Rob Breeding

Kearney

Twin daughter dad. Writer, teacher, outdoors columnist for @FlatheadBeacon. "They smelt of pubs, and Wormwood Scrubs, and too many right wing meetings"

Featured in: Favicon

flatheadbeacon.com Favicon

codyenterprise.com

Articles

De-extinction of Dires

2 weeks ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

This was an exciting week for Pleistocene megafauna geeks. Monday, we learned of the de-extinction of maybe the greatest canine predator ever to roam Earth. Yes, the dire wolf has returned. Well, sort of. What’s been created is more a close approximation of a dire wolf, with genes that nearly match the real thing.
Mud, Everywhere - Flathead Beacon

3 weeks ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

It’s officially spring. The standout attribute of spring is that it heralds the return of heavy coats to the closet. Not put away, mind you. There’s still a healthy snow squall or two before us. But the worst of winter (below-zero temperatures) is behind us. Still, it remains my least remarkable season. It’s mostly about mud. I’m not against spring, mind you. There’s no summer unless there’s first a spring. Off-highway travel is limited to need-to-drive status.
Win for Public Landowners

4 weeks ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding |Kellyn Brown

The good guys won one for a change. About an hour after I filed last week’s column, I learned what this week’s topic would be when the 10th District Court of Appeals released its corner-crossing ruling. In its decision, the court upheld the rights of four hunters who in 2020 and 2021, corner-crossed between two pieces of public land to hunt near Elk Mountain in southeast Wyoming. The ruling applies to states in the 10th Circuit: Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Utah.
Spring Weather Hopecast

1 month ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

It’s mid-March, the season of taxes, wildly variable weather, and mud. The worst of winter is mostly behind us, though we can still jinx things by breaking out our spring wardrobe too soon. If your resident hipsters are running the streets in flamboyantly colored beanies, puffy vests and shorts, finished with a pair of river sandals strapped over alpaca-wool socks, you’ll know who’s to blame for any late-season blizzards.
Moving Fast, Breaking the Outdoors

1 month ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

Here’s a question. In November, did Americans vote for longer lines at national parks, unmaintained trails in national forests and an end-around of environmental laws so we can log the heck out of America’s forests and teach California Gov. Gavin Newsom how to end fire as we know it? I kind of doubt it. Mostly I heard how we voted to lower the price of eggs. I’m still not sure what we voted for, but whatever it was, we’re getting it. How many are noticing, however, is unclear.
Grassland, Upside Down

1 month ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

March is possibly my least favorite month. The worst of winter is usually over, but that doesn’t mean it’s socks-with-sandals weather just yet. I needed a little reset and a reminder that winter is nearly done. I’ve recently been writing about my English setter Jack, who died more than a decade ago and thought maybe a hunting story is what I needed this time of year. We lived in Idaho during Jack’s first two hunting seasons, and he cut his teeth on Columbian sharptails at Curlew National Grassland.
CWD Closing In - Flathead Beacon

1 month ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

The rapid progression of chronic wasting disease in wild deer and elk in the Northern Rockies means it’s here to stay. There is one instance of the fatal disease being eradicated in the wild, in 2005 in upstate New York, but there’s no realistic hope of that out West with the disease now found in 30 states and four Canadian provinces. Chronic wasting disease was first identified in Montana in 2017, in mule deer on the state’s southern border with Wyoming south of Billings.
Great Books Grow with Us

2 months ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

When I started fly fishing the sport still had something of an underground vibe. I remember practicing for months, casting on the lawn of the family home in sunny Southern California, well before I tried casting to a fish (my neighbors probably thought I was nuts). Thankfully, I caught a trout on my first real fly fishing trip and have been a convert from “less-exotic” fishing methods ever since. Many of us followed similar rites of passage into the world of fly fishing.
The Last Skiing Trip

2 months ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

There was a time when winter sports were a regular part of my life. When I was younger and less brittle we would mark the passage of winter by traveling to the Eastern Sierra for the late-April trout season opener. That trip often included a day or two on the slopes of Mammoth Mountain, a peak so perfectly placed its leeward face collects snow like my black Simms fleece jacket gathers white setter hair from the couch.
Hunters in the Snow

2 months ago | flatheadbeacon.com | Rob Breeding

There are lots of Canada geese about, in these parts at least. I suspect most are new arrivals and not the resident birds that have been here all winter. There aren’t any snow geese yet, however. It’s the first week of February so they won’t be long. In two weeks the skies will be full of those squeaky birds. Cranes will filter in after that. I’ve seen them as early as the last week of February, but it’s March when they descend in force.