Gonna Sleep with One Eye Open

Confession: I have taken for granted the large number of public lands available to me as a citizen of Wisconsin.  While I do not have the independent means to spend much time in the West, I have always taken for granted the large amount of public lands out there, available to my fellow hunters and maybe some day in the future, for myself.

Then a podcast by Randy Newberg got me wondering if those Federal lands were as secure as I hoped.  Then I started reading about plans to sell land owned by the Wisconsin DNR.

Doubt: I do not know that it is in the best interest of the state of Wisconsin to retain every parcel of land that is deeded to it but neither am I confident the decision making body will be immune from the impact of lobbying.

Fact: When I look at the lands under review, I recognize some of those places of having value to me as an outdoorsman.  Some of the pictures I took earlier in the week a areas I use to train my dogs are under review.

Are there other places I could use?  Yes.  Should these be sold? I don't know.

Not having a solid opinion does not make for moving blog writing.  I do agree with the idea offered by Patrick Durkin at the State Journal,

When you see agency chiefs and other politicians on TV this fall promoting deer hunting while looking silly in their barely used blaze-orange duds, ask if they’ve hunted any of the state-owned lands they hope to sell in 2017.

In fact, ask if they’ve hunted any public lands in Wisconsin — county, state or federal. It’s a fair question for politicians who claim they care about hunting’s future and making more land accessible to hunters.

The thing is, public lands allow for the democratization of hunting.  You don't have to know anybody.  You don't have to be rich.  You don't have to sign on to your buddy's hunting ethic as part of a group.

So long as you stay within state regulations, you can hunt the way you like, with the people you like, with the equipment you like as long as you like.  This is the gift of public land.  This is how I got back into hunting after taking a couple of decades off.

So auctioning off a few acres here or there doesn't bother me that much.  Wisconsin has a lot of public land and even more private land open to public access. I will be watching, however, that giving an inch does not encourage our representatives in Madison to try to take a mile.

As for those federal lands, "Hands off!"

I am not fool enough to think the Federal Government and efficiently manage those lands but the ability of the Federal Government to partner with states in the management of Federal Land should silence some of the critics of federal land management practices.

Besides, do we really want our Federal Forests put to efficient use?

Either way.  I am now aware and wary.  I'll be keeping an eye on the issue in the months and years to come, even in my sleep.

Longing to be Compleat

Hello.  My name is Phillip.  I have been asked by my friend Daniel to relate to you, dear reader, some details concerning my favored hobby.  I am an angler.  Using hook and line, I attempt to pull fish from their waters.  I invest many hours of my life, much sweat from my brow, and many dollars from my wallet in this pursuit. Sometimes fruitlessly.

I am participating in this blog to attempt to do something I have not yet been able to do.  Something that may not be, strictly speaking, accomplishable. I want to explain to you why I am an angler. I want to tell you not only how to fish, but why it is a valuable and pleasant exercise, what it can teach you about the world around you, and what it can help a you learn about yourself.

I would like to express what it feels like to be an angler.  Something that I don't think has been done for a very long time.

Since Izaak Walton wrote The Compleat Angler in 1653, there have been very few books on the topic of fishing to have any bearing on literature, or culture.  It is a bit of stretch to suggest that The Compleat Angler has even done this, but it does stick out as a bit of an oddity in the history of publishing.  It is a dialogue about a simple hobby, written by an otherwise unaccomplished author, aimed at a niche audience.  The book is half philosophical musing, half pre-scientific biological observations about fish and their habits.  And yet it is still in print, and has been in print almost continuously since it's first edition.

How did a weird book on an undramatic past time by a second rate writer stay in the collective consciousness?

Most writing on fishing focusses on how to accomplish the task: how to tie knots, how to bait hooks, how to find fish.  Perhaps the writer also waxes poetic on the beauty of this fish, or the scenery, or the artistry required to catch a certain fish.  Or, the writer commits the sin of cliche and exaggerates the drama of the hookset, the fight, the landing of the fish.  Soon, the writer is just another guy bragging about The Big One.

Walton does instruct the reader how to fish, and certainly waxes poetic, and brags on behalf of some of his closest friends.  I guess he sets the mood for all future fisherman in that way.  He also does something more important and more subtle.  Walton fills up most of his reflection on what makes the angler good.

It is important to Walton that angling does not simply pass the time, or put food on the table, or give him a story to relate to his friends.  Angling should also change the person who practices to for the better.  It should help the person cultivate some sort of internal virtues.

I share this sentiment with Walton.  I think that angling has helped me cultivate a variety of virtues, or at least identify the ones in which I am lacking.  And when I think of the best fisherman I know, I also think of some of the finest people I know.  Those possessing the virtues I most admire.

Sadly, Walton's work is long out of date.  Walton's Compleat Angler is a portrait of a man who has not existed for hundreds of years.  A man who has never faced a supermarket, or an interstate highway, or a freezer, or a video game, or nylon fishing line, or a mechanical fishing reel.  His fishing methods are baroque.  Most of the species he sought are not to be found outside of England.  His literary references, while charming and often lovely, are obscure and opaque to most modern readers.  The Compleat Angler is less and less accessible, and I fear that the virtues he celebrates will become less and less celebrated.

I cannot claim to be compleat.  I do not possess all of Piscator's virtues.  I have not mastered my craft. But I would like to.  Please, join me in the Anthropocene, and help me discover what it might be to be a Complete Angler in this new time, this new place.

Piscator: Sir, I hope you will not judge my earnestness to be impatience: and for my simplicity, if by that you mean a harmlessness, or that simplicity which was usually found in the primitive Christians, who were, as most Anglers are, quiet men, and followers of peace; men that were so simply wise, as not to sell their consciences to buy riches, and with them vexation and a fear to die; if you mean such simple men as lived in those times when there were fewer lawyers; when men might have had a lordship safely conveyed to them in a piece of parchment no bigger than your hand, though several sheets will not do it safely in this wiser age; I say, Sir, if you take us Anglers to be such simple men as I have spoke of, then myself and those of my profession will be glad to be so understood: But if by simplicity you meant to express a general defect in those that profess and practice the excellent Art of Angling, I hope in time to disabuse you, and make the contrary appear so evidently, that if you will but have patience to hear me, I shall remove all the anticipations that discourse, or time, or prejudice, have possessed you with against that laudable and ancient Art; for I know it is worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.

I will teach you how to fish.  I will teach you how to find fish.  I will occasionally wax poetic.  I will explore the virtues of angling.  All the while, I am sure I will remain incomplete.