A fitness tracking watch can really help with your exercise goals. But not all trackers are created equal. I found this out the hard way a while back.

About 18 years ago, the first time I wanted to get myself into better shape for hunting season, I bought the first-generation Garmin Forerunner. I don’t know if it was the first-ever GPS-enabled running watch, but it was certainly among the first. It wasn’t like today’s fitness trackers, though. It was meant to be worn for a run or a bike ride, then plugged back in to the charger right after. Its battery only lasted three or four hours, and it was huge, anyway. You wouldn’t want to wear it all day long. But 18 years later, that Garmin still works.

The tracking watches today are meant to be worn all day, and even all night. They track how many steps you take, how well you sleep, how fast you run, and a whole lot more. And some can even take the place of your handheld GPS receiver to help you trace your steps into and back out of the woods on a hike or a hunt.

The Fitbit Ionic I won about five years ago wouldn’t do that last part, but it was free, so I didn’t complain. And it did help me knock off a bunch of extra weight and get myself into hunting shape. But then it died. Eight days out of warranty, it croaked.

I called customer support, and they offered me a 25% off coupon for a new one. But I didn’t go down that road again. I decided to go back to Garmin, and I ordered a Garmin Forerunner 645. It’s now three years old, and it’s still going strong. And as an added bonus, the Forerunner can map my hikes in the woods, too. I wish I’d won a Garmin in the first place.

Several years ago, after a hunting season spent huffing and puffing, I came home and stepped on the scale. The number that came up was alarming. I vowed at that moment to get fit. I knew if I didn’t, I’d just keep getting more and more out of shape. I didn’t care what I looked like or anything like that – I just wanted to be in good enough condition to get through a hunting season without feeling like I was going to die with every step up the mountain.

So I spent the rest of the winter, spring and summer in the gym. I worked with a trainer, and I took some of the advice of a dietician. Instead of eating lunch, I went to the gym. I kept track of the calories I ate, and I made sure I expended more calories each day than I took in. And it worked. I went from 290 pounds down to 190. I felt great, I had energy, and I was excited for the hunting season to come around again.

When the time finally came to go to elk camp, I couldn’t wait. I had my gear packed three days ahead of schedule, and I double-checked and repacked it each day until it was time to leave. On the hike in to camp, it was clear that all that hard work had paid off. I made it to camp faster than I’d ever done before, and I still had enough energy for an evening hunt.

Since then, I let myself slip out of shape, but I started working out again last fall. I’m back down to my hunting weight, and I feel like I could survive another elk hunt. But somewhere along the line, the focus of my fitness changed. My primary goal isn’t to be able to hunt without wheezing anymore. Now I’m thinking about running a half marathon. I justify it to myself by saying if I can run a half marathon, I can hunt an elk. As long as a 14-mile run doesn’t kill me.

A few winters ago, I went out to feed the horses one morning right after I got out of the shower, but before I checked the thermometer. I stepped out the door and reached to swing the storm door shut behind me. That’s when I realized it was a bit on the chilly side. As I heaved the metal storm door closed, I found myself being pulled off balance by some strange force. Once the pain in my fingers reached my brain, I realized I was stuck to the door. My hands were still a bit damp, and they had become one with the house.

There was a chance I could reach the laundry room sink if I opened the storm door. I could fill one of the dogs’ food bowls with hot water, pour it on my hand, and get unstuck. The door handle was plastic, so I didn’t worry about getting both hands frozen to the door. I grasped the handle and pushed the plunger. Nothing.

When I swung the door shut, the lock must have dropped on the inside. It had happened before, and the only way to get back inside was to go out the gate and around the house to the front door (which has a metal handle). Unfortunately, my arms weren’t long enough to take that route.

Standing there in my jeans and a sweatshirt, my body temperature was dropping rapidly. I employed the nasal thermometer method for determining the temperature. If the hairs stick together when you snort in a huge breath, it’s a good bet that the mercury is stalled out somewhere south of zero. That was the case that morning.

Knowing time was of the essence, I bit the bullet and yanked. Not only did my fingers come free, but the door itself popped open. The storm door latch wasn’t heavy enough to take the strain, and the door swung open.

Since that experience, I’ve been a little more careful about checking the temperature before going outside. If it’s any kind of cold out there, I wear gloves. I may still freeze to death feeding the horses someday, but it won’t be because I’m stuck to the back door.

A friend named Granger recently asked me if I’d been ice fishing a lot this year. I had to admit to him that I haven’t. I’ve never been much of an ice fisherman. It’s not because I don’t like the cold. I just prefer goose hunting, and the goose and ice fishing seasons tend to overlap.But Granger’s question got me thinking about the last time I made it out to the ice. I went out to a frozen lake a few years ago with Desi Rivera, who absolutely lives for ice fishing.

Since I was working on a newspaper story, I had to take a few pictures while we were out on the ice. Every once in a while, I’d pull my hands from the warm confines of my wool and Thinsulate gloves to snap off a picture or two. Within moments my fingers were too cold to feel the shutter button on the camera.

Any foot movement on the wind-polished ice was perilous. When I had two feet on the ground, there was enough friction to keep me in one place. Every time I’d take a foot off the ice, though, the wind would take the opportunity to shove me toward the open water at the other end of the lake.

If it weren’t for the scattered spots of rough ice left by previous fishermen and women, I probably would have taken a dunk or two by day’s end.

The danger wasn’t confined to being blown off the solid ice, either. I am admittedly one of the clumsiest people on Earth, and the Mercury-slick surface didn’t help. I surprised myself with my balance and sure-footedness, though. I only fell down 10 or 20 times. I do that on a daily basis in the relative safety of my own home.

Bumps, bruises, numb appendages and wind-burnt skin aside, I had a great time. So when Granger asked me if I would like to go with him next weekend, I said I’d see if I could. Then he said he has several huts, and he’d set one of them up to keep us out of the wind.

“In that case,” I said, “count me in, for sure.”

If you’re looking to tack a coyote pelt or two on the barn, you better do it soon. Coyotes and furbearers start losing their hair about this time of year, and if you’re thinking of selling the furs, they’re probably already losing value.

I’m not a real big coyote hunter, though I’ve known a lot of guys who say once you start getting into it, you get hooked in a hurry. The same has been said for prairie dog hunting, but I haven’t been snared by that pastime, either. I don’t really see anything wrong with either activity, but I’ve never done much predator or nongame hunting.

I tried to change that, at least for coyotes, this winter. I had a guy lined up to take me and a friend coyote hunting, but things always got in the way. My buddy had a pretty rough year, and I’m sure he would have rather gone hunting than do the things he had to do. Maybe next year.

I might give it a shot yet this spring, though the pelts won’t be worth much. I really don’t care about selling them, though. I’d just like to have a couple of nice coyote pelts of my own. But even if I’m not going to sell ‘em, I probably need to go hunting pretty soon. Once the dogs start losing their hair in earnest, the pelts won’t be good for much at all. They’ll keep losing fur, even after they’re treated.

Besides, after a full winter, they’ll probably be pretty wary. Like I said, I’m not an avid predator hunter, so my calling needs a lot of work. If I’m going to have any hope of luring coyotes in to the call at this late date, I’ll need to go where nobody’s been trying to call coyotes yet this year. Or maybe for the last few years. They’re smart critters, and it doesn’t take ‘em long to figure out that it could be a person, rather than an injured rabbit, over there where the sound’s coming from.

So I might have to wait until next year. That’ll be OK, because the pelts’ll be better, and I’ll have plenty of time to work on my calling.

All the talk in the news lately about new gun control laws has me worried. As gun owners, we need to let our senators and representatives, both in the state house and in Washington, D.C., know that we are serious about our rights. But that’s not enough. It’s also important to make sure that we’re safe, responsible gun owners.

In my opinion, everybody who owns a gun, and especially those who carry guns, should have training. Not just what you get from hunter’s safety, but training specific to the guns you have and use. I don’t want to see laws that make it mandatory to get training if you want to own a gun. If you own guns, you should take the initiative to get the training, without having a law that requires it.

If a higher percentage of gun owners can show that they have taken classes or had other training, and that they did it on their own, we’ll have a good argument to keep laws requiring training off the books.

Also, the anti-gun crowd is always quick to bring up accidents involving firearms. If all of us get more training with our guns, we should reduce the likelihood of accidents, and that should keep the antis from getting more ammunition, so to speak, to use against us.

There are tons of places you can get that training. Most community colleges offer classes ranging from safety to concealed carry. A lot of communities also have groups that offer a ton of different types of training. Then there are the big outfits like Front Sight down in Nevada, where they teach more specific self-defense and firearm handling classes.

Just do a search on the Internet, and you’ll find more classes than you could possibly take. Pick a few and complete ‘em. You, and your rights, will be safer.

I finally had the redneck weekend I’ve been needing for a long time. It all started out with some four-wheeling. Granted, that part of the weekend wasn’t by choice. To get anywhere from my house, for the time being, I have to put the truck in four-high, hit the gas, and do a little praying. If the puddle in the driveway gets any deeper, I’m going to have to put a snorkel on the truck.

Once I got home on Friday, though, I figured I’d just stay put until I absolutely had to leave again. That wasn’t much of a problem, because there’s plenty to do at my place, especially if you’re up for a little redneck fun.

The first thing I did to stave off cabin fever was to load my trusty .22 rifle and check the woodpile for rabbits. It didn’t take long to scare one up, and two more popped out a few minutes later. Skinning and cleaning those rabbits killed a little more time, and so did building three stretching boards to tack the hides to.

But before I can stretch those pelts out, I had to soak them in salt water. That’ll make the hides soft and pliable, and after they’ve soaked for a few days, I’ll tack them up to stretch.

But that wasn’t quite enough redneck for me, so I sharpened most of my knives. My wife needed some help on a project she was working on, so I brought one of those freshly sharpened knives over to help her out. I promptly slashed deep into my left thumb, thereby ratcheting up the redneck level. And in keeping with the theme of the weekend, instead of going in for stitches, I superglued that sucker.

I capped off the redneck weekend with a little target practice. I mixed up some .22 Tannerite targets and tacked them to some particle board. Judging from the splinters left of the particle board, the .22 version of Tannerite is no less Tanneritelike. Hunting, four-wheeling, and blowing stuff up certainly made for a great redneck weekend.

How many landowners do you know who rev up their four-wheel-drives and tear through riparian areas on their land? Or just toss their garbage out in the brush when they’re riding around on the lower 40?

It’s easier to treat your own land better than someone else’s. But next time you go to a popular spot on a national forest or other public land, look around. You won’t have to look far before you see a Pepsi can or an empty potato chip bag, or tracks from vehicles driving where they shouldn’t be.

But why do people treat federal and state lands this way? Beyond the issue of it being both irresponsible and disrespectful to tear up the land, it’s also stupid. It’s everyone’s land. In essence, the people who wreck it are wrecking their own land. But they’re also destroying your land. Mine, too. And I don’t like that.

We need to reverse this trend. With more and more people cropping up on the planet every day, the places we can go to get away from it all become harder to find and more valuable. We can’t afford to have any of our public land ruined by careless, thoughtless individuals.

The first step we all need to take is to treat the land as though it is ours. That should be easy, because it is. Show some pride in ownership. Beyond just leaving the land as you find it, go a step further. Leave it in better condition, if you can. Pick up any trash you find and scatter the rocks from your fire ring.

The second step is a little harder. It’s not easy to confront someone when you see them doing what they shouldn’t be doing, but it must be done. You can do it somewhat politely, just to let them know someone saw. If they littered, you can pick it up, and tell them you grabbed that potato chip bag they accidentally dropped.

If they’re doing something that’s blatantly illegal, like driving where vehicles aren’t permitted or poaching, get a license plate number and a description of the people involved, then call the authorities when you get back to town. If you have the ability, take a picture of them breaking the law.

Let’s keep our land in good shape.

On our trip across Wyoming a while back, my wife and I stopped for a while in Hot Springs State Park. Down where the Big Spring runs into the Bighorn River, there’s a wide, slow bend where you can find ducks all year long. I’ve been there when there were more different kinds of ducks, but on this trip, all we saw were mallards, widgeons and goldeneyes.

There were two different kinds of goldeneyes, though. There were both common and Barrows goldeneyes. Commons have a round spot on each cheek, and Barrows have white, crescent-shaped cheek patches. It was a good chance to test myself on waterfowl ID. The birds on the water were easy to identify, especially when I used my binoculars. But the ones flying past were harder to name.

The hunting season’s over for ducks, but sitting by the river and watching the birds was good hunting practice for me. The bag limit for ducks has restrictions on how many of some of the species you can have, and it’s different for the different flyways and zones within each flyway. I tried to identify the ducks before they came within 40 yards. It was sometimes hard to be sure of the species and gender, but I think I identified them all correctly. Some were closer than 40 yards when I made my final ID, but some were farther away. I left the viewing pull-out by the river with a pretty good feeling about my duck identification skills.

While we were watching the birds, we were also listening to them. I don’t think my wife would have allowed me to practice calling inside the truck, but I found myself wishing I’d brought a duck call, anyway. I could have stood outside and listened to the birds, then tried to reproduce the sounds I heard. I might have looked like a complete weirdo, standing in a state park, tooting on a duck call, but it would have been good practice. At least until the authorities came along and led me to my own padded room.

Don’t let the end of the season keep you from practicing duck ID and calling. Get out to Hot Springs State Park, or anywhere you find ducks, and keep your skills sharp.

I didn’t fill my elk tag last year. I didn’t get a deer, either. I didn’t even get an antelope. Part of that was because I didn’t take enough time off to go hunting. But I didn’t realize how long the effects of too few days hunting in a season would last until I made dinner last Friday night.

Because I had a lot of room in my freezer, I decided to fill it with meat from a steer my dad butchered. He had every inch of available space in his own freezers filled, and he sent me back to Cheyenne with some of his extra meat. I thought it was a gracious gesture until I sat down to a T-bone last week.

Let me just say that I’ve eaten some pretty nasty meat in my life. Heck, I lived in the dorms and ate at the cafeteria in college. ‘Nuff said. But this steak was the worst thing I’ve eaten in a long, long time.

My dad raises longhorns, and he takes a lot of grief for it. I’ve had a lot of people tell me they wouldn’t eat longhorn beef if you paid them. But Dad has butchered several of his cattle, and until now, they’ve all provided excellent meat. But this steer was a 200-year-old longhorn-corriente cross, and I think we’d have been better off if we’d eaten his horns than his meat.

I’d much rather have a freezer full of elk steaks. Even a big, old herd bull would have had better meat than that ancient steer. But that’s a given. Elk meat is quite possibly the best meat man has ever tasted.

Had I shot a deer or an antelope, I wouldn’t have had to resort to filling my freezer with old steer. I wish now that I’d been able to get out for at least a few more days. But then again, knowing how I hunt, I still might not have come home with any meat.

Next season, I’m going to devote more time to hunting. I’ve learned my lesson. I’ve eaten something far worse than crow. But I’d much rather eat venison.