Hunting 2011 – A Mixed Bag

First of all, I want to thank my new friends in West Virginia for a very enjoyable stay at their stomping grounds in the mountains.  Larry, Dave and Tom, your hospitality and around-the-fire, end-of-the-day companionship was fun and relaxation at its finest.  Jack, in addition to all of the preceding, your culinary skills in contributing to some great meals were greatly appreciated – and congratulations on that nice 8-point that finally rewarded your persistence.

Hunting camps can be one of the best aspects of the hunting experience and good companions are not easy to find and maintain.  I consider myself very fortunate to have met these gentlemen and to have had the benefit of their company.

West Virginia offers challenges both physical and mental that differ from the Maine hunting experience and I have yet to fill a permit.  I will have to borrow a page from Jack’s book and cultivate patience.  I did see some nice bucks, but not in a shooting environment; nevertheless, it is always a thrill to see deer at any time or place.  Understandably, Jack might not categorize the nighttime encounter between a buck and the side of his truck in that vein.  My opportunities have been limited and, to be frank, my tactics could stand improvement.  But hunting is not meant to be simple or easy and one needs to learn as you go.

But, on the whole, West Virginia continues to be a very positive experience and one that I will look forward to repeating.  Good friends, good food and beautiful surroundings.

I came home on Thanksgiving Day to find eight inches of heavy, wet snow on the ground.  I managed to spend an hour or so that evening taking limited stock of the evidence that the deer had left in my back lot.  There seemed to be plenty of traffic, including evidence of a mature back that I had been tracking and hoped to encounter.  Unfortunately, the next day would put an end to those dreams.

My wife had told me that late Wednesday afternoon, near the end of the snowstorm, two young men in a pickup truck had driven down our driveway to ask permission to chase a buck that they had just seen in our front field.  My property is long, narrow lot slightly less than 138 yards wide by a little more than one-half of a mile long with housing developments on either side and across the road on the front end.  Since it was late afternoon with darkness approaching and these folks were not known to my wife and also unfamiliar with the territory, she expressed reluctance to grant permission for them to pursue the deer.  They were polite enough, seemingly accepting the situation, and left.

It was not until Friday morning, when I resumed hunting my back acreage, that I discovered a bloody trail in the snow where a buck had been dragged out to an adjoining private road and loaded onto a pickup.  All of this activity had obviously designed to avoid any contact with my house or its residents.  Backtracking to the gut pile, I discovered that the buck’s genitals had been affixed to a nearby sapling.

From examining foot prints and talking with neighbors, I deduced that three men in two trucks had parked on the main road across from my front field, traveled through screening undergrowth to a point approximately 250 yards from my house and waited until the meandering buck came into view.  Three shots were fired, aimed back toward the main road and tangentially toward the vicinity of at least one bordering house.

To say that I am miffed is an understatement.  Here in Maine, state law clearly states that hunters are to ask permission to hunt private property.  This requirement was obviously circumnavigated by these “slob hunters”, the kind of individuals who are careless with their lanes of fire and uncaring of property owners’ rights and safety and disrespectful of the game that they are lucky enough to encounter – precisely the kind of people who are a small minority of hunters but give the rest of us a bad name.

I have never before posted my property, but next year signs will go up and I will be very limited in granting permission to locals who are ethical enough to ask.

At this point I do not have a feel for the numbers for the deer harvest.  I saw deer in my front field nearly every night, but they arrived well after dark and departed well before dawn.  The roller coaster weather, fluctuating from cold to unseasonably warm, probably will have contributed to keeping the numbers down.

There are partridge (grouse) around in small numbers.  Ducks are more limited that in previous years, even though the lakes, rivers and ponds have remained free of ice here in South-Central Maine.

So, not a productive season in the respect of game in the freezer.  But, in the way of enjoying time spent in the woods and on the streams and enjoying the company of some really nice people, my season ranks well on the plus side.

I am happy with those boons.

A Tragedy in So Many Ways

First things first.  This horrible attack that resulted in six dead and thirteen wounded is utterly unacceptable.  I hope that the prayers and good wishes of America at large are with Rep. Gabriella Giffords, the other recovering victims, and the families of all involved.

Secondly; any and all attempts on the part of any individuals, including pundits, politicians, law enforcement officials, commentators, etc. to turn this atrocity into political gain through accusatory and unverified rhetoric should be immediately and forcefully repudiated.

The despicable actions of one mentally deranged young man that have affected so many innocent lives should be treated for what they are – an example of what atrocities a truly dangerous product of our society can achieve if obvious warning signs are not recognized and dealt with.  Once again our nation is traumatized by an incidence of mass murder which, in retrospect, may have been preventable.

Assassination of a public figure is always a possibility for those who seek a life of recognition and is not easily guarded against, as the attacks on Abraham Lincoln, Jack and Robert Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and John Lennon unfortunately illustrate.  Fame and the necessity for public contact create nightmares for security professionals and a determined assailant is difficult to deny, particularly if there is a professional involvement.

22-year old Jared Loughner fits the profile of a “walking time bomb” well.  This is a very unstable individual whose increasingly disturbing behavior was well documented over the past several years, from his dismissal from a community college for actions that thoroughly frightened fellow students and teachers to his rejection by the Army for failure to pass pre-enlistment drug screening (among other reasons).

As in many other instances, Loughner’s disturbing behavior was documented, but carefully ignored, by various authorities who in these days operate under a stultifying cloud of political correctness created through the social manipulations practiced by a daunting array of special interest groups specializing in “victim rights protection” at the expense of civic order.  In this case (and many others), successful roadblocks have been placed in the path of any attempts by authorities to exert control over potentially dangerous individuals despite clear indications that the individual’s dangerous proclivities are increasing.

Our nation, from the top down, has gravitated away from the rule of law and now approaches a point where the rule of man tips the scales.  This is a precursor to anarchy, a disruptive force that has frequently been used by various ruling classes as an excuse to initiate truly repressive actions.  Refusal to implement all of our country’s laws in a just and impartial manner is noticeably eroding the public’s confidence in America’s legal and justice systems, much to the detriment of our society.

As usual in these cases, there is plenty of opportunity for finger-pointing and much blame to be spread around.  But at the very least this extremely dangerous, homicidal predator should be permanently removed from society (either through lifelong incarceration or capital punishment).

In addition, public figures (governmental and otherwise) should immediately look to their own welfare by increasing their security procedures.  There are many ways in which this could be accomplished: the presence of local law enforcement – funded by the “dignitary” – could have made a significant difference in the outcome of this particular incident.

The heroic actions of several bystanders should be recognized and highly praised since they were undoubtedly instrumental in preventing even higher casualties.

We, as a country, need to start taking a long, hard look at why our society is producing (and ignoring) such aberrant individuals and what we need to do to improve the safety of all of our citizens as well as our public representatives.  Transfer funding to do it; don’t whine about cost and jump on a perceived opportunity to raise taxes.