Strut Zone

Yesterday's headline in the Virginian-Pilot read, "Truck hits, kills worker at terminal in Norfolk." On the surface it looked like just another report on the randomly unlucky who fill the pages with their near-anonymous tragedies on a daily basis.

But it isn't. In fact none of them are, for every person, every loss, touches somebody in a way that will transform lives forever. I realize this, because the unnamed victim in this story was Drew Richardson, a young man I grew up with hunting. He and his father shared my room at the United Hunt Club in Southampton County, Va., where we hunted for many years. I got the tragic news, relayed to me by phone by my 7-year-old, while I was sitting on the tarmac in a plane in Minneapolis, heading home after an unsuccessful deer hunt up North.

The news struck me with extreme sadness, the type reserved for people who still should have had a lot of life ahead of them. Drew was one of these people. He was only 29, married and a father of two small children and I knew his immediate and extended families were reeling from the crushing news. I can't imagine what they are going through.

One of my fondest memories of Drew took place about nine or 10 years ago this month. It was the opening week of deer season and on a bright, sunny day, the few of us who had taken the whole week off from work or school decided to do a few short drives in a grown-over clearcut. I was working my way through a tangle of brush when a deer exploded from the cover ahead of me. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but I shouted to Drew that a deer was headed his way. About that time, several shots from his shotgun rang out. I was hopeful.

After watching entirely too much outdoor television as of late as well as surfing the Web and hitting a number of hunting product sites, I've come to this conclusion: With the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pegging the number of hunters in 2006 at just over 12.5 million (a truly misleading number since many people consider themselves sportsmen though they may not buy a license every year—yeah, I can't relate to that concept either, but it's apparently true), then that means take away every hunter who has a television show, writes for an outdoor mag and/or is a member of a pro-staff (some companies have dozens upon dozens) and there are approximately 14 hunters left!

Though many of the Boston area's residents are still basking in the glory of a World Series victory by their beloved Red Sox and the seemingly invincible dominance of the Patriots, there are others that are dwelling in fear with the coming of Thanksgiving.

That's right, that favorite symbol of America's annual family gourgefest, the wild turkey, is raising havoc and even stalking some of its citizens. The Boston Globe reports that Kettly Jean-Felix was on her way to a doctor's appointment when she was stalked and then attacked by a lone gobbler strutting the sidewalk.

"This is so scary," said Jean-Felix. Nearby Brookline postal carrier Rosanne Lane told the Globe that she has skipped houses before because flocks of the foul fowl have ganged up on her.

"They make a lot of noise and I just take off," Lane told the Globe. Reporter Keith O'Brien notes in the article that the local police there receive as many as a dozen complaint calls concerning the birds. Of course, in the usual obligatory background info that reporters feel compelled to inaccurately share with the general public is that hunting was to blame for the birds extirpation in the early 1800s. True. But there was no mention of how hunters also helped bring the birds back.

In the state of Massachusetts alone, the NWTF chapters there have raised and spent more than $141,000 dollars to help fund wild turkey restorationa and habitat improvement. And that is a drop in the bucket to the overall funds spent from excise taxes and hunting license revenues, the two primary sources of income for most state agencies. But don't expect the Globe to cover that one.

As wild turkey populations continue to grow and spread, it is inevitable that they will move into suburban areas where hunting pressure is nonexistent and many residents don't understand the birds. Accounts of turkeys attacking children as well as adults have popped up in New Jersey and California as well.

According to an NPR report on the same ornery flocks in near Boston, the game department has distributed a pamphlet. Their advice: When attacked by a turkey, fight back! That's something most of you reading the Strut Zone won't have any problem with.

Since my wife and I had twins seven weeks ago (Well, she actually had them, I just cheered from the sidelines), all of my time has been spent helping the wife feed, change and console crying babies at night and discussing and editing hunting stories in the office during the day. None of my time has been spent actually hunting.

Besides the twins, another addition in my home is a new cable system—one that actually has the Outdoor and Sportsman channels in addition to Versus (my old one only had the latter). With the arrival of both, I decided what the heck, even though I'm admittedly not a huge fan of outdoor television, since I'm sitting up with the new additions through all hours of the night it might be fun to at least watch the hunts other people are enjoying. From a professional standpoint, it's a good way to see what the big names in the business are doing as well, since virtually all of them—along with a lot of smaller names—have their own show now!

Well, after watching what probably amounts to about 70-plus hours of outdoor TV in the past month, I must confess, I'm still not a huge fan of outdoor television. Some of it is just straight out not very good. And for all of the great footage of wildlife that is captured, the emotional component of the hunt seldom shines through the glare of the television set. But that's my personal hang-up and I accept it as such. I also recognize why a lot of sportsmen feel differently as with the flip of a channel they can be right there on a hunt for whitetails in Iowa, longbeards in Texas and cape buffalo in Namibia. It's escapism at its best. And never before has hunting been so accessible on the TV, which is truly a good thing. You get to experience everything but pulling the trigger or tripping the release.

One thing I noticed after watching so much TV is that hunters are as predictable as the game they pursue, and the best example I can offer is what the successful hunter and his guide usually say as they crouch over their trophy at the end of each hunt. In fact, there are roughly five things EVERYONE says. Here they are in descending order:

5. Look at that, boy. Yes. Yes. Oh yeessss. (while high-fiving like they just won their office fantasy football league.)

4. What a beautiful _________ (fill in the blank—buck, bull elk, gobbler, ram, bear, etc.)

3. This has been the hunt of a lifetime. (Also a common end to many stories submitted to hunting magazines by inexperienced writers and, sadly, by even a few experienced ones.)

2. Buddy I tell you, it doesn't get any better than this.

1. This is what it's all about.

Remember that if you ever get the chance to be on an outdoor television show. With the number of programs out there, odds are, you probably will be.

And oh, again in the spirit of full disclosure, I have had the chance to appear on a number of outdoor shows over the years either as a hunter or to offer hunt tips. The first time I was ever filmed on a successful hunt, I was with Ray Eye, turkey hunting in Missouri. And when we posed next to the turkey I shot and I began to speak, instead of offering some clever, insightful statement about man versus nature and our hunt, I believe my exact words were:

"Yes. Yes. Oh yeesss. (As I high-fived Ray and hooted like an extra in Deliverance with new banjo strings). What a beautiful longbeard. This has been the hunt of a lifetime. Buddy I tell you it doesn't get any better than this. THIS, is what it's all about!"

Ray, just smiled and looked at me like the print media guy that I was, the expression on his face seeming to say "Rookie."

Looking at the photos from the Racks calendar, I was reminded of some of the back and forth discussion among the editors that takes place as we put together every issue of Outdoor Life. The truth is we don't always agree. Here's an item that was originally slated for the Snap Shots section of the magazine earlier this year, but was (probably wisely) cut out because of the "suggestive" nature of the product.

But because the Web, like television, is just one big morally bereft dumping ground of infotainment, I figured what the hey. Here's what OL readers missed:

From Hunt Club to Strip Club
Few products so aptly combine a typical guys two favorite things—hunting and women—like Camo Booty’s line of camouflage. Realtree or Mossy Oak it isn’t, as the pattern meant to leave game confused and fellow hunters amused is created by printed, overlapping silhouettes of naked ladies in various positions of repose. Finally, somebody has invented a product that will impress as much in camp as it will at the strip club, and you don't even have to change your outfit in between! Tramp stamp and arm tats are optional.

Now you tell me: Should this have run in the magazine or do you agree with the edit staff's final decision to  leave it out of the mag?

Post a comment below. As a hunting mag, we realize this stuff rests at the far periphery of why sportsmen buy OL, but as a magazine read by a lot of men, maybe there is more interest in such, um products, than we realize. Regardless, pull a Camo Booty shirt out in camp and I promise it will get a good laugh.

If you're of that latter camp, check out the Camo Booty site for more photo galleries of their product in use, particularly Oleha's booty pose (that's the name of the jpg file, not my choosing)—a photo that I wasn't about to run, even on the Web. Oh, that would be Janine up top.

"Biologically, it makes no sense whatsoever... They were saying you can't transport a hunter-killed bird across the border, when millions of birds are migrating across the border already?"— Michael Chamberlain, a professor at Louisiana State University, told reporter Chris Niskanen with the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Chamberlain was among hundreds of waterfowlers returning from Saskatchewan to the U.S. who had their ducks confiscated by federal agents at the border because of an avian flu outbreak at a province chicken farm. Customs agents destroyed as many as 4,100 birds legally and safely harvested by hunters in what is an outrageous waste of the resource.

And while customs officials finally conceded that they had misunderstood their own directives and since discontinued the confiscations, there are a lot of U.S. duck hunters who spent a lot of money to travel north to hunt and now have nothing to show for it. I wonder if the government will offer to pay for the hunter's lost game, time, license fees and other costs?

It's something turkey hunters considering a trip to Canada need to keep in mind as they could ultimately be faced with the same dilemma as avian flu fears continue to grow. How would you like to drop a couple grand on an outfitter, flights and licenses only to find out the government is going to take and destroy your trophy on the way home? I wouldn't like it one bit. And the situation may not be confined to just Canada as restrictions could one day be placed on transporting game even between states as has occurred in some instances where CWD has been discovered in deer.

For more insight into the story, check out J.R. Absher's Outdoor Newshound.

From the No-Duh Department comes this scientific revelation: Men Want Hot Women, Study Confirms. It appears that after observing 26 men and 20 women in a Munich, Germany, speed dating situation, researchers determined that while guys will cite a number of criteria for choosing a respective mate, the one common in their final selection is they would like the girl to be hot looking.

Somebody paid for this study?!? They needed a scientific study to come to that conclusion? Walk into any bar in America and a drunk can figure that one out, unless it's close to last call.

After all, isn't that why Baywatch was one of the most watched shows in its day despite David Hasselhoff and why more dudes will check out Maxim's Home Town Hotties this week than Hanback's Big Buck Zone even as deer season begins to crank up!!!!!

Man if somebody wants to throw money around to pay for studies like that, lets at least spend it on something we need to figure out, like why people really love to watch NASCAR (the crashes), why football remains one of the most watched sports on TV (the human crashes) and why turkeys will gobble every day before the season opener and then shut up when you're finally out there with a shotgun in hand (because God has a sense of humor.) Just give me the money, The Strut Zone will study the situation and then we can all get on with the obvious.

Heck, even the site ArkansasDuckHunter.com figured this one out. Where else can you find ATV silencers, game feeders, dove hunting chairs and of course, a camo thong for the missus!

I was 10 years old, kicking back in the passenger seat of a powder blue Ford Pinto station wagon with my shoulder pads bunched up so high around my head they wrecked my peripheral vision. My helmet lay by my feet as my mom drove me to another hot afternoon of August football practice. Beside me lay the loose seat belt (who wore seat belts back then?).

Music played over the radio when suddenly an announcer broke in to announce that "Elvis Presley was found dead today inside his Graceland mansion." My mother, a huge fan, screamed and then simply stared at the radio, forgetting for a moment that she was still driving a vehicle. As the car momentarily veered toward the curb, I hollered, "MOM!!" She righted the vessel and dumped me off for a miserable hour of practice, still in a state of incredible disbelief. The KIng was dead. That was 30 years ago today.

The loss didn't hit me so hard then--after all, I was the one who tried to argue with her that the band KISS was much bigger than Elvis had ever been, measured by the fact that my 6-year-old brother knew the name to a couple of KISS songs, but couldn't identify a single Presley tune--but I did like some of his songs and truthfully enjoyed his campy movies. And as I've gotten older, have come to really appreciate the legend as much as the music he created.

It's hard to believe it has already been 30 years since his passing and as I put those years into the perspective of hunting (as I often tend to do) I can't help but think of how many hunting seasons that has been and ultimately, how many old-time hunters were around back then that have since also passed on.

Last week was a crazy week. My wife, pregnant with twins, spent most of it in a hospital as doctors successfully worked to postpone her labor--two months early. The crew at Outdoor Life also had to move offices from one floor to the next, seemingly not such a big deal, until you realize how much stuff can accumulate at a magazine over many, many years.

I spent most of the weekend working like a dog to get the nursery and another room remodeled should our new arrivals actually arrive much earlier than we planned, taking a short break to eat lunch and flip through the channels. With the 30th anniversary of the King's death coming on, one channel was showing Elvis movies all day. I paused and spent an hour watching "Girl Happy."

By today's standards, it's about as goofy as it gets, but as I watched, I found myself not so focused on the silliness on the screen as much as the innocence and time it represented, a time when your parents could still make any troubles you had go away, when bills and deadlines and a host of grown-up problems still loomed in the unforeseeable future, and a time when it seemed like everyone would live forever--even Elvis Presley.

How cool would that be if in each of our lives we could touch people in a way that 30 years after we're gone, we could still bring someone joy? Pretty cool, indeed.

Man, 30 years. A lot of people, myself included, still miss him. If there was anyway to get a message to him, I think the only thing to say would be, "Thank you...thank you very much."

I saw this while checking out a site called Road Kill T-Shirts.com. Don't know why, but it just struck me as really funny.

Every manufacturer wants to sell their product and stand out among their competition. The other week at a media event held by ExOfficio, makers of performance clothing, I saw a claim on one of their products that I just had to ask about.

The product was a pair of underwear. On the packaging it read, "17 countries. 6 weeks. And one pair of underwear." I put Media Relations rep Janine Robertson to task on that one.

"Hey, I'm heading out on some adventures including one to Curucao next week. If I get a pair of these, you're saying this is the only pair I need to tote?!"

She went on to explain that they are extremely breathable, anti-microbial and quick drying.

"But just to be safe, you might want to take two pairs," she laughed. "That way you can switch them out while you wash the other pair."

I agreed. While I've been on plenty of trips where bathing wasn't too accessible, I didn't care to keep a pair of underwear around that would ... well, maybe we shouldn't go there.

Anyway, I did try them out. And while I wouldn't go one week, much less six with any single pair of drawers, these are the ones you want to be wearing whether you're on the links in Curacao or marching up a mountain after longbeards in the Sierra Madres. Heck, they work pretty well sitting on your couch watching a ball game, too.

With that, have a great Memorial Day weekend. I'm slowly getting unburied from the back up of work from being out this spring. Oh, and I'll be joining Ray Eye on his Saturday morning radio show tomorrow. I'll be on tomorrow morning around 6:30 a.m. Central Time. I think you can catch it on the web at http://www.kfns.com.

And to you hardy souls still chasing longbeards out there—best o' luck to ya.