Some guys have all the luck — thanks to better halves

Some guys have all the luck. They always catch fish. They always draw a big game tag. They always bag the biggest bucks. They always get the girl.

Tracy Reynolds considers himself “one lucky man.” After attending an antelope hunting workshop I helped with last week, Reynolds wrote to tell me he was the man sitting on the front row with the beautiful woman on his arm. He and his wife were at the workshop because she is the lucky recipient of a 2009 antelope tag, the first she has drawn.

“My wife has been my hunting partner for over five years, and I can’t tell you how great it is to share the same passion. She is very self-sufficient. She will go off on her own, and I will hear the shot and know it is her. She cleans her own animal, will quarter it up and pack it out,” Reynolds wrote.

Cleans her own animal? Pack it out? Now that’s saying something. A friend of mine once dated a lady who cleaned her own fish and loaded her own muzzleloader. I told him any woman who would do that was definitely a keeper. Evidently so is Mrs. Reynolds.

“She will go out on every hunt, help dig out a stuck truck, use her eagle eye (to spot the biggest bucks no doubt),” Reynolds added. “She has put plenty of meat in our freezer and one of the biggest trophies on our wall.”

At one point during the workshop, someone snickered when Mrs. Reynolds asked a question. That didn’t set well with Mr. Reynolds.

“She is more of an outdoors woman than most men I know. Heck, she even processes her own venison,” Reynolds wrote, before closing with this note: “I can’t tell you how many times after a hunt, a hunter will come up to me and shake their head and say, ‘You are one lucky man.’ The point is, you men out there who dismiss the pretty face in camo … watch out … the women you sit next to just might out-hunt you.”

I reckon that’s just what some men are afraid of.

• JUNIOR BUCKETMOUTHS — Though the chances of pulling a record-breaking largemouth bass from Lake Mead are pretty slim, it didn’t stop a handful of young anglers from giving it their best shot.

Members of the Southern Nevada Junior Bucketmouths, a bass fishing club for anglers between the ages of 8 and 17, recently took a field trip to Lake Mead and spent a warm Saturday morning plying the lake’s rocky points and reefs with the goal of reeling in a few largemouth bass and perhaps a smallie or two.

Their efforts weren’t wasted.

With the help and boats of adult volunteers from the Nevada BASS Federation, the club’s sponsoring organization, seven young men drop-shotted their way to a successful day on the water and weighed in nearly 40 pounds of fish. My sons, Hyrum and Dallin, were among the group. I went along for the ride.

There was some minor top-water action early in the morning, but it turned off when the heat turned on. That’s when the adult mentors pulled out the drop shot rigs and taught the young anglers how to use them to fool a bass. I think the volunteers who gave up their Saturday, their boats and their gasoline had as much fun helping the kids as they normally do when they’re fishing for themselves.

Last Saturday, the Junior Bucketmouths were back on the water, only this time they were at the Kirch Wildlife Management Area for a Junior Bassmaster qualifying tournament. Winners in each of two age groups qualified for one of six divisional tournaments just like competitive anglers on the adult Bassmaster circuit. From there, the kids can move on to the Junior Bassmaster World Championship national tournament, where they compete for $23,000 in college scholarships and other prizes. It’s held in conjunction with the BASS Federation National Championship.

The Kirch bass were cooperative, and the kids caught fish all day, said Tim Myers, secretary of the Nevada BASS Federation. During the course of the two-day tournament, 10 participants weighed in a total of 97 fish whose collective weight was nearly 92 pounds. Myers said the frog bite was awesome and that black and blue Senkos were productive as well.

For more information about the Junior Bucketmouths, contact Joe Lecesnki at joebrontapesnv@aol.com.

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 dougnielsen@att.net.