I have been writing the Sportsman Outdoors column for 45-years. My wife and I started writing about the great outdoors, especially about hunting and fishing, on April 13, 1978, for the Sullivan County Democrat newspaper. Our column appeared every Friday in the Weekender Edition of the newspaper.

People have asked me many times, how do you come up with a different topic to write about each week? Actually, it was easy for us. We were a weigh-in station for many fishing and hunting contests. People would bring their fish and game to us, and we would take pictures and send them with a report on their fish-catch or game-take to the newspaper. People loved to see their picture and especially pictures of their children in the newspaper along with a write up.

I also had a radio program for 6-years on WVOS radio out of Liberty. I would give a weekly report on hunting and fishing in Sullivan County and announce the names of people and their fish catches and game takes. Everyone loved to hear their name mentioned on the radio. I would end each weekly broadcast with this saying, “Until next week, I hope you are enjoying Sullivan County, as much as I am.”

In 1989 I was elected president of the Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs of Sullivan County. At the Federation’s monthly meetings, I now had representation throughout the county, and it was easy to know or find out what is happening in the sports of hunting, fishing and conservation in every section of our county. Access to this information was very helpful for my newspaper columns and radio broadcasts.

A fond memory from the Federation was when the Federation helped to get the deer-feeding-ban lifted from Sullivan County. We were the only county out of 62 counties in the state of New York that could feed deer and other wildlife and help prevent them from starvation. We fed them legally for 8-years, while other counties could not.

Thanks to our County Judge at that time, Frank LaBuda, who had the same concerns as the Federation and ruled that the deer-feeding ban was unconstitutional. Our Federation was very instrumental in supporting Judge LaBuda’s decision. 

I could go on and on telling you about other columns that we wrote about throughout the years, but there are too numerous to mention, I will just end my column today by saying, “Until next Friday’s column, I hope you are enjoying Sullivan County, as much as I am.”