Hunting and fishing used to be a simple and peaceful task.  Now that we’ve entered the technology age, hunting and fishing is rapidly changing.  With people blogging about their outdoor activities, it makes for an interesting clash between the basic and simple life of the outdoors and the modern world of computers.

I was reading this blog from Skinny Moose Media because, well, I had run plum out of ideas this week.  I’ve been gone for almost a week, and in that time lost all appearances of creativity.  One of the ideas he came up with was to talk about the statistics of your site, which sprung the idea behind this post.  And, here is where I digress back to my story.

Outdoorsmen are now running up against and fighting with computers.  For some, this isn’t a big deal, but for others, and I’ll not name names, this is a struggle.  I think that outdoorsmen, in general, are less inclined towards computers and technology - and that, my friends, is a positive mark on our side.  I think it reflects that outdoorsmen are up and doing stuff - y’know, outside, hence the term outdoorsman - and haven’t spent a lot of time on their rear end looking at a computer screen.  All day.  Ok, so yes, I’m a little bitter that I have to be inside looking at a computer screen all day while the sun shines and the temperature sits at a nearly perfect 80 degrees, but that’s my opinion on the whole technology matter.

I know there has to be some basis for my theory, because I look at my statistics, and what I see is that most of the people that find my site, are not searching for outdoorsy things.  Thanks to The Hunter’s Wife and her Friday’s Goofy Googler, I have begun to pay a little bit of attention to the key words people are using to find Base Camp Legends.  Among them are many non outdoorsy keywords - such as:  Swan Lake Story, doodlin’ song, and vikito designer.  At least, for the most part, I can see what these people were thinking and what they wanted to find - and also can understand that I had a 100% bounce rate from those people.  Some other searches make a person wonder just what kind of content we have on here, and made me search my own stories for something I may have said that I don’t remember saying, such as: spring bear scat, little mosquito, and muskie bites on human.  Seriously, who searches for spring bear scat?  Twice!!!  I’ve been found twice that way.  I’m not sure what they were looking for, but, again, the 100% bounce rate tells me they didn’t find it here - and what can I say…I’m quite glad I can say that.
The last thing I wanted to accomplish here is to give a shout out to the top five referring sites - or for those of you like me, the five sites that have directed the most visitors to my site through their site (phew, what a mouthful!)  - so here goes.

Number one is Getting Out the website created by my own brother.  It really is hard giving him credit, but the stats don’t lie, so I guess I have to say, go check his site out.  It even pains me more to say this: he’s got some really great photos on his site.  There, I said it, now moving on….

Number two is Eagle Eyes over at Idaho Trout Hunter.  I love this site for many reasons - one of them just simply being because he’s an Idahoan, and we stick together!  On top of that, the guy loves fishing, and that makes him alright in my book.  If you love fishing, a little humor, some great photos, and just all around interesting information you definitely owe it to yourself to check his site out!

Number three is The Hunter’s Wife whom I already alluded to earlier.  This is perhaps one of my favorite blogs to read for humor and lighthearted fun.  Jody is very keen at what makes for good reading - and I always look forward to reading her blog every day.  Especially on Friday’s when we get to find out the goofy ways people found her site!

Number four is The Outdoors Sportsman.  Matt is from Iowa, and has some first hand disaster photos of the devastation that Iowans went through these past weeks.  I look forward to Matt’s blog because he blogs about a lot of things geared towards getting youngsters involved in the outdoors, hunting safety, and he’s a bowhunter!

Number five is Jeff and Arthur over at Simply Outdoors.  Arthur is always, I mean always, faithful in reading and commenting on other people’s blogs.  I can’t count how many times I’ve gone to a blog that is pretty freshly posted, and find Arthur’s name already in the comment section.  Arthur is a down to earth guy that loves to hunt and fish and will soon be a daddy - and recognizes the importance of getting his baby girl involved in the outdoors without being pushy.  I like the fact that he seems to be a family oriented fella that enjoys experiencing the outdoors most if there is family to share it with.

So, there you have it.  I’m an outdoorsy guy with an outdoorsy website, and, yet, most of what I do is learn about what I used to fear most - technology.

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June 18, 2008 | 5 comments | Fishin' Stories, Huntin' Stories, Random Fodder | By Tom Sorenson

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