Bayou Outdoors | The Good Old Days

article by Dan Chason

I miss my times as a kid where we spent our free time fishing, hunting and my other area of expertise; which was hunting for soda bottles.  That’s right kids, soda bottles.  You see back in those days recycling consisted of turning in the glass soda bottles or “Coke” bottles and delivering them to the local grocery store where you were rewarded with 2 cents a bottle.  Now that doesn’t sound like much but in those days you could buy a Coke for 15 cents and a honey bun was a dime.  You didn’t worry about going hungry or being thirsty and no one had to ask you to do it.  It was a time of being free and independent.  Parents didn’t worry about someone “kidnapping” you.  I am sure that if I were ever kidnapped, they would bring me back home.  Times were simpler.  The Kennedy’s pretty much ran the country and politics were these mysterious figures that lived far away and had no effect on us.  We stopped school when they aired Neil Armstrong stepping on the surface of the moon.  It was televised and took you far away to something you could identify with and you were proud of just  being an American.  We prayed every morning in school, said the pledge and you never imagined that someone could set fire to Old Glory in some misguided protest.  We didn’t lock our doors or windows and our only rule was be home at sunset or when the street lights came on (when we lived in town).  Hunting and fishing was something that was our culture.  When we weren’t actually hunting or fishing, we were preparing for it, and my job was to find bait.  Dad would hand me a broom, a shovel and a bucket.  I would get on my bicycle and go to Mr. Butler’s farm and bang catapla worms from his trees.  Then it was over to his barn where there were piles of cow manure where I would find the biggest night crawlers that grew.  It was a ritual I relished as this was the key not only to a good fishing trip but to fried catfish and bream that Mama would cook on the stove.  There were no propane gas cookers or shortcuts.  We raised our own chickens and that is one job I despised.  The other one I hated was when it was hog killing time; two nasty jobs for sure.  But I’d give a week’s pay to do it again.  The interaction with friends and family and watching my dad render these critters into days of feasting.  We had a very small freezer so when we did have this level of meat, it was shared with friends and neighbors.  The culture was burned into my character. 

Today, I cannot imagine my kids or grandkids partaking in this activity.  I am ashamed to reveal this but I recently learned of several family members under the age of 30 who have not even bothered to register to vote.  I was astonished.  Our rights and freedoms are controlled at the voting booth but today it seems the connection to that and our kids is lost.

I can remember when I started duck hunting where limits were liberal and we had a points system to keep up with the law.  That was a pain and math isn’t my strong suit.  But I can say that in the early 70s when I started duck hunting the sky would fill every fall and winter with migrating birds.  It was pick and choose pretty much and your skill with a call and set up wasn’t that important.  Today if you don’t have ample financial backing and a bank loan, it is hard to consistently scratch out a limit.  Times have changed.  We shot lead shot which was legal and on a side note it didn’t cost $25 a box.  I think my first box of duck shells may have cost me $5 in those days.  There were no side-by-sides and four-wheel-drive was set aside for the rich folks.  We walked and we waded because that’s all we knew.  Today’s duck hunter has to have a $2000 shotgun, cases of shells at $250 plus a case, decoys that move and motion decoys by the dozens to attract ducks within the range of the limited steel shot.  And don’t forget the $20,000 side-by-side to get you to your hunting spot.  Take me back to the days where we had a 10-duck limit and you drove to your lucky spot and put your shells in a vest or in your pocket.  Waders were plastic and would tear a hole simply by use.  They had to be preserved, hung and dried if you just wanted to get through the season.  Farmers willingly allowed access to flooded fields to control geese and shoot ducks and all they wanted in return was some cleaned birds to eat.  Not today.  A typical duck area rents at a premium price and don’t even ask about the costs of pit blinds.  A good blind today starts around $10,000.

Deer hunting is as expensive or more.  A good box blind will run you in the thousands and leasing by the acre is high, if you can find a place worth having.  The days of time in the woods has gotten ridiculous.  Regulations have changed to a point where it makes you wonder if they are conserving and protecting a resource or if we (even on management areas) are kept in mind when there are efforts to control migrations, limit manners to harvest animals, including supplemental feeding.  It surely isn’t like the old days.  I cannot imagine my grandfather tolerating regulations, high costs and not being able to hunt his own land and manage it like we did in days gone by.  I fear for my grandchildren who will never see tens of thousands of ducks pour into a Russell Sage WMA. Or worse, drive through Little Missouri or Jones and hear geese so loud that you hear them over your vehicle engine.  Millions of geese covering the ground from horizon to horizon is something I’ll never forget.  The good old days are gone.  And I will mourn the loss our kids and grandkids will face.

Humminbird all have quality units and technology to offer.  The Livescope by Garmin was my choice and I have thoroughly enjoyed using it.  But again, I don’t tournament fish.  BASS, MLF and other major fishing organizations need to understand that it makes for very boring television and it is a threat to fishing.  It is a threat to our children and grandchildren’s legacy.  When I started fishing, we didn’t know what a graph or fish finder was.  We learned fish behavior, matched the hatch and did our due diligence.  Nowdays, Junior can back in his $100k boat pulled by Daddy’s truck and flip a switch on a lake he has never seen and catch fish.  That’s all and good but when that kid starts comparing himself to a Greg Hackney or a Larry Nixon, we have lost sight of what really matters.  If you want to be a pro, do it right.  Learn the way we did and the forward facing sonar will be another tool that you may never need.  That is unless you want to go to Champlain or St. Lawrence and play the video game that falsely makes you feel like you have made the big time.  Give me old school any day and take this article as it is meant.  We can do better.