Libby man: 'It's like the hunter has become the hunted'

The long trip Tuesday across Montana passed with a degree of fear and loathing that was unfamiliar to Libby resident Rick Jaqueth.

The destination: just north of Yellowstone National Park, for the first bison hunt to be sanctioned by the state of Montana in 15 years.

Jaqueth, 41, was one of the fortunate 10 who drew permits for the hunt out of 8,400 applicants in fall 2004. He has been waiting for it to come about ever since.

But a sense of trepidation before a hunt is unusual for a man who has stalked the forests around Libby for most of his life, unmolested by others.

Hunting for him has always been a skillful, private dance with nature. No intruders. Only welcome friends. It has always been a private affair, with long, quiet interludes where the tiniest chirps or cracks in the forest perked the ears and the slightest movements draw the eyes.

The trip to Gardiner is different.

At the end of the road, Jaqueth knew there was potentially a herd of media and possibly protesters waiting for him rather than just a herd of bison. There might be nothing quiet or secluded about this hunt, which has drawn considerable attention from national and international media.

"It's like the hunter has become the hunted," said Jaqueth, who planned to do everything possible to avoid media and protester attention before and during the hunt.

"I just don't want a bunch of headaches from everybody. I can foresee this huge caravan going out and following us," Jaqueth said.

"The hard part about it is trying to find one that's out of the range of the media and still within range to get 2,000 pounds of meat back," he said, referring to the potential size of a bison bull.

And that's where the "Booger Brothers" and "The B-Team" come in. The Booger Brothers are Jaqueth's trusty horses, Rocky and Creole, while the B-Team are his reliable mules, Molly and Jack. There's nothing easy about hauling them 400 miles across the state, and tending to them in chilly weather, but they are the means by which Jaqueth intends to put distance between himself and unwanted company.

"It's a big commitment," he says. "The weather is cold, the horses are cranky. I don't like them to sit in a trailer for 10 hours."

Jaqueth doesn't have any romantic delusions about the hunt. He sees it in blunt, practical terms.

"I'm not going down there with visions of a big exotic hunt," he says. "The reward of this hunt isn't so much the backcountry experience as it is the meat. This is a meat hunt."

Beyond the baggage involved with traveling across the state, Jaqueth says there's the burden to pull off a responsible hunt that provides a good representation of ethical hunting.

"Fish and game is trying to do their best to make it fair chase, but the animal isn't necessarily responsive to that. I don't know. Maybe after they start getting hunted, they will get more spooky," he says.

Jaqueth feels an obligation to pull it off "without a hitch," to make a clean kill, to efficiently extract the animal and preserve the meat.

"My number-one priority is to do this as ethically as possible. I just don't want to draw any bad attention to what fish and game and the state are trying to do," he said.

Jaqueth bristles at the notion of anti-hunters or protesters dominating debates over the hunt.

"I want to present the hunters' side of things," he said. "But not many hunters want to talk, so all the attention is dominated by the activists. But I'm not willing to be the grand marshal of the media parade into the buffalo killing fields."

There are scenarios, Jaqueth says, where he will not proceed with a hunt. "I'm not going to shoot one standing there and grazing right in front of 25 cameras. I'll just pass it up. And if it's not an option, then we'll come back later."

Reporter Jim Mann is traveling with Rick Jaqueth on a bison-hunting trip near Yellowstone National Park. Mann and Jaqueth have been friends for 23 years. Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com