B
Saturday, April 4, 2020
The Observer & Baker City Herald
RECREATION
REPORT
Spring bear
hunters have
more time
to decide
whether to
hunt this year
SALEM — Hunters
who drew a spring
bear tag have extra
time to decide if
they will hunt this
year. The Oregon
Department of Fish
and Wildlife (ODFW)
is extending the tag
sale deadline until
May 1 so hunters
have more time
to consider their
options, especially
hunters who would
have to travel to hunt
as travel is limited
to essential needs at
this time.
The season
opened on April 1
and as always, hunt-
ers must purchase
their tag before they
go hunting. The tag
sale deadline is usu-
ally the day before
the season begins
but ODFW is making
an exception due
to the coronavirus.
Spring bear hunt-
ers who choose
not to go hunting
have some options
for their controlled
hunt tag including
reinstatement of
preference points
and a refund of the
cost of their tag. For
more information,
call 503-947-6101 or
email odfw.web-
sales@state.or.us
FISHING
FORECAST
Phillips
Reservoir
Current reservoir
storage is at 35 per-
cent of capacity. The
reservoir is ice-free.
While camp-
grounds and
restrooms are closed
due to COVID-19
restrictions, the boat
launch is available
for use. The access
road to Social Secu-
rity Point is passable.
Fishing for trout at
the Powder River in-
let can be very good
this time of year.
Pilcher Creek
Reservoir
Ice is going off the
reservoir. There is a
band of open water
around the perim-
eter. While the camp-
ground is closed, the
boat launches are
open, and will be
usable once the ice is
completely off, likely
in a week or so.
Unity Reservoir
Reservoir stor-
age is at 85 percent
and increasing. The
reservoir is ice-free
and fi shing for 12-
to 15-inch rainbow
trout has been good.
The Unity State Park
campground and re-
strooms are closed,
but the boat launch
is open.
Wallowa Lake
Good-sized ko-
kanee are available
for the determined
angler. Fishing for
holdover trout can
be good during early
spring.
Photo by Ethan Shaw
Gunsight
Mountain, which
looms above
Anthony Lake, is
an example of a
horn — a peak
sculpted by gla-
ciers. The most
famous “horn”
is the Matterhorn
in the Alps.
A landscape to celebrate
I
n this strange
time of ours,
all of us stay-
ing closer to home
and staring down
no small amount of
uncertainty, it’s a
comfort to watch the “normal”
signs of the season unfold: the
big white cloudbanks spitting
rain and graupel and fl urries
(and, increasingly, echoing
with thunder), the up-and-
down-and-up-again routine
of the snow line along the
foot tops of our highest
peaks to the whitewater in
the heart of Hells Canyon.
We’re lucky to live in a
ETHAN SHAW
place of such topographic
variety. Thanks to our odd
mountain fronts, the sandhill and scrambled geology and
cranes and turkey vultures
our great climatic and ecologi-
back and the golden eagles on cal spectrum, terrain here can
the nest.
call to mind all sorts of dif-
It also seems a good mo-
ferent geographies: We have
ment to remind ourselves of
vistas here in Northeast Or-
this incredible countryside
egon that evoke the Scottish
of ours: to imagine sweeping Highlands and the Dartmoor
down from the nearly 10,000- wastes of Southwest England,
THE LAY
OF THE LAND
the Altai Mountains of Cen-
tral Asia, the Drakensberg
heights of South Africa.
Consider the geomorphic
spectrum in our great big
backyard: this Inland North-
west province of mountain
ranges, level basins, table-
lands, canyonlands, rim-
lands, benchlands. Here we
fi nd landscapes shaped by
cataclysm — basalt fl oods,
hydraulic outbursts — and
sculpted by the slow, steady
scrape and shove of glaciers,
sitting side by side and meld-
ing into one another. Here
you can stand on a bench of
rotted granitic grit (“grus”) or
a bone-white blockfi eld while
looking at a skyline of dark
basalt fangs.
Our mountain peaks may
be pyramidal or downright
toothy glacial horns, broad
domes and whalebacks—or
they may be craggy buttes or
thick-forested knobs.
See Landforms/Page 3B
Gunsmithing: A growth industry
At the 2020 SHOT
Show Ron Spomer
introduced me to
Robert Thacker and
Jamey Wojtaszek.
Robert owns the Pennsyl-
vania Gunsmithing School
and Jamey works there.
PGS is doing fi ne but they’re
concerned about the dropping
numbers of students across
the country in the majority of
the gunsmithing schools.
Due to this concern they’re
encouraging young people
to choose gunsmithing as a
career. I hear similar concerns
among the gun experts that
the numbers of hunters and
shooters are dropping and
the current ones are an aging
group.
So as not to start off as a
Negative Nancy, here’s some
encouraging news. I attended
a seminar at the SHOT Show
put on by Safe Shoot, which
is an Israeli company. One
of the speakers said that
actually, shooting is the No. 2
sport in America, even ahead
of golf. That surprised me.
If that is the case, then it’s
alarming that the number
of kids going to gunsmithing
schools is dropping because
there will obviously be a need
for more, not fewer gunsmiths
on the not too distant horizon.
I’m about to say something
that up until the last few
years I was on the opposite
side of the aisle about. In the
past I encouraged kids if at
all possible to go to college. If
they couldn’t afford that then
at least work and attend a
junior college and get an asso-
ciate’s degree. I no longer hold
that stance. Let me explain.
Higher learning institu-
tions have lost their compass.
Their goal is no longer to
teach kids to graduate work
ready. They now have too
BASE CAMP
TOM CLAYCOMB
many hidden social changing
agendas. Kids go off to college
conservatives and return as
socialists. The colleges spend
way too much time teaching/
pushing these agendas. Many
kids no longer graduate with
useful skills.
I used to hire a lot of college
kids when I was the direc-
tor of quality control for Con
Agra. I had fi ve large beef
plants and a cooked plant
under me so I had a large QC
staff and hired a lot of college
kids. Even back then the col-
leges thought that they knew
more what the kids needed to
be taught than the industry
did. I only had one profes-
sor inquire what skills their
graduates were lacking in. Is
that not bizarre? Would any
business survive if it didn’t
do customer service audits?
Investigate open markets?
Due to my ignorance I
thought trade schools were
for kids like those in my
high school who would have
dropped out but due to shop
classes they hung in and
graduated (yes, this was all
nearly 50 years ago).
Then…. 15 years ago I
started learning what some
of the skilled workers were
making. Such as linemen,
electricians, dental assistants
etc. It costs an arm and a leg
to hire a good maintenance
man — if you can even fi nd
one. So now, if a kid can’t
afford college, I recommend
they go to a reputable trade
school. They may graduate
right off the bat $200,000
ahead of the normal college
graduate because of no stu-
dent loans and have an extra
off of them as well as your
own labors.
Before you say I’m nuts,
think about it for a minute.
A high percentage of kids
go to a 4-year school and
graduate with a degree that
is not in demand and come
out with huge debts. On the
other hand, a kid could go to
somewhere like the PGS and
graduate in 16 months. With
a part-time job, they may be
lucky enough to graduate
with no/low debt.
It takes four semesters
(2,496 hours) to graduate.
Students of any skill level
can expect to complete the
program. Every student
starts at the same spot and
being a course hour program,
they typically fi nish at the
same time. They have gradu-
ates in all 50 states and 18
countries. I’ve never been to
the school but here’s what I’d
loosely suggest if you attend
the PGS school or another
trade school. Get a part-time
job so you’re not racking up
loans. After you graduate,
get a job with a reputable
gunsmith you can learn from.
Work for him a few years and
learn the ropes instead of
opening your own business
Photo by Jamey Wojtaszek right off and making costly
An instructor at the Pennsylvania Gunsmithing School
mistakes at your expense.
demonstrates techniques to a group of students.
Then in a few years, when
you’re comfortable, open your
2½ years of wages already
their head.
own shop.
in the bank by the time their
So what I’m saying is, if a
I stand to gain nothing if
college buddies graduate.
kid is a hustler but for what- you go to the Pennsylvania
So, let’s play this out. They ever the reason doesn’t have Gunsmithing School or not.
could work for an established the option of going to college, If gunsmithing isn’t for you,
gunsmith after school and
I don’t see him/her as being
fi nd what you like to do and
learn the ropes. After 4-5
handicapped. There are a
be the best you can at it. The
years they could then open
million options. Go to beauty moral to the story is — don’t
their own shop while their
school. Same scenario. Work feel like a second-class citizen
college graduate counterpart for someone else, learn the
if you can’t afford or have
is still in some menial job
ropes and then in a few years no desire to go to college. Be
barely getting by with no
open your own shop. When
a hustler and sharpen your
hope in sight and a huge
you have a few employees
skills and you may actually
student loan hanging over
then you are making money end up better off.