Listen Now: Morning News

Vacation sometimes gets in my way

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The advancement of the Internet, social media, technology, and the easy access to cameras has helped bridge the gap of communications in the outdoor world.  However, most of your hunting, fishing, and outdoor themed shows today are more geared toward “how to” do something.   I’ve never wanted to be like that.

Call me different I suppose, but I realized early on I was a much better reporter than I was a hunter or angler.   Oh, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to hunt and fish.  But I was never comfortable trying to tell somebody else how to engage in those pursuits effectively.  Way to many people out there who know way more than me.   However, in my other life as a MetroNews reporter, I’ve gotten pretty good at asking questions and rooting out nuggets of information many of you seem to find interesting.   Well, at least they haven’t run me off yet.

Therefore it was a painful realization last week when I missed one of the bigger outdoor stories in a while.   I was eating supper at the beach house on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. My family was carrying on about this, that, or the other.   Those tend to be popular subjects when we all get together.   My phone dinged with a text message and against my better judgement, I checked it out.  Sure enough, the story I had been waiting to break was happening and I was powerless to bring it to you.

I’ve been anticipating the first elk calf ever since I covered the story about West Virginia’s elk reintroduction last year.    I knew the next development in this story would be the cows starting to drop their calves and the first one would be a big story of interest.  My contact informed me it had happened, and the story back in West Virginia was getting out.

DANG IT!!!!!!!!  We reporters tend to get excited about being the first to tell somebody something.   It’s sort of the nature of the game–as long as you’re sure you have it right.  True, that little detail has become a tad lost in today’s modern day reporting, but that’s another discussion for another time.  I’m was on vacation and missing a big story.

Well, it happens, but thankfully the folks back in the MetroNews newsroom had my back and picked me up.    Sorry I missed that one.  I’ll try not to be missing in action when the next outdoors story rolls around.

I’ll try to make up for it on tomorrow’s edition of West Virginia Outdoors at 7:06 a.m. on Metronews.   Randy Kelly, Elk Project Leader for the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources will be my guest.  We’ll talk about that first elk calf–and see if there are any other new additions to learn about.   I hope you’ll be listening.