Some perspective from an "adult onset hunter".
This task/quest is/seems crazy daunting at first for some of us who never ever had any exposure to this endeavor.
The world we live in now is centered around instant gratification and results. So it tends to infect/influence our thinking in all arenas to some degree.
And... when you've only got a certain amount of potential leftover money each month with which to possibly even make it happen... being as efficient as you can be in terms of not "wasting" a trip into an area... from the perspective of that new guy... feels critical.
BUT... this is because that n00b doesn't yet understand what he's in for. That this pursuit is more like a long-term chess game. That it will most likely NOT happen quickly. That it may take a few years to come to fruition, before you're successful.
Most of the vet guys, I feel, have been at it soo long, or they come from families where it's a tradition... that really it's almost impossible for them to conceive of just how needle-in-an-Earth-sized-Haystack and over-whelming it feels to the Solo FNG guy who just so happened to get a wild hair up his butt to decide that he wants to do this and make this happen.
They don't know all the things you know. They don't even know enough to even really know WHAT to ask. They don't even know enough to know that the act of asking will be met with so much tension and disdain.
So... they do what seems logical. They go to a forum, see all these guys who obviously have successes under their belt... so they ask them where to go. Sometimes they've browsed a bit on the forum and come across a similar sounding thread, where they read somebody explaining to another FNG that nobody is gonna tell you very much about where to go because THEY all had to work like hell to finally found those spots. So... they do what seems natural and logical... they ask with like "not asking for anyones honey holes, but..."
They don't know enough to even have that though of. "Oh I see... yeah that makes sense that these guys are gonna get snippy at some FNG coming in "expecting" to get a very direct type of answer. They have no frame of reference. It's not necessarily a case of "Pssh, they're just being Lazy!" Not at all. They are just over-whelmed.
I feel very grateful for gentleman the likes of
@Bubblehide and
@Where's Bruce? Whom first of all, took the time to open my eyes to the concept of just how much work folks put in, in terms of scouting in order to find these places to begin with. That was a major eye-opener for me. Cause how the Hell would I know it takes that damn much work, right?
Then... after each weekends outings... I'd formulate new specific questions I'd present them with. Specific so I'm not wasting their time. They in-turn, saw with my updates reports/questions that I really was putting in that boots-on-the-ground effort, so they indulged (endured?) my questions like the gentleman they are.
I want to also praise them because on other forums I'd also went to... as I started to gain experience and then witness folks addressing other FNG's... I noted some of the vets got their jollies of f**king with the FNG's and... I'm not gonna say out-right lying to them... but... they'd often make comments to them that were apparently an attempt by them to be funny?.... but... they gave no context clues in the post that they were joking and it wasn't always like the things they said when they were "pulling the leg" of the FNG were obvious at being in jest. And heaven help you if you butt-in and say to them "Hey, that's not cool dude. This guys not gonna know you're messin' with him." Otherwise they then wanna be very uncool with you from that moment forward.
So for me, that's why, to the best of my ability I try to take the time to answer FNG questions where I actually can offer up useful insights, since it's all still fresh in my mind for me, since I've only been at this now for 6 yrs. And I've found that a lot of times I can fill in the blanks that the vet guys might neglect to mention to the n00b because they forgotten about it in terms of WHY they now use the gear they use or WHY they elect to do things a particular way. You know, those kinda small little bits of information about your setup and plan of attack that you tweak by seeing what works well and what doesn't, learned from time in the field.
Also something to remember? FNG's don't realize just how much information some of the rest of us can gleen from looking at any kind of pics somebody else posts up. That's why nowadays if I take a pic of something in the field I try to angle the camera downward such that there aren't any distant and distinct recognizable landmarks visible within the photo to clue in savvy vets, or guys like me with a high level of visual memory recognition as to where the location was.
