The March meeting of the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission centered on proposed changes involving the sale of furs from legally harvested wildlife. In the end, the commission voted 6-4 to advance rule changes that many in the room – including CPW employees and members of the public – argued were unnecessary. To me, it felt like science-based wildlife management had given way to pressure from activists with a very different vision of Colorado’s outdoor traditions. I came away feeling that CPW professionals, who dedicate their careers to wildlife stewardship, had been disregarded, along with the hunting and outdoor heritage many of us value deeply.
That meeting also reminded me how much I owe to the biologists, wardens and staff members of Colorado Parks and Wildlife who have helped shape my experiences in the outdoors over the past four decades.
I was probably around 5 years old when I saw the magazine cover of two wranglers guiding horses and a pack string through heavy snowfall. Large antlers were tied atop a pannier pack frame, with a rifle butt visible in a saddle scabbard behind the lead rider. Lying on my grandmother’s floor in Texas during the 1950s, I may not even have been able to read yet, but that photograph sparked a desire that still exists today.
My first trip into the Rockies came in 1981 on a muzzleloader hunt in New Mexico’s Lincoln National Forest. I harvested my first mule deer there, though in reloading I forgot to put powder down the Hawken’s barrel and already had a bullet stuffed in there. It was also around that time that I began writing in the outdoor field.
My first contact with Colorado Parks and Wildlife came through a phone call with a wildlife biologist who shared information about elk numbers and feeding grounds in the Weminuche Wilderness. It was the first of many helpful conversations I’ve had with CPW employees over the last 40 years.
A friend and I nearly killed a little mare climbing too quickly into the high country, not realizing how much flatland hunters and horses still had to learn. That was also when an Oklahoma elk hunter educated us about mountain weather. He found us sitting outside our dome tent at the bottom of a creek draw and said, “If it starts to snow, gather your sleeping bags and guns and come visit our camp about a half mile up the trail.”
The last 28 years have mostly been archery elk hunts that proved priceless. I’ve made friendships I will cherish until I’m gone, spent time with friends who are already gone and written stories about it all until our newspaper was sold and the outdoor commentary disappeared.
Along the way, I’ve met and talked with many Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologists and game wardens. I still remember calling in my first bull elk near Antonito with my son-in-law ready to draw just 20 yards away. Instead, I stood to take a photograph, and the sound of that heavy-beamed bull crashing away remains etched in my memory.
The last time I saw a game warden, it was hailing and I was sitting underneath a parka at a trailhead waiting for my son, who was running late. I heard an engine nearby, tilted back the edge of my parka and saw a smiling warden asking, “You OK?”
I was reminded of many such memories when I found an old postcard mailed to my parents more than 35 years ago: “We’re at Durango. Everything is white up here. We leave in the morning for above timberline. We’ll be 30 miles above Bayfield, Colorado. I’ve dreamed about this all my life and now it happens.”
I wrote this letter to thank the retired and current Colorado Parks and Wildlife professionals who have helped keep our outdoor heritage intact along the way.
Thank you.
Russell S. Smith is a retired San Angelo, Texas, police chief, former justice of the peace and longtime outdoor writer. He continues to travel to Colorado each fall for archery elk season with family.
