CO BHA life member Bill Sustrich was born and raised in Pennsylvania coal mine country and started hunting whitetail deer in his early teens, taught by his oldest brother. Bill went on to serve in the Navy as a mine sweeper Gunners Mate during WWII. After an honorable discharge, he moved to Colorado's high country and has been there ever since.
Bill says, “I first started hunting Colorado mule deer, then elk. I decided long ago to concentrate on being a meat hunter. No apologies. I decided there was just no way to prepare antlers and make them edible. I raised a family with four youngsters on deer, elk and trout.” Bill has never been a trophy hunter. Of the dozens of deer and elk that he’s put in the freezer, only a few big bucks (4x4s) and one bull elk (6x6) “accidentally bumped into me,” he says.
Bill’s years of successful hunting and fishing to feed his family would not have been possible without quality habitat, which is his latest crusade. Bill is leading a charge to get 20,000 acres of the Browns Canyon area near Salida protected as wilderness: “From my own observations, I have seen nothing yet created by mankind that offers the degree of habitat protection that is achieved through wilderness designation.”
Sustrich is an NRA Benefactor and Life Member (over 58 years), and he’s been fighting a David and Goliath-like battle against the NRA’s ivory-tower elites in Washington, who have been road-blocking Browns Canyon legislation even though not a one of them has ever set foot within ten miles of it. Bill says, “They listened to a couple ATV guys here locally who happened to be NRA members. It was slanted input, period. None of them ever came out and looked at the ground here.”
As we all know, the NRA’s strong area of public involvement is the Second Amendment, not wildlife management. Consequently, they should stick to their knitting and let “boots-on-the-ground” hunters and anglers like Bill Sustrich decide what’s best for wildlands and wildlife where they live. As Bill knows from his on-the-ground experience, the Browns Canyon area is very rugged and only lends itself to foot or horseback primitive hunting.
His resolve (“I’m going to stir up a hornet’s nest”) to protect Browns is shared by both of Colorado’s Senators, all three local Chaffee County commissioners, and hundreds of local sportsmen and women and business owners. In addition, a growing contingent of local NRA members are joining the fray, backing Sustrich in his campaign “to get support on this come hell or high water.” ‘Goliath’ may have just met its match.
