"I'd Rather Get Blisters" Coming Soon

     Well, I'm at it again.  I've gotten together with my illustrator Dave Harshberger (see his blog at davesfridge.blogspot.com) and we're busy working on a second collection of my outdoor humor stories originally published as Parting Line columns in Game & Fish magazines.  This book is tentatively titled, "I'd Rather Get Blisters" and should be available through my website, http://www.briarhillbooks.com/ sometime late this summer or early this fall.  This book will be about the same size as my first book, "My Brushes With Death and Other Outdoor Blunders," but this one will most likely be in a more economical softcover form.   

Guns, Knives and Incendiary Devices

Yes, I have a profound interest in guns, knives and incendiary devices. But before you proclaim my mental state to be beyond the accepted normal parameters of polite, civilized society, let me explain.
Anyone with any experience in pursuing outdoor adventure will tell you that it's much more enjoyable, much more attainable when you approach it with a certain boldness. By boldness, I don't mean recklessness, but more of an assuredness, a confidence that comes from being prepared with the knowledge and means of procuring the basics.
The basic needs for survival include food, water, shelter and warmth. To these let me add two more essentials: protection -- the ability to defend yourself – and health maintenance. Once you have attained the essentials, anything else can be filed under the heading of “minor details.” Once you have the essentials secured, you can venture forth with that boldness, that confidence. Anything else you face by comparison will require only minor adjustments.
With a gun, I have a way to procure food and to defend my life against all types of aggressors intent on doing me harm.
Knives and other edged tools allow me to improvise or fabricate other things I need that will in turn help me to acquire other survival basics. They can also be a secondary means of defense.
The ability to make fire gives me a way to stay warm, to cook my food and to purify my water. Fire lights my way. With fire, I can burn things too large to cut, chop or saw. With fire I can establish a feeling of security in knowing that long after dark, it can help me to fend off evil both real and imagined.
So it is that at almost any moment you will find me with at least a pocket knife and a way to make fire. Most of the time I am armed. Sometimes when I shower, I admit that the nearest firearm is a few steps away. That is only because of concerns about shampoo build-up in the firing mechanism. I don't ever want to wear the label of victim.
I'll admit too that carrying a pocket knife and a Zippo lighter or magnesium stick sometimes is more symbolic than anything else. After all, when I step outside, it's not always into a wilderness area or other hostile environment where I'll have to fight for my survival. And if I needed to, it would be difficult to kill a deer, build a cabin and whittle a dinette set with just my pocket knife, especially if I couldn't touch up the blade once or twice.
No, the knife and the lighter I carry every day sometimes serve only as talismans against the stressors of modern life. They are reminders that no matter how bad my day is going, I'm still taking care of the basics. The rest requires just minor adjustments.

I'm Back Again

I know, I know. I've been absent from this site for months. Okay, so a few things took priority -- like trying to earn a living and the corresponding mundane, time-consuming chores that go along with that. But I've decided to revisit this whole blog idea. Now, hopefully, I'll be more consistent in posting my rants on all things outdoors and the goal is to do so with greater frequency. I'm hoping to add some reviews of outdoor gear that I will put through my own unique trial and error process with heavy emphasis on the error. If I can use something without it breaking, then you're sure to find it foolproof. If you feel there's something out there you'd like me to comment on, please add your remarks and I'll put it on my list.

What's a Good Day of Fishing?

Okay, so now I have photographic evidence that I too, every once in a while, can catch a fish. Yes, I did have a little help with this rainbow from the captain of the boat . Was it a good day of fishing? Well, I didn't fall overboard, I didn't throw up and the boat didn't sink -- so all in all I guess I do have to chalk it up as a good day of fishing.

Turkey Hunting Defined

Turkey hunting, in a nutshell, is when you try to fool the ugliest bird in the world into spending the rest of his life with you by pretending you're an attractive hen just out for a fling.

(from Parting Line, Game & Fish Publications, May 1996)

Staying Afloat

From Game & Fish Publications, August 2005

Some people are corks. No matter how high the waves or how deep the water, they keep bobbing merrily along on the surface, unfazed by it all.
I am a stone. My whole life has been a struggle to stay afloat. In any endeavor, I have to think twice as hard, work twice as long and overcome twice as much bad luck or I will sink to the bottom with all the other stones who wish they were corks. Nothing is easy.
In actual water, I am no more buoyant than I am in the metaphorical kind. I don’t mean that I can’t swim. I’m a good swimmer. I have to be because I’m never able to sit in a boat of any kind without going overboard.
Since I won’t give up fishing, I’ve had to take precautionary measures.
Life jackets are a must for me and for those who may have to dive in after me if I swallow too much water while begging my friends on the boat to stop laughing at me.
I carry small items doubly sealed in plastic sandwich bags in a fanny pack around my waist. I lash larger things to the boat.
If I could, I would own only things that float. Since that’s not realistic, my GPS readings are invaluable when it comes to briefing the scuba divers I hire to salvage any equipment that goes overboard with me.
Early in the season, water temperature is critical, not as much for catching fish as for catching pneumonia. For that reason I fish from shore when the water is cold.
I’ll still fall in the water reaching for a snagged lure or when a portion of the stream bank, which has remained intact since the last ice age, suddenly gives way because I am standing on it. But by limiting my exposure to the freezing water, I can lessen the severity of the hypothermia.
Jim had never fished with me before. But my boys knew the routine when we arrived at the stream.
"I get to light the fire," Brian said.
"Okay," Matt said, "but only if Sean helps me to collect the wood."
"We haven’t caught anything yet and you guys are preparing to cook our shore lunch already?" Jim asked.
"The fire’s for Dad," Brian said, "for when he…"
There was a shriek and a loud splash behind them.
"Matt, Sean, you’d better hurry with that wood!" Brian said.
I’m careful too about my selection of water craft. Large motor boats are out. For one thing, my wife Dawn, the family’s keeper of the funds, insists we wouldn’t be able to stay afloat financially with a boat payment in tow.
Another consideration is that with motor boats, there’s the temptation to go further out on larger bodies of water. For me that means a longer swim or a longer wait for the rescue party.
When I do fish big water, I must impose on others who own boats. I’ve fallen off of boats belonging to one-time friends Tom, Mike, Dave, and Vern. Actually, I didn’t fall off of Dave’s boat. The water was choppy. I got sea sick and threw up. Dave threw me overboard.
As an additional precaution, I never wager on the day’s fishing because the one who fishes me out of the water always has the biggest catch of the day.
At the other end of the boating spectrum, I’ve gained much experience with small deflatibles such as rubber rafts. Their advantage is portability.
Inflating one is safe because I do it on land. I normally use a foot pump because after four or five hours of trying to inflate a raft with a foot pump, I have little time or energy left for fishing, thus minimizing the chances of falling in the water.
Deflating a raft is tricky because I inevitably do that over open water.
I can navigate a leaky raft approximately 100 yards, considering the average rate of deflation from a typical fish-hook puncture and my maximum rowing rate, which is aided by the boost of adrenaline that comes with the urgency of knowing I am about to drown.
Modern plastic kayaks are the best small vessels. They’re portable, sturdy, and not prone to capsizing on calm water. It took me some time to figure out how to misuse them and end up in the water.
In the end, I settled on meltdown. If I couldn’t fall out of it or easily capsize it, melting it under extremely hot flame seemed the only way to go.
The lesson learned was that if I wanted a hot lunch, I should take time away from fishing to go ashore before lighting the backpacking stove. I was rewarded with a refreshing swim to shore.
I’ve perfected 101 ways to fall out of a canoe. Roughly half of them involve capsizing the canoe. There’s the Water Skier Broadside Wake method and my favorite, the Articulated, Head-first Plunge.
Some techniques require outside help. The After-the-Drowning-Dog Lunge, for instance, is difficult because to perform it correctly you must first convince an old dog that can’t swim that he should dive into the water.
The Peeved Partner Synchronized Swim is an advanced technique that demands the most of teamwork and split-second timing. It involves two fishermen going overboard at once. Done properly, it’s as lovely as classical ballet and should be performed with the accompaniment of a philharmonic orchestra.
When I capsize a canoe, I can blame myself, my fishing partner or simply curse my bad luck. When I simply fall out of a canoe, however, I have a tendency to curse the canoe even though, upright and bobbing along, it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
Maybe that’s because, struggling to tread water, watching the canoe steadily drift away, I am painfully aware of the certain order of things: the canoe is a cork and I am a stone.
###

Playing Survivorman

This winter I tried to impress upon my 13-year-old daughter that if she continued to go hiking and camping with me, it might be a good idea if she learned some survival skills.
"Is that because you're always getting lost?" Stephanie asked.
It's really ironic that the more time she spends with me, the more she's turning out to be just like her mother.
"No," I said. "Anyone who ventures into the woods could find himself in a survival situation. If you're properly equipped and mentally prepared, you stand a much better chance of making it out alive."
To teach my daughter the valuable survival skills she needed, I did what any true outdoorsman would do: I plunked her down in front of the television.
"We're going to watch the Survivorman marathon," I said.
"Isn't that the guy who eats bugs?" Stephanie asked. "If that's what it takes to survive, I'd rather die."
"We don't have to start at that extreme," I said. "We can begin with other skills, such as how to start a fire or build a shelter."
After several episodes Stephanie issued the challenge.
"Dad, do you really know how to do all of the things he's doing?"

That weekend we trudged into the woods through the knee-deep snow. She had double-dared me to start a fire and build a shelter. I was confident in my fire-starting abilities, but the pressure was on here. This was mid-winter. Everything was wet, buried under the snow. Would Stephanie think I was a fraud if I couldn't get a fire started?

We found a spot sheltered from the wind, wiped the snow off of a couple of logs to sit on and cleared a spot on the ground to build our fire. I carved some fine shavings for tinder from a standing dead tree, then collected some birch bark and small branches also from standing dead trees.

I used one of those magnesium fire sticks with a metal striker to scrape a shower of sparks into the tinder. It took some doing, but at last a spark caught. I quickly moved a stub of a candle into place to ensure my little fire would stay lit until the wood was ablaze.

"This is where Survivorman would roast grubs on stick for his dinner," I said. I reached into my fanny pack.

Stephanie's eyes widened. She was worried about what was coming next. I took out two foil packets.

"Survivorman might have grubs," I said. "But Survivor Dad brought hot cocoa mix."