Chris Maroldy
I’ve always wanted to pen a piece titled “Scouting For This Year’s Buck Mañana” but I’ve never gotten around to it. With apologies to Captain John Paul Jones, I have not yet begun to procrastinate.
What brought this to mind is (while reading on the internet when I was supposed to be doing something else) I came across an article about our 2024 deer hunting prospects on NC public land with a December 1, 2024 date up near the byline. Awesome timing, I thought, since the season is nearly over, unless you count the late urban seasons. Which I don’t. Not my cup of hot chocolate.
At least the article was dated (in the good way), I thought. There are a few things that irritate me more than the practice of leaving off dates for on-line articles, but let’s not get into politics or my old girlfriends right now.
Then I went back the next day to review the piece. Drat! The date now read December 2. So the article was undated, and my blood pressure immediately shot back up. I’ll have to do something about that one of these days.
I just hope all that deep research was published early enough in the year to do someone some good. Not that in-season or last-minute scouting can’t be beneficial if done right, but we veteran deer hunters like to think our brothers of the oaks and pines aren’t reading on their phones in the middle of the season about where to go, and then moseying on over there the next day to tramp about and have a look-see.
But you know it happens, and all it does is mess up the hunting for everyone else who was already firmly planted on location with a long-ago predetermined game plan in mind.
Even as a master procrastinator, I can’t condone that.
And speaking of deep research (sarcastically), you rarely get it in ‘where-to-go” articles, at least not in the hunting and fishing realms. A lot of the material feels distinctly phoned-in. If you’re gonna burn a spot by naming it in the first place, you might as well take advantage of the whole power of media, whether print or digital or over-the- air, and throw some GPS coordinates and buoy numbers and whatnot out there.
(It now occurs to me that the lack of such might be the reason we have so much moseying and tramping and look-seeing. Maybe pin-point spot burning would cut down on a lot of the zig-zagging and the to-and-fro, but I am a bigger claim-taker than I am an anti-tourist when it comes to hunting and fishing areas, so I think I’ll leave that thought alone.)
I’ve learned two things (at least!) at this game: People are deathly afraid that someone is going to steal “their spot,” or broadcast it to the public and secondly, if they’re not afraid, they might not have enough sense to know which end of the fishing rod the bullet comes out of.
You don’t need to be in outdoor media to create this sense of fear and loathing. Who among you random civilians has not had another random civilian—even a good buddy, sometimes—horn in a honey hole you showed him? Or worse, begin to show it to his own friends? You thought bunnies multiplied exponentially? Your short-eared, two-legged competition is much worse. Not vewy, vewy quiet at Awll!
Remember this when it comes to sharing info about hunting and fishing locations: No good deed goes unpunished.
Now, it’s easier to avoid over-sharing if you are mostly a solo outdoorsman, and/or you don’t have a high need to show off that you’re an expert. Either of those things tends to keep your lips from flapping. Also, it helps if you don’t like other people all that much.
If you do have a hunting or fishing buddy, or God-forbid two or three, rate them on a scale before you spill any more beans than you already have during your relationship to date. There are real buddies, who will respect your boundaries and the sovereignty of honey holes, and then there are Facebook buddies, whether they’re on social media or not. They’re virtually your buddies, but they’re not really your buddies. You have to watch them. Ever leave a ham on the counter with a dog in the house? That’s what I’m talking about.
Then there are the mystery buddies, in between. They might steal the metaphorical ham, or they might not. At least they know—or you think they know—that they’re not supposed to take a bite. But you have to see how it all plays out, and that might take some time.
Not making judgments until all the fact are in isn’t exactly procrastination—sometimes you know what you should know before you know you know it.
But it’s close enough, and I’ll take it.