Steve Fielder - Huntinghoundsmen.com

cess vendors are experiencing today despite the economy and anoverall decline in the number of individuals actually engaged inthe sport may be, in part, proof of this theory. I can see imagesof cyber hunters out there, all geared-up in their boots, lights,GPS trackers, electronic trainers and squallers, and saturated inmosquito repellant as they surf the coonhound message boards.Ridiculous perhaps but the idea is the same. If hunters are spendingtraining time on the computer, the sport, in terms of producingbetter hounds, has to suffer overall.On the other side of the coin, the Internet may create interestin the sport in ways we never thought possible. Young people,surfing the web may be intrigued by the exciting aspects of nitehunting, may be influenced to join peers of their age group andmay seek out clubs in their areas in which to participate allbecause they were introduced to the sport online. Older huntersmay find in the Internet the opportunity to stay in tune with thesport long after their bodies have signaled it’s time to quit. There’sno doubt the information super highway delivers information onthe whereabouts of good hounds, and those not so good, at warpspeed and enables a prospective buyer to shop several houndsbefore deciding to make the long drive to hunt with the dog or tobreed a female. The convenience aspects of Internet coon huntingare many and likewise are the pitfalls. Prospective buyersmay buy into online hype rather than actually going out andmashing mud behind the hound before breeding or buying andtherein lies the danger. Of course that same danger lies in printedads in coonhound publications. Hunt before you buy is goodadvice no matter how one finds a hound of interest.Will Facebook replace the Message Boards?Enhanced communication within the sport has been the greatestbenefit gained through the Internet. And as important as thecoonhound message boards have become, new vehicles are nowavailable that enable coon hunters to communicate at levelsnever before possible. Entrepreneur Sean Parker, whose networth reached $2.1 billion in the third quarter of 2011, was thefounding President of Facebook, the social media craze that isalready changing the way many coon hunters and coonhoundenthusiasts communicate.The advantages of Facebook and the less popular but effectiveTwitter, over the message boards are many. Unlike the messageboards, users may “choose” those with which they wish to communicateto the exclusion of anyone else. Users send “friend”requests to other users and if accepted, they reap the opportunityto enter the friend’s online community, noting not only thefriend’s posted thoughts but also viewing personal informationthe friend has chosen to post on their “wall,” another name forwhat amounts to a personal web page. And coon hunters areusing Facebook in ever-increasing numbers. Currently I haveresponded to more than 700 friend requests on my Facebookpage, mainly consisting of coon and big game hunters. When arequest is received, the number of mutual friends shared withthat individual is posted, giving me a pretty good idea of the typeof person that originated the request. If I make a bad choice, evidencedby the type of posts that appear on my wall from the individual,once they become my friend, I can “un-friend” that individualand I don’t have to view his or posts any more. Moreimportantly, I don’t have to wait for a message board monitor todo the job for me. Unlike the message forums which consist of apotpourri of posts of every description, and in many cases fromunknowns, Facebook allows me to communicate with those Ihave chosen and no more.The greatest benefit of Facebook over message boards in myview is the ability to communicate with those from whom I wishto hear, from all walks of life, not just the hunting community, andto do so with the smallest amount of effort in the shortest amountof time.Twitter is another social media vehicle that permits me theopportunity to follow the daily ramblings of individuals of mychoosing. There’s a very stingy limit of characters one may composein a “Tweet” and I use it mainly to keep up with sports figuresand politicians that I wish to “follow.” It’s a simple “what’son my mind” kind of thing that isn’t nearly as involved asFacebook and to date, coon hunters haven’t embraced it. I amfollowing 10 personalities on Twitter, none of them coon huntersand I have three that are following me. Contrast that with the 700Facebook friends I have and you get the picture.Facebook’s “Ego Wall” EffectWhereas it has generally been considered poor taste to bragabout the accomplishments of one’s dogs in printed newscolumns or in online message forums, there’s a different environmenton Facebook in regard to boasting of one’s accomplishmentsin dog shows and to a lesser but increasing degree, in NiteHunt competition. Users are routinely posting their “wins” fortheir friends to see, much as one would use the phone to call aclose friend or perhaps the owner of a dog one is handling and togive the results of the night’s hunt or the day’s activities at the dogshow. Apparently, displaying one’s “ego wall” of achievements onFacebook is as acceptable as having a guest to your home tour ofyour trophy room.CONCLUSIONThere’s no doubt the Internet has enhanced the sport of coonhunting from a communications standpoint and it can be arguedthat it has hindered the performance of our dogs and the qualityof the outdoors experience for many of us who have fallen for thelure of the monitor over the call of the wild. But, for many othersof us, especiallyold school guys likeme, there’s no substitutefor the friendlyfeel of a goodbook or favoritemagazine in hand atthe close of a long orweary day. I’veespecially enjoyedreading my coonhoundmagazinessince my retirementto the mountains.And, although Ienjoy the economyand convenience ofmy Amazon Kindleelectronic reader, IEven an e-book like the Kindle “reads”better when bound with a traditionalbook cover.had to purchase a book cover for it so I could have the comfortand security I feel with a good book in hand when I read. Nocomputer screen can take me to faraway places, along sweet-runningstreams and bring the call of the hounds to heart like turningthe pages of the real thing. Even when I sat down to proofread this article before sending it along to the publisher, I had toprint it out and hold it in my hand.The Internet will impact our sport, no matter whether we acceptit or not. It will be up to you and me to keep things in perspective,to remember that there’s no substitute for hunting ourhounds if we wish them to succeed, and that words spoken, ortyped as the case may be, have an effect on those that hear orread them. It’s our job to ensure that they result in somethinggood. In closing, pardon me as I paraphrase Psalm 19:14:Let the words (that I type), and the meditation of my heart, beacceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength, and my redeemer.