Wild Bill
REAL ESTATE IS RISKY BUSINESS
Cabela’s Still Fishing on Thin Ice
Yesterday, I had another chat with Mike Callahan, Cabela's Senior Vice President, concerning the company's controversial ancillary business, Cabela's Trophy Properties (CTP). As you can see in the resulting article, Callahan certainly has been open and sincere in his belief that Cabela's is not doing anything wrong and can actually help hunters solve the omnipresent hunting access problem.
I certainly hope he has it nailed because I've had so many comments, both online and offline, more than on any issue I've written about on NewWest.Net, and those comments tell me Cabela's could still be courting disaster.
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PUT THE BIG ONES BACK
Preserving PikeThey don't call it the water wolf for nothing. To some trout fanciers, pike, as in northern pike, is consummate four-letter word, just like wolf is to some ranchers and elk hunters. And for the same reason. Both species eat our prized native game species.
But there is a big difference. The wolf has a large constituency supporting its preservation, but when you go out and advocate preserving pike, especially here in the New West, here in Trout Country, you can feel mighty lonely.
Well, I guess I'll just have to learn to live with a little loneliness.
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A FEW BEST READ TWICE, AT LEAST
Comments Worth Repeating, 2008As I'm sure many of you have noticed, NewWest.net has engaged readers who take the time to make excellent comments that frequently add value to stories. And they keep coming in. The hardest part was narrowing down the list to a manageable size. Even though there are obviously many more comments worth repeating, here are some of my favorites. For more comments, check out the Comments Worth Repeating Chronology. Enjoy. [more]
WILL OTHER CITIES FOLLOW HELENA'S LEAD?
Our Most Expensive DeerPardon the cliché, but if you want to know why something is happening, follow the money. So, that's what I did this week, and at the end of my search, I found what must be the most expensive deer in the world.
You could have some of these high-priced deer in your town, too. What's happening in Helena, Montana, could be coming to a city near you.
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THE BIGGEST OUTDOOR STORIES OF THE NEW YEAR
Wild Bill’s Predictions for 2008It's that time of year again, when many of my peers in the writing biz reflect on what already happened--you know, the best and biggest stories of the year. But as I asked last year, how hard is it to look into the past and be a visionary? Being a forward-looking sort of guy, I again prefer to look ahead and predict what will happen instead of looking back to predict what did happen.
So, for the New West, here are my predictions for the top outdoor stories you can expect to read in 2008.
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A DECENT RECORD, BUT NOT EXACTLY A VISIONARY
Did My 2007 Predictions Come True?It seems to me that predicting the news is a little like predicting the weather. You can be wrong most of the time and still keep your job. I hope the same is true for me.
Last December, I made some bold predictions on what outdoor news you might hear in 2007 and promised to report on if they came true. Here's my report.
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RETURN SANITY TO PUBLIC LAND FUNDING
The Baucus-Crapo Bill, AfterthoughtsOn December 10, U.S. Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Mike Crapo (R-ID) introduced the S. 2438, the Fee Repeal and Expanded Access Act. You can read the breaking news here and a follow-up article with more details here.
The introduction of this landmark legislation by Baucus, a moderate democrat who currently chairs the Senate Finance Committee, and Crapo, a conservative republican from perhaps the reddest state of them all, Idaho, should serve as a major wake-up call for the Bush administration that it has gotten way off track in managing recreation on public lands. If it doesn’t wake them up, well, then it must be a coma.
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THEY KEEP COMING AND GETTING BETTER
2007 Comments Worth Repeating VIThis is actually the sixth Comments Worth Repeating collection I've posted this year, and I might have one more before the end of the year. I hope I'm not the only one that finds all these comments amazing and insightful, and just in case I'm not, I put together a chronology of them following this article just in case you want to go back and read more of them. If you do, you won't be disappointed. [more]
HAS THE PROBLEM BECOME THE SOLUTION?
Cabela’s and Orvis, AfterthoughtsAfter two weeks of reading more than 250 comments and having a few heated phone calls about my last two columns on Cabela's and Orvis land brokering divisions, plus a long chat with Cabela's senior vice president Mike Callahan, a few things have become quite clear.
Now, for example, I know exactly how it feels to be a little fireplug surrounded by a pack of big dogs.
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FLY-FISHING ICON CASTING INTO TROUBLED WATERS
Orvis, Don’t Be Another Cabela’sIt isn't often that a big company has a chance to let another big company test the waters, screw up badly, and make it easy to not repeat the mistake. But that's precisely what has just happened to The Orvis Company.
Orvis, the most well known and trusted brand in the fly fishing business, is just now starting to make the same major misstep Cabela's made (see last week's column), but fortunately, Orvis only has its toe in the water and can quickly jerk it out.
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