Still a lot of fishing, hunting positives

By Jack Kiser

It's an increasingly rare event in our culture for a hunter or fisherman to experience or even see cultural images or reminders at all beneficial or in any way even inferring even a hint of positivity towards the American outdoors tradition.

The precipitous decline in sales nationwide of hunting and fishing licenses continues to fuel and propel the politically correct cultural armies of the popular media and public school systems that continue to regularly batter and tarnish the images of our outdoors hunting and fishing traditions.

Those who still cling to viewing such acknowledgments as ridiculous, a fabrication of a fading culture or the whining of the last of the gun owners, can quickly have their faux bewilderment skewered with one question:

When is the last time you remember an outdoorsman -- let's say a hunter portrayed in any TV sitcom, drama or documentary -- as anything other than a foaming-at-the-mouth idiot or a dangerous, lurking menace to anyone or anything around him?

Forget the mere thought of any image or portrayal that could by any wild stretch of the imagination be construed as positive; those days are long gone. I'm talking about any portrayal that isn't clearly over-the-top vividly negative.

Not too easy, huh? End of argument.

Public schools that once excused youngsters to go with their fathers and grandfathers for the opening of deer season now glory in their power to deny even the thought of such a pass nowadays.

THIS DESPITE the fact that deer herds are arguably bigger and better, and more dangerous, throughout the Midwest than ever.

Much of this cultural swing is purely an affectation of the powerful anti-private gun ownership crowd, but the tentacles reach farther into our culture than many dare imagine.

Clearly, no privately owned firearm can ever be shown being used in any way that could possibly be construed as resulting in a positive act, though it happens every day, whether in the meat that deer hunters regularly provide to the needy or the privately owned firearm that dissuades still another crime.

The residual effect is evident in the supposedly inclusive "outdoors" and "men's" magazines of today that cover every outdoor sport from rock-climbing to bike-riding to sailing to bird-watching to hang gliding.

Fine, but what of the far more economically important and still far more popular "outside" activities of hunting and fishing? Don't even ask.

Their coverage is relegated to the few remaining old standbys of yore like Fur, Fish & Game, Outdoor Life, Midwest Outdoors and Field and Stream.

In addition, an increasing number of local newspapers no longer feature an outdoors column.

Yep, with the added variable of the breakdown of the family in our country, who will be left to hand down and celebrate the genuine outdoors heritage of hunting and fishing?

Is it any wonder that many pundits, and not just liberals, view this coming generation as pretty obviously the last to experience the sheer excitement and exhilaration of legal hunting, with fishing conceivably not far behind?

It is indeed a tradition under siege, with a declining membership that shows little of the same will and resolve to preserve it as PETA, Hollywood and academia exhibit to finally end it.

IT MAY BE a lonely cry in the wilderness, but I still continue to look for reasons to be thankful concerning my favorite outdoor activities and their wonderful heritage, including these:

• The Ohio deer herd continues to be the best in its recordable history, both for size and numbers, and attracting an increasing number of out-of-state hunters.
• The Ohio steelhead program continues to be an unqualified success, financially sustaining many northern winter tackle shops almost by itself.
• Gov. Ted Strickland ran as an unabashed outdoorsman, hunter and gun owner. Is it too much to hope for that he governs as one?
• The Lake Erie walleye and yellow perch populations continue on a five-year-plus hot streak, even as the smallmouth fishery enters an uncertain and tenuous period.
• The number of youth deer-gun permits continues to rise even in the face of other, more negative demographics.
• The Cuyahoga River admittedly had a long way to go in the early 1970s, but few thought that its ascendancy as the nation's No. 1 ecological comeback story would maintain its ongoing improvement for so many different fish species for so many years throughout its length, with no downturn or even leveling off in sight.
• I have my health, my friends, my family, my writing and my still-increasing reverence for the great outdoors that was handed down to me by my dad, and his dad. And I intend to continue to celebrate it till the old man upstairs calls me home. Whether anybody else likes it or not.

Jack Kiser is the host of TV's "Buckeye Angler" and Ohio editor of Midwest Outdoors magazine. He may be reached by visiting www.buckeyeangler.com.

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Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the Aurora (OH) Advocate, a Record Publishing Co. LLC/ Dix Communications newspaper, and was republished with the author's permission. If you would like to continue to see articles like this published in Ohio's many Record Publishing Co.-owned community newspapers, please consider contacting Record Publishing's sports editor staff (330-688-0088) to let them know.