Introduction of a Woodsman

Memorias of a Woodsman I have found myself needing to write about life in general. I grew up always being outdoors, fishing, hunting, camping, and gathering. The usual country boy life of Gen X left to run wild and do whatever they wanted to do. It was such a life. I’ve lived on two different lakes in my life and had so many adventures in the country I could regale you all with. But I find myself in a strange spot in life that I just want to share to whomever may read it. I taught myself for the most part how to hunt and fish and be an outdoorsman when I was younger. There were these things called books that everyone read back in the day. I mean North American Fishing Club used to send out these amazing thick books on each fish species on how to catch fish you just need to subscribe. The blue bound books were things I highly looked forward to reading. Not to mention Field and Stream, I never got any of the hunting books until I went to the library. My father was not much of a hunter but he tried. All I wanted to do was be outdoors. From chasing chipmunks for ten cent bounties my father created to trying to catch the biggest bass in the lake we lived on. My life was shaped by being outdoors. Now at almost 45 I find myself wanting to be back in those days as I am sure a lot of us from this generation want to be. Free from the shackles of adulthood. I mean remembering when Berkley came out with that amazing pumpkinseed colored fishing worm for bass was a game changer. They caught loads of fish when there was a ton of fish to be caught. Now we have lakes that are overboated and over fished all over the place and I can say as a teenager I never saw it coming. The same can be said about waterfowl or more specifically ducks. We grew up hunting ponds in fields that the ducks just couldn’t resist but now…I honestly don’t know I miss the morning sunrise from a duck blind but are there actually any ducks? I remember hearing stories from the previous generation of rafts of ducks on the big lakes…I can say I never had enough money or decoys to hunt a big lake until I was much older. I was actually so poor when I was a kid; when we made duck decoys in our shop class out of the same type of plastic a milk jug is made from I asked if I could have them all. Using whatever paint I could I painted them to the closest likeness of ducks that I could. Working with what you have was the norm. I remember reading articles and hearing actual stories of using things like coffee cans painted or tires cut in half for decoys…I mean thinking about that now it’s the apocalypse version of waterfowl hunting with flocked decoys, full bodies, swimming decoys…I mean seriously I am waiting for bluetooth or android decoys next. Don’t get me wrong, if you are out to hunt game use every advantage you can, but there is a point where things have gotten a bit odd to say the least. But I digress.