News of tag draw travels slow in remote outdoors

Like a wildfire. That’s how news travels through the hunting and fishing community.

So most of you know the results of Nevada’s big game tag draw are available online at huntnevada.com. If you didn’t know that, then it’s time to go on the computer and find out whether you or someone you know will be hunting this year.

When the tag results became available Friday, I was in Lamoille Canyon in the Ruby Mountains, southeast of Elko, where I was assisting with a three-day workshop for volunteers who serve in the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s hunter safety and angler education programs. Cell phone coverage in the canyon was spotty at best, so watching many of the approximately 100 participants trying to call someone who could check the Web for draw results was quite entertaining.

All around camp, people could be seen using their cell phones like someone using a divining rod to find water.

With cell phones held out in front like a compass, anxious hunters would take a few steps, then turn in a small half-circle with the phone pointed in the general direction of Elko. When the result wasn’t what they hoped for, the diviner moved to another spot and tried again. It was easy to spot people who thought they hit pay dirt, because they quickly typed in a number and put the phone to their ear. From the meeting hall steps, the camp looked a lot like a television commercial. I expected to hear someone say, “Can you hear me now?”

“How many bars do you get?” quickly became the camp’s official greeting. The answer usually included an expletive or two as frustrated hunters struggled to find someone who could hear them now. One instructor hiked to the top of a nearby ridge, another stood on the post of a split-rail fence, and one desperate instructor even climbed on top of his camp trailer. At one point, I thought I had found pay dirt in the high-traffic area just outside the bathroom, but the connection only lasted long enough to send a text message. Unfortunately, the text went out, but none could come back through. Dadgummit!

Just when it seemed like we were all in the same boat, someone would get excited and start bragging about the tag or tags they drew.

Having gone tagless in Nevada since 2005, I became increasingly eager to learn the draw results, but despite trying everything from standing on one leg to climbing on rocks, I just couldn’t get a cell connection.

My friend Roy soon decided to drive down the canyon until he could get cell coverage so he could call his brother in nearby Wells. On his way out, he offered to check on my tags as well. Perhaps he sensed my growing cell phone frustration. When he returned an hour or so later, Roy was the bearer of good news. No, I didn’t draw my bighorn sheep tag, but I will be using a smoke pole to hunt an antlerless elk this year. The tag drought is finally over.

Looking back, I probably could have earned enough money to pay for a landowner compensation deer tag simply by taking a list of names and driving to the public library in Elko. Why is hindsight always 20/20?

• OBAMA FACTOR — After my column last week about America’s ammunition shortage, I received a couple of e-mails from readers who offered the following perspectives on why there is a shortage in the first place:

“One factor not listed in your column is the (President) Obama factor. He and his liberal allies are the worst anti-gunners in the history of government,” wrote Forrest Henry.

James Richards added that the biggest reason for the ammo shortage is hoarding by people who are “afraid of the Obama factor. Early last summer, there was plenty of ammo. As the election heated up, and it looked like Obama or Clinton would win the primary, ammo started to fly off the shelves. … People are afraid that Obama is going to limit, overprice through taxes, (and) code all ammo. Ninety percent of the shortage is due to the Obama factor. The stuff you wrote about accounts for 10 percent. … We didn’t have these shortages even during the Vietnam war.”

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His “In the Outdoors” column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.