Sometimes people laugh at the fact that outdoor mags only run a few articles over and over again. Wretched formula! they say. Well, the thing is that the same things keep coming up time and again and new people come along all the time. So every season the same stories are run. Oh, with slight wrinkles, sure. I suppose the better thing is when they fool you that they’re just the same article. That’s called creativity, perhaps—but who’s still a fool?
I’ve already recycled my Deer Camp story.
Well, here’s another recycle-job—as good and true as ever: 10% of the people get 90% of the goods. It seems to apply to everything. It sure applies to hunting and fishing—and to all other sports undoubtedly. But there’s a twist added to it. 90% of success is showing up. Conclusion? 10% do 90% of the showing up. That is, 10% of the hunters know what they’re doing. Why? Because they’ve scouted. They know the land and they know the deer. They don’t leave things up to chance. Neither do the 10% of other sportspeople, or businesspeople.
A digression… Success isn’t exciting. It’s a natural result of proper prep. In any field. If you want excitement, uh, I don’t know what field you should be in—because after you do anything a few times, it’s not exciting. And when you’re good at something it’s not exciting either. Excitement comes from danger and the proximity to screwing-up. Both of which tend to be far from competence. I suppose that in some fields competence doesn’t get you much reliability: so that would be exciting. Then again the procedures for bail-out would be wellworn and predictable. Not very exciting. You make it or you don’t.
Anyway, you see the real nature of sport in a successful hunter. They’re more like a farmer. Whups, another digression: the real nature of sport is SHOWBIZ. It’s entertaining people, inspiring them. But it’s not showing them the truth. The truth is farming. Cultivation. Slow and as predictable as possible. A true hunter knows his territory…and he takes care of it. He makes it conducive to his goal. He makes sure there’s food and shelter and he only takes out enough animals to keep his herd strong. He’s basically raising cattle at a remove. He dispatches his “beef” in a chute, too: he’ll make sure he knows where the deer move thru a narrow place where he then takes his pick.
One who is in the 10/90 boat, however, soon realizes that they have more than they need. So they work on sharing it somehow. Sometimes for a fee. Sometimes just with those they know who need or would like a little of what they have. Or, since their own needs are then so easy to take care of, they turn to teaching, to sharing what they know (and what others have taught them) so others can do it right, too.
As I’ve written before, of the total effort of hunting and fishing, 50% is in scouting/local-savvy/animal-know-how, 20% in habitat and population optimizing, 25% in tracking/gutting/hauling/meat-processing, 5% is “the hunt.”
The end goals are food, fresh air, direct-action and comaraderie.
But the action isn’t really all that direct: it’s a long process.
Basically, it’s only one more step removed to just get your workouts and camaraderie in via bike/ski/canoe/hike and to get your deer via roadkill. Our whole community is a deer developer and the ambush channels that already exist are the roads, the cars are our bullets. The only thing you don’t get to do is pull the trigger (unless you hit the deer).
But we’re already too many steps removed, so it’s off to deer-camp we go! (Some of us…those so inclined to the burping, cards and wet-wool smell.)
