Looking Back and Looking Forward
Out with the old and in with the new
It’s January 3rd, so I’m sitting in a warm, small-town coffee shop scarfing a ham and cheese croissant instead of shivering in a treestand, trying to ration my daypack snacks so they will last the whole sit.
Wednesday was the last day of deer season. I usually have a sad, nostalgic response to the season's closing, but I didn’t this year. Instead of hiking out of the woods at sunset, feeling all sorts of melancholy, I skipped the last few days altogether. We had a weird warm snap here right after Christmas, and with sunny conditions and temps pushing 70, the water seemed like the right place to be.
I ended up in the middle seat of a john boat, sandwiched between my son and my daughter’s boyfriend, flinging crappie jigs toward the banks of Swift Creek. We pulled in more bream than we did crappie. Still, it was the perfect way to close out 2024, laughing our asses off, living in the moment, looking forward to longer days and warmer weather, rowing forward instead of backward (even if we were rowing with old pieces of half-rotten lap siding).
I’m not sad to see 2024 go, even though it was a damned good year. I traveled to five different states for “work” and visited seven more for funsies. The year was filled with firsts — the first time I saw a moose, cast a fly rod, spotted a grizzly sow and cubs, dropped ducks over a Louisiana rice field, ate boudin, and watched the sun set in the South Dakota badlands.
I saw Old Faithful, the Grand Tetons, wild-roaming bison, the ancient ruins of Mesa Verde, and an old friend I hadn’t seen since high school.
I also wrote for three of my dream publications — Game & Fish, Field & Stream, and Outdoor Life.
While SEO goals and affiliate marketing relationships dictated the bulk of work, I also had the opportunity to do the type of storytelling that fires me up. (My favorites were “Seasons Turn to Generations,” “Why the Winchester 94 Is (and Always Will Be) My Favorite Deer Rifle,” and “Without Daddy”)
Life is good. I don’t feel the need to set any grandiose goals or New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I’m looking forward to what 2025 will bring with it. I’m confident that it will be mostly good things. But even if the year does hand me a rotten board with tetanus-laced rusty nails, I’ll keep rowing forward, laughing as I go. There’s probably good fishing just around the next bend.
My Favorite Moments from 2024
I love your optimism and adventures! Here's to a great 2025!
"I’m looking forward to what 2025 will bring with it. I’m confident that it will be mostly good things. But even if the year does hand me a rotten board with tetanus-laced rusty nails, I’ll keep rowing forward, laughing as I go."
Every year I say that I am going to hunt and fish more and worry less but things never change. When I became of age, I was given a lifetime hunting and fishing license. I guess they knew most seniors would slow down doing both of them but maybe this is the year.