Get the camera!

After my last blog post suggesting everyone get a quality, fish-friendly, catch-and-release, landing net, http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/blogs/2011/11/net/ , let me crawl up on another soap-box for a little bit and make another suggestion. . . .

This week has been the rifle deer season in Nebraska.  I have looked at dozens of pictures of nice deer including some BIG bucks that have been taken this week.  I am not going to embarrass anyone by singling them out, but I have to say it–Please, no more pictures of deer in the back of a pickup or back home in the driveway, front yard or garage/shed!  Digital cameras are relatively cheap, and relatively small.  It takes nothing to haul one in your day-pack or inside a jacket and the quality of picture and therefore the memory it represents is infinitely better when taken in the field, preferably at the sight of the harvest!

If no one is there to take a picture, most cameras have timers and I found “gorilla pods” that will allow you to set up a camera for a shot almost anywhere, http://joby.com/ .

There, that is another Christmas gift idea for you.

Let me “go over the edge” just a little further. . . . I am a biologist by training.  I have had my hands inside hundreds, probably thousands of critters, everything from worms to walleyes to whitetail deer.  The sight of some blood and guts don’t bother me none.  But, again I believe the quality of the photo is much better if a person remembers to snap a picture before field-dressing is completed.  Somewhere I have a polaroid picture of my first pheasant; grandpa did not think of it being my first pheasant, and therefore did not think of taking a picture until we had already cleaned the bird.  So, there I stand in front of grandma and grandpa’s house holding a “naked” pheasant (head plumage was left on so I could legally transport it).  It was a long time ago and cameras were a lot larger and harder to operate back then, but I wish I had a picture of grandpa and me and my first pheasant standing in front of the western Nebraska cornfield in which it was taken.  The “naked” pheasant is unique and brings back great memories, but it could have been so much better.

After taking that trophy, take some time to clean it up, pose it, stick its tongue back in its mouth and then get some pictures in the field!  Besides a quality picture to represent the memory of that game I believe taking pictures like that shows the greatest respect for those fish, birds or animals.  Their memories should be held respectfully in our minds, and photos, forever!

My son with his muzzleloader pronghorn taken in 2010.

And then a big flattie just a week later.