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Tip o' the Day

When looking for wildlife, there are key fundamentals one should bear in mind:

1. Location

There's no profit in searching for antelope in a forest, or mountain goats in a swamp. But that same swamp offers survival food for bears emerging from hibernation in the spring. In summer and late fall, however, those same bears can be found feeding on mountainside berries.

2. Patience

Wild creatures are usually alert to movement. If you don't believe it, try sneaking up on a rockslide used by pikas, the little alpine rock rabbits. It'll be a barren landscape. Be patient, though. Sit down (I've even gone to sleep). Without movement, the creatures will soon be running all over the rocks.

3. Good optics

There's no substitute for good optics. I do my initial scanning with binoculars, then set up a spotting scope to zero in. I also employ my secret tool -- a wife who's a wonder at spotting animals.

You'll note I listed those fundamentals in their order of importance. One can have the patience of Job and it will do him no good if he's in the wrong location. Similarly, one can carry the best optics made, but without patience and location, his efforts and expense will come to naught.

There's another point to be made here: of the above fundamentals, only one can be obtained with money. Those most important can only be accessed with the coin of our own efforts.

In case I've not made it clear, I have little regard for those who expect to buy their way to outdoors expertise by relying on ever more sophisticated -- and expensive --gadgetry.

PUTTING ANALOG VS DIGITAL IN PERSPECTIVE

Having endured Y2K's millennium scare of a decade ago, where all the best predictions of gov'ment forecasters, computer software nerds, pulpit-thumpers, street corner doomsayers, and Bill Gates' hand-wringing to the contrary, my old Triassic-era computer didn't implode in a cloud of black smoke and fire department sirens, but kept on free-booting and word processing just like it had for two decades prior. Perhaps, with that past history in mind, we can all understand why I'm viewing with a jaundiced eye the idea that my television set will go blank because I haven't plunked down a small fortune for a black box that ever'body says I got to have to watch Fox News or NBC's Today show.

It's entirely possible, so I'm told, that with studios switching to digital my screen could go black. But, then, I soured on television news after Walter Cronkite retired and David and Chet quit telling each other goodnight. And I didn't really warm to Seinfeld, live or in re-runs, either. When other folks talk about the excitement of watching the latest Survivor episode, or whether it's a Deal or No Deal I tend to get a blank look in my eye, pour my whiskey sour into a potted plant, and take off for home.

What I'm trying to tell you is that network television is seldom on at our house anyway, and odds are good we'll never miss it even if all the naysayers predictions of doom actually do come to pass and the screen goes as blank as it already is. For all you electronics retailers, what I'm trying to tell you is: don't look to me to bail your immediate cash flow problems out of the tank.

Our reasons for our television is because Jane and I actually do enjoy watching a good movie. Gandhi comes to immediate mind, as does Forrest Gump, Erin Brockovitch, and Amistad. Jane and I tend to shop for our ideas of top movies and shelve them in our home like we do good books. That's why Finding Forester and The Freedom Writers has an honored place next to our television screen and DVD player. So a pox on what network television does--I'll get more depth and more honest coverage in my news magazines anyway.

Throughout my long and not-so-illustrious history, we consumers have been led through one technology crisis after another. I remember my parents snuggled up to a second-hand Motorola console listening rapturously to the latest episode of Fibber McGee and Molly. Shortly thereafter, my father invested money he had so little of in a wire recorder to enable him to stay in voice-touch with his family while far from home, working in an industrial plant during World War II.

Shortly thereafter, tape recorders burst on the scene, then went hand-held. The first television screens were seven-inch--can we imagine! The ultimate irony is that early day TV addicts thought they received better news via seven-inch television screens than they did listening to radio broadcasters working from half a world away.

You need, though, to understand I may not be right about this latest technological crisis. And I hope you don't take too seriously advice that I give myself. You see, I didn't like having to wear hand-me-down short pants when I started to grade school, either.

I didn't like girls either. But my views changed on both.

 

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and delivered a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

Cheek combines his vast outdoor experiences as an outfitter in Montana with solid research to provide a thoroughly readable and enjoyable book. It reminded me of two other books, John McPhee's Coming Into the Country about Alaska, and Sebastian Junger's Perfect Storm

* Franklin Marchman in an amazon.com review

I picked up your book My Best Work Is Done at the Office and I was reading it until 2:00 in the morning. I haven't touched my other books since.

* H. Robert Krear / Estes Park, CO

Dance On the Wild Side is terrific reading, part true life adventure, part inspiration, and part blueprint for a life worth living.

* The Midwest Book Review

A self-made naturalist, Cheek has a thing about grizzly bears that some people feel defies understanding. Readers can thrill to a mesmerizing tale of grizzly bears and humans who, in chilling detail, morph into a lethal mix

* Outdoors Unlimited

I just finished reading The Phantom Ghost of Harriet Lou and it touched my soul. You've illustrated everything I embrace about hunting and elk hunting to be more specific

* Mitch Ratigan email

Montana's Bob Marshall Wilderness

9 X 12 Coffeetable size 97 full-color photos

KNOWLEDGE SHARED

outdoor bold

insight pared

 

For interested educators, this weblog is especially applicable for use in history, environmental, and safety education classes, as well as for journalism students.

Roland, of course, visits schools. For more information on his program alternatives, go to:

www.rolandcheek.com

source links for additional info

www.mtsky.com