Field & Stream

I no longer subscribe to any of them either. While they have on one hand become broad and thin, like many of the outdoor shows on TV they don't hesitate a bit when divulging details about specific locations. If I see another article entitled "The Last Best Uncrowded Destination for ________" complete with GPS coordinates...ARRRRGH! What happened to the explorer in us?
 
Are you now in Co. or still in Helena? I'm pretty sure I'll be heading for Montana in 2-3 weeks. A friend wants to show me his cabin & property west of Townsend. He said he's has Mule deer, elk and bighorn sheep as well as trout in Indian Creek that runs through his placer, so it should be interesting. We will be staying in Townsend for a couple of days before heading on to Fort Benton & Lewistown to look at more property.

I tried emailing you at your new email address, but did not get a responce. I would like to talk to your BLM buddy while in Lewistown, could you email me his Name and phone number?

Thanks,

Dave
 
"...as well as trout in Indian Creek that runs through his placer..." Was that a Freudian typo? Heh heh, a lot of the streams in the Elkhorns have been "challenged" by placer mining.

Sent you an email.
 
Thanks for the email Dave. I will contact your BLM buddy when I get there. The trout in his section of Indian Creek were actually stocked by his grandfather sometime after he patented his mining claims. His grandfather filed the gold/silver claims in 1895.

My friend was born in Helena in the early 1940's, but lived and worked his grandfather's mines on Indian Creek while growing up. The mines are all closed down now, but the cabin and claims are still owned by my friend.

Drop me a line when you get settled in Golden. Thanks.

Dave
 
Worth:
Don't you think FS serves some good by stimulating or promoting interest in the outdoors with hunting and fishing and camping stories for the younger generation? Sure, many of the stories are OLD HAT to us but I think it arouses interest with the young and it's pretty evident modern tech, video games, ipod etc. seem to be #1 priority now days. My two cents.
wis boz
 
I have a subscription to F&S, but most often it goes unread, and the same for Wildfowl.

I'm 37, and even in that short of a time, I can tell you that the outdoor magazines have declined greatly. Most of them are either "The Undiscovered Blue-Ribbon Hunting/Flyfishing of ___________", a running advertisement for product sponsors, a basic 101 (this is a decoy), or a blend of all of the above. I was witness to the ruin of some of the neatest little spring creeks in the Midwest when some yahoo wrote just that article, and then another local jackass didn't want to be outdone by some "national" writer, and so he wrote a book about all the creeks. No exploring, no work, no building friendships and eventually learning "a spot or two". Unh-uh. Maps, descriptions, nearest towns, restaurants, hotels, highways, parking areas.

Don't get me wrong, I know that outdoor writers write about destinations. Still, it seems like it was more about Canada, or Arkansas, or Alaska, or Florida, than XX River, 10 miles from _________, and here's the GPS coordinates. The locale was "exotic" because we hadn't been there, and it wasn't described in detail - some blanks were left for us to interpret. The writing style was more about the adventure - the trip as a whole, rather than just the fact that in two days of shooting the guy killed 25 mallards, 10 geese, etc. There was always a lesson - as simple as remembering to load the gun, or maybe a larger life lesson. And many of the writers understood humor, sometimes gallows humor, at birds missed, the wind changing, and the understanding that "shit happens". Their writing was about a Place, but not as a Destination...the excitement for me was in reading about places and birds I'd never seen - brant and eider, for example - and hunting a way that I'd never done, or would never be able to do in the case of a sinkbox.

Maybe people "now" want strictly information - where to go, how much it costs, which guide to use, what flies/lures/bait/gun/shells/decoys/calls/setup, what time of year - which can as easily be gotten from the internet. Maybe it's about immediate gratification, not the planning, driving, paddling, maps, and anticipation. Getting there is no longer half the fun, it's an inconvenience. Get there as fast as you can, pay what it costs, so you can have the most fun, check it off the list and be a real hunter/fisherman/sportsman. How many people would appreciate killing a bull can on the Chesapeake, or a black duck out of a cedar Barnegat sneak on the Jersey coast, for the history, the legacy? How many people are left who would give their eye teeth to gun Beaver Dam Ducking Club over a rig of wooden decoys and be happy for the chance to be out there? Yes, people want to come to Arkansas and kill mallards in the timber, but WHY? Because a hundred mallards floating down into a hole in an oak flat is unique, or because they read that it was THE destination in _____________, and you have to hunt at ________ Club or you didn't "really" hunt in Arkansas?

It just seems that outdoor WRITERS have been relegated to books and the few newspapers that have them, and it's a shame.

I'll get off my soapbox now.
 
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