Читать книгу Backlash: A Compendium of Lore and Lies (Mostly Lies) Concerning Hunting, Fishing and the Out of Doors - Galen Winter - Страница 8

The outdoorsman is not like other people. Oh, I don’t mean there’s anything genetically distinctive about him. The differences seem to come, not from within, but from forces outside of him. As a class, hunters and fishers find themselves in situations where strange things happen.

It’s as if some whimsical cosmic power enjoys frustrating and poking playful fun at the ones who love to hunt and fish. The Fates are constantly testing him, setting road blocks in his path and assailing him with ‘the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’. The fact that he, nevertheless, persevere in his avocation may be one of his major distinguishing characteristics.

Certainly, the outdoors type is not a heroic figure. Most of his endeavors are, at the very least, minor disasters. For every day he returns with an acceptable catch of legal sized trout, he will return on eight other days with nothing more than very wet trousers. For each day producing a limit of woodcock, four days will be spent looking for a lost dog. And the hunter who claims more deer kills than times he’s been hopelessly lost in the woods is an Olympic class liar, a poor credit risk and probably a liberal.

The sportsman may appear to mellow with the years as does everyone else, but you need only scratch his surface and you’ll find he has retained all the humor usually found in young men and the curiosity usually found in wives. Old outdoor types smile more. They don’t know they’re old.

Polite society tends to treat the sportsman with caution, if not respect. They’ve got good reason to be skittish when he’s around. They’re not afraid he might use the wrong fork for the desert. What makes them tremble and panic is the fear that he might grab it with both hands and eat it the way he does at deer camp. He might do so just to see the look on the hostess’ face.

The dedicated hunter/fisherman is courageous and doesn’t hesitate to step out into the unknown if the act has any reasonable chance of furthering his enjoyment of the outdoor world. This is another way of saying he is foolhardy. Few entirely rational people will get into a leaky skiff at 5:00 a.m. and break ice to paddle a half mile through two foot waves in order to sit in a blind in sub-zero temperature in the hope of being able to entice a bluebill into gun range - and when the stratagem is successful, the hunter may very well miss.

If sanity is your game, stay away from trout streams on the opening day of the fishing season. It’s hard to justify trout fishing during a snow storm, but the sportsman doesn’t have a suspicion that such acts are anything but standard, usual and normal.

I don’t know how to define “sportsman”, but I know one when I see one. Here are six examples.

(NOTE: You have just been conned into reading the Author’s Preface.)