Getting the Band Back Together

For more than 20 years, my friends and family have been “getting the band back together” at least twice every year. As a rule, these trips include a spring fishing outing coupled with fall hunting, or ice fishing. However, when schedules allow we also try to sneak in summer catfish floats, winter rabbit hunts, and weekend camping adventures.

The “Bluesmobile” for these missions never included a ’74 Dodge with a 440-cubic inch motor, cop shocks, or cop tires. However, various makes and models of pickup, station wagon, muscle car, and even a Cadillac have carried us to and from the woods and water. Who hasn’t put bird dogs in the trunk of an Olds ‘98 or rode shotgun with a dozen fishing rods hung from the dashboard?

We’ve learned it takes a combination of commitment, planning, understanding, and flexibility to stay in touch and maintain the tradition. Trying to get schedules lined up even once a year for 7 or 8 guys that live up to 300 miles apart is a small feat of its own. Getting those same guys together twice in a year can be nearly impossible! For this to work out, we acknowledged years ago that nobody is going to be able to attend every outing. Kids’ sports, vacations, holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, health issues, and difficult work schedules combine to make successful scheduling an art and a science. However, there are a few things that everybody can do to improve the odds of getting together every year.    

Planning

It’s important to start planning the next outing during the trip that’s “in process” while everyone is still together. Having a captive audience ensures guys are engaged in the process.  

Because we typically get together in the spring and fall, our group starts looking at dates approximately 6 months out; reserving June for fishing and December for hunting. This approach provides more than enough notice to request time off at work and at home. Next, we immediately eliminate any dates that don’t work for the majority. For example, in June we always plan around the last day of school, so our kids are available to participate and to reduce the burden on spouses.

In December, the obvious scheduling conflicts are deer season, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Over the last several years, our crew has acquiesced to pheasant hunting one of the weekends of deer season. While this requires a small sacrifice for a few of the deer hunters in the group, they still have 7 days to tag a buck. Also, by this time the weather is colder, and there is a good chance for snow bunching the birds up in heavy cover and increasing the odds of a good hunt.

Project Management

Each outing must have one or two informal “project managers” responsible for identifying, managing, and ensuring completion of vital tasks. Our group rotates this critical role based on the location of the trip, assigning it to individuals that are residents of the area whenever possible. Doing so maximizes our ability to leverage local relationships and recent intel to gain access to hot hunting and fishing areas.  

The project managers are also responsible for logistics. For example, confirming the head count to understand requirements, soliciting feedback to develop the itinerary, and identifying supplies to create the grocery list. Having a couple of guys responsible for “herding the cats” greatly improves the efficiency and overall enjoyment of the trip for everyone.          

Communication 

When these outings began in the mid-1990s, nobody had a cell phone. Trips were discussed and planned over long-distance landlines and face to face conversations. However, times have changed, and cell phones have become an invaluable tool. While texting and instant messages are no substitute for real conversations, they are convenient means of providing rapid updates to the entire group without having to repeat the message multiple times. If your crew isn’t already using technology to optimize communications and planning, I encourage the luddites in your group to pick up a cheap Tracfone from Walmart. Not only will this improve collaboration and coordination of your outings, it also allows the group to conveniently capture photos of important moments.

Pictures and Videos

Make sure that you intentionally and deliberately memorialize your time together. Our crew never took enough pictures in the last 25 years and most of the photos from the early days are fuzzy Polaroids or grainy reproductions. The cameras on modern mobile phones take amazing pictures and people always have their phones. Take advantage of this technology and make taking pictures a priority. Most importantly, don’t just leave those pictures on your device or computer. High quality prints from big box stores are cheap! Get the best ones printed out and post them conspicuously in your home or office to help build anticipation for the next trip.      

In the early days, our outings were all about quantity. How many fish could we catch? How many pheasants could we shoot? How many hands of Euchre, Poker, or Pitch could we play? However, as time has passed, and our lives have changed, we’ve realized that the quality of our time together was and always will be the most important thing.  

Getting the band back together provides opportunities to reconnect and reminisce about good times spent with lost friends and family. The campfire stories and memories keep their legacies alive and well. These trips also usher in the next generation of hunters and fishermen. Many of our sons and daughters have participated for several years now, and they are the torchbearers that will keep the hunting and fishing heritage alive.

I hope the suggestions in this article inspire folks to plan that fishing trip, bird hunt, or campout that they’ve always talked about but never got done. In addition, I hope that first outing kicks off a new tradition of getting together at least once a year. For some people it's bird hunting on Thanksgiving morning, and for others it's catfishing on Memorial Day weekend. These don’t have to be big, elaborate, or expensive outings. Follow the KISS principle, be present for the group, and make sure to memorialize your time together.