BRYCE’S SAUSAGE KITCHEN It was a late summer day, not too hot and perfect for a short drive out to the sleepy little town of Pavillion. I knew I was close when I passed a big brown sign at an intersection that announced my destination: “Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen, 2 miles” that-a-way. I hoped I would find more signs as I approached Pavillion, as I’d never been to Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen before. No such luck. Supremely confident that I could find 302 East Houston Street all by myself, I mosied my car to Main Street and took a right. I found Houston Street a couple blocks down, but I didn’t find Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen. Hmmm. A young man, playing with his beagle puppy (the only souls I’d seen in town), looked fairly amused as he watched me drive around the block a second time. My navigating arrogance gone, I asked the young man for directions. He pointed due east and said, “All the way down.” Ah. Turns out Houston Street continues on as a dirt road that I was mistaking for a driveway. Two seconds later, I spotted the big white building with bright blue trim. There was no sign in front of Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen, but the address in bright blue above the entrance told me I’d arrived. Bryce Westlake, the owner, was waiting for me. I followed him past the front office and into a large work area. I’d never visited a sausage kitchen before (or any meat processing shop, for that matter), so I had no idea what to expect. Apparently a whole lot of stainless steel, which seemed to cover everything. A huge steel table bore a frozen carcass: the first antelope brought in to Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen this year by a lucky bowhunter. As I stared up into its empty ribcage, I was reminded that I don’t have the strongest stomach in the world. I took a deep breath and asked Bryce to show me around. Over the course of the tour, Bryce shared about the history of his business. It all began with Bryce’s grandfather in the fall of ‘46. “Born and raised in the business,” said Bryce proudly. It must run in the family; his older brother Bruce Westlake owns another meat processing company called Farmer’s Pack in nearby Kinnear. Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen has been open year-round in Pavillion for eleven years, preparing domestic animals when hunting season is long over. We’d gone in a circle, back out to the room with the antelope, and there was just one room left to see. Bryce indicated the “quick freeze” down the hall where cut and wrapped packages wait to be picked up, adding that they don’t have the space to store meat long-term there. And sometimes, there’s just not enough space or time, period. Bryce says worst part of the job for him is having to turn people away during hunting season because he’s got too much work. It all happens at once! But they can only do so much, so fast. As Bryce put it, “Take ‘just one more’ eighteen times and you’re REALLY in a bind!” With the tour concluded, we began to talk sausage. Bryce handed me a price card with a listing of their products. Everything is lean, with a total fat content of no more than 9 to 10 percent, while most regular sausage has about 25 to 30 percent fat creating a considerably greasier taste. They offer German, Polish and Italian sausage flavors, as well as a bratwurst and a breakfast recipe, two kinds of jerky, and “other varieties on request”, such as the occasional smoked turkey. Just don’t request that Bryce use your Grandpa’s old tried-and-true sausage recipe. “We used to do that,” sighed Bryce. Now they offer specific recipes only, and no more wasting several days trying to figure out how Grandpa got that smoky flavor just so. A fun part of the job for Bryce is modifying his recipes to find that perfect combination. He’ll add jalape¢o if you like (most popular in summer and Polish sausage varieties), but it’s not so hot that you can’t eat it, just good spicy flavor. It started out with sausage and jerky being 10 to 15 percent of Bryce’s wild game business. It’s easily 60 percent of the game portion now (which equals about 30 percent of his total business, game and domestic combined). He must be doing something right! Bryce summed it up in once sentence: “If people didn’t like our sausage, there’d be no sense in making it!” Overall, I had a very nice visit to Bryce’s Sausage Kitchen. Don’t let my rather timid stomach overshadow the fact that the place was superbly clean and it was far from gore flying in every direction. (Told you I didn’t know what to expect!) I found Bryce himself to be a very genuine, hardworking and down-to-earth individual that enjoys a good laugh. His dedication to customer satisfaction and the Wyoming way of life is obvious, and may only be exceeded by his devotion to his only daughter, Bryttni. He just lights up when he talks about her. Thank you to Bryce Westlake for the opportunity to tour his sausage kitchen and for me to learn more about a different facet of the hunting experience. (The antelope’s, I think it was.) I’m very grateful that there are people who do the job of cutting meat and do it well -- so I don’t have to. It may be hard to imagine, but hunting is quickly becoming a sport enjoyed by women as well as men. Every year, more women pick up their firearms and head into the mountains. They are grandmothers, students, career women and stay-at-home moms. Whatever the age, whatever the walk of life, hunting is catching on among the female population. Shelly Long of Meeteetsee began to notice that several of her friends and acquaintances around town had not only drawn tags, but had filled them as well. “I was counting how many ladies tagged out and thought it would make a great story,” says Sherry. Though they hunted separately, Jenell Smith, Amy Sell, Cathy Upton, Molly Potas, JoAnn Westfall, Dawn Beers, and Shelly Long (whose hubby actually did draw a deer tag but didn’t fill it) have found themselves to part of the unique sisterhood that is women who hunt. These are their stories. The 2004 season wasn’t Sherry Long’s first season out. Though she had been hunting before, she had never downed an animal. 2004 was her year; she brought down a “nice buck” the first year. “Actually,” Sherry says, “the first day of deer season, within the first two hours.” Sherry and husband Bobby had friends who fortunately owned a ranch in the area Sherry drew. They started their first day before sun-up and spent two hours looking for antlers. It was just as morning broke that a 5x5 with a twenty-eight inch spread wandered across their path, about twenty yards from Sherry’s position. Using a boulder as a perch, she tried to sight in the deer, but the vision was blurry. “The gun was sighted in for about 200 yards,” remembers Sherry, “so I just took aim and pulled the trigger.” It was Sherry’s first kill and she had been unsure as to whether she would actually be able to pull the trigger, “but I did and it was okay.” The buck continued on for about thirty yards, then dropped. Bobby and a family friend dressed the deer out as it began to snow. It snowed the rest of the day, but Sherry didn’t have to worry about that: They had her buck loaded in the truck and were back in town enjoying some breakfast by ten o’clock in the morning. “A hard day of hunting,” laughs Sherry. “Hunting,” she adds “is such a personal back-to-nature adventure that everyone should experience it.” Sherry’s trepidation at pulling the trigger is shared by just about every new hunter, male or female. It was certainly a part of first-timer Dawn Beer’s experience. Dawn went to her brother-in-law David’s family farm for her first hunt, just outside of Meeteetse. She was accompanies by her husband Ken. There is something to be said about living in the country during hunting season. Dawn and Ken were able to find a herd of deer after a short drive through the hay field. Seeing just the deer she wanted, Dawn took aim and fired. She watched her very first kill fall to the ground and began to “cry like a baby.” Despite the somewhat shaky start, Dawn is looking forward to her next trip. Like so many sportsmen and women, hunting is a family affair for Amy Sell. Her mother and father also hunt. Since it was her first year out, independent Amy put in for her own tag, instead of applying for a party tag with her family. As luck would have it, all drew tags, and looked forward excitedly to the elk season. Amy had never shot a gun besides a .22. “My dad decided I better go out to the shooting range and learn how to shoot a gun,” says Amy. After just a few rounds to sight in the rifle and get the feel for it, the lesson was over. It didn’t seem like a very long lesson, but it was sink or swim time...it was time for her to get up the mountain and bring down her first animal. Opening day dawned foggy. Amy and her father could hear elk bugling around them, but the fog was so heavy, they couldn’t see anything. After waiting for some time for the fog to clear, “we decided it wasn’t going to and headed back to camp.” The next day passed without any luck, just a sighting of elk a long ways off. One the third day, the group took some horses around to the area they had seen the elk. Tying the horses to the trees, they hunkered down for a while, letting the day pass by a bit before heading over a hill to find a better position. They snuck right past a cow, who luckily didn’t notice them before they ducked behind a tree. It was only a few minutes before a small bull came through the trees. Amy resisted her father’s urging to shoot him. “I was like, ‘No dad. Wait. There is a bigger one behind that one. Wait a minute.’ Seconds later a 6x6 came out of the trees.” Unfortunately, the bull had no intention of lingering, he had places to go. A cow call from Amy’s dad stopped him long enough for Amy to fire on him, dropping him mid-bugle. Though he was down, he wasn’t dead, and Amy started toward him with her knife to slit his throat. “As I was walking toward him with my knife, he raised his head up and looked at me.” Understandably startled and unsettled, Amy turned and ran. She waited for her father to join her, keeping the bull in her sights in case he tried to get up. Once her father was on the scene, Amy shot the bull again, finishing him off. Amy was planning on putting in for another bull tag this season. “I am sure there will be trouble if I draw a bull tag and nobody else does,” she says. Cathy Upton, who happens to be a grandmother, started her 2004 season on October first with her husband. “Everyday we were in elk, but I passed on many, looking for just the right one,” she says of the experience. Finally, on the twentieth of October, they noticed four bulls making their way into some timber shortly after daybreak. It was mid-morning before they could make to the tree line where they saw the bulls. Cathy’s husband dutifully broke trail for her until they made it up to a point where she had a 360 degree view of the area. She was just about to give up when she heard timber breaking below her position. It was then that she caught sight of a five-point, followed by a rag-horn, who was followed by a 6x6. Using a dead tree as a rest for her .243, she squeezed off a shot. “Limbs from the dead trees I was shooting through went flying like missiles,” she says, “I put another round in and fired again.” Second time was the charm, and the bull went down. The bullet entered the animal’s right ear and exited out the back of his head. It was as the couple were making their way toward the fallen bull that the fourth bull they had seen earlier made an appearance, coming out of the timber and “about [running] over me,” recalls Cathy. “So much for keeping my composure.”
When the couple took the carcass to be processed the next day, they found that “he was one of the largest carcass bulls [they] had taken in.” The bull weighed in at 457 pounds, proving to be far and away one of the largest-bodied bulls Cathy had ever harvested. Being with her husband is one of the highlights of hunting season for Jenell Smith. “Being able to get away from our six kids, camp in a beautiful place and bring home good meat makes hunting a special time for us. It is always a great experience and exciting adventure.” Jenell and her husband Mark decided to spend their hunting trip at Kirwin, an abandoned mining town about twenty-five miles up Wood River from Meeteetsee. This camping spot was ideal, as it offered access to area 62, where Jenell had drawn her hunt, and Mark could also hunt in a General area nearby. The first day of the hunt, Jenell and Mark caught sight of about 100 head of elk from a ridge, but were too far off to do anything about it. They started in the general direction anyway. “As we traveled down toward the creek, we saw five young five-point bulls off by themselves,” says Jenell, “and we decided to get in close to them.” Unfortunately, the bulls saw them coming and disappeared over a hill. A few minutes later, their luck turned. An elk was bugling nearby. Mark and Jenell dismounted and Mark bugled back. The bull could be heard making his way through the underbrush. Jenell found a good position and settled down on a log with her .243 Winchester while Mark called the big bull in for her. The angry bull made quite a racket crashing through the trees until he stopped just out of sight. “[He] stopped where I could just see his horns and started raking them against a small pine tree. He was mad and just shook that tree for about ten minutes.” The minutes crept by. Eventually, the five-point came into the open, where Jenell brought him down at about thirty yards with just one shot. JoAnn Westfall also uses her husband as her hunting buddy. She received her Wyoming buck deer license in July of 2004 and was “so happy.” He husband called Dan Webster and set up a hunt for them. Then, they just had to wait impatiently for October fifteenth. They met with Dan and scoured the countryside for the ideal buck for three days. “We saw lots of deer, but not what we were hoping for,” states Cathy. Dan spotted a buck by some cottonwoods one evening, but the next morning, it was nowhere to be found. The group decided to try their luck in the cottonwoods. It wasn’t long before Dan caught sight of the buck again, this time in some heavy brush. The buck took off before JoAnn could get a shot off, and the group followed, finally tracking him down. JoAnn brought him down with one shot. “When we got to him, I could not believe my eyes--a five-pointer on both sides with cheater point on both sides and double eye guards!” Dan Webster has passed away since the hunt, and JoAnn is very grateful she had to opportunity to hunt with him. “Thanks to him,” she says, “a dream came true.” Sometimes, a hunting story is like no other. This is the case for Molly Potas, who was four months pregnant when elk season rolled around last year. “Four months pregnant and sitting on an Area 61 elk tag; what is a girl to do?” A faithful hunter, her husband had already gone out on his own hunt. Molly decided she would just go with her friend “Big Red.” After all, we can’t let the guys have all the fun, can we, girls? Her friend picked her up from her day job as a teacher and they headed for the hills. Big Red took Molly to his “secret” hunting spot, and they started glassing the nooks and crannies of the land around them. “Lo and behold, we saw horns╔big horns. Big Red turned to me and asked how far I could walk. I grabbed my 300 Ultra Mag and my belly, and started to hike.” And hike. And hike. They found an ideal resting place on a ridge overlooking a resting bull. The only problem was that being four months pregnant prevents a hunter from laying belly down in the dirt. Luckily, Big Red is a good friend, and he used their packs to make a “cushy ledge” for Molly to rest on. “I took my perch, steadied my aim and fired my first shot,” she recounts. The bull jumped up. “Did I hit him?!” Yelled an excited Molly. She had, and another shot brought the big elk down. “The husband was awfully proud that his pregnant wife could still bring home dinner,” Molly says of the experience. |
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