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Show Page 18 THE OGDEN VALLEY NEWS Volume III, Issue II November 15, 2000 Hunting in Utah Around the Turn of the Century Note: This information was taken “Pioneer Personal History.” It is the story of William H. Anderson who was a Weber County Game Warden. This account tells of his life in connection with fishing and hunting in Utah. The story was written around 1939. I was born in Slaterville, Utah and have spent the biggest part of my life in Utah, although I have traveled a lot and have been in nearly every state in the Union. From Slaterville, my parents moved to Harrisville, where I worked on the farm until I was about twenty or twenty-one years of age. I then started working in the brickyard as a common laborer and ended up as foreman of the yards. For several years after that I worked handling horses, buying and selling them. I gathered them mostly through the western states and shipped them east on the Missouri River and other places. The years of 1889 and 1890 I spent shooting ducks for market. This was up around the Locomotive Springs District, which is in the Box Elder County. About 1908 I started working for the Perter’s Cartride Company, traveling over the western part of the United States and some parts of the east, shooting for exhibition. I worked for them for two years. I never gained more enjoyment in life though than from hunting and fishing and I spent every spare moment I could get away either fishing or hunting as the season might be. I have been game warden for Weber County for the past twenty years, during which time I have seen many changes. When I was a boy we could ride for hours up onto the head of the streams and never see a fisherman, but now on the opening day of the fishing season, in Weber County alone, there are one thousand fishermen out. The Fish and Game Department have a terrible time to cope with the increase in fishermen and the decrease of fish, due to erosion and other causes. The season of 1938 though was better than it has been for several years. The Fish and Game Department have spent lots of money to build it up to where it is and it will take years to get it up to where we want it. When I was a boy, big game were plentiful in Utah, but gradually they became depleted until around 1913 and 1914 there were very few deer or elk here with the exception of the northern part of the state. Then the Federal Government stepped in, and between them and the Utah State Fish and Game Department they have been built up again until during the 1938 season nearly as many deer were killed as getting an average of 250 a day. This existed during those years. Elk were was about 125 each. We could have almost extinct but with the aid of the shot more but we figured this was as Federal Government, the Utah State many as we could handle. At that time Fish and Game Department have built there was no bag limit. We sold the teal game reserves and passed laws prohibit- or small ducks from seventy-five cents ing the killing of them only in certain to one dollar per dozen and the comsections and during certain dates. There mon duck or larger varieties for one are probably four or five thousand head dollar, twenty-five cents per dozen. of elk in the state of Utah now. The markets even then were so glutted At one time, deer were killed for they didn’t want to take them at that market in Utah and a carcass was worth price. The average price for teal in the around three dollars. I don’t think better cafes was forty cents and a half, though that any have been sold on the mallard was seventy-five cents. My market since the year 1900. The buck partner and I froze a good deal of our law was passed somewhere around ducks and shipped them to the coast 1913 and game reserves were estab- where we received fairly good prices for lished where shooting was prohibited them. It was between the years 1907 at all times, and no shooting of female deer. There are probably more deer killed during the hunting season in Utah than all the states that border it combined. More than 25,000 bucks were killed during the season of 1938 besides about 3,500 doe, in areas where the food supply was scarce and there was danger of losing them. These were killed by permit only. About 500 elk were also killed by permit in Utah. The supply on elk has been held about the same, as the area doesn’t justify any more. One thing that is fast disappearing is the mountain grouse. There are only four species now and even though there had been no open season on them for a number of years it doesn’t seem to bring about any increase. One species in particular that is rapidly disappearing is the sharp-tailed grouse, more William "Buck" Anderson was one of Utah's commonly known as the early game wardens. prairie chicken. These are very limited and 1909 that waterfowl could not be and about all that are found are in the sold for market. The legislature passed Ogden Valley. This is due to over graz- a law prohibiting their sale. I was one of ing and the lack of food supply for the the men that helped get the bill up. young. I have seen the time, when I The situation of the waterfowl is was a youngster, they were so thick similar to that of the grouse, only they that when they raised up they would are not depleted by gun so much as by just darken the sun and now there are disease. During the years of 1932, only several hundred in the entire state. 1933 and 1934, ducks were so scarce The Fish and Game Department are that the federal government made strindoing everything they can to try to gent laws on them. These laws cut remedy this situation by buying up land down the bag limit to 25 birds and also for reserves and trying to restore plant shortened the season. About that time life and other food so necessary for the season was from October 1, to them. January 31. It was cut to thirty days During the years 1889 and 1890 and the bag limit was twelve or fifteen. when I and my partner where shooting The season of 1938 the bag limit was ducks for market we would figure on ten birds and the time was raised to 45 days. There were about 7000 ducks killed on the opening day on the Bear River and 1000 at the Utah State Duck Grounds. The Fish and Game Department are very well satisfied with the conditions throughout Utah. We still think that Utah has one of the best duck hunting grounds in the United States and with the assistance of the federal government the ducks will never get fewer, unless something unforeseen comes along. The Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge located west of Brigham City, 40% of which is open for hunting, is the ideal spot in Utah. There are projects being erected all over Utah from the southern part to the northern part for duck hunting. Bears are one of the animals not considered game animals in the state of Utah. They are almost extinct now where a number of years back both the black and brown bear were numerous. The last grizzly taken in Utah was in the northern part of the state and this was several years back. The government won’t permit a law to protect them here. There will always be bear in the U.S. though because they are protected in our National Parks. I had some experience with bear along about 1889 when three or four of us had a wood contract to haul timber from the mountains to Hilliard, a small station on the Union Pacific Railroad. We had a camp in Hilliard and there were also charcoal kilns there and a flume that carried timber from the Bear River down to Hilliard for mining props and railroad ties. There was a Frenchman who worked for us every summer and in the winter spent his time trapping. He was about 50 years of age and weighed about 140 pounds. When our work was finished that summer he invited me to stay up with him that winter and trap around Henry’s Fork, Smith’s Fork and the China Lakes. I had a little experience trapping mink and muskrat and decided to stay with him. We had our supplies shipped from Evanston up to Hilliard and then we took them up to Willow Creek. We trapped Beaver until things froze up and then we trapped martin and fox and we also killed quite a number of bears, one in particular, a silver tip grizzly that I got along in March. The snow was very deep and glazed over so it was hard enough for us to walk on without our snowshoes. Not far from our cabin was an old mining tunnel that went back about ninety feet. I noticed it and out in front there were tracks in the snow to indicate something had been there. I told the trapper about it and he said it must be a bear in the tunnel and in the morning we would go up and see if we could get it. When we got there we cut pole from some bird’s eye pine that was slender and not much bigger than fishing poles. We poked the pole in the tunnel and felt around but couldn’t seem to touch anything so we cut another pole and fastened the two together thus making them about fifty feet long. The trapper then took an empty five-pound baking powder can he had brought with him and cut a candle and stuck it in for a flashlight. This threw a light about 30 or 35 feet. Then he said we would go in the tunnel and one of us could hold the flashlight and the other take his gun and see if we could see anything. He wanted to be the one to take the gun and I said I wouldn’t go unless I could take mine. I really believe he was afraid that my aim might not be so good. He finally agreed to leave his standing up on the outside of the tunnel so he could grab it if we had to come running out. We went inside the tunnel and it was very dry in there, no moisture at all. Shining the light around carefully we finally located the bear whose eyes looked like two balls of fire. The trapper told me to aim right below those eyes as he shined the light on the bear but to be careful and take good aim and then to get out as fast as we could. I aimed and fired and we ran out. When we got out he grabbed his gun and we waited and nothing happened. We HUNTING cont. on page 19 |