By Dan Bundy
I read with interest Doug Leier’s column in Tuesday's Herald as he discussed our outlook towards what makes a hunting or fishing outing successful and I agree with him.
Just getting out and enjoying the sights and sounds are often enough to make an outing memorable.
But when you wait several years for a buck tag, it also makes sense that you want to shoot as big a buck as you possibly can. It’s a double edged sword whether you are fishing or hunting. Perhaps it gets easier as you get older or maybe it takes less to satisfy me. Sometimes it’s just enough to make it through a day of climbing hills or pounding waves.
The fact is that we are inundated with magazine articles and television programs that grind into our senses the idea we must get the biggest and the best in order to be successful.
No magazine worth its salt prints photos of small fish or small deer on a regular basis.
No outdoor show promotes anything but trophy animals and bag limits and if you think about it you'd soon figure out that it's all about selling their products.
Nothing wrong with that if you put it in that perspective and realize that even the best hunters and fishermen have low success days. To put it bluntly, there is no magic bullet, lure or presentation that works all the time.
Those that have the greatest success ratio are those that get out there and pay their dues.
They are the ones that put as much or more time into practice as they do actually producing and are willing to try something different when their regular stuff doesn't work.
A bad day of fishing?
I've never had one. Days without success, but never a bad day. In order to have that you have to love the outdoors and realize that the kill or a limit are secondary and end the outing.
Sometimes a tough day of fishing becomes a success with the netting of one fish. You've beat the odds by throwing everything at them but the kitchen sink and that one fish made it happen.
Last summer, my wife and I had one of those days when we couldn't find the right presentation to produce any walleyes.
Switching to cranks we made a last ditch effort. Three northern pike were caught and released and that made the day for us.
The North Dakota Game and Fish Department does a super job for those of us that enjoy the outdoors.
No matter if you hunt, fish or just roam around in the outdoors with a camera, there is much to see and stalk.
My advice is to just get out there and pay your dues with a lot of time in the outdoors whether on the lake or afield.
You'll see a lot that just can't be covered by watching the outdoor channel or reading about it. The outdoor experience is much better when the stories you have to tell are your own.
As always, “good fishin’ and hunting.”
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