Late season hunting

Yesterday the weather was actually quite nice with the ambient temperature in the low twenties so getting out with Cookie for some pheasant hunting was a no brainer. I’ve only got a few more days of hunting available and I like to get out at least an hour or two each day but we’ve got a storm coming in tonight and tomorrow might be a little “iffy” for hunting, but day after tomorrow should be good for an hour or two in the afternoon.
I’m enjoying these last few days of the season and every time I go hunting Cookie is locating birds for me but the deepening snow and severe cold is putting a lot of stress on the birds. I don’t know how many of you live in parts of the country where weather can stress the birds but here in North Dakota it is a real problem and hunters need to think about that stress when planning late season hunting. As the season progresses I prefer to go a bit farther from popular hunting areas and hunt smaller, less likely looking patches of cover. These bits of cover seldom hold more than two or three birds but Cookie and I both get some exercise and the birds seem to hold a little tighter and I can get a shot or two. Hunting a popular area that is known for its pheasants is usually a lesson in frustration because the birds will flush wild, frustrating the dog and leaving my game bag empty.
The season will end on January 4 and after that it will be a long spring and summer. glg

A Brush With Nature

I’ve lost count of the number of continuous days of sub-zero weather here in North Dakota. I do know the weather turned cold enough to freeze the sloughs and drive the waterfowl south earlier than I expected and the bitter cold has cut into my upland bird hunting. Over the past three weeks we’ve also had our share of snow storms and now that winter is officially here we can expect more of the same for two more months.
Severe winter weather is the norm for North Dakota. I know there are other parts of the country, like upstate New York, that get hammered with much more snow but we get a combination of wind, snow, and more wind with sub-zero temperatures that will quickly kill anyone who underestimates nature’s brutality. I came close to making that mistake earlier this week.
The weather was finally clear, the wind was averaging 10 mph and the ambient air temperature was only about -10 (F) and I knew that the pheasant were holed up in the thick cattails of the frozen sloughs. After loading Cookie, my possibles bag, shotgun and two vacuum bottles of coffee (a small one for my bag) I was ready to go. Because I live in North Dakota I maintain a survival kit in each of our vehicles and that kit includes some high calorie survival food. I was not worried about needing the survival kit because the drive to where I intended to hunt ringnecks was less than 25 miles. Secondly, I would be less than a hundred yards from the road because I would hunt the cattails and frozen sloughs that bordered country roads.
Everything was going well and Cookie had pointed two birds (both hens) and she was getting birdy on another and I was sure it was a rooster (gut feeling). I decided to cut across what appeared to be open ground so I could angle to where Cookie was pushing the bird (did you know that pheasant will run under the snow). If everything worked right the rooster would flush at a right angle and I’d have a good shot. Cookie had already crossed the open snow once and I had taken several steps when suddenly I was in snow up to my hips and I knew that I could quickly flounder.
The commotion panicked the pheasant (a rooster) and it flushed in what would have been an easy shot except I was preoccupied with getting out of the snow. There was no way I could walk out so I worked around until I could swim out of the snow drift. While I struggled Cookie was barking furiously at me and once grabbed at my sleeve. (Was she trying to help?) It took me several minutes and by the time I was on solid ground I was exhausted. I pulled myself up so I could conserve my body heat while I ate a couple of glucose tablets and topped that with a small cup of coffee from my little thermos. After catching my breath and regaining some internal heat I pushed myself to my feet and walked, with Cookie at heel, back to my Suburban. I unloaded my shotgun, loaded Cookie and my bag in the back and then I pushed myself into the driver’s seat and started the truck to let it warm up while I drank more coffee and fished an energy bar out of the survival kit. The total exercise of the walk around the frozen slough, through the cattails and ultimately getting out of the snow drift had lasted less than thirty minutes. The wind chill was -28 which meant that had I spent much longer struggling in the snow drift I would have been flirting with serious frost bite. Fortunately I got out with nothing more than snow under my hunting coat and in my pockets.
This short flirt with the truth about nature sent me a wake up call—I wasn’t paying attention to the elements around me. This is something that we (hunters) need to remind ourselves of every season. As the season passes we sometimes become complacent about the elements that are nature and we make mistakes. Hunters cannot afford mistakes because nature does not let us beat her, we just escape—occasionally.
Stay safe when you hunt the closing weeks of the seasons.

Getting Colder and Answering a question

Our weather has turned bitter cold, which is the norm for this country, and it tends to cut down on the number of people willing to get out and hunt. I, for one, prefer to hunt the cold weather because the birds will sit longer. I’ve had Cookie out in some areas where I know there are no deer hunters but we haven’t had much success. On Thursday I am going to try and devote most of the day to bird hunting for both grouse and pheasant. For my money I like to hunt upland birds when there is about four inches of soft snow in the ground. They won’t flush as wild as they will when there is no snow, even when the weather is cold. I’ll let you know if we have any success. In the meantime you can get a chuckle out of Cookie relaxing in front of the wood burning stove. I don’t close the dogs up in the kennel (you can see the door behind her) but let them roam through my office. I suppose some people might not find a shop converted to office, with a dog kennel at one end, comfy but I do.

Recently I was in a discussion with a non-hunter (as opposed to anti-hunter) and this simple question was put to me: “if hunting is not necessary to obtain food then why is hunting allowed?” My answer was that “hunting has, for many people, a psychological value that is important to their well-being. Also, the protection of the right to hunt, more specifically the choice about whether to participate in hunting or not to participate, is often equally important to the non-hunter as a guarantee of the recognition of fundamental rights which therefore provides them with a sense of well-being.” The person who asked me the question, actually an elderly individual, nodded and said that was good enough for him. Is it truly good enough? Can we actually reduce ourselves, as hunters, to 75+ words? I’ve been working on a very complex series of essays for Whitetails Unlimited (http://www.whitetailsunlimited.com/) that will be addressing this issue of who we are as hunters. In my research for this series, my graduate work at UND, and continuing work as a critical thinking hunting writer (as least I hope so and is that word order correct? Norcal?) I’ve found that as complex as hunting is, and the more it is truly examined, it plays a much larger positive role in our well-being, whether we are hunters or non-hunters, than the pop-shrinks (who, for some reason, are generally anti-hunting) are willing to admit. Doesn’t that beg the question of what are they actually afraid of in the hunter or the person who is a non-hunter but actually supports it? I would really like to crawl inside their minds for a look around!

Isn’t thinking fun!? glg

Last Day, End of Day Opportunity Or......?

The end of day western sky was a brilliant pattern of washed orange, purple and fiery red that seemed to be kissing the sun goodbye after another glorious autumn day. My short walk from the hide I had made for myself in the treeline was between a field of standing corn and a plowed field. I’d parked my Suburban on the ridge of the rise in the countryside and beyond the truck was another treeline that paralleled the road. I really wasn’t too disappointed in my failure to shoot a deer because my step-son, Michael, had killed a fat, dry doe and that deer was hanging in my garage. I had promised Michael I’d skin and butcher the deer. All-in-all I was content. As I cleared the treeline and could see into the plowed field I stopped and froze. Two deer were in the open field. They were not in silhouette because of the rise of the ground but their forms were clearly visible and they were, so far, unaware of my presence and they were within range of my muzzleloader.
I found myself trying to decide whether to take a shot at the larger deer. It was a big doe with her yearling offspring and she would put a good amount of venison in my freezer. There was one problem—it was now about fifteen minutes past legal shooting time even though I could still see the deer. I could shoot the large doe and I was pretty sure there wouldn’t be a problem because the wildlife officers were seldom in this area so in truth I was on my own. The decision to obey both the letter and spirit of the law or shoot a deer in the last few minutes of light was mine alone.
I sighted in on the big doe and ultimately caved in to the ethics that were tugging at my hunting shirt and I didn’t shoot. I took two more steps and the deer saw my movement and took off with their tails flashing in the fading light. When I reached my truck I used my binoculars to scan the area around me and I couldn’t see a parked vehicle or one on any of the roads. I probably could have shot and tagged the deer then loaded it in my truck without anyone caring—except me. It is not that I walk to a higher moral standard than any other hunter but as with all hunters it is often when we are alone that we find ourselves being asked to honor the ethics of hunting—when no one will ever see us do it.
Interesting, isn’t it. Glg
PS Any of you who are interested can read a feature about Cookie (my dog) and her first retrieve of a Giant Canada Goose. The story is in the December, 2008 issue of Family Fish & Game magazine. www.familyfishandgame.com

Lead in Venison

Last summer I wrote an article about the issue of lead in venison for Whitetails Unlimited magazine (Fall, 2008, www.whitetailsunlimited.com). I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the issue but last March (2008), a North Dakota dermatologist, Dr. William Cornatzer, conducted a series of CT (CAT) scans of ground venison. (These tests are now known as the Cronatzer Tests.) The scans revealed tiny particles of lead in the venison (the photo is one of the CT images of the ground venison) and a result was that several health departments panicked and ordered several tons (that’s right—tons) of venison stocked by food pantries throughout several states to be destroyed. At the same time North Dakota requested that the Center for Disease Control conduct a study of hunters and non-hunters to determine if there is any evidence of elevated levels of lead among those who consume venison. When the results were finally published the CDC results did show that those who regularly eat venison do have an elevated amount of lead in their blood. But, and this is important, the amount of lead is negligible and should not be of any concern because it is not dangerous. Except, and this is the exception that proves the rule, any amount of lead, even an amount that is otherwise of no threat, can be a danger to women who are pregnant or to very small children.

The venison in lead issue is interesting because it is a very polarizing issue. Within the hunting industry an immediate, knee-jerk reaction has been to claim that the issue has been manufactured by the Peregrine Falcon Fund and other far left organizations as a means to ban lead hunting ammunition. Others in the industry maintain that there is absolutely no credible evidence to support the theory of lead in venison. I disagree with both. In researching the WU article I read the results of seven different studies on whether lead appears in venison. Admittedly most of these studies were focused on the lead question as it relates to raptors but the results are the same for both hunters and raptors—big game that is shot by hunters does have some lead particles in it. At least that is how I read the results of the various studies. When the ammunition manufacturers are asked about the lead issue they maintain that it cannot happen but when I asked a gunsmith if it can occur his answer was to weigh a bullet before shooting it into ballistic compound or an animal carcass then weigh all the parts of the bullet you can recover. “The amount of lead you recover will not equal the original weight. Where did it go?” His point is made.

There is no reason for anyone to panic and quit hunting or even to switch from their favorite ammunition—just exercise a little common sense. First, be sure your marksmanship is up to the task of a one shot kill and place your bullet in the heart/lung area and not the heavy meat areas of the shoulder. Second, before butchering your deer be sure to cut away the wound channel and don’t use any of the meat near the channel. You will not be able to see any lead particulates, they are microscopic. You could also be a true conservationist and if you hunt in an area that is home habitat for any threatened raptors hunt with non-lead ammunition, whether hunting upland game birds or big game you’ll be helping wildlife.
glg

I cut my deer hunting teeth on mule deer even though I grew up in Oklahoma where today whitetail deer are like fleas (as they are in many parts of the country). There were no deer around my hometown in the 50s through 70s and to hunt deer we drove 557 miles to Cañon City, Colorado. I was 12 when I went on my first deer hunt and although I was not allowed to carry a rifle the experience stayed with me. Sometimes, when I am tired of seeing my words on this screen, I slip the DVD of home movies into my computer and skip through it until I reach that deer hunt then I sit back to watch and relive it. Twenty-plus years after that hunt, in 1988, I wrote a short story titled “Coming Home” which is about coming home from the Vietnam War in 1969 and being unable to shoot a rabbit. It was another nine years after the rabbit hunt in that story before I could again hunt.
Now I live as close to my hunting as possible and on many of the days I don’t hunt I do something that is, in some way, associated with hunting.
This evening I went whitetail hunting and spent the last 45 minutes of shooting light sitting near a slough some deer call home. I’m hunting for the kitchen not the wall so I’m looking for a big, dry doe but today the only thing I watched was a jackrabbit and a true trophy whitetail buck.
Trophy hunting is an interesting issue. Some people detest it and others are wild about it. If you want to learn about successful trophy whitetail hunts you might want to get a copy of the 2001 book Legendary Whitetails II (Legendary Whitetails II: Stories and Photos of 40 More of the Greatest Bucks of all Time). This is a collection of 40 stories about some of the greatest whitetail bucks ever killed by hunters. The stories are fascinating looks into trophy hunting and the hunters dedicated to it. For many years I loudly opposed trophy hunting until several biologists told me those trophy hunters are important to opening the gene pool and insuring healthy herds of deer, especially in areas where the deer tend to concentrate. Okay, I can buy that argument.
I've even learned a few things from the stories in that book, however, because my deer hunting began with mule deer I have accumulated several shelves of books on whitetail hunting and a book that I actually refer to for sound advice was written by Dave Richey back in 1986 and reprinted by Lyons Press in 2001. Richey’s book, The Ultimate Guide to Deer Hunting (The Ultimate Guide to Deer Hunting: Tips and Tactics for Every Situation), has helped me transition my thinking from only hunting mule deer to successfully hunting whitetail deer. It is just a good good book on deer hunting and it has lasted because it is good.
Both of these books are about big deer—trophy deer. Maybe you don’t agree with the idea of trophy deer hunting and you are like me, hunting for the freezer. On the other hand I’ve never met a hunter who did not stop to marvel at a trophy buck and it isn’t uncommon to see a little green in the eyes of most meat hunters.
Whether you meat or trophy hunt I hope you have a great and safe season.
glg
PS Next Blog I want to talk about lead in venison. I wrote an article on this subject for Whitetails Unlimited magazine and it is worth reading. I have my views and they are not popular with some people in the world of hunting.

Back from Woodcutting

Whew! The last two weeks have been a nightmare of too much work! We have been having some really outstanding weather and I had to take the opportunity to get ready for winter. Besides, for some strange reason the waterfowl that normally hang around this area until the sloughs and lakes are frozen have all left early. Without ducks and geese to hunt I decided to cut my winter’s supply of firewood. I have a wood burning box stove in my office and it is something that keeps me warm in both body and mind.
I am sure that most people would have been able to cut and split the same amount of firewood in a quarter of the time it took me but I work a lot slower than most people. I enjoy the exercise, the feeling of being closer to our world and in winter’s depths there is a connection that I truly enjoy. Unfortunately my writing (here and elsewhere) suffered while I cut firewood. Each day I came home, put Cookie in her kennel, put away my tools, showered, ate dinner and fell into bed! Now my wood is cut, split, stacked and I’m ready for winter—until something else comes along that must be done before the mercury plummets! Until then I’m back at work, only to be interrupted by fishing or hunting! Which will be every day!

A Friend Is Gone

I don’t know how many of you knew of the outdoor writer and broadcaster Tony Dean. He was very well known in the upper tier states and over his career won dozens of awards in broadcasting and writing. For sportsmen Tony Dean was more than a great source of information about where and when to go fishing and hunting, he was a tireless advocate of the rights of hunters and a proponent of maintaining the Conservation Reserve Program. Last week we lost Tony to complications following an appendectomy. Tony was only 67 and our world is a lot poorer without him.
glg