Barber considers modernizing 'bragging board' for fish, game

To continue having a bragging board where youths can show off their fish and game, Dave Dudek is giving great consideration to entering — or is being dragged into — the modern age of cell phone pictures.

Dudek owns Dave's Barbershop, a landmark at the corner of U.S. 52 and Minnesota Highway 74 in downtown Chatfield. Since 1979, he's been cutting hair and talking about football (he's a die-hard Denver Broncos and Chatfield Gophers fan). But most of all, he's been telling and hearing outdoors stories. He's an avid outdoorsman who is passionate about teaching youths to handle firearms properly and taking them out into the woods for their first time hunting deer or turkeys.

Even when he cut hair in another downtown location, he asked those 18 and younger to give him pictures of fish and game so he could put them on his bragging board. Those coming in could see the pictures and hopefully understand that there's more to the outdoors than the pursuit of trophies.

Dudek insists on strong standards. On top, he's written "Looking for pictures of youths hunting & fishing. Please make your pictures respect the animals & fish that you take."

That's critical. He doesn't want photos that emphasize blood or gloating in the kill. Show that the youth is happy but also show respect for the animal or fish.

Here's an unwritten rule: It doesn't have to be a 12-point buck or 5-pound brown trout. He likes to see a 12-year-old smiling with the doe she's shot, or the boy with the carp he's caught. Don't worry about trophies, just get outside. That's his philosophy.

When he took a local boy deer hunting this October in the youth-only hunt (he loves the idea of that hunt), the boy shot a small buck. "He got a little 7-pointer," Dudek said. "Boy, was he fired up." A picture of that buck is on the board. Dudek, 58, got fired up talking about it, He had the same grin as the boy.

There's also a boy with two squirrels he shot, and one of a boy and man with a carp. Yes, a carp. Hey, they fight hard — there's no shame in being able to hook and reel one in.

In fact, after taking his daughters, Jordyn, now 23, and Kileigh, now 20, deer hunting when they were in their teens, "The whole fun was taking them hunting," he said. They didn't have their cell phones out, they were looking around, enjoying nature.

He's also guided youths on a National Wild Turkey Federation hunt. All four got their birds and it was a blast, he said.

Over the years, he's had many hundreds of pictures and could rotate them through or add new ones as older ones get crinkly.

Here's the modern rub — most people take pictures with cell phones, and it's not always easy getting someone to print a picture.

"If you don't get it in the first week after they shoot, trap or catch it, they forget it," he told the Post-Bulletin.

To contend with that vexation, he's thinking of getting video equipment so youths could send him pictures electronically and he could upload them onto a screen. Those in the barbershop could watch the pictures scroll through. He could even put it in his big window, so passersby could see the pictures and know there are still youths out there who hunt, fish or trap and are proud of what they bring home, or release.

It would be great for youths, who like the modern things, and also good for adults.

The second problem is more vexing — the modern media's emphasis on trophies, trophies, trophies. He recently heard about a youth who shot a deer and asked for a picture.

"It was just a doe," the boy said, almost like he had failed.

Just a doe? "Everything in the deer world has turned into horns," Dudek said.

That's wrong, he said.

He's a strong believer in the five stages of hunting — wanting to shoot something, emphasis on a limit, looking only for trophies, using more challenging gear such as a wood bow and finally, true hunters or anglers who enjoy being in the woods or on the water, work hard and appreciate all around them. Killing or catching is secondary. He wants youths to reach the fifth stage.

Modern hunting videos, however, seem to stop youths at the trophy or limit stage, and they don't move up, he said.

With his board, however, everyone can see the true picture, or pictures, of the outdoors.

An AP Exchange feature by John Weiss, Post-Bulletin.