Cold creeps in again

Lining  the cracks in my heart.

Will I ever learn?

You can’t come away from a place like the SHOT show not feeling energized about what you do and the industry you are in. That’s the idea of any trade show; get people excited about where they are headed. The gun business is thriving. Hunting is taking a little hit because of access issues and, I think, the way hunters worship antlers. The whole  deer hunting industry shows no sign it will change until it implodes on itself. What happened to the days of the rabbit hunters, squirrel hunters and the like? Now everyone talks about 170-class racks and food plots. It’s no wonder deer hunters demand huge herds and high harvest numbers, after spending $100,000 on land, plus property taxes, seed for food plots, an ATV to plant the seed, trail cameras to capture all the action after dark… they tend to think someone owes them a deer. I disagree. I think the excitement of the hunt, not the size of the trophy should be the true measure of a sportsman… but I’m just one guy. When will I ever learn?

Faced with the daunting task of trying to stand out among the thousands of exhibitors and tens of thousands of visitors at the annual Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) show, the folks at Camp Chef went with an old standby, bacon, with a new twist.  They had made special for the event bacon-flavored lip balm.  It is complete with SPF 15, provides UVA and UVB protection and is PABA-free. Take a look

You won't find this in any store...

Yep, that’s bacon-flavored lip balm all right.  And it did just what it was supposed to do. It got everyone’s attention. This stuff has the aroma and flavor of dog food. But it is made by a great company called Shaka Laka. They have some really good flavored lip balm, sun screen that goes on without greasy feelings and sweet-smelling hand sanitizer. Check them out at www.shakalaka.com. And if you need bacon-flavored lip balm, maybe you can have them whip you up a batch.

Haiku Wednesday is coming up… check in again tomorrow.

OK… I owe you some posts so I will try to post every day this week to make up for my lackluster performance in Vegas last week.

I was at the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade show. The kick off the new year for the outdoor industry. And I found South Dakota very well represented. The Governor’s Office of Economic Development hosts a website called www.sdreadytowork.com and part of the deal is to lure, woo, invite and otherwise convince firearms-related businesses to move to South Dakota.

I spoke for quite a while with my dear friend Kristi Hoffman. She and her husband Jeff own Black Hills Ammunition in Rapid City. The firearms frenzy is not really fading away. Credit the Obama sales team for that, but the reality is gun makers need a good place to do business and South Dakota is on top of the list. In 2009 four companies joined the 27 gun-related businesses all ready operating in South Dakota. That’s pretty good growth. I suggest the office specifically starts targeting firearms businesses in the People’s Republic of California… South Dakota could use some more of these great businesses.

Waking up in the monsoon of Las Vegas this week at the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show… non-stop action for 12-hours a day. Sorry I missed the last two installments, but meetings and events here have kept me away from computer terminals. There are all kinds of great new guns here and I’ve been seeing the folks from South Dakota trying to recruit new gun businesses to the state… that’s always a good idea.

The two bills coming up in the South Dakota legislature: one allowing the transfer of big game tags for landowners with more than 320 acres and the other restricting access of game wardens on private land are both bad for wildlife management in the state.

The first is going to create a whole new class of pay-to-hunt activities that will make deer herd management even more difficult. Yes, I understand that deer cuase trouble for farmers and ranchers. Yes I know that these same farmers and rancher work hard to make a living in a tough economy. But I still don’t beleive that wildlife should be for sale. I do believe the GF&P should offer more antlerless deer permits in a region to help control the herd and landowners in those regions should allow more hunters to come in and take deer. The other side of that equation is hunter actions. First, most hunters are so in love with antlers they don’t want to take antlerless deer. That’s sad. Good deer management revolves around knocking back the doe population. And good venison recipies start with young, tender antlerless deer. The final part of hunter activities includes the failure of some hunters to act responsibly and ethically. Where as the love of antlers is just sad. Unethical hunting, trespassing, failure to close gates and all the other things landowners hate about hunters should be crimes. They way a few hunters act, it’s no wonder landowners don’t want hunters on their land.  So this question has no easy answer, but getting something good often takes hard work.  Hunters in every community should have a landowner appreciation banquet each year and the GF&P should show up at the banquet with a big stack of antlerless deer permits to help answer some of the concerns.

Now the second bill…keeping wardens off private land… well that’s a little bit more cut and dried in my eyes. If you want to encourage poaching, if you want to encourage unethical behavior in the field, if you want to increase discord between landowners and hunters… simply pass a law that says game wardens can’t go on private land.  I will go out on a limb here and say what lots of people feel… those supporting this bill want to hide something.

Does the hatred for game wardens and the job they do run so deep that our lawmakers feel they should put up roadblocks to the enforcement activities? If there are overzealous game wardens that overstep their bounds and act in a manner that is illegal or violates someone’s rights, those individual wardens should be punished severely and removed from the force. And the process for filing a complaint against a warden should be easy, transparent and open for public review. Anything less is the government trying to hide something.

I believe most of the game wardens in South Dakota, and indeed in all of the U.S., are dedicated law enforcement officers looking out for the good of the hunters and wildlife they are sworn to protect.  The desire to block game wardens from private land begins with a sentence like this: This is my land…

Well, the unspoken end of that sentence is this: …I can do whatever the hell I want on it.

The truth is, you can’t do whatever the hell you want on it. There are boundaries and rules. Game wardens are there to enforce the rules. The game on the land is held in trust by the state for ALL the people. Unless you want to adopt the European model hunting management, let the game wardens do their job.

Winter still hangs on.

But days grow ever longer.

Who counts the snowflakes?

Yes the days are getting noticeably longer. And by that I mean the sun is staying up a few more minutes each evening, not that I have to work extra hours each day. Soon the runoff will begin and we can worry about flooding… but before that, I predict at least one more really cold snap and another major snowfall. What’s that the ranchers recite? Half your hay by Groundhog Day.  Which means there’s still lots of winter to come.

It’s not that I hate all Mondays, just the ones that go like yesterday. Maybe it’s because I don’t like sardines. But that, can’t be it I haven’t even seen a sardine in more than 15 years. Maybe it is the inevitable crash after the great and wonderful high of the holidays. Or maybe it’s that outdoor activities are pretty limited not only by weather but by the realization that I have so much stuff to do I sometime forget to do some of it.

Time for the midwinter slowdown. Forget the to-do lists and deadlines. I’m thinking a need a nice long walk in the woods. I want to hear the snow crunch under my feet and see my breath disappear into the pines. No is the time to listen to the silence of the woods, where the only sounds are the chickadees and the woodpeckers.  If that doesn’t clear a guy’s head, nothing will.

As Friday’s go, this one was pretty good for January in Wisconsin. The temperature topped out in the teens and the weather was nice enough head out for a walk. Knowing my friends in Aberdeen might only see temperatures of 0 degrees or less, I’m confident that winter is here to stay.

In a week I’ll be in Las Vegas for the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show. Should have lots of cool stuff to talk about after that.

Ice-covered needles

Reaching toward the forest floor

When will I explore?

I saw a picture the other day of a friend of mine hiking in the mountains and thought… “How cool. I should go do that.”  Then it occured to me; if I don’t get out and do things right where I am, what makes me think I would get out and do things if I lived in the mountains? I mean, I do lots of summer hiking; lots of exploring when it is warm.  Winter has been reserved for a bit of cross country skiing, snow shoveling and keeping the dogs fed. So… time to re-commit myself to the line I put at the bottom of some of these blogs.

Go places. Do Things.

Oh man… what a couple days… I had forgotten what the inside of a toilet looked like. It’s not pretty. The winter sickness started with the youngest boy and worked it’s way toward me.  Depsite my admonitions that I never get sick.

Still, the upside is that I was able to introduce the kids to the glorious writings of Patrick McManus. The comic genius and his cast of characters like Retch Sweeney and Rancid Crabtree kept everyone giggling even though we felt like crap. There is not better way to get kids into reading fine outdoor writing than to show them the works of Patrick McManus.

I met the old coot, er, scribe, at a writer’s conference several years back. He was, much to my surprise quite a likeable fellow. I wouldn’t say we became fast friends, but if I were to see him again and say, “Hey Patrick, remember how we met at the OWAA conference that one year?” He might nod and say, “No.”

Well… time to get another batch of cleaning fluid ready for the bathroom.