I came to Virginia's New River Valley in 1987, as a new hire in the region's largest employer, Virginia Tech. I had sought a job in the NRV because I loved hunting and fishing, and had not much opportunity to do either in my previous residences. I am a city kid who spent most of his life wishing he lived in the country, and with the move to the NRV I got what I wanted.
Ten minutes from my door is an abundance of woods, water, and wildlife, thanks to the Thomas Jefferson National Forest and the New, a first-class recreational river with no commercial traffic and mostly unspoiled banks. Claytor Lake is nearby as well as the New's tributary, the Little River. This area has abundant opportunities for people who enjoy hunting, fishing, and boating, something for everyone at every stage of life.
This site is here to present the NRV as this outdoorsman sees and experiences it. It's a very personalized site, a sort of outdoorsman's blog, and it will reflect my own viewpoints and interests; though I have many friends who are wonderful writers who've promised to add their own contributions to the essays.
What it is not is a commercial operation. This site is not here to hype any product or to convince anyone they need to buy some new gadget. The links listed below are NOT sponsors. They're organizations and companies whose products and services I've found worthwhile and they haven't paid a nickel to be listed here.
One of the saddest and most annoying developments in outdoors sports in the past 40 years has been the exploitation of the hunter and fisherman as nothing more than a consumer who can be gulled into buying stuff he doesn't need. The hucksters and marketeers can look elsewhere for help in selling their stuff. They won't get it here. Yes, there will be columns devoted to gear and goods, and there may someday even be advertising by local shops. But I don't regard hunting and fishing as competitive sports, nor as spectator sports, either. The NRV Outdoorsman will, I hope, become what outdoors magazines once were: a celebration of the outdoors experience, and the threads of memory and lore and adventure that bind one generation of outdoorsmen to the next.
Send comments, suggestions, and questions to me at this site or send a note to:
The New River Valley Outdoorsman
PO Box 11665
Blacksburg VSA USA 24062
Your input and most especially your suggestions on how to improve this site, what you'd like to see on it, and any personal stories you may have relating to hunting this part of the world are more than welcome. You won't get paid for them, but neither do I.
Send $2.00 and a stamped, self-addressed business-size envelope to the address above.
LINKS TO GOOD SITES
Nobody paid to be here!
Click on the logos to visit these fine sites!
