Sweet dreams by John C. Street

It had been a good long while since I’d talked with him so I even surprised myself when I recognized his voice as soon as he said “Good morning.” Back when I was writing a bi-monthly column for a state wide newspaper he’d approached the editor to get in touch with me and, after a couple months of sending emails back and forth, we’d started talking on the phone.

Over the ensuing years I’d gotten to know him rather well although, to this day, we’ve never met. He lives just far enough away to make a casual road trip impractical but close enough that we’d fished some of the same streams albeit, as I said, not together.

Like me, he is an ex-Marine and (although I don’t think the two are necessarily connected) his politics lean rather stiffly towards the right side of the spectrum. After leaving the Corps he’d gone to school for a teaching degree and had spent thirty years in front of a junior high school classroom in a small rural town.

He’d originally made contact with me over an article I’d written wherein I’d taken a stick to the pompous attitude of a vocal bunch of fly fishermen who felt this style of angling entitled them to exclusive access to some of Pennsylvania’s best water. He’s a bait angler who believes strongly in “killing and grilling” a few trout every once in awhile but he also believes there are logical arguments to be made for “special regs” areas as long as they’re open to “hardware and fly alike.”

We agreed on a lot of things but typically there were subtle differences between us as to how particular problems should be handled. His conclusion on global warming, for instance, was that it was “much ado about nothing.” But while I felt – and wrote – that Blood Sporters should be warned not to participate in this boondoggle, he thought it should be allowed to run its course.

Having discussed a diverse list of subjects with him (subjects that ranged widely from the importance of keeping the art of trapping alive to the intrusive antics of the United Nations) I’d come to think of him as the “Contrarian’s contrarian.” He was educated enough to be as analytical as the situation called for but believed strongly that “The solutions to most of our problems requires nothing more rigorous than a strong dose of common sense.”

Already long story short, he’d stumbled on my archived writing on the web site of the Allegheny County Sportsmen’s League (www.acslpa.org) and wanted to talk about the things I’d written about the deer management program. “I think you were right to point out the ‘bogus science’ of the program,” he began, “but I also think you’re being naive if you believe deer hunters can be pressed into doing anything about it.”  Apparently (as usual) he’d given this a lot of thought.

“First of all,” he began, “with the economy the way it is, who has the spare time to sit in front of a computer for an hour to watch the video you recommend in your articles? The only people who will do that are already in your ‘choir.’” To put this into perspective, he likened it to the membership of most sportsmen’s clubs.

“I belong to a couple clubs,” he explained, “with combined memberships of nearly 200 people. And whenever there’s work to be done, it’s always the same handful of people who step forward to get things done. Those are the people who will watch your video. However, that does not mean they’ll do anything else.

“Right now, everyone is burnt out on ‘politics’ and regardless of how much bitching they’ve done in the past about the ‘deer wars,’ they just don’t have enough emotional tinder left to get fired up to do something about it.

“But timing and apathy aren’t your biggest problems,” he added. “There are a lot of people, who don’t see anything wrong with the way the Game Commission is running the program.” Like who, I asked? “Like the United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania,” he answered, “and right now that organization alone comprises better than a third of all licenses sold.

“No matter what you and I think about the ‘bogus science’ behind ‘antler restrictions,’ bow hunters aren’t about to rock that boat. Would you? If you had six weeks in the prime days of the season to get after the biggest bucks in our woods, would you bite the hand that gives you that opportunity. Of course not.” OK, I offered, that makes sense, but who else would be opposed to making “common sense” changes in the program?

“Well, believe it or not,” he answered, “the biggest supporters of the current deer management program are the very people who have the most to lose if it continues. And I’m surprised you haven’t figured it out already.”

“In ‘news’ value alone, you’d think the outdoor writers and the people who publish their work would be all over this story but, like the bow hunters, they’ve nothing to gain by rocking this boat. As short sighted as it might seem to us, think of the ramifications they’d face.

“Many of the businesses that advertise in the outdoor publications support, or want to be perceived as supporting, the ‘green agenda’ of the environmental groups that are pushing the deer reduction program. No editor is going to risk tipping over the first domino … having the environmentalists go after his advertisers to boycott the publication … by doing an expose of what’s really driving the deer management program.”

So what you’re saying, I summarized, is that a sizable percentage of Pennsylvania’s deer hunters and the entirety of what constitutes our outdoor press is unwilling to get involved. Is that the gist of it?
 
“We need to have writers like you to give people the facts,” he responded, “but writers like you need to understand that the environmental groups that are pushing the deer reduction program didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. They’ve got a lot of money and, as a consequence, a lot of political clout. And you of all people should know how they deal with writers who cross them.”

But isn’t there something I can do, I asked, to get people to understand that the deer reduction program is a real game changer, that it has the potential – the very real potential – to cause the Pennsylvania Game Commission to self-destruct … and the future of hunting in Pennsylvania right along with it.

“There’s an old expression,” he said, “that advises ‘You can’t wake a person who is pretending to be asleep.’

“The only thing you have left to do is to wish them sweet dreams.”