Doc

Ok, I always get this knee-jerk reaction when I read about these kinds of hunts. It's kind of disgusting what is being done in the name of hunting these days. Always people looking for short-cuts to impress their peers with their hunting prowess. They want to take the credit and claim achievements without all the handicaps and features that level the playing field somewhat for the prey. We really don't liek that mentality, or at least so we tell ourselves. However, once I get over that initial rant, I begin to think about what it is that is so maddening about these kinds of hunts. Why the heck do I take these things so personal? Well, it seems that these so-called hunters are trying to make themselves appear to be great hunters by taking advantage of animals that have been "created" through agricultural methods of animal husbandry. These animals are no longer truely wild, but basically dumb semi-domestic farm animals. There are tactics and techniques that place the advantages squarely in the favor of the hunters through technology and human manipulation to the point where the prey almost has no chance of survival. The element of challenge has been compromised and pretty much eliminated. The quality of the deer have been artificially maneuvered and manipulated through careful habitat manicuring such that they do not represent the natural fetures o the species. But then, isn't this sort of thing just the natural extension of every deer hunting evolution of techniques over the decades that we are now all accepting as standard hunting activities these days? It's all the same thing except that hunting preserve owners have taken it all to its natural conclusion. Consider the efforts that we all go through to equip ourselves with the latest technolgy in our hunting. Look at the weapons we use today. Some of them bear no resemblance to weapons of years ago. That too is a form of trying to erase the challenge, and a pursuit of gadgets and gimmicks to put the advantages in our favor to a greater and greater extent. We haven't found any limit yet that I can see as we continue the march toward space age weapons. Whatever technology can come up with is readily accepted by hunters and eventually by conservation law. Look at how many would like to have the advantage of baiting legalized. Look at how we devote hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars on food plots to improve the herd and antler size. Many of the things we do on a regular basis are activities aimed at coming up with as close to a guaranteed result in our hunts as we can possibly arrange. Most of what we see on hunter's wish lists involves changes that would eliminate other layers of challenge. No we haven't taken it all to the extent of these pay-to-hunt game farms (yet), but it all points toward the same thing. The difference only lies in extent. So maybe these game farm hunts shouldn't really irritate me so. Those people have merely moved the line a little farther out than we are willing to accept today. It may very well simply be a peek at what future hunting will evolve into. In many ways, we have pushed hunting and everything relating to hunting in the direction of guarantees. Maybe these hunting preserves are just a little ahead of their time. Having the advantage of a 69 year perspective sometimes gives us a good look at the indicators that point out the future and provides us with something to think about.

I am seriously wondering whether it even makes sense for you to get involved in reloading at all, given the small amount of shooting that you do. Using 20 rounds per year probably does not really warrant the expense and time and effort. For one thing, reloading does not save the amount of money that a lot of people imagine. The costs of cases, primers, bullets and powder and other consumables are really getting very expensive. Most people reload to achieve the most accurate and high-performing ammo possible matched to their individual guns, and those are usually paper shooters that burn up a lot of ammo in experimentation and target practice. Take a little time, and rough out the costs per box of your reloads vs. factory ammo, and then apply the estimated quantity of ammo that you expect to shoot. You may be a bit surprised at how close the costs compare to store bought ammo. And do not under-estimate the amount of time involved. It makes a great winter pastime when there is little else to do. But if you place high value on your time, the savings from reloading drops to zero. I'm not trying to discourage you .... just giving you another viewpoint to consider. As far as the kit you are looking at, it does look very complete and the price is great deal. I think if I were starting out these days, I would probably be looking at one of those deals. It's hard to imagine how much stuff they offer at such a low price. And by the way Hornady is a good name and I would not hesitate to buy anything that they market. It's a pretty quality oriented company.

This season sure has gone by awfully darn fast (both bow and gun). I guess there are still a few days left for the muzzle loaders and the bow hunters that use that late season. Maybe you all will get a bit of snow to help you out a bit. For most of us, this sloppy, crappy, weekend will be the end.

Lol .... I guess our deer are a tad smarter than your average whitetail. No you're right, A deer will not spook from a shot that's on the other side of the valley. And it does get to be a question of just how close to the shooting they have to be before they do panic. However, there is no doubt that when they are close enough to feel that they are being shot at, they will panic (and rightfully so ..... lol). They are not getting conditioned to ignore gunshots, they just understand when the shots are within their tolerance zone. I think it's safe to say that anyone trying to hunt in the immediate area of all that shooting probably would be wise to vacate the area and do their hunting elsewhere. The odds of a deer walking toward or into that area are probably pretty slim.

LOL ... It's not too often that I have taken a shot and watched the deer just stand there looking at me. In the middle of a gun deer season, deer know exactly what gunfire is all about. They catch on very fast. The only time that I have ever seen a deer hesitate was when it was obvious that they were confused as to what direction the shot came from. And even then, they seemed to figure it out in a very short period of time. And that has only happened once that I can remember.

I think a lot of people don't understand the principle of collatoral costs and consequences for stupidity and recklessness on the part of other people. It might seem like making stupid choices effects only those that make them, but there is also a whole array of other broken lives that are left behind.

Deer that are subjected to constant activities quickly become very tolerant. It's like farmers and their tractors, or loggers and their chainsaws. However, when all of a sudden there is a shooting circus breaking out in the middle of the hill where that sort of thing usually never takes place, deer do understand that that is probably not a real good place to be, particularly in the middle of gun season where they are particularly sensitive to human presence, and the sound of gunfire.

I do not have a regular schedule for target shooting. About the closest I come to regular target shooting is with the bow. During the winter, I shoot a couple times a week down in my basement. When the weather gets decent in the spring I move outside. At some point around July or August, I begin to get a bit more intense and jump my rate up to about 4 times per week, but shorter sessions. The reason for the shorter sessions is to avoid muscle damage. Also, I found that practice that becomes too intense eventually is counter-productive in that I start working in target panic and flawed form from fatigue. With the rifles, my shooting is whenever the weather cooperates. My 100 yard range is up on top of the middle of the hill, and I need to be able to get the ATV up there to lug all the rifles and equipment. So in the winter I'm pretty well locked off the hill because the ATV road is steep and treacherous when there is too much snow. Other times of the year, rain is the main enemy. But I manage to get up there every couple weeks, or if I am experimebnting with new loads, I get up there more often. I also have a 50 yard range behind the house just up into the woods. So that allows me to get in some lower quality range time but at a more frequent time interval. Almost all of my target shooting is "bench-rest shooting.

Yes they have a right to be jerks, just like I have a right to not do business with them because of their idiot policies. I hope their loss of revenue is worth being allowed exercise their rights to be idiots.

I haven't tried anything yet. This is a future "rainy-day" project. I'm in the information gathering mode right now. Eventually, I might be interested in selling my traps, and looking on the internet, the best prices are coming from the ones that have a little of the real steel showing through. I know these traps are still functionally good, but people equate rust with lack of quality. I want to get rid of that impression, and perhaps get a better dollar when I do decide to sell.

No this went on for at least 2 hours. Even as I went into the house they were still going at it. So it definitely was not any deer-hunting action.

I have heard of such things especially using pots and pans and such for creating a disturbance. So I wouldn't put it past those animal rights wackos. But really I would doubt any of them would even have access to one of those evil guns .... lol. On the other hand, those guys are welcome to come and help move deer for us if that's what they want to do. It sure would be nice if somebody besides myself were to get off their dead rumps and move a few deer. It's getting mighty lonely out there.

Lol .... What the heck is all this pile of psycho-babble all about? I thought it was interesting to hear all this commotion going on in the middle of deer season and just wondered about the "what" and "why" of it all. I didn't really expect the free psycho-analysis .... lol.

Well, I know there has to be some fun to it because there are a lot of people doing it. My Nephew is another one that likes the rapid fire. I remember a shooting session where he all of a sudden ripped off a full magazine as fast as he could. Of course he didn't hit a damned thing, but he seemed to be having fun .... lol. However, they were only .22s so there was no cost concerns. So anyway, I do understand that while it doesn't happen to be my thing, there sure are a lot of people that get a kick out of it. For the most part, I really don't care as long as I am not in the line of fire. It's just good to see people enjoying the shooting sports no matter what about it floats their boat, and it all bodes well for the future of gun ownership. I just realized that another reason I never got into rapid fire is that I don't own a semi-automatic ..... lol. Kind of hard to do that sort of thing with levers, bolts, and pumps. It kind of loses its effect .... lol. But anyway, it seemed pretty weird to be hearing that sort of thing right in the middle of deer season.

Yes, we had no apples and no acorns (and I mean NONE). That's two pretty good hits on food sources in an area that is not agricultural. Our habitat has gone way past prime and is now entering the "mature forest" stage of re-growth. And yes the mild winter meant a more prolific fawning season with more fawns and more fawns surviving. Sounds a bit grim, until you realize that deer have survived on a lot of things other than apples and acorns for a lot of centuries. In fact they are very adaptable. Also they look in amazing shape and everyone that I have talked to have reported some very heavy fat reserves. I have seen no browse-lines or any other indication of a stressed habitat. I have also noted that we are a week into December, and I have not had to plow snow once yet. That is extremely rare. So far there are a lot of similarities to the mild winter of last year (I hope I haven't jinxed it now). I realize that the nature of a winter can change on a dime. It will also be interesting to see how the harvest went this year with only one day so far with enough snow to silhouette the deer and no significant snow in the forecast for the forseeable future. There might be a few surprises locally in the ability for hunters to even see the deer. The only real harm that the lost apple and acorn crop created was a confusing hunting season with old patterns turned on their head and scattered feeding that didn't concentrate deer into good visible patterns. Frankly I am looking forward to next year. I am hoping for a normal apple crop and/or acorn crop. I am expecting the woods to be filled with deer, and hopefully the traditional deer movement patterns will return. That is the view from our little local area. I'm sure others have some very different conditions and outlooks.

I think one of the reasons for not pushing the boundaries of safe daylight is the fact that there are no guarantees that all people will wear blaze orange. In fact even if a blaze orange law was passed, there still would be a certain amount of people out there without it. And another consideration as I have already pointed out is that there are various weather conditions and just naturally dark areas that would produce absolutely unsafe lighting for safe hunting.

No, there was no harm that I am aware of. I hope I didn't come across as saying that there was. It's just something that I don't fully understand. Of course as I have often stated, I am a pretty cheap critter, so just blowing off ammo without any specific purpose would just not be in my nature. Just the other day, I was looking up the price of reloading components for my new rifle. I'll guarantee that each one of those bullets will be shot slowly, carefully and with absolute purpose .... lol. Regarding the "harm" aspect, I am giving the benefit of the doubt that these people were using pistols in this shotgun only hunting area. And I and assuming that they were shooting in a responsible and safe manner. I do think it is an activity that most other hunters in the area might have found to be a bit un-nerving and might have pushed them out of the area.

For those that doubt the effectiveness of blaze orange, please access the following site: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00044112.htm Scroll down to the chart that regards the comparison of accidents where blaze orange was worn by the victim vs. no blaze orange. You will see that in every category of the type of shooting the higher numbers were in the "no blaze orange" column (and significantly so). Actually, I am surprised that anyone argues that fact anymore. Very often, I will see a flicker of blaze orange before I can even see a partial outline of another hunter. And even in poor light, that particular color seems to almost glow. Would mandatory blaze orange stop all hunting accidents? ..... clearly not. I doubt there is anyone who is calling it a total cure-all. But it sure is hard to argue that it doesn't aid in detecting humans in the line of fire. Does it need the force of law to get compliance? .... according to that chart, apparently so. There's apparently an awful lot of hunters out there that still like to play the odds with their lives.

No, the following pictures are not a botched gutting job. These are wounds that the deer had when I shot him. Clearly, those are not shotgun wounds. Fact is, I really don't know what had happened to him, but it looked like something had fed on him while he was still alive. But anyway, this also was a mercy killing.

Geez ... that looked like a nice comfy wooden easy-chair.

Shoot Betty the Yetti? Nope ... couldn't do it.

I love the seat in that third picture. Built for comfort!

Yeah, that was another weird thing about it. Climbing all the way up that killer hill just to make a whole bunch of noise during deer season. All I know is that if I had been hunting anywhere near them, I would have been hugging the ground ... lol. Maybe they just got super bored with not seeing any deer and decided to take it out on some trees. But like I said this isn't really an isolated incident. I've heard it during summer months and during several different bow seasons. On several occasions, there was groups of people that would spread out and walk across the hill blazing away like a bunch of crazy people. Meanwhile, I'm sitting in my blind hoping they don't come down my way. Doesn't exactly make you confident that any deer will hold to any natural patterns, or move in daylight hours .... lol. Apparently it is becoming a very popular thing to do. And remember this was not a .22. There was some real money being tossed away.

Oh yeah, but these guys were not aquiring any target at all. They were simply ripping off their shots as quickly as they could pull the trigger. After the first shot, I doubt they had any idea where the next ones were going. I hope they were not applying anything they were learning to actual hunting scenarios .... lol.

Just what we need .... another point of origin for the proliferation of these critters. No, I haven't heard anything yet about them showing up there. Hopefully it is kind of like the mountain lion sightings .... lol. Maybe it's like my experience years ago when I was bowhunting down in PA. I looked down across a small valley and saw something huge and pink. Checking it out with binoculars, it turned out to be a pig. We stopped into the farmers and asked if he had seen a pig wandering around, and he said it was one of his that escaped and that we should have shot it. When I was a kid we had a pig escape (they're awfully good at it). Anyway, this kind of thing may be the actual origins of some of these sightings. Not that domestic pigs can't be as much of a scourge as the wild ones.