With reality TV performing introductions of the couch-bound to the great outdoors via cracked crab and icy trawlers, or featuring some suicidal dimwit paragliding into inhospitable terrain and doing without Twinkies for a week, I think we’re all a bit tired of network TV’s insistence that the out-of-doors is only for crazed adrenalin junkies and the idle nitwit that gets lost and runs out of gas.
… and when the magazines wade in with the “who’s the bestest” competition, they’ll opt for making it family-fare, suitable for prime time – and in so doing eliminate all the real outdoorsmen.
It’s called the “Total Outdoorsman” Challenge for a reason. We’re not interested in finding the hunter who can shoot the tightest groups, or the angler who can catch the biggest bass in the lake. We want the outdoorsman who can do both. And then some. Like cast a fly rod into a stiff wind. Or thread an arrow into a tight spot. Or bust clays with a side-by-side. Or maneuver an ATV in the mud. Can you do all of this…under pressure? If you can, then we’ve got a $25,000 check with your name on it.
All you’re going to get watching some fat-arse roar through a forest floor on an ATV, is some fellow that isn’t capable of humping his dinner up the canyon, can’t cook the sumbitch once he gets there, and likely couldn’t get a fire lit if he was issued a couple of waterproof matches.
Them guys use drive-thru, mostly scratching their head and pointing at the pretty pictures …
Real outdoors contests should include; how many days can you wear the same tee shirt without bathing, how many beers can you drink yet still cross a creek on a log, how many times can you blow daylight through a fleeing forest animal as it dashes through the parking lot, can you double the size of your fish with a straight face, do you carry single malt or blended, and which kind of leaves should be avoided when wiping your arse below the high water mark …
Those SOB’s are outdoorsmen.
The last thing I need is a gaggle of fly fishermen – or some equally effete rich SOB that breaks clay with a couple thousand worth of finely engraved over and under, or some dandy that insists on getting bow tags -when steel belted radials work all year …
If I’m going up to the piney woods, I’m going with the crowd that appreciates it. I’m tired of telling the ATV guy that he has to pack his bottles and cans out …
real outdoorsmen don’t watch this kind of shit on TV.
Real outdoorsmen download porn from a log cabin located by the shore of a mountain lake that is only accessable by foot.
Can you do all of this…under pressure?
Seriously? Last I checked, I never felt “pressured” when doing outdoorsmen-y things.
Stupid is all I can say, however if they make a million from it…I wish I would’a thought of it….
Hunters don’t shoot “groups” the way I understand it. They shoot once per target. So, while accuracy is important, they got that wrong I think. And the itinerary is just… bent.
I also abhor fishing contests in any form, and if hunting was anything but a faint glimmering at the horizon for me in this country, I’d feel the same about hunting contests. I think.
Man, I’d love to live in the US for a while, say a year or so. Meet up, get into the community, feel the vibe.
The internets are great, but a stream ain’t nothing but a name until you’ve fished it.
Sorry, I digress.
Sadly enough, if it reaches this part of the world, I may actually watch it. For lack of anything better on this overpopulated piece of Europe.
“One bullett, one kill.”
Save me from this kind of crap on the tube or the net.
I’ll be watching “The Borgias”‘, if anything…