was 14 years ago.
“I enjoyed that so much, I kept doing it,” he said. “Then I found out I
could market my bows,” which are built
and decorated in the style of his Native
American forebears. Over time he came
up with new styles. Now, he said, “I can
sell everything I can make.”
Scott figures he’s made about 1,000
bows, at a rate of around 50 a year. He
doesn’t make or use anything other than
traditional styles. Recurves are too noisy,
he said, while compounds are “more machine than bow.” And he knows from
experience that his bows work. He has
killed numerous animals with them,
and one friend using an Owl Bow and a
stone-point arrow killed a 2,200-pound
bison, he said.
“It’s a very effective weapon,” he said.
“Even though they’re much slower than
compound bows, they shoot heavier arrows so they penetrate better.” Some
of his bows shoot 700-grain arrows, he
said, and most are sold to hunters.
Scott builds bows from more than a
dozen types of wood, including various
junipers, hickory, ash and apple, but his
favorite is Osage orange. He backs most
of his hunting bows with sinew – elk,
deer, bison and even horse – which gives
a bow tremendous strength and power.
After cutting the wood billet into a
rough shape, or stave, he clamps it onto
a wooden form and uses a heat gun to
Ed Scott of Grants calls his company
Owl Bows, with the motto, “Bows for the
silent hunter.”
At right are a few of the bows he has
built recently, backed with sinew or
snake skin and decorated with designs
reflecting his Native American heritage.
(Photos courtesy Ed Scott)
warm the wood to around 350 degrees,
at which point it bends easily and retains
its new shape.
He glues on the sinew or other backing, then lets the stave cure for at least
two months – and up to six months – before starting to work it into final shape
with a rasp, file and sander. Kids’ bows
typically don’t get any backing, so it only
takes about five hours to build one, he
said, but hunting bows can take up to 60
hours over six months.
What really sets Owl Bows apart is the
design. “I’ve come up with a style nobody’s seen before,” Scott said. It combines elements from ancient northern
Europe and North American Indian, but
the distinguishing feature is a long, narrow shape with unbending tips. He works
the bow so that most of the bending occurs near the handle, he said.
Ancient bowyers in Sweden as well as
the Sioux country came up with a similar
shape, he said. “That shows great understanding of the physics of the bow. One
that bends all the way to the tip won’t
shoot as well as one that doesn’t bend
that far.”
In addition to the bows’ shape, Scott
makes them in different styles, including traditional long bows and five-curve
“horse bows” – used by horseback hunters and warriors that combine tremendous power and compact size.
After several years of making wooden
bows, however, Scott said he needed a
new challenge. He began making bows
of horn, both bighorn sheep and oryx.
They take about 120 man-hours and
about 18 months to construct, and there
are probably only eight or nine people in
the world who make them, he said. His
oryx-horn bow is likely the only one of
its kind on earth.
Asked how he figured out the construction technique for a horn bow, Scott
simply quoted his company motto: “Intelligence guided by experience.”
He sells his bows through his website
(www.edscott.us) and at the two traditional bow shows he attends every year.
Most of his sales come from word of
mouth advertising and from repeat sales.
One customer has 11 Owl bows, he said,
Ed Scott uses a variety of materials for his traditional bows, including juniper, but his preference is Osage orange.
Page 8
and five brothers he met have bought
more than two dozen between them.
“Made in New Mexico” is definitely a
selling point, Scott said. Every bow that
leaves his shop says “Ed Scott, Grants,
NM.” “People look for that to make sure
it’s authentic. There are only two of us
in the country who make a living selling
these types of bow,” and the other one is
a former student.
Scott takes on a number of students
every year. They spend a week in his
shop, he said, learning one-to-one from
the master. “It’s rewarding but tiring,”
he said. “They pick my brain completely
clean.”
But he also takes his teaching on the
road. With other traditional bow makers,
Scott is hoping to reintroduce the skill to
Native American tribes. He has taught
numerous workshops in hopes of reviving the craft in communities where it has
been lost.
Still, not everyone can make a good
bow, as Scott told videographer and
NMSU student Ryle Yazzie (a link to the
video is on Scott’s website). There’s an
art to making a bow that becomes evident during the tillering processs – when
the bow is flexed and strung, then sanded or scraped to create the proper shape,
draw weight and pull length.
“This is where the artistry comes in,
that sense of ratio and proportion and
getting the limbs to bend properly without breaking,” Scott said. “If a person aspires to be a bowyer they have to have a
good natural sense of ratio and proportion. It can’t be taught.”
Tularosa archer keeps
age-old traditions alive
To walk into James Lucero’s home
and shop in Tularosa is like going back
in time, to when flint arrowheads and
wooden bows were the keys to survival.
Lucero, 77, is one of those rare individuals who does it all – hunts with his
own bows, hand-makes arrows and stone
arrowheads, and uses the feathers, hide,
antler and bone of his harvested animals
to help construct his next project.
It’s not exactly a common outlook, but
Lucero is a keeper of the flame. “It’s a
tradition I feel like should be kept alive
forever,” he said.
Lucero was 10 years old and living in
Carrizozo when he made his first bow.
There was a good archer in town who
made his own and who shared his craft
with the curious young hunter, he said.
“I started making them out of surveyor’s lathe, which I glued and tied
and wired with copper wire and finished
with a pocket knife,” he recalled. He
also made his own arrows, whittled out
of long, straight shoots from his grandmother’s apple trees.
There were no stores selling bows and
arrowheads in Carrizozo in the 1940s.
When Lucero started making his own
equipment, he got blacksmiths in town
to make his arrowheads, using horseshoe
nails. “Then I learned how to make ‘em
myself,” Lucero said, though he didn’t
bother with a forge. “I just used a hammer and smashed the nails flat on an
anvil. They worked real good.”
For years, he said, “Everywhere I went
I had a bow with me,” along with a quiver made from a blue-jeans pant leg. By
age 12, “I was an expert at seven to 10
yards,” shooting marbles, grasshoppers,
lizards and cans with his homemade bow
and arrows.
But his archery skills made a major
leap at age 14, he said, after a neighbor
hired him to trap bobcats and other predators. One day at the Three Rivers trading post, a local Native American called
him over and said, “We know who you
are” – the boy with the bow. The man
said he would build Lucero “a good bow”
for two of his bobcat pelts.
The man taught Lucero to heat treat his
wood and to back the bow with rawhide
for strength – a technique Lucero has
used ever since.
These days Lucero is particular about
the piece of wood he uses for a bow, but
not so much the species. “You can make
a bow out of just about any material as
long as you back it with something to
keep it from breaking,” he said. These
days he uses mostly store-bought material, and has made several bows from lumber purchased at Home Depot, including
maple and red oak.
But he’s also tapped local resources,
such as mesquite root, mulberry and
Osage orange he found growing in Tularosa. Even Chinese elm, he said, “is
real good wood.”
Decades ago he learned to heat treat
wood by placing a new bow stave in a
10-inch-deep trench, then covering it
with sand and finally with hot rocks and
leaving it for three days.
Now Lucero lays a heavy slab of railroad rail on the wood and leaves it out
on his concrete porch in the hot Tularosa
sun for a few days. “That works just as
good, but you gotta have patience and
just leave it alone.”
He still uses hand tools to shape the
bow, and Titebond III glue to fasten the
backing – typically hickory or rawhide.
Using a tillering stick to gauge its bend,
he gradually rasps and sands away material to get the right curve in the limbs and
to achieve the proper pull weight.
But if, during construction, he realizes
the bow just isn’t working out, “I make a
kid bow out of it.”
For many years Lucero has sold his
bows, arrows and arrowheads to tourists
and rock shops. “A lot of my bows people
like because they look old. People buy
them to put over the fireplace,” he said.
“But I hate for people do that because
these are hunting bows.”
He still makes arrows, using apple,
mesquite or bamboo fletched with turkey
feathers, but not all of them are worthy
of shooting, he said. “If I make 40 arrows, only about 20 or 25 will shoot good
enough to hunt with.”
Another skill from his earliest days
is flint knapping to make arrowheads,
knives and spear points.
“We used to find quite a bit of flint in
those days, and there were arrowheads
all over.” He learned to use copper wire
and other materials to work the rock into
razor-sharp edges.
Although he said he hunted with stone
James Lucero poses with a deer he shot in the White Mountains near Ruidoso about
four years ago using a traditional bow he made himself and wooden arrows.
(he doesn’t consider obsidian to be stone
– it’s glass) arrowheads in the past, he
also learned there can be drawbacks. After hitting an elk with an obsidian point
decades ago, “it exploded just like a shotgun. I had to get rid of that part of the
animal.”
Today the only legal arrowheads for
big game hunting in New Mexico are
steel-edge broadheads, and when Lucero
hunts deer or elk now it’s with commercial wooden arrows and broadheads, he
said. Even though he is a national staff
shooter for Hoyt Archery and is an eighttime state champion (he placed sixth in
his first national competition), he prefers
to hunt with a traditional bow, he said.
A recent shoulder injury could keep
him out of the field for a while, he said,
but he seems to have plenty to do. He
owns and operates Tularosa Archery
Pro Shop (1506 N. Bookout, Tularosa,
575-585-6314) where you can find him
most days, making bows and arrows as
well as predator, deer and elk calls out of
antler and bone. He teaches archery to a
wide range of students, from Girl Scouts
to husbands and wives, and has started
working on his third book – on western
bows.
James Lucero doesn’t have a website, or even an email address. He does,
however, know how to make tools from
wood, stone and leather. Clearly he
knows where his own priorities lie. “It’s
something that should not be lost.”
Trial and error is how one amateur hones his bow making skills
As a hobbyist bow maker, Henry Blair says he isn’t
afraid to take chances. (Photo courtesy Henry Blair)
New Mexico Wildlife Federation honors those who
hand-craft hunting and fishing equipment in New
Mexico. They help keep our outdoor traditions alive
and contribute to our economic prosperity. At right
are some of these skilled craftsmen. We attempted
to reach all the companies we could find, but
undoubtedly missed some. If your company would
like to be included in this free listing in an upcoming issue of the Outdoor Reporter, contact us at
[email protected].
There are probably many people in New Mexico who
make bows not as a business, but for the sheer pleasure
of constructing something useful with their hands, a
woodworking challenge that combines craftsmanship,
artistry and science.
Henry Blair is one of them. An Albuquerque resident,
Blair said he was interested in bow making for many
years before trying his hand at it. That was 16 years ago.
Along the way he’s built and broken a lot of bows,
he said. “Trial and error – that’s part of making wood
bows.” Breaking them “just comes with the territory.”
Obviously, Blair is not afraid to take chances. Although some bow makers are dogmatic about which
woods to use, he has tried a variety. Some have worked
out well. Others failed for one reason or another.
He recently began working on a plum bow, for example. It broke. He tried persimmon. It broke. He once
completed a juniper bow that was shooting well and that
he planned to take hunting. Then he drew it one last
time “and it just exploded.”
“Some will break,” he said. “But some will just explode into a hundred pieces. It can be dangerous if
you’re too close.”
Wood breaks for any number of reasons, Blair said.
“It could be a weak spot. Or if the bow is not tuned right
so it’s not evenly stressed. It could be bad design, bad
construction or a flaw in the wood,” he said.
On the other hand, “You can make a good bow out of
a crooked, knotty piece of Osage orange. I made one for
my brother that has a knothole as big as a quarter. It’s a
strong, good shooting bow.”
And there’s no telling where you might find a good
piece of bow wood. Last year while visiting his family’s farm in the Ozarks, he noticed a fence post made
of black locust. He figures the fence was first built in
the 1950s or ‘60s, but the posts were apparently moved
because there are two sets of staple marks. He found one
post in particular that struck his fancy.
“I pulled it out and brought it home and built a nice
bow for my son,” he said. “It’s really beautiful wood.”
Blair, who is now 63, said his bow making is purely
for pleasure. “I’m not sure it would be fun making them
for sale,” he said. “Maybe someday I will, but I’m afraid
it would take the fun out of it.”
Tularosa Archery
Pro Shop
Owl Bows
James Lucero, Tularosa
PO Box 127, Tularosa 88352
(575) 585-6314
Ed Scott, Grants
www.edscott.com
(505) 287-8134
Page 9
Groves put state in bullseye of archery world
By Joel Gay
The math and science of archery –
stored energy, compression versus tension, flight dynamics – have been studied extensively over the years, but it may
come as a surprise that Los Alamos National Laboratory played a role in making New Mexico a center of the archery
world.
In the early 1950s, as Los Alamos
physicists and engineers worked to develop the hydrogen bomb, one of the
machinists was working during his offhours with his own device – a recurve
bow. Harold Groves, who later told his
story to New Mexico writer, guide and
bow hunter Slim Randles, had started
building bows as a young man Illinois,
years before he was recruited to work in
Los Alamos in 1951.
“Every Friday afternoon the scientists
would get together over coffee for an hour
to relax and work on a fun project,” Randles said. The informal get-togethers had
been started by Robert Oppenheimer, the
father of the atomic bomb and scientific
director at Los Alamos.
“They all knew Harold was making
bows,” Randles said, so one day the scientists decided apply some modern theory to the ancient technology of bow and
arrow. For two Fridays in a row, Groves
told Randles, they talked and calculated and theorized. Then they presented
Groves with a set of plans and said, “This
is how you make a faster bow.”
At the time, Groves’ recurve bows
were one piece with laminated woodand-fiberglass limbs, Randles said, but
the scientists found the layers were too
thick and the limbs too wide. Based on
their specifications, Groves then built a
new 50-pound bow. When he fired it the
first time at his usual hay-bale target 30
yards away, “the arrow flew 5 feet over
the top.”
The Groves Spitfire bow was born,
though Groves always gave the Los Alamos scientists credit, Randles said. “He
would say, ‘I’m not that smart.’”
The Los Alamos bowyer continued to
improve his bows, and in 1959 quit his
job and moved to Albuquerque. Groves
had already patented a key part of the
process – prestressing the limbs. Using
a press to form the curves, Groves was
able to build bows that became worldrenowned for their speed and accuracy.
With a 114-pound bow, Groves himself
set the world record for distance, shooting a broadhead arrow 444 yards from a
standing position – a record that stands
today, Randles said.
A Groves doesn’t feel like a normal
recurve, he said. It actually feels like it
draws easier as the string is pulled.
“The last few inches are fairly light,”
said the 70-year-old Randles, who will
shoot his own Groves bow at the National
Senior Olympics later this month. “The
Harold Groves, viewed by many as the “father of bow hunting and archery in New Mexico,” put New Mexico on the map with his
revolutionary recurve bows. (Photo courtesy Sandra Burbridge, daughter of the famous archer and author of “The Legend of Harold
Groves and the Spitfire Bow,” which is available at Lulu.com.)
result is the closest thing to a compound
bow without being one. They’re amazing
to shoot because they’re so smooth.”
Groves had a manufacturing plant in
southeast Albuquerque, but in 1965 constructed a 14,000-square-foot plant and
state-of-the-art indoor archery range on
San Mateo Northeast that made the business pages. According to a 1968 story in
Sports Illustrated, the shop built as many
as 500 bows a month, including a threepart, take-down recurve.
Bill Clark, manager of the Shooters Den in Albuquerque and a longtime
friend of Groves, called him a genius.
Groves eventually won six patents for
his inventions, including an aluminumarrow straightener and a take-down bow
(and a take-down ski, as well).
And when the first compound bows
came out in the late 1960s, Clark said,
“They didn’t hold a candle to Harold’s
bows. His recurves would shoot over 200
feet per second.”
Clark would later use a Groves bow
to win numerous shooting competitions
and to kill his record-book elk in Socorro
County.
Groves recurves swept competitions
around the world, but in the 1970s the
compound bow caught on and recurve
sales plummeted. By 1975 Groves sold
his business and retired. He liked to say,
“I built 300,000 bows and broke even.”
He didn’t stay retired, however. In
1985 he reopened business as Bows Unlimited, a shop and indoor range in the
North Valley, and began making custom
bows and giving advice to bow hunters
and target shooters.
In addition to his bow inventions,
Groves also gave New Mexico bowhunters a long-lasting gift. When he
first started hunting here in the 1950s,
there was no separate season for archers.
Groves kept pestering the State Game
Commission for a bow season, but they
refused, saying bow hunters couldn’t hit
anything anyway.
Randles said Groves took a bow to a
subsequent commission meeting, set
up a matchbook as his target, paced
off 40 yards, and with the commissioners looking on, hit the matchbook
dead on.
He got his bow season for deer and
bear, and eventually separate archery
seasons for most big game species.
Harold Groves passed away in 1997.
He was 76. His obituary called him “the
father of bow hunting and archery in New
Mexico.”
Bows Unlimited lasted several more
years, but when it closed its doors, so
ended New Mexico’s long-running claim
to fame as a capital of the archery world.
. . . ‘Made in New Mexico’ has long, storied past
Continued from Page 1
waters were in the Jemez. He was famous for his Cedar Locust and Stone flies using an artificial material
for his wings.
One other source of local flies was the Roybal family in Pecos. Robert “Bob” Roybal was the main tyer
but he involved his whole family, from his wife to his
children. He was extremely inventive and produced
flies specific to the Pecos. His Pecos Queen was cherished by local anglers. Every time I saw Bob he had a
different fly he wanted me to try on the Pecos River. A
great example of a small town family business.
In northern New Mexico, Cupp’s flies were being
produced in a “cottage industry” format using Jicarilla Apache Reservation tyers. Some anglers give Cupp
the distinction of popularizing the Peacock Nymph as
well as the Burlap Nymph.
Just north of the border, a local tyer on the Conejos
developed a fly that became famous since it was the favorite fly of one our presidents. Dwight D. Eisenhower
used the House and Lot fly when he fished southern
Page 10
Colorado around the Rio Grande and the Frazier River. It’s still known as Ike’s Fly, whether it is tied traditionally or as an H & L Variant.
The story goes that the name of the famous fly came
from the fact that this tyer paid for his house and lot
from the proceeds of this fly.
Another Colorado tyer who was famous regionally
was Hank Roberts. Hank was famous for his woven
body nymphs, which were among the first specific
patterns suggesting various nymph forms. Hank was
a true gentleman and owed part of his success to his
wife, who always traveled with him and was the business person of the family. Hank began producing flies
on a larger basis using “factories” in Mexico and later
moved those “factories” to Guatemala.
Some fishing rods were made locally, too. The best
known of those rods was “Charlies’s Trout Killer.” It
was a bamboo rod hand-crafted by Charlie Domenici,
who at that time worked for Cook’s Sporting Goods. I
know Charlie also produced some fiberglass rods after
they became popular but he was best known for his
bamboo rods.
Albuquerque became known for recurve bows made
by Groves Archery. They also made traditional long
bows but were best known for their recurve bows. At
one time they were extremely collectible.
Back before the Internet, rifles were another sporting good produced in New Mexico. Rifles from World
War II were in great supply and very reasonably
priced, and several local gunsmiths “sporterized” the
rifles into more of a traditional hunting rifle rather
than a military arm. Buddy Rabino, who also worked
for Cook’s Sporting Goods, was one of the best known
gunsmiths in New Mexico and did exceptional work.
Between the Internet and the chain stores it’s a lot
easier now to buy sporting goods than it was back in
the day, but I miss the characters who made buying
flies, rods and rifles much more interesting.
Bob Gerding has more than 60 years hunting and
fishing experience in New Mexico, including retail
sales, writing, speaking engagements, teaching outdoor skills, and operating Bob Gerding’s Outdoor Adventures and its annual Hunting and Fishing Show.
Waterfowlers inundated with local custom calls
If you’ve spent any time hunting ducks
on the Rio Grande, chances are good that
you’re hearing duck calls made in New
Mexico. At least four companies are in
the business, providing custom calls to
hunters who want a unique product.
Roy Richardson may have been one of
the first commercial call makers in New
Mexico. A machinist by trade, he started
making calls for himself and friends and
eventually established Duckman’s Duck
Calls in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.
Learning to make calls was trial and
error, he said, but added, “I kept at it and
kept at it” and eventually figured how to
make a call that sounded like a duck. In
fact, a friend of his took his calls to the
World Duck Calling Championship in
both 2000 and 2003.
“I still make them when I get a request,” such as for New Mexico Trout’s
annual Conclave or for Ducks Unlimited chapter banquets, but he’s leaving the
business to younger makers.
Among the next generation of call
makers is Kevin Herbst of Los Lunas.
He grew up in Indiana, where he was
immersed in the duck hunting tradition. He learned to call at an early age
and competed in a slew of calling contests, including several trips to the world
championships.
By the late 1990s Herbst also was making his own calls from scratch, but said
he knew he would have to ramp up production to develop a successful business.
He bought a Missouri company, DOA
Game Calls, that had the equipment and
expertise to make a handsome product
but needed a better sound, he said. Herbst
brought the operation to New Mexico,
where he had lived since 1993.
After revising the DOA calls to his
own satisfaction, Herbst won the firstever New Mexico Duck Calling Contest in 1996, which helped launch the
company here.
His firm (www.doagamecalls.com)
makes duck and goose calls using a range
of woods and cast acrylic inserts, which
he builds and hand tunes to achieve the
proper sound. He employs a computerized milling process to ensure that
each call meets his quality expectations.
“Once you find something good you
want to recreate it every time,” he said.
For a time the company was making
about 1,000 calls a year, he said. He has
since scaled back and now takes a more
personalized approach, matching a call
to meet an individual customer’s needs.
Eventually he hopes to build up DOA
to the point it will pay his mortgage, he
said, but it’s not there yet.
Herbst said he has also produced a prototype elk whistle that he hopes to market soon in New Mexico and the Southwest. Another potential expansion is to
redesign his duck-call inserts into coyote
calls, he said.
Greg Daniel New Mexico wateris another Mid- fowl hunters have
westerner who many options. At
got into call- right, a wooden
making.
His model from Blind
business is New Shot Calls. Below, an
Era Calls. Origi- acrylic call from DOA
nally from Illi- Game Calls.
nois, he hunted
from an early age
and started making calls while in
high school. “I
still have the first
one I made,” said
Daniel, who is
now 33.
He was building calls occasionally
when
the Air Force
transferred him
and his family to
Albuquerque in
2005 and he soon
got involved in
the local waterfowling community. For a period
he was a partner
in DOA, but left
and eventually started New Era Calls
(www.neweracalls.com).
Combining his background in handmade wooden calls with the machine
tooling experience he has gained in the
Air Force, Daniel said he initially made
calls for friends, but then found a demand for them.
“Guys were getting their hands on the
calls I was turning out little by little, and
now it’s turned into a business. “
Daniel said he is trying to build calls
that work across a wide spectrum of conditions. For example, New Mexico duck
hunters could be in 70-degree weather
Duck hunters aren’t the only ones
hearing locally made calls. Those gobbles you heard from other turkey hunters last spring might have been New
Mexico-made, too.
Gary Roybal started making box calls
through his company, Manzano Madness
Custom Game Calls, some 14 years ago.
The name comes from the mountains
where he called in his first turkey using
his own call.
Since then he has expanded into pot
calls, scratch calls and wing bone calls,
as well as elk, deer and predator calls,
and he’s experimenting with duck and
goose calls. All are made of native
woods and materials and most are decorated with artwork celebrating his Native
American ancestry – he’s originally San
Ildefonso but now lives in Isleta Pueblo.
Although he sells as many calls as
he can produce, Manzano Madness
([email protected]) remains a small operation. “It’s pretty
much just me,” he said. “I’m the builder and the tester.” And of course testing
means going out and hunting with them.
Roybal is also a hunting guide.
It all started with a turkey box call
that his father-in-law had and that Roybal used as a blueprint. He gouged out a
ponderosa pine box and spent the winter
playing with various lids “trying to figure out what sounded good.”
Come spring, he said, he called in two
groups of gobblers. A cousin asked for a
call for himself, and suddenly Manzano
Madness was off and running.
Gary Roybal of Manzano Madness Custom Game Calls makes elk calls (above)
and turkey box calls that are both functional and beautiful.
one week and
7 degrees the
next, he said, so
he’s been working on designs
that, for example, ensure
the reeds don’t
stick.
He has designed each of
his duck and
goose calls inside and out,
but has the
milling done in
a computerized
machine shop
in
Missouri,
then has them
shipped back
here for finishing.
Daniel said he’d like to manufacture
them himself, but it’s not feasible to buy
the milling equipment until he’s out of
the Air Force and no longer liable to be
transferred.
In the meantime, he said he has big
plans for New Era. He’ll launch a revamped website in August, and hopes
to follow that with web-based video including hunting and calling tips. He’s
also talking with other New Mexico call
makers to provide their soundboards, he
said. Eventually he’d like to expand into
turkey and possibly elk calls.
Albuquerque
waterfowler
Brian
Hagerty said he went into business as
Takem Custom Calls (www.takemcustomcalls.com) several years ago after
hunting – and buying calls – for some
20 years. “I guess it’s a waterfowl obsession,” he said.
Custom calls are akin to reloading
your own bullets, Hagerty said. “You’re
not necessarily saving money, but you’re
getting exactly what you want.”
He shapes and bores each barrel on a
lathe using a wide range of exotic woods
– bubinga, padauk, iron wood and the
like – then adds an acrylic tone board
and reeds he makes out of sheet mylar.
Selling them is the hard part.
“It’s slow going,” Hagerty said. He has
a web site and has provided calls to several guides and outdoor professionals in
hopes of creating demand through wordof-mouth advertising. “Slowly but sure-
ly I’m just trying to get the name out,”
he said.
In an area with more waterfowl hunting, it might be easier to break into the
business, Hagerty said. “New Mexico is
challenging because of the limited number of waterfowlers, and of those, most
are not that avid,” he said. “Most are happy with a $20 call from WalMart.”
For some hunters, a call “made in New
Mexico” could be a selling point, but
Hagerty doubts it will influence his sales.
“When I was buying calls, I didn’t
buy one because it was from Tennessee
or New Jersey. I just bought it because it
was a good call.”
He’s hoping that will propel him, too.
Ryan Perry said he started making
duck calls after watching Hagerty’s operation. He just went into business this
year as Blind Shot Calls (www.blindshotcalls.com).
He turns his own barrels out of wood
or acrylic, then uses pre-fab soundboards and reeds, though he custom
tunes the reeds to the individual barrel.
“Different barrels have different sounds
coming out,” he said. “Depending on the
shape and material of the barrel, I’ll adjust the reeds to give what I think is the
right sound of a duck.”
Perry turns out five or 10 calls a week,
he said. “I try to make them as people
order them,” often with custom inlays or
a specific sound.
But marketing is a challenge, he acknowledged. He has a website, Facebook
page and Twitter, but he’s not afraid to
make a cold call – in person. “If I see
someone in duck camo or wearing something with ducks on it, I hand them a card
and tell them to give me a call.”
Nevertheless, Perry sounds bullish on
the future of custom duck calls. When a
group of duck hunters gets together, he
said, they inevitably ask about the calls
others have dangling around their necks.
A custom call just stands out, he said.
“It’s kind of a nice thing when it’s not
your run-of-the-mill call that is mass
produced,” Perry said. “Hunters want
something that they can’t just go buy at a
store and that six other people are going
to have.”
That’s the market he’s striving for. “I
don’t want the masses. If you get a call
from me, there’s not going to be another
call like it, end of story.”
Turkey, elk calls coming out of Isleta Pueblo
Roybal said he started going to National Wild Turkey Federation conventions to
talk to other call makers and pick up tips.
He also began using his own background
as an artist to decorate the calls, which he
has displayed at Indian arts shows. Many
have won prizes, he said.
He uses a wide variety of woods and
other materials, including antlers for a
new type of elk call he is experimenting
with. But he’s not afraid to branch out,
such as making a pot call scratcher of
aluminum tubing with a corn cob handle.
“That’s the fun of making calls,”
he said. “There’s no limit to what you
can do.”
Page 11
Sportsman of the Quarter
Eight questions for Jerry Duran
Jerry Duran has had a number of jobs
throughout his 71 years – surveyor, barber, sales – but he is best known as a
knife maker. His blades, stamped with
a distinctive elk rack and “JTD Knives,”
adorn the belts of thousands of New
Mexico hunters and anglers.
He grew up hunting and fishing in
northern New Mexico, where every trout
and deer helped feed the family. Access
to public land and wildlife was less sport
than subsistence, he says. Not surprisingly, Duran has been a vocal supporter
of public land conservation efforts and
equitable access to hunting and fishing
opportunity.
But he also puts his money where his
mouth is. Over the years Duran has donated knives to a range of good causes
and worthy groups, from hunter education to the Habitat Stamp Program to the
New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
Former NMWF President Kent Salazar
calls him “very much a renaissance man
– a master bladesmith, farmer, hunter
and businessman who retains his family
roots in northern New Mexico. Whether
it is making a better blade or commenting on pending game regulations, he
studies the issue, decides the best solution and then acts. We need more sportsmen like Jerry Duran in this world who
give back to our outdoor heritage.”
Duran’s health has restricted his hunting, though he still likes to fish with
his grandchildren. But most days you
can find him in his shop in Albuquerque’s South Valley, making knives of
all shapes and sizes for hunters and anglers near and far. For his many contributions to New Mexico sportsmen over the
years, we are proud to name Jerry Duran
as our Sportsman of the Quarter.
NMWF: Describe your background in
hunting and fishing: When and where did
you start, and with whom? DURAN: I was born in Embudo but
I grew up in Chacon, in northeastern
Mora County. Hunting and fishing was
a way of survival up there. When I was
around 5, I went fishing for the first time.
My dad and I went on horseback down
into the Rio La Junta. My job was to
catch grasshoppers and turn rocks over
for grubs and worms, and my dad would
fish. It was a real narrow stream full of
native cutthroats. The beaver ponds were
full of fish, like a fish hatchery.
I didn’t start fishing until I was into
my teenage years. We’d catch a lot of fish
and come home and eat ‘em because we
didn’t have refrigeration or any place to
keep ‘em other than a pan of cold water.
I was probably around 16 or 17 the first
time I got to actually hunt. He got a deer
and all I got was buck fever. I shot up the
mountainside and I caught hell for it. My
dad told me, “They’re not going to stand
around for that. You gotta make that first
shot count.”
We had a deer hanging in our back
shed mostly all winter long. My mother
would go out at suppertime and cut meat
off the hindquarter or something and
we’d have fried potatoes, deer meat and
gravy. That was our main supper most of
the time. We never saw elk.
NMWF: Name a highlight in all your
time afield, a particularly special day. DURAN: One year I won an elk hunt
from the New Mexico Wildlife Federation. It was a raffle for members and I
sent in the form and forgot about it. One
morning (then-NMWF President) Oscar
Simpson called and said I had won. It
was a cow hunt on the UU Bar Ranch and
as we scouted they were popping up like
mushrooms. I’d never seen that many elk
in my life. When we’d go elk hunting before, we’d maybe see one or two. But that
time we saw a bunch of bulls and a bunch
of cows and just had a great time.
I used to bow hunt in the Sandias and
one year I took my dad up with me. He
was like a kid in a candy store. We’d see
herds of 20 or 30 at a time – he had never
seen so many deer.
NMWF: Describe your ideal outdoor
experience – where would you go, when
and with whom? What makes that place
so special?
DURAN: When my oldest grandson
was little, we went up to my uncle’s property in Chacon with my son-in-law. We
weren’t hunting, we just went in during
the rut. We went in before daybreak and
hunkered down in some scrub oak and
my son-in-law started calling. He called
in five satellite bulls to 50 yards or less.
My grandson’s eyes were getting real
big because there was one elk with a palmated antler on one side, like a moose. It
came up within 10 or 15 feet of where we
were hiding and my grandson just didn’t
know what to do. He was afraid he was
going to get run over by an elk. That was
quite an experience. If I was able do it
again, I would go up there with my other
grandson, who is now 12. I’d love to go
up there and be able to share that experience with both my grandsons and my
son-in-law.
NMWF: How, when and why did you
get involved in conservation work?
DURAN: In the early 1970s I got involved with Sportsmen Concerned of
New Mexico because we were doing
battle with the Department of Game
and Fish and the State Game Commission. The commission had just turned all
of Unit 46 into private land hunts. We
wanted to get permits available to the
residents of New Mexico who deserved
them instead of the outsiders. That’s also
when I got involved with the Albuquerque Wildlife Federation, then with the
New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
Why? A lot of it comes from my background n Chacon. We had nice clean air,
clean water, good habitat for wildlife. If
Knifemaker Jerry Duran displays one of his knives. He has been an outspoken advocate for New Mexico sportsmen over the years and donated many knives to benefit
sportsmen’s organizations.
you don’t take care of that, you’re not
going to have anything, period. A lot of
guys refer to us as treehuggers. But let’s
face it: If it weren’t for environmentalists, a lot of these guys wouldn’t have
places to go hunting.
NMWF: What’s your highest conservation priority these days?
DURAN: It’s protecting our environment and protecting our habitat for wildlife. Climate change is a serious threat.
If we don’t do something about it, we’re
not going to have anything for our kids
to enjoy in years to come because it’s all
going to be destroyed.
NMWF: What can the average New
Mexico hunter/angler do to help ensure
our outdoor traditions continue? DURAN: Be aware of those whose intent is to destroy our habitat, pollute our
waters and endanger the natural beauty
of New Mexico just to make a buck. If
our environmental protections are done
away with we’re in deep trouble. These
companies, they don’t care, they just
want to make a dollar, and a lot these politicians want to give them the right to do
whatever they want because they’re big
contributors. We can’t allow them to do
that. So we need to get involved and keep
a lid on it. Sportsmen need to push the
politicians to protect our environment.
NMWF: What more could state and
federal wildlife and land management
agencies do to protect those traditions? DURAN: There has to be more funding for agencies that are managed by dedicated staff whose interest is in protecting what we have for future generations.
You can’t just keep building. We’ve got
to protect what we have, and with good
management I think it can be done.
I don’t agree with the director of Game
and Fish at all, with what he’s doing or
what the Game Commission is doing, because all they’re doing is rubberstamping
what the big money interests are wanting
out of them.
NMWF: What’s your favorite fish or
wild game recipe? DURAN: Fresh-caught trout, dredged
in flour with salt and pepper and fried
for breakfast. That’s what I grew up with
and we still love it.
Knives of horn and burl, Tram cable and Harley chains
Jerry Duran grinds a blade in his South Valley shop.
Page 12
I started making knives after an elk hunt. We used a
homemade knife someone had. I thought that was pretty neat idea. Around 1977 I got a piece of heavy hacksaw blade and used a body grinder and made one. Then
a friend asked me to make him a hunting knife. Then
somebody else wanted one and the rest is history. That
was 35 years ago.
As I got better I started going to shows. That’s where
I met Joe Cordova and Marty Gigle. They both said,
“Come visit us, we’ll help you.” They were the ones that
helped me get started in the right direction when I finally got my knife-grinding machine and was able to
buy good steel. Joe Cordova – he’s helped a lot of guys.
I started out making hunting knives. I’d get the steel
and do all the cutting and grinding. Later I started forging. I do lot of “Tram cable Damascus” – using old pieces of Sandia Peak Tramway cable I got in the 1980s. I
also use the primary chains off Harley-Davidsons.
With those you heat them until they’re white hot – my
furnace gets them up to about 2,400 degrees. Then I use
a 50-pound trip hammer to pound it into a billet. You
can literally hear the steel get solid as you pound it.
Then it goes through a roller mill and then into vermiculite to cool for a day. That anneals the steel so I can
cut it and drill it.
Heat treatment is the most important part of a knife.
Anybody can make a beautiful knife but if it’s not heattreated properly it won’t hold an edge. I send most of my
knives to be heat-treated in California, unless they’re
Damascus.
I’ve slowed down quite a bit but I still make about 100
knives a year. I’ve donated knives for Operation Game
Thief, the Hunter Education Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, New Mexico Wildlife Federation.
. . . Wildfire troublesome, but necessary and invitable
Continued from Page 1
net can catch bait as well as net fish.
At the first crossing the mud flats looked
burnt. I know mud doesn’t burn but that’s what
it looked like – pretty disgusting stuff. I kept
checking the flats and backwash areas for dead
fish. And I began to speculate: How much ash
run-off might fish absorb and still survive?
Would the natives do better than the non-natives? Would a carp outlive a catfish? Were the
bass tougher than the trout? Maybe ash run-off
is how the loach minnow gets the upper hand
on the non-native fish?
But I didn’t see any dead fish and I began
to think they might be tougher than I thought,
that maybe there was hope for a fisherman, too.
The bait did not seem depleted. I gathered up
some hellgrammites and crawfish with little effort at several crossings and started looking for
some good pools. But this proved challenging.
With clear water, or even normal murky
run-off, subtle changes in water color tell you
where the deep water is and thereby suggest locations for game fish. The river was now the
same dull gray soup, whether it was 6 inches or
6 feet deep. But below a rapid there is usually
a pool and by guesswork I began to fish those
areas.
It was slow going, but along about noon I
caught a channel catfish 20 inches long. On a
fly rod he was a wonderful fighting fish. I then
caught a bronze bass out of the same pool on
the same hellgrammite and he was a lively
pleasure as well. Both appeared healthy; regardless of ash flow it seemed some fish would
make it.
Whatever the exigency in life, I don’t have
to tell you how restorative it can be to receive
something when you were expecting nothing. All is relative and my favorite river, made
sorry in appearance by the run-off of natural
fire, had suddenly regained some of its magical
powers. I broke out the lunch and a thermos of
coffee, able to view the recent fires from the
perspective of a fisherman who’d been replenished rather than skunked.
Like I said, the forest fire debate flames up
every summer. But the issue has been hotter
in recent years because drought has made the
fires worse and because the old debate on for-
est thinning – mechanical thinning versus fire
– has flared up.
Yet it’s surprising how much agreement there
is on major matters. Virtually everyone agrees
our National Forest lands are overgrown -too much brush and undergrowth with many
unhealthy tree stands, thick and stunted. Not
enough open parkland and grass. It is an unnatural condition that is inimical to biological
diversity. It leads to bad fires. Also, it yields
unhealthy watersheds with rapid surface runoff, poor subsurface water retention, and this
negatively impacts rivers, fish and riparian
habitats, as any fisherman ought to know.
And virtually everyone agrees that mechanical treatments are the only way to safely thin
overgrown forest in and around buildings,
towns and human habitation.
But most of our forest lands are backcountry acres remote from human habitation. Those
who favor mechanical thinning, even in remote
areas, like the potential for industry and wood
harvest, meaning new roads, trucks, skidders and chain saws. Often however, a commercial harvest is heavily subsidized, since
few of these timber harvests actually pay for
themselves.
Recently in Silver City, Congressman Steve
Pearce remarked on the “devastation” he saw
while flying over the same 200,000-acre burn
that ran mud and ash on my Gila River fishing
trip. He saw it as justification for his support of
wood harvest and mechanical thinning.
In fact, that fire complex is a perfect example
of just the opposite – the beneficial effects of
remote fires being allowed to burn, leaving the
acreage thinned, restored, sprouting secondgrowth, and at a fraction of the cost of the mechanical process.
Mechanical thinning no doubt has its place,
but I believe the cost factor will ultimately win
the case for fire – natural and prescribed – as
the primary means of thinning our overgrown
forests. At $1,000 per acre (the usual rough estimate) mechanical thinning is simply too expensive for other than very selective applications. Even at $100 per acre, the Gila complex
of fires would have cost $20 million to thin
mechanically.
So, are forest fires a good thing? Well, they
weren’t good for me that day back in 2004. In
Author Dutch Salmon displays a nice catfish pulled out of the Gila River,
despite the ash-laden water resulting from recent fires.
the end I only caught five fish in a river discolored by the run-off of fires.
Without that ash flow I know I would have done much better.
But you can’t see forest health in just one day. Forest fires aren’t good,
or bad, they are necessary and inevitable. And in the long run the river,
the fish, and even the fishermen reap benefits from the burn.
Dutch Salmon is an outdoor writer and bookstore owner in Silver City, a
former State Game Commission member and a longtime contributor to the
Outdoor Reporter. This story originally appeared as a newspaper column,
and was reprinted in “Country Sports” (2004).
Hand crafted in New Mexico
Mexico. These individuals and small businesses are
helping keep our outdoor traditions alive and contributing to the economic prosperity of our state.
Here are some of the craftsmen and women who
JTD Knives
Jerry Duran, Albuquerque
[email protected]
(505) 873-4676
Valdez Artworx
Lucas Valdez, Gallina
(575) 638-9148/(505) 927-0179
Scott Poitras Knives
Scott Poitras, Bosque Farms
[email protected]
(505) 869-2947
make sportsmen’s equipment in the Land of Enchantment. We attempted to reach all the companies we could find, but undoubtedly missed some.
If you or your company would like to be included in
this free listing in an upcoming issue of the Outdoor
Reporter, contact us at [email protected].
Tom Black
Custom Knives
Tom Black, Albuquerque
[email protected]
(505) 344-2549
Chaves Knives
Ramon Chaves, Albuquerque
[email protected]
(505) 453-6008
W.F. Smitty Smith
Handmade Knives
Smitty Smith, Polvadera
(575) 418-9417
Joe Cordova Knives
Joe Cordova, Peralta
www.joecordovaknives.com
(505) 869-3912
Jim’s Handmade
Knives
Jim Reid, Albuquerque
(505) 828-1535
Trujillo’s Cut-Ups
Albert Trujillo, Bosque Farms
www.trujilloscutupscustomknives.com
[email protected]
(505) 869-0428
Cumming Knives
Robert Cumming, Albuquerque
www.cummingknives.com
[email protected]
(505) 252-3280
Page 13
New Commissioner Ralph Ramos
seeks public input, dialog
scaled back?
Ralph Ramos of Las Cruces is the newest member of the State Game Commission, appointed earlier this year by Gov.
Susana Martinez to an at-large seat. His
term runs expires Dec. 31, 2014.
Ramos is a longtime educator and is
currently principal at Camino Real Middle School in Las Cruces. In the past he
taught agricultural science and served
as advisor to the local Future Farmers
of America chapter. He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural education from New Mexico State
University.
He agreed to answer a range of questions posed by NMWF as a way of introducing him to the sportsmen of New
Mexico. Here is our Q&A with Ralph
Ramos:
NMWF: Describe your background in
hunting and fishing.
RAMOS: I grew up in Hurley and
started hunting when I was 9, and hunting with a bow in high school. Since then
I have hunted all over the United States,
in Mexico, Canada and South Africa. My
experience outside of New Mexico has
also allowed me to live and experience
other wildlife management practices and
managed economic systems. Hunting, conservation, wildlife management and working with people are
my passions. I enjoy 3-D competitions
and have won numerous tournaments. I
am a licensed guide and owner of Ramos
Hunts and Video. I enjoy educating other
hunters, young and old, and have earned
“pro staff” positions with PSE Archery,
Montana Decoys, Mossy Oak and several other hunting businesses.
I have fished since I was a kid, introduced to it by my father. I enjoy stream
fishing for trout the most, but lake fishing
is also exciting. Bow fishing for carp has
also been challenging as well as recreational. Fishing and enjoying the beauty
of wild places has been a good reason to
be outdoors during the off-season.
NMWF: List any sportsmen’s groups
you are involved with. Have you held
leadership positions or volunteered with
them?
RAMOS: Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, both as a member and as a participant in RMEF seminars; Mesilla Valley
RAMOS: As a new commissioner I
have not looked closely at the budget to
analyze data with figures yet, although I
know that I will be oriented with figures
coming soon. I look forward to gaining
better knowledge and understanding, allowing me to guide my questions or give
input with budget spending. Being a public school administrator, I
know we have New Mexico criteria and
law to follow when planning and spending budgets, although when it comes to
staffing we can always use more people
to effectively serve and support our overwhelming agency needs, especially with
the huge landscape and opportunity we
have in New Mexico. NMWF: Are there any programs or
divisions you would like to see either
beefed up or scaled back? Ralph Ramos
Sportsman’s Alliance (board member);
Southwest Consolidated Sportsmen;
New Mexico State Fish & Wildlife Society; Organ Mountain Bowmen (board
member); National Rifle Association;
National Archery Association (certified
instructor); 4-H Youth Archery coach
and mentor.
NMWF: What are your three top priorities as a game commissioner?
RAMOS: I feel well rounded as a
sportsman, although the biggest eyeopener since my appointment to the
Commission is the challenge to decipher
all the diverse issues and the varied opinions that people and organizations have
on Commission topics and meeting agendas. I firmly believe that being part of the
State Game Commission, my three priorities are to be an effective, patient listener with all input, think outside of the
box with issues allowing change, and to
bring creative progression toward trust
and support with our agency to serve
our multicultural citizens and wildlife of
New Mexico. NMWF: Do you think the current
budget and staffing for NMDGF are adequate? Are there any programs or divisions you would like to see beefed up or
RAMOS: I have been visiting with the
Las Cruces Game and Fish office personnel trying to familiarize myself with
the structure of all the programs and divisions, allowing me to learn as much
as possible about our agency. I am trying not to get overwhelmed with all that
these valued employees do to serve our
wide range of department needs.
So far, I am very impressed with the
distributive leadership that I have witnessed, with the respect and pride that all
these professional people take to serve
our public, from the front office secretaries, biologists in fisheries and wildlife
divisions, to our outreach educational
staff, information technology services
staff and field operations law enforcement officers. These people care deeply
about their jobs and want to serve New
Mexico to their fullest potential.
NMWF: What are your feelings about
improving public input to the Game
Commission? Are there ways to increase
input, such as holding meetings outside
regular work hours so more people can
attend?
RAMOS: Public input is very important but can be overwhelming for a person to decipher both sides while trying to
gather all angles on varied topics leading
to a vote. I welcome and currently have
been bombarded with constant input
Hand-crafted in New Mexico
Schaller Handmade
Knives
David Macdonald,
Master Blacksmith
Brett Schaller, Albuquerque
www.schallerknives.com
(505) 899-0155
David Macdonald, Los Lunas
www.blacksmithnm.com
(505) 480-6046
E.F. Stalcup Knives
DT Knives
Eddie F. Stalcup, Gallup
[email protected]
(505) 863-3107
Dan Thornburg, Albuquerque
www.dtknives.com
[email protected]
(505) 249-5926
Page 14
from various organizations, emails and
phone calls with concerns. Thank you
and keep them coming. This is important
informational communication, which
allows me to ask questions and find answers to help guide me to make a wellrounded decision when voting on issues. Public input does not only have to be
done during an open public meeting. I
personally appreciate prior public input
leading to meeting agendas. Possibly we
need to get a sounding board forum on
our website to review and for anyone to
see. I believe the Game Commission has
held meetings on weekends, and personally that would work better for me, not
having to take time off from work. However, weekend time is valuable to many
who would prefer weekdays. NMWF: One of the main concerns
we hear from hunters is about resident
hunting opportunity. What do you think
about the resalable antelope and elk license programs, APLUS and EPLUS,
that remove 70 percent of antelope and
40 percent of elk licenses from the big
game draw? What do you think about
unitwide tags?
RAMOS: This is a hot topic that gets
me excited and which I have been getting a lot of people’s concerns with our
current status. I would like to entertain
some future discussion and some out-ofthe-box thinking on this topic, although
we do have to remember that we have
to follow and align changes to state law
and policy. However, I do have some
new ideas to share at a later time, which
would be a win-win for both landowners
and sportsmen of New Mexico.
NMWF: To eliminate any appearance
of conflict of interest, should Game Commission members be prohibited from receiving gifts or services from individuals
or groups that have a financial interest in
commission decisions?
RAMOS: I personally would not receive any gifts or services to help persuade me to make a decision in favor of
or toward an individual’s/group’s interest. I feel that is wrong. My own personal
values as a professional leader in this position revolve around ethics, to serve the
people of New Mexico and our common
interest, not to benefit myself or an ego. I
would much rather listen, hear and decipher all issues through well-rounded,
respectful communication with no extra
pressures, thus allowing me to feel good
about my work and decisions. Burnley Knives
Lucas Burnley, Albuquerque
www.burnleyknives.com
[email protected]
(505) 814-9964
Richard Rogers
Richard Rogers, Magdalena
[email protected]
(505) 854-2567
Mardi Meshejian
Custom Knives
Mardi Meshejian, Santa Fe
[email protected]
(505) 310-7441
NMWF Inbox
Sportsmen sound off on Big Game Draw results
After the Big Game Draw results were announced
in April, NMWF asked members how they fared. Here
is a small selection of the many emails we received,
edited for spelling, clarity, punctuation and length.
Not looking good for our kids
My draw experience was like most people I talked
to – poor. I did better than most of the last 13 years,
I drew my third-choice elk hunt. But it was the only
thing I drew, and I put in for everything but javelina
and Barbary sheep. Hopefully I’ll get to go to Wyoming and hunt mule deer and antelope again this
year. Even if you include fuel, the tag and everything,
it is still cheaper than most landowner tags in New
Mexico.
I have a 6-year-old at home and I’m willing to bet
that he learns to hunt somewhere besides New Mexico. Thank goodness I’m only 30 miles from Colorado
and Wyoming is cheap.
Doesn’t add up
Another big zero, third year in a row. 27 years of
trying for a bighorn sheep tag! I put in for all hunts
and depredation lists. What a disappointment. I have
not drawn one hunt for five different species for two
years in a row. I do not like the current system where
several people draw over and over again while lifelong New Mexico resident hunters such as myself, my
father and four brothers are unable to draw even one
species!
J.B., Albuquerque
Lucky this time
My first pick was bull elk in GMU 13. I got it. Four
other folks I hunt with all got their first choice picks in
GMU 13 as well. Lucky 13! Hope the luck holds out
come September/October!
J.R., Aztec
E.S., Albuquerque
Slight improvement
Move not working out so well
This year was only slightly better than the last seven
years. I drew a turkey permit in Unit 2. Again nothing
in the Big Game Draw for the seventh year in a row. I
am 68 years old and I am now going to do all my big
game hunting out of state where they actually give big
game licences to people who want to hunt. The sad
thing is I love to hunt in New Mexico. However, as a
resident of 31 years I can only hike in these mountains
which I love so much.
Having recently moved from Montana to New
Mexico, I was very excited about the chance to get
drawn for archery antelope, elk, and either sex oryx.
Was very disappointed to be unsuccessful for all of
the above. At 65 years old, and having hunted for 45 of
those years, this is the first time in my life I have been
denied the opportunity to hunt. Montana also has a
lottery system for big game, but they also have a general season available to hunt public land in most game
districts. They afford all residents the opportunity to
hunt somewhere within the state.
M.J., Albuquerque
Hand crafted in New Mexico
Pinto Custom
Blades
Baca’s Custom
Knives
Pinto and Luci, Alamogordo
www.pintocustomblades.com
(575) 491-9992
Eddie J. Baca, Santa Fe
www.eddiejbaca.com
(505) 438-8161
Borchardt Rifle
Corp.
Blind Shot Calls
Al Story, Silver City
www.brcrifles.com
(575) 535-2923
Manzano Madness
Custom Game Calls
Gary Roybal, Isleta
[email protected]
(505) 916-0073
Custom Fly Rod
Crafters
Bob & Lee Widgren, Albuquerque
www.flyrodcrafters.com
(866) 532-0272
Ryan Perry, Albuquerque
www.blindshotcalls.com
(408) 612-1049
It would seem some consideration would be given
to making the hunting experience available to all who
would apply, albeit even a limited basis. I feel it is a
shame I must pay some state for the opportunity to
hunt rather than the state of my residency.
J.P., Carlsbad
Has to be a better way
My son and I went 0 for 10 in this year’s draw. We
have only drawn a couple of tags in the last four-plus
years. There are better ways to make the draw a little
more fair for all. Hopefully the game commission will
make changes for the better.
A.P., Albuquerque
After last year, no complaints
I applied for elk, deer and oryx. I drew only a deer
tag, but I can’t be too unhappy. Last season I d rew
elk, deer and ibex.
I hope you will keep after Game and Fish to make
the resident draw odds the same for bighorn, oryx and
ibex as they are for deer and elk. Thank you for all
that you do for the hunters and fishermen in NM.
L.M., Glenwood
Young hunter disappointed
I really did not care if I didn’t draw. But my 12-yearold son did not draw a youth hunt out of the five or six
we put in for. That’s wrong!
P.A., Santa Fe
Swearingen Knife
Kurt Swearingen, Cedar Crest
www.swearingenknife.com
[email protected]
(575) 613-0500
Ramos Knives
Ruben Ramos, Jal
www.rrknives.com
(575) 390-0496
New Era
Championship Calls
Greg Daniel, Albuquerque
www.neweracalls.com
(309) 338-2177
Takem Custom Calls
DOA Game Calls
Brian Hagerty, Albuquerque
www.takemcustomcalls.com
(505) 239-0852
Kevin Herbst, Los Lunas
www.doagamecalls.com
(505) 331-3502
Taylor Reels
SweetRock
RodSmiths
Matthew Taylor, Albuquerque
www.taylorreels.com
Bruce Smith, Edgewood
www.sweetrockrodsmiths.com
(505) 286-0967
Page 15
(505) 299-5404
www.nmwildlife.org
121 Cardenas Drive NE
Albuquerque NM 87108-1707
NONPROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
ALBUQUERQUE, NM
PERMIT NO. 204
•Reporter•
enter the 2013 NMWF
o
t
o
Ph
!
t
s
e
t
n
o
C
Send us your best PHOTO
of hunting or fishing
in New Mexico and
win cash prizes!
It doesn’t have to be a record bull elk or a trophy trout –
just you, your friends or your family enjoying New Mexico’s
great outdoors. The best overall photo will receive a $100
gift certificate; runners-up will each receive $20 certificates.
Email entries to: [email protected].
Call (505) 299-5404 for more information.
Help us protect
the rights of
New Mexico
sportsmen like
you - join us!
Your membership puts you in our
Sportsman’s Alert network and
delivers the Outdoor Reporter to your
door. Fill out this form and send it in
or join online at www.nmwildlife.org.
YES! I want to support New Mexico Wildlife Federation. Enclosed is my membership contribution of:
$25 Basic $50 Supporting $100 Sponsoring
 Other $______
NAME (please print legibly) ______________________________________________________________________
ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________________________________
CITY_____________________________________________STATE ___________________ ZIP CODE __________
PHONE __________________________ EMAIL _____________________________________________________
Please make your check payable to New Mexico Wildlife Federation and return it along with this form to:
New Mexico Wildlife Federation, 121 Cardenas Drive NE, Albuquerque, NM 87108

Summer 2013 - The New Mexico Sportsman

Transcription

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