OutdoORegon
New member
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2016
- Messages
- 12
I was born and raised in the 1970's in intermountain NE California, near the Oregon and Nevada borders. Pretty much everyone in rural areas like that hunted, fished, camped, shot guns of all manner recreationally and planned virtually all of our activities and entertainment in the great outdoors.
It was the twilight of the heyday of the mule deer back then, and they still occupied the sage brush and juniper country in large numbers, with the annual fall migration south from Oregon almost resembling a caribou migration at times. Pronghorn antelope ran the flat country in herds of hundreds, and occasionally thousands. Watching a sea of the orange and white speed demons racing across a massive alfalfa field or a rolling brush prairie was a common sight in those days.
Vast tracts of BLM and USFS land stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction, and we took it for granted that the rest of the country does not offer quite the vast array of public land opportunities that the West has. We were born and raised in it, and were too poor to travel far from home, so kids like me had no idea that outdoors folks in other parts of the country do not have it as good as we do out here.
In my early adulthood I became aware of eastern white-tailed deer hunting, thanks in large part to outdoor television and hunting shows from the likes of Will Primos and his crew. I remember being dumbfounded to learn that people would pay a private land owner a handsome fee to lease a 40 acre farm field so they could have an opportunity to hunt deer that season. I was simply amazed to discover that if a person could not afford to pay for a lease, or to join a hunting club, they may not have an opportunity to hunt deer at all.
That awareness gave me a newfound appreciation for the blessing of being born and raised in the West, smack dab in the middle of a veritable ocean of public land. And for all the outdoor recreation opportunities that come with living in the American West.
So I saw this post on the Elk Addicts group on Facebook today, and I asked Patrick if I could share it here. This post really drove home the importance of keeping our public lands in public hands for the generations to come. This post is the reason that every one of us gladly pay to be a member of an organization like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and why we look forward to volunteering our time to make a difference in helping to achieve our conservation goals.
Congratulations on your successful hunt, Patrick. I'm glad that your experience was absolutely fantastic and I look forward to seeing your future posts about your public land adventures. Thanks for reminding me just how special it is that we have this incredible public land legacy to enjoy, cherish and to protect.
Mike Haralson
Vice Chairman, Oregon Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
It was the twilight of the heyday of the mule deer back then, and they still occupied the sage brush and juniper country in large numbers, with the annual fall migration south from Oregon almost resembling a caribou migration at times. Pronghorn antelope ran the flat country in herds of hundreds, and occasionally thousands. Watching a sea of the orange and white speed demons racing across a massive alfalfa field or a rolling brush prairie was a common sight in those days.
Vast tracts of BLM and USFS land stretched for hundreds of miles in every direction, and we took it for granted that the rest of the country does not offer quite the vast array of public land opportunities that the West has. We were born and raised in it, and were too poor to travel far from home, so kids like me had no idea that outdoors folks in other parts of the country do not have it as good as we do out here.
In my early adulthood I became aware of eastern white-tailed deer hunting, thanks in large part to outdoor television and hunting shows from the likes of Will Primos and his crew. I remember being dumbfounded to learn that people would pay a private land owner a handsome fee to lease a 40 acre farm field so they could have an opportunity to hunt deer that season. I was simply amazed to discover that if a person could not afford to pay for a lease, or to join a hunting club, they may not have an opportunity to hunt deer at all.
That awareness gave me a newfound appreciation for the blessing of being born and raised in the West, smack dab in the middle of a veritable ocean of public land. And for all the outdoor recreation opportunities that come with living in the American West.
So I saw this post on the Elk Addicts group on Facebook today, and I asked Patrick if I could share it here. This post really drove home the importance of keeping our public lands in public hands for the generations to come. This post is the reason that every one of us gladly pay to be a member of an organization like Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, and why we look forward to volunteering our time to make a difference in helping to achieve our conservation goals.
Congratulations on your successful hunt, Patrick. I'm glad that your experience was absolutely fantastic and I look forward to seeing your future posts about your public land adventures. Thanks for reminding me just how special it is that we have this incredible public land legacy to enjoy, cherish and to protect.
Mike Haralson
Vice Chairman, Oregon Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
