Why are some people driven to fish and hunt while others don’t like either and some just go when convenient a few times a year? Some of us want to spend all out time in the woods or on the water. It is an obsession for many.

There are many kinds of hunters and fishermen. They range from dedicated deer hunters that spend all year planning, scouting and working to find their trophy buck. Most of those hunters seem to be solitary types that don’t really brag or show off their kills. They do it for the personal satisfaction.

At the other end of the group are the ones that don’t scout before season and don’t put much effort into planning. Some even bait deer illegally. They sometimes luck into a big buck that was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They seem to be more likely to put any big buck they kill on display, parading it around town showing off to anybody that will stop and look.

Many hunters just go for the meat. We are more likely to shoot any legal deer for the freezer and hunt only enough to fill the freezer each year. They are careful with the carcass, making sure the meat is the best it can be when processed.

Fisherman have the same range. Some go a few times a year and don’t put much effort into it. They may have the best equipment money can buy but they don’t really know how to use the electronics they spent thousands of dollars on, their reels are not cleaned and kept in good shape and they seldom change line on the reels.

If they are bass fishermen they might do well in a tournament and everyone around the weigh-in that will listen hear in great detail how they outsmarted every fish they caught. But more likely they are explaining how they could have won the tournament if they had just gotten one more bite or if the time didn’t run out by the time they figured out what the bass were doing that day. And they explain how they missed every fish they didn’t catch.

Some bass fishermen are very careful with their equipment and keep it in top condition. They study their electronics and know how to use it to its maximum. Bass habits and patterns are studied and a lot of time goes into planning every tournament. And when they do well, as is usually the case, they are understated at the weigh-in, saying they lucked into the fish they caught. But those that know them know it was not luck.

Many fishermen go just for the food, too. Those fishermen are happy catching any edible fish in the water and keep what they catch for the frying pan. They usually know many ways to cook fish and take care to keep them on ice and clean them quickly to preserve the fresh flavor.

Most hunters and fishermen respect their quarry, but some don’t. If they catch a bass too short to keep in a tournament they may throw it in an arch back into the water rather than easing it back into the water to make sure it survives to grow bigger. They get mad when they don’t catch much, blaming everything from other fishermen to the weather.

Slob hunters bait deer and don’t make much effort to find a deer they wound. A good hunter will spend hours trailing an injured deer but they are more likely to make a good killing shot in the first place. They make sure their gun is zeroed in before season and take time to make a good shot, and they know how to shoot accurately. The other kind of hunter never checks his rifle to make sure it is accurate, takes shots they should not and then blame the gun.

Most of us fall somewhere in between the extremes. We spend enough time to be in a good place during deer season and might kill a big deer. Little bragging is done since we know killing a trophy buck was more luck than skill. And doing well in a tournament is a combination of luck and some skill, but we don’t feel a good day makes us an expert.

Professional fishermen and guides are a whole different category. They work at their passion so others can do well in the case of guides, or they can get sponsors and win money in tournaments if a pro. Some are slobs on the tournament trails, getting mad when they don’t win a tournament to the extent of kicking equipment, blaming other fishermen for “stealing” their spots, and generally making fools of themselves. Those types don’t keep sponsors long and don’t gain respect of others on the tournament trails.

These types of people are not limited to hunters and fishermen. You can find them in any sport from golf to football. What kind are you?

It is amazing how much worse extremely cold weather affects us as we get older. Now all I want to do is sit by the fire when it is freezing outside. I still make myself get out and do things, even going fishing on the worst days, but when I was a kid I loved the cold.

Squirrel hunting is so much better after all the leaves fall and the food for tree rats gets scarce. They have to move a lot more to find buried acorns and other things for lunch, and they are much easier to see in the trees.

When an oak is loaded with leaves a squirrel can go high and sit still and you will never see him. But with bare limbs you can approach the tree, throw a stick to the other side to fool him, and he will edge over to your side, offering an easy shot. And you can see them moving in bare limbs for a hundred yards where earlier you had to get within feet of them to spot them.

A couple of trips stick in my mind. Hal and I were easing through the dead leaves, making as little sound as we could, when we spotted a big black ball up in a oak tree. We had never seen anything like it. We could tell it was furry but it didn’t look like anything we had ever seen.

Hal and I both took aim with our .410 shotguns and fired on the count of three. The critter fell to the ground and, when we got to it, it looked like a squirrel. But it was a whole lot bigger than any squirrel we had ever seen. That was the first time I ever saw a fox squirrel.

Another time Harold and I were squirrel hunting and we saw something big and brown in a tree. It didn’t move. We could tell it was a bird but had no idea what kind. We started to raise our guns and Harold said something. I thought he said for me to shoot but later after fussing at me he said both of us shoot at the same time.

Anyway, I killed a great horned owl. They were not protected way back then, but we really didn’t know what kind of bird we were shooting, anyway. I kept that owl carcass around for months admiring it. I have no idea what it was doing on a low limb in the middle of the day and I have never shot another one.

We would have never have seen the owl or fox squirrel if the trees had been covered with leaves.

There is nothing quite as comforting as building a fire outside on a cold hunting trip and warming for a few minutes. I always wanted to be a pioneer and build fires by rubbing two sticks together or striking a spark with flint. But I never left home without some strike-anywhere matches.

One favorite place to build a fire was in our rock fort. In the edge of one of our fields there was a big rock pile about 50 feet long and 30 feet wide sitting 50 yards from the edge of the woods. There were huge rocks half buried in the ground and smaller rocks were everywhere. Over the years farmers had moved rocks from the field to that spot.

We build a circle rock fort about eight feet across and four feet high. Get down in the middle of it and you were out of the wind and well hidden. We had secret crannies in the rocks to store stuff and had built a simple fireplace. It even had what looked like a chimney but was so full of gaps between the rocks it was for looks only. Smoke came out everywhere.

We would sneak some eggs from the hen house, shoot a couple of birds and head to the fort for a feast. We kept an old tin can in it and would go to the nearby branch for water. It sat on flat rock on the edge of the fireplace and we could boil eggs in it in about thirty minutes.

Birds were plucked and gutted and put on a spit of green branches across the front of the fire. Slowly roasting a robin until it was golden brown gave off a delicious smell and it tasted good, but was so tough it was like trying to eat a good a smelling and good tasting inner tube.

Every winter we hoped for extreme cold. There was on big pool on Dearing Branch. Now by big I mean about ten feet long and eight feet wide. But when it got cold enough it froze over and we cold go ice skating on it. Ice slipping, really, in our boots. One time Joe, a little bigger than the rest of us, broke through and was thigh deep in freezing water immediately. We got mad at him for messing up our skating that day.

Our parents would not have been happy if they knew what we were doing and the possibility of getting wet, but in retrospect they probably did know. But since the branch was waist deep at its deepest, even on us boys, we were not in danger. And we always had our matches, heads dipped in wax to keep the dry, to start a fire and warm up!

Enjoy the cold weather like you are still a kid, if you can stand it!