At the Root of the Public Land Grab

 America has been blessed with a huge amount of public land. we don't have to fight like Robin Hood for access or do we?

 Anyone who knows me knows that I am a proud supporter of our Nation’s Public lands. I am a proud member of BCH who’s moto is “Public Land Owner.”  I am the Oregon volunteer TRCP Ambassador, and the Rogue Chapter NWTF president. Both of these nonprofits advocate and lobby to keep public lands in public hands and are #publiclandsproud. I have also written articles explaining why public lands are so important to the west, its economy, and families.  I am constantly speaking out against and land being turned over to the state. I had a hard time understanding why people were trying to dissolve BLM managed lands, but after this week I am starting to understand the push back.

I digress; I am a guide /outfitter who services Southern Oregon. I grew up in the rural community of Chiloquin Oregon, a once booming town that is now depressed and beaten like most of rural America. Chiloquin depends on Federal Lands. Like most rural towns, it is all, but lost because of political mismanagement of those Federal Lands.  Politics and ignorance, not proper science, brought the timber industry to its knees. Shure there were small cases where the timber industry was in the wrong, making the bottom line outweigh the responsibilities to the environment, but these were few in Eastern Oregon. Extreme cases were presented like generalities, and the Timber Industry became the devil in the eyes of Americans that never smelled a hint of mountain air. It was an easy sale to a population that turned the corner into becoming more urban than rural—an easy sale that brought Chiloquin, and other rural towns across the west, to ruin. Chiloquin’s five timber mills became none within a decade. Southern Oregon was cast into a depression that it has yet to get out of. Many people don’t know that when money is made from the federal land resources that lie within the borders of a state, law dictates that the feds pay a surcharge to that state. This surcharge was mandated to pay for schools, roads, law enforcement, and such. States and their rural communities were able to meet budgets and provide the services communities needed. Besides the revenue that came in from the timber sales, the timber harvest provided jobs, both in the woods and in the mills. This all came to a screeching halt in the nineties, along with it the lively hood of a whole rural culture, which lasted for many generations. It also created budget gaps that keep growing. For Oregon these timber dollars are set to be reduced from $86.4 million to $7 million that’s a 91.9 percent reduction this year as the timber money has dried up! Who’s going to feel that? Not Portland, Not Eugene, but rural Oregon. So ya, I can see the push against federal land (although state or private ownership isn’t the answer).

 

 If the economic ramifications weren’t enough, the environment was set on a course that would prove to be devastating. The Lodgepole Pine forest that fed the Chiloquin mills is predominately federal, and due to federal red tape, is all locked up. Politics governed foresters, not common sense science. Harvest was no longer allowed to be a management tool, leaving the high desert forest a sea of brown that turns catastrophic when it’s hit by lightning. To add insult to injury, this is same tinderbox is where the remaining rural Oregonians live.  The trees, that they were told they were the devils for cutting, are now standing dead skeletons that remind them daily of the ignorance that was forced on them.  These forest savvy communities know that proper harvest would have slowed the pine beetle that created the vast brown landscape that they now fear during the late summer lightning storms. So ya, I can see the push against federal land.

 So when a Rural 5^th Generation Oregonian, who has been completely jerked out of his culture by the misaligned management, gets told by the BLM that he has to wait up to 18 months, for an Environmental Study before he can even be considered for a special use permit …I can start to see the push against federal land. The wood river wetland a decade ago was a cattle pasture. Today, it’s so environmentally sensitive that there has to be a study to see if my boat might hurt the road that I have to drag it across. On top of that, I only asked for 10 trips or less on the permit.  What’s more infuriating is that there is a permit in place for another guide doing the same thing, just with a 3 foot smaller boat.  The fact that I didn’t get the permit really doesn’t hurt me that much, as I will use private land, but it’s this type of Thinking and Bureaucracy that has put our federal lands on the chopping block. The BLM turned down my permit fees and trip fees, a portion of which would have gone back to the county. I realize that this is a small amount, but it’s not the amount I’m pointing out, rather the ideas and mismanagement of our federal lands.

Hear me well when I say, this is the root, the very root of the federal land grab. The States have to make up for the %91 reductions in timber funds.  If we citizens are going to #keeppubliclandsinpublichands we have to demand better management. We have to responsibly use its resources. We have to put common sense before politics. If we don’t the budgets will win, and our public lands will end up in the hands of the state, then eventually the timber companies anyhow. It’s Time to Attack the Root… Demand Proper Management…if you don’t it will be sold.   

Keep Moving!

#KeepMoving

There is a trend in bowhunting today towards getting in shape for the hunt. I personally think its great. If you look through social media hashtags such as #keephammering #ConquerYourUnknown #TrainToHunt and many more will show you the trend the hunting industry is taking. Gone are the days of hunters being thought of as fat Bubba types. Hunters in 2016 are being represented by names such as Donnie Vincent, Cameron Hayes, Steven Rinella and the boys at Born and Raised Outdoors-These guys are anything, but back road driving, atv abusing road hunters. These guys have presented the hunting lifestyle that has been around for along time. In a society that's been built social media we seem to think these guys are the pioneers of being fit for wilderness, backpack type, big ground type hunting. Slogans like Keep Hammering and such, are what is keeping this generation of hunters in the wilderness and hunting hard. I think the hunting industry has to thank these guys, but I would bet if you ask them if they were pioneers they would deny it. Reformers yes, as they are calling hunters back to their roots, but they aren't the first people to treat hunting as a lifestyle rather than a season. They aren't the the first people who worked out all year to make sure they can do their best while afield. The top names of today are just following their forefathers. What they are portraying is what hunting has been all along. If you find your motivation to "Keep Hammering" in the Gym or on the mountains through what Cameron is doing awesome! He has set hunting in good light, but his "Beast Mode," seems a bit beyond some of us that are on the downhill side of middle age. So, if we all can't be Cameron where can we find our motivation. Might I suggest looking to some mentors that have been living this amazingly active lifestyle for more time than some of us have been alive.

Names like Jim Akenson, Larry Jones, Dwight Schuh, T.j. Conrads, Jerry Gowins, and many others you might or might not have heard of, inspire me. These guys have made a lifestyle out of trying to keep themselves effective bowhunters.  Most shoot everyday, tote their loaded hunting pack around the neighborhood hills in the off season, and prepare their diets to maximize their time afield. Why do i find more motivation from these guys than I do from people my own age? That is simple, they model hope. Just look at Dwight Schuh...at 70 he just finished the grueling Iron Man Triathlon. If he can do that he doesn't have to give up the elk woods any time soon, and that makes my soul jump for joy.

This year I turned 45 and I'm finally starting to figure out that fitness isn't a given like it was when I was 25. On a turkey hunt, that's right a turkey hunt, I found myself sucking air and I knew I had to do something or my days elk hunting the wilderness might be numbered. Its realizations like this that prompted me to ask one of my mentors how he keeps going. His answer was simple, "I just keep moving." He also added, "If I were your age again,  I would take my body a lot more serious...we aren't bulletproof...my sixties would be a lot easier if I had prepared for them."    

"Keep Hammering" is awesome, but at this point in my life it's not on the top of my list. I don't need to be the fastest, or strongest anymore, but I do want to be there. So I will do as those who are still out there mixing it up with the young elk hunters and I will "Keep Moving." I intend to blog my progress so those of you that might find motivation. Often amazing workout routines of the elite wilderness athletes seem out of our reach, but that doesn't mean we have to give up. If we just "Keep Moving," we might be blessed, and be able to spend our golden years chasing Elk.

Shooting everyday does more than keep you accurate.

Its through pictures like these that Scream to Me "Keep Moving"

Although the Young Wilderness Athletes have brought "Hunting Fitness"
 under the Spotlight, its guys like Don who is in his seventies that keep me motivated
"KEEP MOVING"
 

   

Why Call it Traditional?

Archery has been around since the beginning of man, so why do we have one of its classifications termed Traditional? For thousands of years if you said archery everyone would know what you meant, today however the term could be associated with sport that is so modernized that the Archers of the past wouldn't even be able to recognize. Its true that progress has brought us several great advancements, but it has also removed something from us. The farther we progress away from the use of skill obtained through hard work, practice, and discipline we lose something truly Human. With the invention of the compound bow in 1966, humans strayed from the ancient path of the stick and string.

The compound bow uses pulleys to increase the shooters leverage at the end of his draw: this does two things. First, it allows the archer to hold the bow at full draw with less strain that at the middle of the draw. Second, it creates a slack area after the cams "break over" that doesn't change the energy that would be released into the arrow for several inches of draw. This is a great advantage for the person that didn't want to spend hour after hour working on a consistent form. Another thing the Compound did is allow the shooter to hold the bow at full draw longer and steadier. once this advantage was realized the addition of sights were added to the bow. What once took a lifetime to master, now just takes enough muscle to pull the bow back and a properly tuned bow.

Humanity loses something every time a machine takes its place. The disciplined hard work of archers in the past did more for their souls than just cast a accurate arrow. It taught them patients, humility, and showed them the results of hard work. When a Archer became proficient back then, it meant more than he had a good proshop tune his bow.


It is to this purpose that this blog has been created. Not to promote elitism, but to promote the Character one can draw from becoming a proficient Traditional Archer/Hunter. In a "instant gratification" world, this blog intends to motivate people to take the time and pour the effort that is something worth doing...not only will your own soul benefit from it, but the world around you will to.