September 3, 2010

Pass Along PDJ
August 2010

by Steve Smith

I will be the first to admit that I have been luckier than most. The line of work I have been in for the last quarter-century has allowed me the chance to travel to places to hunt and shoot – not the same thing – that I would never have been able to get to if I’d have got an honest job at some point. The same can be said for almost all the folks who regularly write outdoor articles. They could probably make more money doing something – anything -- else, but they’ve chosen a way of life as much as a career, and I haven’t heard anyone voice regrets. The definition of a freelance outdoor writer is someone who has a talent for writing, a burning desire to share his knowledge, and is married to a pediatrician.

This time of year is when we start thinking about a lot of things, and since you’re reading this, it’s fair to assume that one of those things is the sport we love so much. No one’s shooting career lasts forever, of course, and since nobody ever laid on his deathbed wishing that he’d spent more time at work, I assume there are places that you’d like to get to if time and money were not the barriers most of us find them to be. I haven’t been everywhere, and there are some places I have no desire to go to – Africa, for example. The wingshooting there is supposed to be spectacular, but I have little urge to walk the same ground with things that bite, stomp, claw, toss, tromp, gore, poison, mutilate, and ingest humans on a disturbingly regular schedule. Shoot what can’t shoot back, that’s what I say. Plus it takes like 24 hours to get there.

But if according to the actuarial tables you have fewer opening days in the rearview mirror than in the headlights, my guess is you’ve thought about a place or two you’d like to go, the kind you may not discuss with your hunting buddy because he might think you’re going soft on him, you know, “What’s so fun about going to a swanky lodge with a guide and private land and all that when you can spend endless hours wandering through birdless fields with six-dozen other guys doing the same thing?”

Maybe that’s a little hard, and we always have fun and usually get birds and good dog work. But there is something nice about not having to work so hard, not having to worry about “your” spot having a truck parked in it, not having to worry that the birds have all been educated to the point of evaporation, not having to plan the strategy and the approach, but instead just going along for the ride

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