Rich Landers :Area hunter’s best shot didn’t come from his rifle

Among the great shots Spokane hunters have made in recent seasons, none required more field savvy and effort than those made by Brian Bernardi during a mule deer hunt in Montana.

The 47-year-old hunter didn’t even need a gun.

He bagged the family hunt through the lens of a video camera.

While there’s no Boone & Crockett record book to score amateur hunting videos, the Cabela’s Memories in the Field weekly television series is a barometer that ranks Bernardi’s home production among the best.

The hunt in the Bearpaw Mountains near Havre has been selected for a special program featuring the six best Memories in the Field videos of the year. The Cabela’s program is scheduled to run three times – Tuesday, Dec. 22 and Dec. 24 – on the Outdoor Channel.

“I was the only one in the family who didn’t draw a deer tag,” Bernardi said Wednesday from his office at Kraft Foods as he recalled the hunt of November 2004. “I didn’t want to stay home, so I went along and took the video camera.”

As most sportsmen would appreciate, the meat and antlers that eventually came home weren’t necessarily what made the hunt so special.

Brian’s younger brother, Chris, who lives in Spokane and works for Itron, drew a tag to hunt with their father, Eugene, who still lives in Great Falls. Earlier that year, at the age of 69, Eugene had to undergo surgery to remove his cancerous prostate and bladder.

“My father has been a tremendous inspiration to all of us, especially when it comes to the outdoors,” Brian said. “My brother and I decided we would like to go on a hunt with our father later that year if he was able.”

Unsure of how much walking their still-recovering father could endure, the brothers left him on a high ridge one day during the hunt while they hiked out and scouted. Eventually, they found a nice muley buck, which they were sizing up through binoculars when a younger but similarly big-bodied buck came a little too close to the nearby does.

The bucks locked into an intense fight that riveted the brothers, with Brian filming away, until the deer crashed to the ground, tumbled down a hill and out of sight.

Hearing the story back at the pickup, their dad didn’t waver: Eugene wanted to take a crack at the big buck.

“The video shows us stalking back to where we had seen the big buck and although my dad’s eyesight isn’t the greatest – he almost shot the small one – he scored and knocked down the nice muley,” Brian said.

Summing it all up, he didn’t even mention the antler spread.

“Sometimes,” Brian said, “you do not realize how important hunting is until you’re out hunting with your father.”

Bird dog update: On behalf of Dickens, my English setter, thanks to the many readers who have called and e-mailed to query on his recovery from a leg-shattering fall off a cliff the day before the opening of pheasant season.

A surgeon has fused the foot and ankle with a metal plate and bone grafts and Dickens is doing remarkably well for a spirited 3-year-old hunting fanatic that’s been wearing a cast and plastic “Elizabethan” collar while restrained from running and jumping for eight weeks.

I’ve considered buying sedatives, but I’m afraid my wife and I would take them and leave Dickens unattended.

To help curb atrophy in his shoulder, we let Dickens loose to play in the living room with Scout, a 12-week-old setter we added to the household after the accident. Nothing like a nipping puppy to entice an older dog to use all four appendages for defense.

Meanwhile, Radar, the aging Brittany, considers an invalid dog and a puppy as little more than ripe opportunities for extra helpings at dinner time.

His hearing is shot and his eyesight is waning, but Radar can lock onto an untended food bowl with the speed and precision of a Tomahawk missile.

Prosecuting poachers update: Last week’s column detailing the high percentage of fish and wildlife criminal cases that are dropped or neglected by Spokane County’s understaffed prosecutor’s office raised the hackles of sportsmen. As I expected, many hunters and anglers are looking for solutions that would bring more poaching cases to some sort of decision.

I posed some of your questions Wednesday to the prosecutor’s district court supervisor Brian O’Brien. Here’s a summary of his responses:

“Could sportsmen’s groups raise funds to hire an attorney that would be dedicated to prosecuting fish and wildlife crimes?

Yes, it’s possible for the prosecutors to use a grant for that purpose, but only with the assurance that the grant would be fully funded and long term, O’Brien said.

“Could local law students be recruited to help with poaching cases?

Probably not, O’Brien said. While the court can use interns, they must be supervised and therefore do little in the way of sparing time from staff prosecutors, he said.

“Can Spokane County residents expect more attention in the future to bringing poachers to justice?

Yes and no, O’Brien said. “I think you’ll see an improvement in the upcoming year because I’m personally going to make a special effort in that area,” he said.

On the other hand, he pointed out that all county agencies, including the prosecutor’s office, are facing budget cuts for the next year, while caseload continues to climb to record proportions.

“We’re looking at the possibility of losing one more position overall next year,” he said.