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Show ; ; if dl . til & ft Ik; - 0 rimin 7 A In CLASSIFIEDS FEATURES PAUL HARVEY WEEKS TV GUIDE -- -- -- x ? 6 (Wr THURSDAY, SEPT. 23, 1976 MAX SHEELEY poses with one of the "smaller" trophies that he has in the garage that has been converted into a room to show off the many trophies he has collected during his hunting trips. This trophy is that of a Grizzly bear. gf. When Max McNeely says, "Let's go hunting," you better take along your lunch. You might not be back for a month. McNeely, of Thatcher, Utah, is a big game enthusiast and his hunting trips have lured him to the tops of mountains in the Yukon and filled his den with a yariety of trophies, from trophy rams to wolverines. "I've been hunting all my life," McNeely said as he sat in his den with the glass eyes of 20 to 30 trophies staring down at him. He and his wife, Sherrie, recently created the trophy room out of their garage. "My father was quite a hunter when he was young," he added. Besides, he and his brothers grew up in an area where they could hunt rabbits when they were seven or eight years old and "big enough to lift a shotgun It wasn't until 1965 that McNeely took the big step. "It was supposed to be a trip, but without," the hunter observed. It's tough to watch an otherwise magnificent looking ram walk away simply because he's smaller than something you've already baeeed in earlier trips. Hunting is "one business where there is no guarantee," he added. But, McNeely has had his share of it during his month-lon- g excursions into the wilderness. "I've taken the best caribou two years that were shot in Canada according to Boon and Crocket points," McNeely admitted. He also bagged the second best and best goat one other time. A large moose he bagged would have made Boon and Crocket if he'd have had it measured. "Boon and Crocket is not that important," McNeely i claimed. "The only reason I ever had anything measured is to put a feather in the hat of fellows I hunt with up mal as well. Anybody who has ever hunted sheep gets a real sense of satisfaction," he said. The sheep are his favorite target now. With keen eyesight and their well known preference for traveling in country that would humble a deer, the prize ram can be an elusive animal. This fall, McNeely and his party spent a total of six days on horseback just traveling to a mountain range where the sheep are found. The party spotted their prey clear across the mountain range about 12 miles away with a spotting scope. Using three saddle horses and a couple of pack horses, the hunters moved into the area where the sheep had been spotted. For four days they attempted, on foot, to climb the there." He doesn't settle for just anything that happens to walk in front of him, though. "I try to better myself every year," he said. What's his motivation, deep down? "Gosh," he said, "I really believe a better word than motivation is just to get away from it, all... I hate telephones." McNeely said he "thoroughly enjoys" being in the wilds where there is no pressure. That's quite a change of scenery from the service station he and a partner operate in Tremon-to- ' n. There's also a satisfaction in matching wits against an intelligent and rugged ani I'll iiiii mmiitM w we've been back every year," he admitted. He, a brother, and Clint Bronson, a friend, loaded up pack boards, tents and other equipment and headed to the Alaska Yukons. They had no expensive guide. "We just went 'til we found a place that looked like it would be good hunting, locked the car, and started walking," McNeely remembered. Their bag that year was three moose, three caribou and a bear. Since that trip, McNeely has hiked or ridden across much of the Northwest territory and northern tip of British Columbia in search of his prizes. "To be a trophy hunter you've got to be willing to go Ms ED 6 AMONG HIM prize trophies o 1J are these three v mountain the sheep were on, along various routes, but with little success because of its ruggedness. On the fifth day the sheep obliged them by moving onto a more accessible mountain. McNeely bagged his ram on his birthday that summer. It measured 41 k inches from the base of the horn around the curl. "You just don't find rams any more," the hunter observed. It takes ten years to raise a good ram and they're not generally legal to hunt until they're seven years old," he explained. Civilization's encroachment is taking its toll even in the exotic hunting country like the northwest. Sheep are on a down trend because of a lot of hunting pressure. Canadian law has been changed to discourage some of the pressure. It used to be legal for a hunter to pay $60 for a permit after he had succeeded in bagging his ram. Now, he has to pay $250 before he goes out in the field. Prices like that are "pricing it right out of my category," McNeely admitted. The hunter isn't a man to tell a lot of stories about close calls and such while hunting big game. "I had a bear come at me one time,a big grizzly-b- ut it was a closer call for the bear than me,. ..he got shot," McNeely said wryly. McNeely's trophy room is outfitted complete with the traditional bearskin rug and a large grizzly skin hangs from the wall. 40-in- Hunting the bear, the rams. hunter and his friends usually use the remains of earlier kills as lures to make connections. "With most anything killed in the north, there's a s Yfegr - -- - stalk involved," he added. "To me, the stalk is part of the thrill." "The best way to hunt anything in the north country," he added, "is to climb a mountain with binoc- ulars." All that exotic hunting still hasn't dimmed McNeely's enthusiasm for the local deer hunt. He's just a little more selective. "It hasn't affected me at fell," he said. "The old deer hunt is still a big thing in my life." "I'll hunt a week to take a trophy mule deer," he added. "I just love to hunt." This year's effort is mounted on a wall at an Ogden sporting goods store. A veteran and a professional, McNeely admitted he gets upset over the actions of some of today's would-b- e hunters. Many of the hunters who come to the northwest are "very mostly physically," he observed. "It seems like most of the big game hunters are trying to impress somebody," he added. "About 50 percent are really hunters; the other 50 percent don't care how they get it or who gets it for them, as long as he can go home with one." He also has sympathy for landowners who more and more are locking their gates to hunters. "There's always a few who shoot holes in the blocks of tractors or leave the gates open for cattle to get out." McNeely, who has had offers to be an outfitter for hunting trips in the northwest, has attracted the attention of many hunters. He's received calls from people as far away as France who want to join him on the hunt. |