Reflecting on Blogging

After a year +  hiatus from blog posting I am giving it another try with a bit different and fresh angle.  This blog was originally created years ago because friends and family wanted to know what I was up to and that all was well as we travel each fall for bird hunting.  Particularly while on the road where internet service is often limited to a weekly top-off at an in-town bar & grill, maintaining a blog as a single info source seemed easier than managing email exchanges.

However, in recent years I have come to realize a shadowy side to posting about wingshooting traveling. Hunters used to read about bird hunting in destination states in a single article in an outdoors magazine months after the season had closed. Pleasant reading that led to fireside dreams of similar trips but it all seemed so distant and unlikely to actually happen for most.  But today, social media is bursting with thousands of hunters who in real-time read about hunting trips and they see people just like themselves in the photos.  Hunters "go live" on Facebook to take their cyber friends along as they hunt or post photos and videos of their day's hunt even before the birds of the day have been cleaned.  In addition, the average age of hunters in the US is on the far side of middle age which translates into them having more time and money for travel as families and careers have grown and are on their own. The end result of these trends is  that anywhere it has been posted that the bird hunting is good, every motel, campground, and bar & grill parking lot is filled with out-of-state license plates and dog boxes.  

I recognize that my vehicle and RV have been one of those for weeks every year and frankly, that isn't going to change.  I still plan to be hunting several months a year for a variety of species in a variety of states.  But the focus of this blog will be the how, what and why, not the where. It will reflect smaller hunts, the dog pack, passions and events.  Perhaps not anything that will be on someone else's bucket list, but hopefully some food for thought, a chuckle and a light little read.  Happy Hunting all.