SOME PET PEEVES REVISITED

(Some Pet Peeves Revisited by Bob Phillips first appeared in Lake Champlain Weekly in June 2010)
   During the course of a year, I usually speak at a few different Sportsman Shows and/or banquets. I also read a number of outdoor magazines. A reoccurring theme is one of creating your own success. This, on the surface, seems to promise success to every sportsman out there. I say, on the surface, because I see a problem with much of what is toted.
   I am not saying this to elevate myself to the realm of expert, but it seems to me that much of the printed and spoken word is geared more toward making money for the author and less toward real help for the sportsman. I realize that I am now stepping up onto my soapbox but I think much of what is foisted upon the sportsman today is really the attempt of another to capitalize upon the outdoor craze that is around us. You know, bigger racked bucks and heavier fish, at all costs.
   Granted, who doesn’t want to bag the best buck possible or land the nicest fish in the lake? But according to QMP experts, apparently that isn’t in the realm of happening unless you have acreage and are willing to put hundreds or thousands of dollars into its management each year. Most of us do not have control of hundreds of acres that we can do food plots and selected shoots to bring the herd under ideal conditions. I am not trying to minimize those that do, but I see that hunting is fast leaning toward the realm of those with the dollars and means to pursue such. How often have you heard recently, “I have given up hunting, it is just too difficult to find places to hunt anymore.”
   Whether you agree with their excuse or not, the point is that much of our land is privately owned and it is more and more difficult to attain hunting permission. Count yourself fortunate if you do have access to such hunting territory. Here in our northern part of the state, we are fortunate to have many acres of state land to hunt. You must get off the beaten path a few miles to get into it, but it is available. But access isn’t really the issue I started addressing.
   Let me ask, what is the difference between sitting in your tree stand over a food plot that you planted to draw deer in or sitting over a bait pile you put out to draw deer in? I have no problem with either one of these methods when and where they are legal, within reason. Growing up on deep woods deer hunting as a kid, I do have trouble just sitting over food sources to shoot deer that come in, and calling it hunting.
   This is often the theme I hear when attending outdoor shows or in the reading. It is usually cloaked in the tactic of balancing the scales for yourself, but nevertheless I believe that too many have swallowed this concept to the exclusion of other methods. What has happened to such tactics as stalking, still hunting, tracking and trail/scrape hunting?
   Perhaps it is a shortfall of the new technological age we are part of, but we have become slaves to the charts, feeding schedules, moon phases and phases of the rut. I find that many outdoor show speakers and writers, if they are not toting their latest QMP techniques, are calling for strict adherence to one of these above mentioned “scientific” schedules. They are a useful tool at times but let’s face it, they are not always practical. For myself, I usually get only a few hours per week to spend fishing, hunting or even hiking or canoeing. If I limited myself to those times listed on the charts as the peak times for hunting, I would never get out in the woods or on the lakes. The bottom line is, I go when I have time to go, despite what the charts say about my chances of success. Strangely enough, I have gotten a few of my biggest bucks at a time the charts said I shouldn’t!
   Well enough of my pontification. I’ll step down now, but I hope you get the most out of your times afield and astream despite what experts try telling you.