Vic Bergman photo |
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The phone rings as Cutch fills the coffee pot with filtered water.
“Phones,” he says with mild annoyance. “Wish I was still on the trap line.”
It’s hard to keep up with Joey Coccioloni – you can see where the nickname Cutch comes from and why. It’s rare to find him anywhere but outdoors, stalking elk as he was this week “where the off-roaders don’t go,” or grouse, as he did last week. Summers, you’ll find him on the South Castle with one of the 221 fly rods he has hand-made, tippet holding one of the artistic English soft hackles or stonefly nymph imitations he has tied.
Earlier this fall, he was on top of Victoria Peak, at 2,569 metres (8,430 ft) the tallest mountain in the Front Range southwest of his Pincher Creek home.
He has known the Southwestern Alberta backcountry better than just about anyone for most of his 80 years – his 80th birthday is Tuesday. When he was a youngster living in the Bushtown area of Coleman, he’d follow his father, “a fine bait fisherman” up the area’s streams and rivers.
“He told me if you don’t keep life simple, you’re in trouble. He also said keep a low profile,” which helps explain Cutch’s aversion to notoriety. (He’ll wince when he sees this.)
And, he hates crowds. That’s why eight years in the 1950s running a trap line for marten and lynx from Blairmore to where Lynx Creek meets the Carbondale River “were the best years of my life – before I married Rita,” he says, quickly shooting his wife of 53 years a glance and smile.
He’ll tell you about a week on the line when he got so sick from food poisoning, he drank Neatsfoot oil (used to soften leather) to force himself to vomit, then spent six days recovering.
These days, besides an assortment of vitamin supplements, Cutch takes a tablespoon of virgin olive oil and mixes Bragg apple cider vinegar (with The Mother) and honey in his tea.
“Works great and tastes a lot better than Neatsfoot.”
Spend a few hours with Cutch and you’ll hear one fascinating story after another about outdoors in the south, like meeting “that guy, you know, who wrote Who Has Seen the Wind – yes, W.O. Mitchell” at Andy Russell’s Hawks Nest and whom Andy felt needed one of Cutch’s rods because he was “the worst fly fisherman.”
Or about his hike 50 years ago up to Barnaby Ridge Lakes with Fish and Wildlife officers Frank Somerville, Lawrence Scheffelmiar and Chuck Gordon to stock the lakes with California Golden Trout they carried in Wajax backpacks.
Then there’s the hike up the backside of Window Mountain where the wind blew over Thomas Gushul’s expensive German camera and broke the viewfinder.
”He said he would give me the camera if I shot the Crowsnest Mountain through the window because he said he was too old to do it. When I told him I broke the camera, he said, ‘It’s yours.’”
Or his recent Victoria Peak hike with his daughter and best friend Andy’s son and grandson to scatter Andy’s ashes.
“I’ll go up one more time, next year. You name the day.”