BHA SeriesAccess RedefinedForager | Oryx | MuleA curated collection of packrafts specifically for hunting and fishing.The ultimate access tool for hard to reach wilderness waterways.AlpackaRaft.comPhoto | Craig Okraska | Maven OpticsBHA_1/4 page_100219_v1.indd 110/7/19 2:16 PM70 | BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL SPRING 2020
Photo by Joel CaldwellALWAYSSHOW UP,NEVERGIVE UPFor nearly 70 years, Tony Schoonen was above all else a bare-fisted brawler for wild country and his bone-deepconviction that “blue-collar people should be able to hunt and fish.”BY DAN CROCKETTTony Schoonen cat-footed within 80 yards of his last bull, asolid six-point, four years ago. That was back when he was 85.Tony was alone on that hunt, but he did get some help packingit out. He shot his final elk two years later. When I asked himhow many he’d killed all told, he eased off to the side a little bitthe way you do when you’re on a hot set of tracks, and they startmeandering like the bull is getting ready to bed.“Well, the statute of limitations has long since expired,” hechuckled and paused. “You have to understand things weredifferent back when I started hunting elk. There weren’t nearlyso many of them. You could hunt hard for a week and not cut aset of fresh tracks. So, when you got into a bunch, you made themost of it.”He shouldered an imaginary rifle and swung: bam, bam, bam.It’s a pretty sure bet there would have been three elk lying in thelodgepoles. He hunted with the same Belgian Browning BAR .30-06 since 1956. What Luke Skywalker is to a lightsaber, that wasTony with his BAR. But that was all long ago, the ethic a productof earlier, leaner days.“Times have changed, and it’s absolutely for the better. For elkand for hunters.”So…?“I’ve killed 92 elk.”All but four of them lived and died on public land. What madeTony extraordinary, though, was what he did beyond the elkwoods. It’s tough to imagine a more dogged champion for wildelk, wild trout and above all, opportunity for the common manto seek them.Born the ninth of 10 children as the Depression cinchedtight on America in 1930, Tony went to the orphanage in TwinBridges, Montana, when he was six months old. He lived therefor 13 years until Jack Seidensticker took him on as a hand on thefamily ranch along the Big Hole River. Tony already knew howto work, but it was there that he learned to hunt and fish and fellirretrievably in love with wild places.He became one of Montana’s first licensed fishing guides, aprofession he pursued every summer with an angler’s passionand a teacher’s patience across an almost four-decade career spentfirst in the classroom and then as a principal. He launched Tony’sFamily Guide Service in 1960 and laid down the oars in 2012.He was 81. These days the outfit is known as Blue Ribbon GuideService, but it’s still going strong in his hometown of Butte, runby his sons, Tony Jr. and Jack.For nearly 70 years, Tony was above all else a bare-fisted brawlerfor wild country and his bone-deep conviction that “blue-collarpeople should be able to hunt and fish.”Fed up with a hostile landowner who strung barbed-wirefences all the way across the Dearborn River right at the waterline– making floating not only impossible but, during runoff,potentially lethal – Tony teamed up with fellow Butte sportsmenTom Bugni and Jerry Manley in 1978 to launch the MontanaStream Access Coalition. When attempts at diplomacy failed, theSPRING 2020 BACKCOUNTRY JOURNAL | 71
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