And the food! At the Dutch Oven Cookoff, just the smell of the barbecue pork, spare ribs, braided sausage and "Oh My Apple Pie" could put on five pounds.

"If you're gonna cook in the woods, you've gotta be able to fight off those bears," says a woman in the contest who is busy cooking up a menu of crackback ribs with voodoo sauce and raspberry poppyseed cake for dessert.

What a way to go.

It's precisely too much of this kind of fare, says Jeff Clements, that can get you in trouble.

A big-game guide himself who specializes in bighorn sheep, Clements, 47, said he noticed as the years and pounds wore on that the sheep kept getting noticeably faster.

Then, last summer, "Another guide buddy of mine said, 'Man, you gotta try this,"' and thrust a meal replacement milkshake at him.

Twenty-seven pounds and nine months later, he proclaims, "I feel 10 years younger. And I'm fitting in pants I wore in high school."

And he's not so out of breath chasing the sheep.

"People are like, 'You've had five energy drinks,"' he says. "And I'm like, 'No, I'm just eatin' right.'

"Hunters are getting sicker and more overweight," he says. "We got guys (clients) we can't even get in a Super Cub (a small plane used for hunting), and the seats are 30 inches wide. It didn't used to be like that."

He lowers his voice as he talks. A couple of cases in point are checking out the Toyota 4-by-4s just across the way.

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.