Confederated Umatilla Journal - Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla ...

Fire comes from the barrel of Jim Marsh’s rifle as he shoots a buffalo in western Montana in February.
Photo by Chuck Sams
‘Going to buffalo’
By the CUJ
GARDINER, Mont. – Following tradition and
exercising the rights reserved in the Treaty
of 1855, three CTUIR hunting parties have
taken a total of 11 buffalo since late January in western
Montana.
Hunt leaders for the three parties were Bryson Bronson,
Jim Marsh and Aaron Ashley. Between the three
parties they had 16 tags.
Bryson Bronson, hunt leader for the crew Jan. 21-
23, was the first member of the Confederate Tribes
of the Umatilla Indian Reservation to kill a buffalo in
perhaps 130 years.
“It was like going on your first hunt again, I
guess,” said Bronson, whose family is renowned for
their hunting prowess. “It didn’t really dawn on me
that I was shooting the first one until later.”
Bronson likely didn’t have time to contemplate the
kill because his crew got busy helping Salish-Kootenai
Indians who had killed buffalo but weren’t prepared to
drag them hundreds of feet through knee-deep snow.
Bronson trudged through the snow and shot his
bull from about 100 yards, but it took about 900 feet of
rope, hooked to the bumper of one truck and hitched
to another, to pull the animal back to the road.
The Bronsons killed five buffalo over the weekend
– one was killed by Bryson’s
father, J.R. Bronson, who is
‘It’s amazing to see how
quick to see them go from a
standstill to a dead run in deep
snow to get out of there.’
an enrolled Nez Perce.
After Bryson’s kill, his
brother, Preston, and father,
J.R., shot two bulls within
30 yards of each other. Each
was gutted, roped to the
road and dressed out in
about 45 minutes.
“We had Jim Curry
(Tribal game officer) use a stop watch and it took one
and a half hours to have two animals in the truck
loaded,” Bryson said.
Curry, who accompanied all three hunting parties,
said he was impressed with the way all three groups
handled the meat, and other game enforcement officers
were as well.
“The biggest thing is we didn’t have any waste,”
Curry said. “Tribal members did well in taking care
of the meat.”
On the second day of their hunt, “people were
everywhere” and the group
was discouraged, but they
stuck it out and in mid-afternoon
went back to where
Preston and J.R. had killed
their buffalo the day before.
They spotted a pair of
bulls.
“They played possum
with us, and then took off
on a dead run across the
road,” Bryson said. “It’s amazing to see how quick to
see them go from a standstill to a dead run in deep
snow to get out of there.”
Nevertheless, Casey Picard and Thomas Soaring
Continued to Page 25
24 Confederated Umatilla Journal
March 2011