Stolen valor in hunting

[kaboku68]

SHTF- There are a lot of us who are "stuck" with careers that limit our ability to get out. Many folks up here can schedule 14-20 days for sheep hunting and ring up a ram every year. I get three personal days each year and the FNSBSD starts school for us on Aug 10th. You can't take personal days during those first days. So I get to sheep and goat hunt three years out of four. These are 8-9 day death marches where I get maybe one or two chances at a ram or a goat. The rest of the time is getting into the microhabitats where the sheep live. Last year was the year I had to take off. I have five years left until I retire and then I will get to hunt for 30 days straight. I will also have a lot less money for gear. Unlike a lot of the folks on here, I don't sell a thing unless it is a cobbled together massive play for good guns. I do pay attention to reviews on rokslide and find it is in my interest to build relationships with manufacturers. I am older than a lot of folks on here at 46 but I feel that I really won't reach my prime until I can hunt for long periods of time.
This year I am just starting my workout series to get ready for Sept4th. It is hard to work in workouts with two jobs but I have a plan that will hopefully shore me up when I am working with less money. I don't measure myself by grip and grin pictures but in how I find the face of god in the wilderness, be a good husband, help my son be a good man and work with many children so that they learn about civic virtue.

Luke and Becca are in a sweet spot that provides both money and time for hunting/adventure but both work hard jobs that take a toll on the body.

I wish everybody luck this season.

Sincerely,
Thomas

 

[SHTF]

SHTF- There are a lot of us who are "stuck" with careers that limit our ability to get out. Many folks up here can schedule 14-20 days for sheep hunting and ring up a ram every year. I get three personal days each year and the FNSBSD starts school for us on Aug 10th. You can't take personal days during those first days. So I get to sheep and goat hunt three years out of four. These are 8-9 day death marches where I get maybe one or two chances at a ram or a goat. The rest of the time is getting into the microhabitats where the sheep live. Last year was the year I had to take off. I have five years left until I retire and then I will get to hunt for 30 days straight. I will also have a lot less money for gear. Unlike a lot of the folks on here, I don't sell a thing unless it is a cobbled together massive play for good guns. I do pay attention to reviews on rokslide and find it is in my interest to build relationships with manufacturers. I am older than a lot of folks on here at 46 but I feel that I really won't reach my prime until I can hunt for long periods of time.
This year I am just starting my workout series to get ready for Sept4th. It is hard to work in workouts with two jobs but I have a plan that will hopefully shore me up when I am working with less money. I don't measure myself by grip and grin pictures but in how I find the face of god in the wilderness, be a good husband, help my son be a good man and work with many children so that they learn about civic virtue.

Luke and Becca are in a sweet spot that provides both money and time for hunting/adventure but both work hard jobs that take a toll on the body.

I wish everybody luck this season.

Sincerely,
Thomas

Hey Thomas thanks for the feedback. I have nothing but huge respect for Luke and Becca both of them are top notch people. I have enjoyed their post. Watching them on TV and I think they do a great job on the website here. I dont pretend Im the only one out there that has long hours, As I believe Becca said I measure success by how much fun I have out there. So I worry less about how often in the last 3 years Ive been able to be successful and more about just having a good time out there and enjoying the outdoors. If I happen to get something down, thats a bonus. My post definitely wasnt pointed towards Luke it was more for the general audience so they knew who I am and my experience. Turned out to be a book didnt realize it till after I posted it. As stated Im not here to judge anyone. Just having fun, enjoying a truly blessed life with great family, working hard and trying to fill in the holes with some adventure. Good luck on your sheep hunting.

 

[5MilesBack]

The MAIN problem I have with the commercialization of this need to show is that I just had a conversation last week with a brand new archer at the range, and all he could talk about was the amount of gear he needed and how much it was going to cost him to buy it all. He needed Swaro, Kifaru, KUIU, etc before he felt that he could go hunting. THAT is what I am afraid of.

That's what marketing and commercialization does.......it's designed to convince you that you absolutely need their products, not only to be successful, but just to even participate in whatever it is you do. That's nothing new.

 

[gelton]

So the thread degenerated from a guy calling out posers, which by the way I would say posers are someone who claim to be hunter extraordinaires by posting photos and creating a mantra that isn't real, into people that probably get most of their gear for free and live in the middle of wilderness paradise calling out non posers for not being out in the field as much as them.

Meanwhile, those of us who buy all of our gear and work jobs that dont allow us the time in the field that we would like, continually get brow beaten by those that we look up to and aspire to be - prostaffers who are able to get gear for free and spend a ton of time hunting. It seems like these days that is the measure of success - how many days do you spend in the field and what companies are you a pro staffer for?

Totally degenerated way to look at things. Just because we all aren't able to spend 100 days in the field a year it doesn't make us any less of a hunter than those who do. And this thread isn't the only example of this on rokslide, it seems to happen all the time and by the way, I dont think this is what the original article was about.

 

[realunlucky]

I didn't see any brow beating? Everything is a trade off, everybody is giving up something to have the lifestyle they have. Anyone that feels they have to justify their hunting expertise is what this article is about. To some its all a measuring contest and some cheat to one up the next guy. Relax there are more important things in life yup really! Back to stolen valor The comparison I've personally noticed is those that scream look at me are those that have never experienced the "suck".

 

[MattB]

The best thing to come out of this thread is my new understanding that there is an ignore button available under settings. How guys got upset about Luke's comment is beyond me.

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Lordy do I hate the off season.

 

[Nick Muche]

Lordy do I hate the off season.

Off season? There's lots to do in the spring. You could hunt bears and turkeys or you could TTH

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

Off season? There's lots to do in the spring. You could hunt bears and turkeys or you could TTH

True and I have been hunting Turkey but it's still really kind of the offseason and it makes everybody irritable.

 

[MontanaMarine]

..........."Before I get into the hunting aspects, I must state that in no way do I want to offend veterans or men and women of uniform by comparing their service and sacrifice for our nation to hunting, as these are two completely different things. However, I want to use the “stolen valor” principal as an analogy to illustrate the corrosive effects of ego that nearly cause me to blow a gasket every time I think about it."........


I agree, there's no valor in hunting.

 

[cuerro viejo]

^ seems a bit extreme. It's hard to argue with the points of the article and the author wrote repeatedly how he in no way wanted to compare military service to hunting other than the meaning behind stolen valor is analogous to the scenario he describes (obviously without the significance of true stolen valor).

If he didn't want it as a comparison he shouldn't of used it, but he wanted that dramatic comparision. First clue when he have to immediately defend it as not being that comparison over and over again in his article. Lol

To me the author put himself in the same league as those he choose to write about. IMO

 

[robby denning]

Someone said I should take a look at this thread as it might be getting mean. I read virtually every post, and I didn't get that impression personally.

Lots of opinions on the article, for, against, impartial and that's what this place is about if people can do it without the personal attacks.

Shrek buddy, I do have to agree that Luke wasn't knocking you.

Nick Muche, yes, Kirt Darner is my friend, but I don't agree or condone or justify what he's done. I want that to be ultimately clear. But he is my friend.

I think the author brought up good points. With his disqualifier about using the "stolen valor" concept and the fact that he'd talked to several military guys, I thought it was OK to associate it with hunting BUT I've never served in the military so I may not understand the gravity of using that statement. I didn't see any posts that warranted deletion (one was on the line, but he let it go, so I did too)

I would like to say that I too have to walk a fine line between posing myself, and posting legitimate information designed to help others. Everyone knows that just a few years ago I was wearing old coveralls and shopping army surplus (still do actually) but with Rokslide I've been able to get and try some of the new stuff especially in clothing and shelters. I try to write about that gear from my base of experience which tells me the gear is not the end-all of a successful hunt but that if it performs better, I should tell people.

If a rookie posts something on a piece of gear AND discloses that he's on a prostaff, that is all good as it's full disclosure and I can consider that as I read the information. It's when people don't tell us their motivations that they've crossed the line into deception.

For example Jared Bloomgren, a prostaffer here and on Kryptek's prostaff, fully discloses his association with them when writing about their gear. He does this without me even asking. I've never had any blowback from his articles on Kryptek but it's because he's not posing about anything. I think in legitimate companies like Kryptek, I can trust their prostaffer as they aren't going to just let just anyone be a prostaffer and a good prostaffer isn't going to be promoting crap-for-gear either. Same with Aron Snyder, I know not just anyone works for Kifaru and that he wouldn't be using crap-for-gear so I trust what he says, even though he works there. You just have to use your head when reading stuff on the net and that's what the article seemed to doing.

Sometimes I see people taking jabs at Rokslide's prostaff (or article contributors) as some of them don't have a pile of big antlers and animals. However, Ryan and I don't just qualify people for prostaff because they're dripping in blood. If they are a specialist in an area and truly spend a lot of time using the gear (as in more than of 90% of people), then we've allowed them either on prostaff or to publish articles. We do this in the spirit of helping members who might not have as much experience. I fully recognize that there will certainly be others out there better qualified to review gear but for whatever reason (can't write, don't want to, etc), aren't contributing articles, videos, and pics. I'd love to only have 200-days-in-the-field guys on staff and contributing, but in the real world there aren't very many of those but there are lots of regular guys buying and trying products and their opinions are relevant.

I've also learned on Rokslide that I can learn something from just about everyone, including rookies. I think most of us are smart enough to spot a poser and is why I'm not constantly on the forums pointing out these guys- I know most of you are more than capable of thinking through the BS. I've watched a few of these posers self destruct but I've also seen a few of them realize what they are doing and become good contributing members.

I'm going to keep the article in mind as a guideline of how to behave in our new world of social media.

 

[Jason Snyder]

Robby, I think you pretty well hit the nail on the head when you spoke of people's motivations. What are your motivations for posting? If I can answer that my motivations are to a) share an experience b) provide information or c) provide an opinion based on experience or d) have some fun, then in my mind I'm being an honest contributor.

If my motivations are to make myself look good, be an argumentative dick who simply needs to be "right", or create an online persona of myself, I really should re-think things. In the end, I'm just a regular Joe that is trying to live life to the fullest in every way.

Also, it doesn't bother me one tiny bit that Kirt Darner is your friend. I didn't know that when I posted the comment, and I'd post it anyway knowing it now. None of us are perfect and we are all susceptible to the destructive powers of greed, pride, envy and jealousy.

Peace. Out.

 

[robby denning]

Peace back at you.
Yip, Kirt succumbed to the dark side a few times and is paying his dues to society now. I still wish him the best as that is how he's treated me for 23 years.

 

[Hoot]

Robby = high road...

 

[the_bowhunter]

One thing that I notice is the high expectations that people put on hunters. I spent a fall up in Colorado backpack hunting and doing some outfitting and all I was asked when I got back was "why didn't you shoot anything". I always had trouble explaining to them that having blood and your tag filled isn't the only way to have a successful hunt. I would post pictures of the scenery I was hunting and pictures of any animals with myself and the hunter because I had a good amount of people wanting me to keep them updated. I still had people asking me why I didn't have any of "my" animals on social media or saying "I thought you were a good hunter". Makes me just want to have a cabin in the middle of nowhere with only God, nature, and myself haha