After taking a day to do some elk hunting during Montana’s rifle season in the 80’s, two hunters were stopped by some some Forest Service workers who had a makeshift road block set up at the entrance of the road the two were driving to get to their spot.
It seemed there was a missing man—his name was Walter. Walter, who was in Montana for a few days from Wisconsin, had gone into the area to hunt with a guide and had been separated somehow, being forced to sleep overnight in the unknown wilderness of Montana. There were search parties in the area scouring the land for this man, unsuccessfully, so the Forest Service had closed the area to hunters while the Air National Guard did a fly-over to see if they could locate the missing man.
The two hunters managed to get past the road block by saying they would just drive straight through the area and wouldn’t stop to hunt at their usual place. During their drive, one of the hunters said, “I came here to hunt, and I’m gonna hunt”. So, against what they were told, they stopped and at their usual spot and started their hunt.
Not too long after they made it into the mountains, they spotted another person in the trees. They immediately thought of the missing man that everybody was searching for.
One of the hunters yelled, “Are you Walter?”, knowing it was a long shot. But, to their surprise, the man’s reply was, “Yes!”. They found Walter.
The two hunters ended up walking Walter out of the trees and took him to the Forest Service. It turns out, Walter was the head of some department of the Fish & Game in Wisconsin.
These two “rebel”, life-saving hunters were from the Darby area and are glad they broke the rules that particular day.
