Lessons in crisis management

It didn't take long for word to get out that the pheasant capital of the world was having an off year. It didn't take much longer to do something about it. The season wasn't even over before Governor Daugaard convened a habitat summit to explore the options. Not to stereotype, but it usually takes years for governments to even acknowledge a problem, then a few more to figure out who stands to gain the most politically by heading the committee, and then a while longer for the committee to talk it to death until nobody cares about it any more and by then there's a new cause du jour. Lather, rinse, repeat until the well runs dry.

And now Pheasants Forever is opening a regional HQ in Brookings. Forgive what may sound like a twinge of envy at all the attention given this bird and its plight, but how do I get some of that down here? I'm not so naive that I believe this is entirely altruistic without a hint of politically-motivated PR, but I'm not so pessimistic that I think no good will come of it either.

More so I'm impressed with the speed of the response.  There are plenty of PR opportunities, most of which will build political capital faster, yet this issue is being given time and money while the rubble is still smoking. Actions like those taken by the Governor and PF put the issue squarely on the table and give it a dose of priority along with raising the awareness of the general public, all before the situation goes from bad to worse.

Sage grouse, prairie chickens and bobwhites have suffered steeper declines, albeit over longer periods of time, yet the rapid response at the first sign of trouble was missing and along with it the chance to stop the bleeding before the patient turned pale.

So how do I get some of that down here? Simple. I make quail a $300 million industry.

Ever seen this photo?

It was hanging in a friend's office when I did a double take.  He won it at a raffle and said there were no credits to the photographer anywhere on it.  I'd love to know who snapped the original.

Yep, that top strand is barbed wire.  Still trying to decide if this is incredible athletic ability or yet another bird dog gone mad.

And Now We Shall Do Manly Things

If there's one thing I enjoy in any memoir it's candor.  Speak to me honestly, don't put on makeup, give me the real you.  A writer who displays his own shortfalls unapologetically and without casting blame, placing all that he isn't out there for the world to see has my respect. As I read Craig Heimbuch's recent release, And Now We Shall Do Manly Things (not just a clever blog post title), I found all of the above woven into a tale about a man wrestling with the tribulations of manhood as he takes up bird hunting.

Heimbuch's quest begins when his father gives him a 12 ga Winchester, more in a "Here's something pretty cool" way than an ill-disguised prod to go hunting. Curiosity gets the better of him and the result is a year-long chronicle of discovery, missteps, perseverance and self-realization.

A journalist married to a schoolteacher raising three young children, he is consumed daily by a job, paying rent, and the endless challenges of parenthood.  Here is a guy who doesn't have hobbies or passions as much as he has roles: employee, employer, provider, husband, father, fixer of all that breaks.  "Life is too much about compromise," he notes, a sentiment painfully familiar to many of us. For Heimbuch, hunting evolves into a departure from an existence devoted mainly to the well-being of others.

The story is funny, at times laugh-out-loud funny, without seeming silly or contrived.  The simple truth of lines such as "like our toys, pheasant were imported from China," kept a smile on my face while an extremely witty, albeit fictional, exchange between Ted Turner and Mark Zuckerberg had me spitting milk through my nose.

"Hello, Ted?  Hi, it's Mark Zuckerberg."

"Who?"

"Mark Zuckerberg.  I created Facebook."

 "Look, if this is one of them cults or Amway or some other foolish thing, I don't want any and Jane don't live here no more."

The relatively one-sided conversation continues with Zuckerberg intent on shooting one of Turner's bison and Turner, well, just being Ted.  Heimbuch possesses a well-grounded sense of humor and never falls into the trap of taking himself or the story too seriously.

The book offers a somewhat sobering glimpse into the declining number of hunters, one extending beyond the loss of habitat and the urbanization of America.  Heimbuch experiences the difficulties facing a guy who hasn't grown up in the sport but would dearly like to give it a try, the closed doors and skepticism encountered by a grown man who wants to hunt.  Were it not for several accommodating relatives this book might never have happened.  Our sport is one that's difficult to figure out on your own, at least before you grow tired of getting skunked and give it up for something less cryptic.

Oddly, the father who gave him the shotgun and who is an avid lifelong hunter only plays a peripheral role in his son's passage into the shooting sports.  We're left to wonder whether this was intentional or merely bad luck on the calendar, but Heimbuch leaves little doubt how much he wanted his father included.

I learned of this book through an email from TLC Book Tours who subsequently sent me a copy and included this review in a month-long virtual tour.  At 324 pages it's an easy read and one any bird hunter would enjoy.  George Bird Evans or Datus Proper it's not, nor is it meant to be.  It's a modern story that most guys can relate to, and fortunately it happens to be about wingshooting.

What does pheasant hunting have to do with deer?

Occasionally worlds collide.  This video was shot by pheasant hunters in SD who came upon two antler-locked deer.

I wonder how Darwin would weigh in on this.

Random SD

Made it back this year, minor obstacles notwithstanding.  Some bits and pieces:

Hot spot in Watertown

Nice to know someone else is excited about this bird hunting thing, even if for purely capitalist reasons.

The weather wasn't exactly divine.  The fog never lifted on Saturday, which I didn't figure would be a big deal until I got drawn to walk through chest-high switchgrass.  Cordura-faced denim brush pants aren't so waterproof after about a half-mile.  Always be mindful, however, of how good your situation is...

Might not seem like much to you northerners but us crackers aren't used to this.  Dress properly and keep moving and it's manageable.  Multiple gear reviews to follow.

Reports had the bird population up 18% over last year.  I don't know how a hunter would notice an 18% difference, but somebody's tax dollar paid for the statistic so it must be right, or at least notable.  To someone.  What we found was inconsistency.  Two days we hunted from 10am til almost sunset and failed to get a limit.  The foggy day we were done by 2pm. Some spots were good for exactly zero birds.  Others looked like the boom years.

On the way home TSA found the pocketknife that I couldn't find before I left.  It's comforting knowing it made it all the way to Sioux Falls without them finding it.  The plane with the pickups parked next to it is the one that was supposed to get me from Minneapolis to Charlotte.  After 45 mins of delay for "a minor maintenance issue" we got off the ground. Fifteen minutes later we were turning around and headed back to Minneapolis for "an indicator saying there may be something wrong with the landing system".  The pilot was quick to note that the landing gear was fine, just a possibility that a spoiler or thrust reverser or something else used to keep the plane from shooting off the end of the runway might not be working correctly.  He also told us not to be alarmed by the fire trucks, "All part of the safety protocol."  An hour later we were back on another horse that eventually got us home.  When life gives you lemons you at least have time to finish a pretty good book (review coming on 11/19).

All in all it was a fine trip.  Something about big open spaces and beautiful birds pulls me in and paints me with a smile.  There is at least one party, though, who wouldn't be disappointed to see me stay home next time...

Over and out

March 1 is the legal end of another bird season.  Unless the world economy collapses before then - not completely unrealistic by the way - mine drew to a close Sunday.  With a prior engagement later in the afternoon I ducked away to a site not far from town where we've found a handful of birds this year.  We managed one covey that flushed wild and the singles gave us the slip.  But the dog got a snootful of scent and I got the mental images to carry through the off-season.

For years I've held the conviction that dogs have a sense of time.  People have told me otherwise and although I can't mount a scientific argument I can serve as witness. Yesterday Wyatt hunted harder than he ever has, ranging farther and working cover more thoroughly with not a bit of urging from me.  It was pure joy to watch.  Kinda like he knew this would be the last time for a while. That's me projecting two unrelated facts on top of each other, I know, but I can't get the thought out of my head.

This dog has been a lot of fun to have around.  He was way behind the game when I got him, three and a half years old and never hunted outside of a training field, and I don't think he'd done that in more than a year.  I doubt he'd ever been run without a check cord.  The first time I took him hunting he never ranged farther than maybe twenty yards from me.  Each time he got a little more comfortable, stretched it out a bit, sorted out the different smells and figured out exactly what it was we were looking for.  When we'd get into the birds you could see the drive ratchet up a bit.  Just like it's supposed to.

He's money on pen-raised birds.  I don't know how different they smell from wild birds but I know they do. My last dog would never, ever, bump a wild bird.  Put him on a pen-raised bird, though, and he'd hold point only until you got close enough to watch him dive in and get it.  And he got every one.  Never even tried it on a wild bird.  Go figure.

Wyatt's struggled a bit figuring out the wild bird equation and the lack of readily available wild birds hasn't exactly helped the situation.  Geez, how many hours did I spend walking through fields thinking about taking him to South Dakota or Saskatchewan or some other Valhalla of birds, a place where we could have contacts all day long and in a week's time have a very educated dog?  Enough to become a bit obsessed with the idea, that's how many.  I spent a few more trying to work out the logistics of disappearing for a week or two in the fall.  Didn't quite get that part fully resolved.

He's getting there, just a bit more slowly than the last time I went through this process. Hey, I got time.  No sense in screwing up something so sublime by being in a hurry.

And it'll give me some good things to think about for the next eight months.  Seasons and hunts are spots of brightness linked by everyday life.  There are other spots of brightness but every man, woman and child has one thing, an event, an activity, a happening that is as good as it gets.  Everything else is just something in between.  And now we're in between.

From the back of the photo bin...

Killing time one evening earlier this week I rummaged through the photos that never found a way into the blog and came across a few that seemed too good to waste.  No extended commentary, just a serving of visual potpourri...

Patterns

Waiting..

Libation

Poor man's field lunch

End of a day

Beginning of the next

Hope

Regardless of which brand you choose to practice, religion is a very personal thing.  You tend to get out of it what you need most, or whichever need led you to it in the first place.  In an age where people are losing jobs and homes, where random acts of violence proliferate, where the future sometimes holds more troubles than joys, possibly more than any other thing religion provides a source of comfort in a world of uncertainty, a sense of hope that good will prevail.

Hope offers a reason to keep going, to put troubles in perspective or at least aside long enough to let them fade.  Hope is the promise of tomorrow, and bird hunters know a thing or two about it.  Every puppy, day in the field, hedgerow and shotgun shell is hope.  Putting on a vest, easing up on a point, squeezing the trigger - every little action is pinned to hope.  In it you'll find optimism, reassurance, relief, contentment and a dozen other emotions shifting the burden of worry aside.

Not every Christmas present comes wrapped in paper under a tree.  Whatever your religion, find the hope that it offers and embrace it.


Merry Christmas....

This must be the place

Population 50

I didn't make it to South Dakota this year. Halloween (read trick or treating with my kids) and a recession stepped in and kept me right here at home. The Halloween part I honestly don't mind, after all how many years will I actually have before they would rather throw eggs at houses and smash pumpkins? The recession I could do without.

This trip has always been good medicine for me. It's a different place at a different pace, and the place is SO big. Big in every direction, literally as far as the eye can see. Big views of big fields are a big change for a kid who grew up surrounded by trees. I'm sure there's a metaphysical existential explanation for the effect wide open spaces have on our brains. I can't explain it, but I can tell you it's real, real enough that I can't stop myself from just staring off into that bigness at times.

We hunt in a small town about halfway between Aberdeen and Sioux Falls, and by small I mean small. The sign at the edge of town says the population is 50, which means the head count surges 20% when we show up. Our hosts are a local farming family and once I asked the older son what it was like living in a town with 50 people and he said, "Well everyone knows everyone else's business, and nobody cares." Refreshing.

One immutable fact of life is that your perspective on things changes as you get older. I grew up in a town of about 50,000 and couldn't wait to get out - it was too small for this big-time cowboy. I left for college and mumbled sayonara and don't think I even checked the rear view. Graduated college (finally), moved to our nation's capital and basked in all that the big city had to offer. Two years, countless hours in traffic, and Lord knows how many parking tickets later I'd had enough. Been back here 19 years this April.

I got the big out of my system, at least in terms of cities, and found that the small was rooted very, very deep. It would be no effort at all adjusting to a place like Turton, SD. Sadly there would have to be compromises and sacrifices. My wife, for one, wouldn't consider moving there even if they built a Target on Main Street and that's a good thing, 'cause a Target would put a booger on the Picasso for me anyway. I'd miss all my boys at home, too, and would have to buy a plane so I could get back for the important stuff, but hey I need a reason to justify playing the Powerball anyway, right? For brevity's sake let's just say I could go on but there's no need. I'm not moving any time soon.

Which makes missing the trip this year all the more difficult. I'll most likely be back again in the fall to get my fix, my prescription filled with fine folks, an absence of traffic, food I can't get around here, and lots of big, open space.

And the pheasant hunting ain't bad either.