Let’s start the new year off right with some random suggestions that just might make your outdoor adventures; fishing, hunting, camping, trail walking better and more productive, memorable and even worthy of repetition. Wanna?   Hold on tight, this will be random.

New to a lake, shore or stream or are you continually not as productive as you’d like? Hire a guide periodically or seasonal as you need. Tell him you want to learn, not just catch. His experience from 250 days per year will be worth 20 years of your efforts at experience.

Keep a diary and calendar when you’re with the guide and even during your own trips, successful or not. Recalling success or failure in written form will help you rebuild your memories.

Save newspaper columns of dated successes where you most often fish. The authors rarely write of failures, only triumphs. Your knowledge of that will/can help tremendously.

Grab a partner and try a new fishing destination to widen your expanses. Cajun Vista Lodge on the Louisiana Coast, Captain Mark Noble for the Georgia Coast, Mack Farr and Henry Cowen at Lanier and the beautiful eastern Tennessee lakes, can and should be new targets for you and your outdoor buddies or even children and grandchildren.

Listen every Saturday morning on WSB Radio AM 750 or 95.5 FM to “O’Neill Outside,” most often aired live. He has many callers who catalog suggestions and tips you can use. I warned you this might be self-serving.

How about hunting Whitetail Deer.

To understand better about deer hunting, join a couple of informational hunting associations.  Quality Deer Management Association, National Wild Turkey Foundation are two easy choices.  Read! The difference here is that fishermen are talkative and seemingly always ready to share.  Hunters are not quite so verbal even to the point of being secretive. Why? An outstanding fishing trip may result in 100 being caught.  Good, share it. Deer hunting?  Maybe there are two or three successes. Therefore helpful information like, how, where, when, all that is kept secret. A hunting organization from which you can glean information to make you more successful can be a real diamond.

At least once in your hunting career and adventures, telephone or contact Rush Creek Outfitters in Dalhart, Texas and hunt with my grandson. He’s a guide there and guarantees 100 percent success for clients.

Finally (I may have mentioned this before), listen to “O’Neill Outside” every Saturday morning on WSB AM 750 or FM 95.5.