AWKWARD AS THIS IS TO ADMIT, I'm no longer extremely young. True, I'm still fit, tough, competent, and probably one of the leading outdoorsmen in the world. But the former total youthfulness is gone, and I'd have to say, much as I regret the adjective, I'm starting to be more on the "old" side. Not old old, but probably older than you. Late fifties. These things happen, as you'll see.

Nowadays everybody in America is, one way or another, 25. Nine-year-olds act as if they're that old, 80-year-olds imagine they're that young. I'm like everybody—25 in my mind. The circumstances under which I found out I'm not, in fact, 25 were that I was staying at a friend's house after a deer-hunting trip, and this friend, who's much younger than I, kindly gave me his bed while he slept on the couch downstairs; and in the late, late hours a girl (young woman, technically) came into my friend's bedroom looking for him, and she found me there instead and retreated in dismay, and then an hour or so later another beautiful young babe also looking for my friend shook me awake, and at the sight of my not-extremely-young face she recoiled in frank horror …

Ouch. As an ungenerous person my own age later put it, these girls thought they were getting the Wolf but got Grandma instead—Grandma, of course, being me. This kind of negativity, and especially the unflattering inferences aimed in my direction, enrage me. If I am, in fact, an incipient "old" guy, then let me fill you in on a few things that are great about old guys—some important facts you still-young adventurers out there may not know, and I do.

For starters, old guys rule. I mean this literally. Most countries on earth are ruled by one or more old guys. When you rule, you can go where you want. One old guy I know knows an even older guy who was poet laureate of England, and this poet told him that the best perk of the position was that he received invitations to fish top Scottish salmon streams open to only a tiny number of anglers. Were there lots of young angling dudes wading in this elder poet's water on these Scottish salmon rivers and inconveniencing his casts? Something tells me no.

Old guys tend to have better connections, more influence, and—how to put this?—more money. Their credit cards work. Their cars don't fall apart five miles after they turn off pavement. They have better gear, and they take better care of it. Old guys spend more time sitting up late after the family's asleep, and in these hours your old guy will plan and replan his upcoming expedition, put new laces on his wading shoes, tie flies, dress in all his Arctic gear in order to see what it's like to move around in, call another insomniac old guy and check out up-to-the-minute river conditions, and so on. Old guys adventure more in their minds beforehand, and that makes them more prepared in the field. Old guys in some cases (not including mine) can do a bit less physically, so they have to use their brains more. You are taken more seriously by people who rent canoes and cabins if you're accompanied by a sober and thoughtful and knowledgeable-looking old guy. On any adventure, it's always an advantage to bring an old guy along as a check and corrective on the more impetuous young. And if he somehow can't or won't be that, at least he can cuss and stomp and have steam come out of his ears in a Yosemite Sam–ish manner.

Then there's the food. A truth I learned long ago is that on any road trip, scout, or expedition, you will eat better if an old guy is along. Old guys understand the fundamental principle that, no matter what, you gotta eat. It's surprising, too, how many young adventurers have not yet come to terms with this. Often your older guys have had the life experience of taking care of their own kids, so they know the food question always must be covered in detail in advance or there will be tantrums. On the hunting trip I referred to previously, my friend and his brother planned the sketchiest of first-night suppers—venison jerky, boiled river water, maybe frosting licked from a Devil Dogs wrapper for dessert, I don't recall—while I and another not-extremely-young hunter in the group had the forethought to pack some steaks, baking potatoes, cabernet, dark chocolate bars, etc. When we produced this meal, my friend and his brother fell over in awe, as if we'd done magic out there in the wilderness. Our only secret was, we possessed the traditional food-wisdom of old guys.