Safety, safety, safety. Do we really take into account the possible risks that we outdoors people take when we do what we do?
Some of the risks we take are just plain stupid, if we are honest.
We get so focused on that 5-year-old Tom that we’ve been trying to kill for two years and in the pre-dawn light we risk crossing a flooded creek just to get to the ridge where we know he hangs out.
We forget to rake the leaves aware from the fire ring and build the fire up before bed, not thinking that one may roll off and cause a silent leaf fire that burns your camp down.
Without thinking, we stick a knife in the log and because of the rain your hand slides off the handle down the blade and severs your pinky finger off — two miles from the rig, by canoe.
Before I tell off on myself too much, let me just say that I know that we all have these stories.
Think of all the close calls that we are too embarrassed to talk about. I can tell you of close calls that I believe can only be explained as a miracle.
When you live the outdoors hunting, fishing, etc., things will happen. Nothing ever goes wrong while sitting on a couch. It always occurs in the middle of nowhere, and very often you are alone.
I will admit, for me a real adventure is when there is risk involved. I’ve always wondered what drives me to remote, isolated places alone.
I want to share an incident that happened to me on the 25th of November, 2019. A close friend and I met up a little after 3 to try one more time for a big one.
He was going to hunt a lock-on stand I had just put up on the east side of a thicket. Very quickly we walked to the head of a draw and I pointed up in the higher ground to my stand for him.
