Crappie Fishing

Today I finalized my trip with Captain Brad Taylor to go Crappie fishing this Thursday, June 11th. An outdoors magazine set up the trip for me and one of their photographers to interview a known guide and get pictures for an article I'm writing about crappie fishing. I must admit I've never been fishing with a guide before, so the opportunity is something I'm looking forward to. We will be fishing on Lake Murray in central South Carolina.

When we return I'll give more details on the trip, but not too much, you'll have to get the magazine when it comes out next spring to read the details, after all they have first publication rights to the article.

And in the next week the same photographer and I will be going bow-fishing for another article with the same magazine. Same scenario, more pictures and another article - this one's about bow-fishing along rivers during the day.

After ten plus years of sending out manuscripts and working on the craft of writing, the hard work is paying off. Now to branch out to regional and national magazines.......interestingly, most of the articles I've sold deal with fishing, and I hunt far more than I fish, I guess I need to work harder on the hunting articles.

I'm Back

It's been a while, guess I've been licking my wounds as the old saying goes - trying to figure out what to do since I lost the grounds I've been hunting for the past 6 years. Now I have to find new ground to explore, where, how, learning all over again, new stands, new memories to make. I hate starting over. 

The questions are endless, should I hunt public land or join a club? Is public land safe to take the boys on? More people are shot each year by unsafe gun toting people anxious to get a deer at all costs. I don't know that I feel safe on public ground, and taking my sons, is out of the question. 

As I get older, and mostly as my sons get older I really want the experience to be with and for them. I've killed enough deer, (while I still love it, and wont give it up) I am more interested in introducing them into my love of the outdoors. Taking them along, watching their excitement, listening to them breath as they sleep on stand while I stand watch. Seeing them search the forest floor for signs. So having a place for them is crucial. - A good friend of mine manages a hunt club, I was in it a few years ago to give me some options, in the two years I was in it, I never pulled the trigger or released an arrow - a lot of money to be a spectator. He is in need of members, and I am in need of a place, so I wrote the check. It was somewhat easier since I have sold some magazine articles to fund this venture. Kind of neat that I can pay for my hobbies by writing about the adventures they provide. It is not profitable at all, but it is easier to justify the expense when I can cover most of the cost with selling articles. 

I must admit I have missed hunting with him, of all of the people I have hunted with over the years, I have learned more from him than just about all the others combined. So I am looking forward to reestablishing that opportunity.  

As the spring ends and summer approaches, I will be spending time scouting and locating good locations, it is different hunting with your kids, the scouting is different, the stand locations are different, can they walk this far? Is the stand easier to access? Is this more of an area for does or bucks? All of this has to be considered when taking young hunters, for them the success is in seeing deer, not harvesting. If they go two or three times and only see empty woods, they soon choose to sleep in or play with friends. Patience is something learned, not many are born with it, learning to use anticipation as a fuel for patience is learned. With an attention span of a few minutes at best, sitting in a stand for hours is difficult. 

So I am hopeful, I am hopeful that we will be able to start over, that they will see deer, that they will have the opportunity to see, and perhaps if all the stars align, even harvest. We'll see, but at least I have a place now. 

It's been a while

It's been awhile since I wrote on this blog and as hunting season rapidly draws to an end I begin my annual reflection period and recap all of the great memories I made and experiences I had afield. There is noting I enjoy more than spending time afield. In the woods chasing whitetails, watching squirrels cutting and burying nuts for their long winter. Listening to the greatest sound in nature as a flock of Canada's fly overhead headed for who knows where. Watching a campfire leap into the air and hearing the cracking of the wood as it is consumed for my warmth and comfort. I often spend the late winter recounting these times, these times when friends gather. When a father walks with his sons down long abandoned logging roads in the dark looking for a favorite stand. When friends gather beneath a tarp to stay dry on yet another rainy weekend.

The startling sound of a companion's gun shot in the distance and the instant questions of "did he get one or miss again?" Waiting for the cell phone to vibrate with the report. Looking in a daze over the same woods I have scanned for hours only to be surprised by the sudden appearance of a doe feeding through a lane. "Where did she come from?" I ask myself as I drink in the moment like a desert traveler at a water stop. Caught up in the moment, she is gone as fast as she appeared and another notch is carved in the memory of my time in this great creation.

Some of the memories that stand out over this past year:

• Holding the hand of my youngest son as I walked him to a distant deer stand in the dark, feeling his excitement of the hunt and fear of the dark through his tiny fingers.
• Watching my oldest son on this same morning struggling with dragging his doe and exclaiming: "I want to do this one alone." Growing up before my tear filled eyes as he tries so hard to become a man.
• The excitement at finding signs of feral hogs on the land, an animal I love to hunt - only to be evaded by them time and again.
  
• Hauling stands to new locations,
  
• Deciding not to shoot the biggest 6 point I have ever seen
• Listening to the coyotes bark and howl at another moon or some other distant interest

All of these memories are only a sample of the joy I find in the great outdoors, it is moments like these, these (as one author puts it) "eternal instants" that last only moments in time, but linger in our memories for decades.

I hope I always remember that morning with both sons in one deer stand, I hope I always remember that 6 point in my cross hairs, and my finger never loosing the safety. I hope I always remember the rainy nights, and cold mornings spent with family and friends.

Now I begin my preparation for the season of 2009, it will be different this year. The land I have hunted for the past 6 years is no longer available for me. The memories I hoped to make with my sons there is not available, but, there will be new places to explore, new places to see, and new memories to make. It will be a good year and I am excited to see what it brings.

And for the season of 2008, I can say without hesitation, it was certainly a collection of many other "Times Well Spent."