Snagged this photo of a cow elk by the log jam with a calf hiding in the sage while staging fence posts.
Hello, my name is Hunter Pauly and I'm this year's local Byers intern. I moved to Ashton about 6 years ago and graduated from North Fremont High School in town. I worked with the Henry's Fork Foundation last fall for my senior project where I job-shadowed the HFF staff on some of the research they do for the river. This summer I am working with my mentor Matt Hively on repairing and maintaining riparian fencing at Last Chance and in Harriman State Park; my other duties include cleaning out vegetation from the Chester dam and collecting water temperature data with one of the other interns in Harriman.
One of the first days of working on the fence in Last Chance I was replacing one of the H-Posts that was rotted into the soil and needed to be dug out with a post-hole digger. But once we got the new post in the ground, we were able to nail in the horizontal post and wrap the wire around the post, and connect it, we were able to finish it at the end of the day. Today I was lucky enough to go to the Buffalo River fish ladder and monitor gill lice on some trout, speckled dace, and sculpin before leaving the gate open for fish to leave and enter through the dam.
As the only local intern this year, I have gotten to know the river pretty well; learning and exploring new spots to hunt and fish is something I try to do every season. One new thing I picked up on this year is mushroom hunting, especially for morels. I didn't think there were any morels in the area considering how dry it can get in the summer, but after hearing about a few in Island Park, I was pleasantly surprised to find more than I thought we had up here.
-Hunter Pauly