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Winter is a Beast

We shouldn’t be surprised as nothing has gone smoothly in this year of extreme weather

By Rob Breeding

Winter came early last week. Temperatures plunged into the subzero range across the Northern Rockies. That’s to be expected, just not quite so early in the fall. Subzero is made for January and February, not the bridge season between Halloween and Thanksgiving.

That bridge, from late October through mid-November, is prime hunting season. The weather should be cold. A bit of snow is handy for tracking game. Arctic blasts, however, do little to sooth the hunter spirit. We want the weather cold this time of year, not lethal.

We shouldn’t be surprised as nothing has gone smoothly in this year of extreme weather. Last winter it was extreme snow, followed by extreme rain and extreme, painfully delayed runoff. Heck, over in Wyoming where I’d like to be fishing about now, we still have what I’d describe as high spring flows in the river. The dam operators west of Cody are still trying to make room in the reservoir for next spring’s runoff.

The lovely mayfly hatches of autumn we normally enjoy on the Shoshone River were washed out.

Then there’s this. October was a brilliant Indian summer, with highs in the 70s all month. It was too warm in fact, as the heat kept the snakes active well into bird season. I only saw one, but that was one too many.

Then the weather dude flipped the switch, unleashing the Arctic Express. We went from a high of around 60 on Sunday to 10 the following day, and temps have hung around zero since. I expect winter to get too cold for fishing and hunting at some point, but not during apple cider season.

Wildlife is fortunately better adapted to cold weather than humans. We, of course, are a tropical species whose ancestors trudged out of African with the wherewithal to design technology — also known as winter coats — to help us survive the cold.

I’m convinced the greatest bit of cold-weather gear we’ve cobbled together is the garment that made wearing plastic cool again: fleece. It’s warm without being bulky, dries quickly when wet and dresses up just fine for evenings out (in the Rockies at least). I’ve been collecting fleece coats for years, wearing them until they begin to look a little threadbare, then stuffing them in the dry bag we take along on summer river floats.

Fleece has the added advantage of being a recycled material. Old pop bottles are ground up to make polyester yarn, and that in turn is woven into the ubiquitous coats and vests hipster outdoor types in Rocky Mountains wear while they’re quaffing local microbrews.

The fleece revolution fueled a major comeback for polyester. I’m old enough to remember the first wave, launched by John Travolta wannabes who hit the disco floor sporting colorful polyester shirts and slacks. That early stuff was a little nasty, pilled quickly and fell out of favor during the subsequent natural fiber renaissance. After improvements were made polyester gained wide acceptance, even beyond handy and comfortable fleece. More lightweight outdoor clothing intended for summer is made out of polyester now. It’s just a better material in most applications than cotton.

So humans have technology that helps us deal with winter cold. Wildlife has to grow its own technology. Deer and elk have hollow-bodied hair that serves as an insulator. They also grow heavy underfur that falls off in mange-like clumps in the spring.

My nearby chukar coveys gather up at night in groups to share body heat. They huddle in sheltered places, fluffing out feathers to ride out the cold. A chukar that goes to bed with a full crop will burn a lot of that food through the night to generate body heat. During the day they take to exposed slopes, repacking those crops with cheatgrass seeds and absorbing as much solar radiation as possible.

I won’t hunt them again until it warms up. The birds have enough to do just surviving right now.