Call it a tossup.
On one hand, we have the time-honored benefits derived from experience. Of all the tenets of outdoor participation, none are offered more praise than the form of knowledge that comes with hard-earned familiarity.
If you have any doubt, just make notes from the next magazine you read. Nobody ever quotes a novice angler or a first-year hunting guide.
On the other hand, there’s a nagging element that nobody talks about much, certainly not those of us who’ve grown, shall we say, a bit extended in the teeth. It’s the part where we get set in our ways while failing to adjust to important changes in the landscape.
If we veterans don’t watch ourselves, we end up playing a hand that hasn’t been dealt in a while. Reading yesterday’s news.
Forced to make a wager, I’d bet that the biggest sin of most outdoorsmen – grizzled old hand and rank beginner alike – occurs while failing to recognize the impact of humanity on the fish and game we seek.
The trend has been evolving since the first Pilgrim tip-toed past Plymouth Rock. With the population explosion during the last half of the 20th century, this development has sped to full gallop.
Perhaps the most glaring example is the impact of people pressure on the habits of big game, particularly elk. When Colorado hunters went out last weekend to start the rifle season, they found animals feeding at night beneath the convenient spotlight of a full moon.
No point needlessly exposing themselves while foraging during the day. The critters munched happily away by moonbeam, then hid out in dense thickets during daylight hours when hunters were about.
Apart from the moonshine factor, we know too well that animals react profoundly to hunting pressure. Wildlife managers despair over the tendency to quickly leave heavily hunted public land for the sanctuary of private property and no-hunting zones.
Toss in the clatter caused by the growing use of off-road vehicles and we have a hunting condition in which human activity holds tremendous sway over animal behavior. Anyone who’s still operating in the same manner and place as 10, maybe even five, years ago is hunting under the wrong tree.
The same is true of other forms of wildlife. Everyone rejoiced when the Colorado Division of Wildlife launched its progressive walk-in program for pheasants a half-decade ago. Lots of great habitat. Easy to locate. Too easy to locate.
After the first couple of groups passed through a public-access field, pheasants swiftly took up residence elsewhere. Even a bird brain adapts to pressure.
The same is true for quail on state wildlife areas. Bust ’em up one time too many and they’ll whistle off to other parts.
As Division of Wildlife small-game coordinator Tom Gorman suggests, it often pays to seek out fringe areas that hold fewer birds, but also receive less hunting activity.
The wingbeat goes on to other species. A recent article in Field & Stream magazine about disappearing ducks in the Mississippi Flyway pointed up the often-overlooked factor of birds feeding at night. The birds were in the area, but most had dined and departed by the time hunters arrived.
This same condition is being noted in Colorado’s prime waterfowl zone along the South Platte River northeast of Denver. Ducks generally avoid resting on the river, rafting up instead on neighboring reservoirs when water conditions are favorable.
Division of Wildlife biologist Todd Sanders is in the second year of a study to determine the impact of hunting pressure and other factors on bird movement.
He strongly suspects that when moon phase and cloud cover permit, ducks and geese feed extensively at night, then sit tight all day. This gives a false impression of few birds in the area.
Given these continuing changes in wildlife behavior, the most successful hunter learns to adapt to the times. He’ll get all the experience he needs in the process.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors,” KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
