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datasets.iitb.crawledDocs.yn_08Oct08_file_214 Maven / Gradle / Ivy

      Search Articles: Missoulian Wednesday, October 08 2008 Breaking News ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... Local News ......... ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ ........ This week's most popular Archived Story Early start - Florence teen is part of Montana’s hunting and conservation future By TRISTAN SCOTT / Photographed by KURT WILSON of the Missoulian Thirteen-year-old Cahill LeSoine looks into a fog-shrouded pond at the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge last Saturday after firing at a duck during the special youth waterfowl hunting weekend. The two days are set aside for youth hunters one week before the general waterfowl season opens. Photo by KURT WILSON/Missoulian STEVENSVILLE - Cahill LeSoine was born blue, but as a young birdhunter, he prefers teal. The 13-year-old Florence native also has a keen eye for mallard green, canvasback red and pintail pink. Mostly, he loves ducks. Which is why last Saturday, the eighth-grader rolled out of bed at 4 a.m. and headed to Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge for the opening day of Montana’s youth-only waterfowl hunting weekend, a week prior to the general season’s start. Accompanying him on the frigid predawn journey along Lee Metcalf’s fog-cloaked network of Bitterroot Valley ponds were Jason Baker, of the Gallatin-Madison chapter of Ducks Unlimited, and Sophie Rose, Baker’s 5-year-old English Labrador. LeSoine’s uncle, Lloyd Straits, who introduced the boy to duck hunting last year, waited in the “command center” in the parking lot. Meanwhile, two decidedly unsavvy birdhunters from the Missoulian took up space in one of the refuge’s duck blinds, sporting ill-fitting camouflage, which Baker procured as a donation from Sportsman’s Warehouse. With the two-dozen decoys silhouetted in a dispersing fogbank, like a horde of deceptive bath toys floating motionlessly in the miasmic soup, LeSoine and Baker settle into the blind - a wooden shed with a reedlike covering whose subterfuge becomes less effective with each passing week of duck season. LeSoine barely begins telling his inspiring story about living with a congenital heart defect - “I have a disease,” he starts - before he springs up from the blind, pumps the action on his .12-gauge shotgun and knocks a vibrant blue-winged teal out of the misty sky. “Come on, Sophie Rose, go get it,” Baker instructs the small Lab. “That’s as hot as it gets, you little duck slayer. That was about 50 yards on a teal.” The blue-winged teal is a small, short-necked, freshwater dabbling duck, and difficult to shoot because of its size. LeSoine and Baker spend the morning together, spreading decoys across the pond beside the blind. Baker, who will stay the weekend with LeSoine and his uncle, presses a duck call to his lips, trying to entice a mallard onto the shimmering pocket water. LeSoine takes his turn on the call and, after a couple of sputtering attempts, unleashes a beautiful “quack.” “That was a nice 'quack,’ ” Baker says. “I couldn’t quack like that when I started calling. It took me five years.” LeSoine and Baker met over the summer at a dog-training seminar in Bozeman, where Baker and his wife moved recently from Missoula to begin different jobs. Baker was an instructor at the event, and LeSoine and Uncle Lloyd were looking for training tips to help get their puppy ready for hunting season. Like LeSoine, Baker shot his first bird at Lee Metcalf years ago, while he was a student at the University of Montana, and became obsessed with the sport in short order. LeSoine shot his first bird last season with Uncle Lloyd, knocking down three mallards, including a two-in-one shot that left him beaming the rest of the year. Baker, an avid hunter and devoted conservationist, had been looking for youths to take duck hunting as a way to help promote interest and inspire future generations to become ambassadors of the sport. When he met LeSoine, the two bonded immediately. And when he heard the young man’s story, he quickly carved out time for the youth hunt. LeSoine was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a disease characterized by four anatomical abnormalities in the heart and the most common cause of blue baby syndrome. At birth, LeSoine had a hole between his heart’s upper and lower chambers, which all babies have, ony LeSoine’s was so big it never closed. “His blood just went from his heart to his body, and skipped the lungs,” said Niki LeSoine, Cahill’s mom. “So he really was a blue baby.” Diagnosed when he was 2 days old, LeSoine had his first open heart surgery 11 days later, after doctors realized the infant’s blood-oxygen levels were plummeting. His second heart surgery came just three months after his first birthday, when doctors in Great Falls fixed a hole between the organ’s upper and lower chambers, but the damage was already so severe they had to install a donor’s valve and artery. By age 6, LeSoine had outgrown those transplants because his heart continued to grow while the valve did not - only a cloned artery could prevent this. He went under the knife a third time. Since then, he’s had numerous heart catheterizations, and in August, doctors operated again, opening the valve with a stent in the new artery. That operation proved to be very successful, and LeSoine has since been playing basketball and soccer actively. But he still isn’t allowed to play his favorite sport, football, because a hit to the chest could displace the stent. “He’s a going little dude,” says Niki LeSoine. “He’s tough to keep down.” Studies show that even patients with total repair of the arteries remain at risk for sudden heart failure or cardiac death, and lifetime follow-up care and re-operation is often necessary. But despite that looming possibility, LeSoine’s passion for sports, and sporting, remains tireless and is unhindered by the obstacles he’s had to overcome every day of his life. He hopes to play soccer or football professionally one day, and his dream is by no means out of the question. Professional snowboarder Shaun White, “the Flying Tomato,” has the same heart defect and earned a gold medal for the United States at the 2006 Winter Olympics. Baker, 32, whose larger-than-life jubilance appeals instantly to kids, stands in awe of LeSoine as the young man holds out his small bird for an obligatory grip-and-grin photo. Baker knows the young hunter - who he calls “Big Guy” - will carry the ethics and skills he’s conveyed to him this morning to future generations, who he hopes will preserve the beauty of the sport under sound guidance. “Kids like Cahill here are the future of conservation and hunting,” Baker said. “Without these kids, trying to bring them up hunting, there’s no people to help conserve. And the best conservationists have always been hunters.” As LeSoine and Baker talk, several mallards land on the flat water, and LeSoine readies his gun. “Never shoot a duck on the water, Cahill,” Baker says. “We don’t want to be teaching that. Always give them a chance to get away.” After a few moments of silence, Baker starts to yell: “Get up, duck! Get up in the air!” With one eye toward Baker and another toward the fleeing fowl, LeSoine waits patiently for Baker’s instructions. “Cahill, I want you to stand up and shoot that duck,” Baker says calmly at first. “Shoot that duck!” Reporter Tristan Scott can be reached at 523-5264 or at . Photographer Kurt Wilson can be reached at 523-5244 or at . Current Word Count:   | Site Index & Resources News - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Sports & Features - - - - - - - - - - - - - Entertainment - - - - - - - - - Online Extras - - - - - - - Classifieds/Markets - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Reader Services - - - - - - - - - - - More Resources - - - - - - - - - - -