Let’s be fair about dead things on cars (New Hampshire)

[DaiBando]

I usually post on the General and Political boards, but as an old hunter, I got a kick out of this common sense article. You gotta wonder about the guy that tried to hide his kid from reality. :barf:

http://www.theunionleader.com/articl...?article=16194

By JOHN HARRIGAN
Woods, Water and Wildlife

THIS IS the time of year when people are likely to see deer — dead deer — making their way down the road in the back of a pickup truck or atop an SUV. Twenty or 30 years ago this seasonal phenomenon didn’t seem to excite much interest, and was instead accepted as just another fact of life. Lately, however, things have changed.

Many of us probably remember the mini-controversy that erupted in Manchester last year when a distraught dad complained that he had to swerve onto side streets and duck into alleys so his kids wouldn’t be traumatized by the sight of dead deer on vehicles. The way he put it, he’d have had to take the kids in for counseling.

Among the more sensitive factions of lawmakers there was grim talk of passing a law against any display of a dead animal.

There are two things at play in this “displaying dead animals” thing, of course. One is that this just happens to be the easiest way to transport a 150-pound animal. Secondly, for many years it was Fish and Game law that hunters had to have at least part of a carcass in plain sight as they were driving down the road, to make checking licenses and tags easier. This law is long gone, but many hunters don’t know it.

I can hear legions of hunters out there thinking “So what? What’s the big deal with seeing a dead animal? Who cares?”

But some people do. And they are likely to be the same people who object to photos in the newspaper of happy hunters and their deer (or moose, or bears). They write vitriolic letters to the editor now and then, accusing the editor of being insensitive, irresponsible and anachronistic.

Now, the crew at my weekly newspaper in Colebrook has ready answers for this kind of complaint, which is blissfully rare. First, not all of the pictures we run are stereotype shots of men and their deer. Many are of moms, daughters, grandmothers, sisters, wives, and yes, granddaughters with their deer, all smiles and ready to help hack it up for the freezer and the kitchen.

Strange — we hardly ever get any complaints about those particular photos.

Second, we ask, how come it’s somehow “OK” for us to run pictures of little kids, all smiles, holding up big fish, but it’s not “OK” to do the same with a dead deer?

As I was driving down to town to do this column, a couple of rigs were parked at Ducret’s Store, waiting to have deer checked in and weighed. I stepped in to see about a problem with my old double twenty, and the room was full of happy talk and smiling faces.

Some of the trucks and SUVs not only had deer in or on them, but were also loaded with Christmas trees. This is not an unusual sight — hunters headed south with their deer, destined for the family supper table, and with their tree, destined for the livingroom.

But hey, the Christmas tree was alive once, too, and there it is, being brandished right in our collective faces. Where are the indignant protests, and the strident letters to the editor?

John Harrigan’s address: Box 39, Colebrook, N.H. 03576. E-mail: [email protected]

[TERRY8mm]

Thats right, as a practicing Druid, I demand that a law be passed that prevents people from slaughtering my ancesters.

I think the next time I see a Christmas tree on a rooftop I need to follow the vehicle and get their license number so my attorney can take the appropriate legal action. Someone needs to pay for my therapy, right?

[Art Eatman]

I'm just more than a little fed up with the numerous sensitive twits who work so hard at being offended by most anything which smacks of tradition.

Probably oughta name the last couple of decades and maybe the next two "The Age of the Offended". Personally, I find them offensive.

, Art

[redneck]

Man would I love to run into that jerk who's duckin into alleys and sidestreets (the whole way home from mcdonalds where they all enjoyed a nice big hunk of dead steer ) to protect his precious kids an their fragile little minds. Just think how much fun you could have with a guy that gets that upset about eveyday things!

I know I'm not the only one here to go outta their way to flatten a coon/possum/varmint crossin the road. Bonus points if you get em with the front and back wheels
Just think of the response if the treehugger with his mini van full of sheltered little brats got stuck behind ya on a country road at dusk. Dead deer in tow, swervin an squashin the whole way

[Art Eatman]

Well, now, if I saw somebody deliberately swerve to hit a critter, I'd just figure out how many feet of lead to hold. I'm charitable, however, going for the motor. Love to see folks walk. Good exercise, particularly from out in the boonies.

("Would he really do that?" "Hide and watch.")

, Art

[C.R.Sam]

I gotcher flank covered Art.

Sam

[redneck]

WEEeeelll Now....obviously somebody never had a whole stand of sweet corn destroyed by coons...in one night, before it was ready to pick.
An theres nothin quite like them frosty december mornings haulin hay into the racetrack. Climin up into a dark haymow, pullin a bale off the top of the stack. Instantly gettin showered with the 3 coons that felt the need to make a nest of it....or the pile of **** they left behind.
pest control is pest control if ya ask me, an 6000lbs of pickem up truck aint any less humane than shakey hands launchin lead at em. I don't aim to injure

But people do say my old ford's bullet proof, so you don't scare me
an if I ever am down around terlingua, maybe I'll limit myself to stray cats since your so fond of em

[one-shot-one]

i remeber the first deer my kids saw me butcher. brought it home to my garage and hung it from an old swing set frame i had. i started skining the buck with my 5yr old son and 4yr old daughter watching. daddy what are you going to do with that deer, asked the boy? cook it and eat it i said. EEEEEW from both of them. so i set down and explain, well what do you think chicken is (they had never made the connection between fried and whats walking around at the petting zoo! EEEEEW again, then what else do we eat? burgers=cattle, bacon/sasage=pigs, etc. they ate the venision and did not boycott mcd's, so i guess it did not scare them to bad!

[HankL]

As far as hauling dead kritters up and down the interstate in plain view do as you wish but in many areas there are more non hunters than hunters. Why give a bad impression and in the South, where it is usually warm, spoil your meat at the same time? I am lucky enough to have a skinning rack where I hunt so the meat is in a ice chest when I get on the road. I am also lucky enough not to need to transport the kritter to a checking station as we are not required to do so in MS.

As far as coons go, I can assure you that a 45 70 Govt. will spank one very badly No pictures But a 22 Subsonic will take care of the ones that are raiding Ms HankL's bird feeder

[Art Eatman]

HankL, there was a time when folks took it for granted that a proud hunter would hang his deer on a fender or whatever, just to show it off. We didn't have all these delicate little creatures who were offended by do-it-yourself food. Even the non-hunters smiled at your happiness over what you'd done.

In today's world, perception is all and reality sucks and too many people are offended by whatever's the latest fad against being offended.

redneck, I plowed behind a horse in about 19 and 40. The old BTDT deal. Coons in the corn, deer in the corn, possums and coons and foxes around the henhouse, along with chicken snakes and all that stuff. There's a reason why God invented .22 rifles and flashlights and strychnine paste. I'm just pretty much agin running over stuff on purpose. If nothing else, avoidance without wrecking is good practice for driving in traffic. Swerving to hit small critters just seems to be too much like henhouse ways...

Art

[redneck]

Hank
That is a good coon, they're so well behaved I even let the ones like that stay in my garden A 45 70 is an interesting proposition, I kind of wonder if it doesn't spank the shooter worse than the coon though

Now you went an done it Art. Its one thing to disagree but you don't accuse a man of belongin in the henhouse, thems borderin on fightin words. If your gonna tell me that killin a varmint when it presents itself isn't sporting, well who cares. Sporting isn't the idea of it. An as far as that bein hen house, I seem to remember a few remarks from you about a pan of chicken scratch outside the kitchen window....so just what color apron do you wear when you "hunt" that way?, probably nice to bake cookies an knit at the same time though...

And I never leave the road or do anything wild. Its more a matter of not trying to miss, and it was meant to be a joke for the most part anyway. So I'll leave it at that an not try to start an argument, probably said more than I should already.

So you don't bounce any slugs off big green (my truck) you KNOW you can't kill the old girl cause I already tried, an I won't tell anybody about that quilting bee you won

agreed?

[Art Eatman]

Well, that hen scratch in the yard keeps the house covey happy. And the doves. And the ravens, which is a trip in itself. The ravens "stalk" the grain; they'll peck and then leap three feet up and two feet back...

But you can't hunt house coveys within a couple of hundred yards or more of the house. Unfair.

The latest thing we've found to set out is super el cheapo dry dog food. Coyotes love it. They wander by for a late afternoon snack. (Picture attached of "Welfare in action".)

Naw, I'll happily do in varmints around a henhouse or field. Always have. Off away from home, I don't bother. Same for rattlesnakes. Around the house, shame on'em. Out in the boonies, hey, they're doing their thing.

But there ain't no King's X for feral cats...

I guess maybe "specific" is the word. I got nuthin' against coons in general; just when they're directly a problem.

Ever hook a bale of hay in the barn and have it buzz at you? That can get exciting.

, Art

[redneck]

Buzzin Bales of Hay! I'm assumin that goes back to the rattlesnakes? No I haven't experienced that, praise the lord. Snakes aren't quite the problem up here. Most volatile thing we had come through the baler was 2 skunks, one of em must have been blessed cause he survived the plunger, knife, an knot tier. Got hung up in the chute and made things mighty miserable for the guy on the wagon , an the next couple hundred bales of straw didn't smell so nice
Did have one fun incident with snakes. Had a new guy (city boy) sendin bales up the elevator. Me an another guy were in the hay mow, when all of the sudden the bales stop comin. I climb up to look out the door thinkin somethins wrong, and before I can even look out the new kid is scramblin up the ladder yellin that theres a snake on the wagon.
"probably a garder snake, whats the big deal?"

new kid: what should I do with it?

"put it in your pocket and we'll take it back to the field, we don't like to take them away from their family..."

New kid: uh, OK!

So we sat there thinkin we were going to get back to work, only the bales don't start comin again. So I climb up to the door and look out again, and this kids crawlin around in the hay chaff on the ground lookin for the snake!

"what the #$%# are you doing?"

New kid: I can't catch him!



good thing this aint texas, I might have got the boy killed.

[P-990]

Dang weenies won't let their kids see dead animals!! What is wrong with this world?

Like my gf's friend who went to the Army and was supposedly "messed up" by seeing somebody get shot and killed with an M-16. Argh!! What a bunch of sheltered people in this world! Never seen anything killed by a gun before. Luckily, a few of us have an understanding about what these things (firearms) do. Do it every fall!

[Art Eatman]

I remember the TV coverage of the war in Vietnam, and listening to people talking about the carnage that was often shown.

I was startled that so many people had never really given even a moment's thought to the fact that bullets and explosives don't just kill all clean and nice like a Hollywood flick. They just really do HURT! Wounds are gory and yucky, and folks don't just sit around in silent suffering, they scream!

I think maybe it's the same sort of denial of reality about hunting. People hate to believe that their food comes from the same general process. They hate to see that open body cavity that's left from gutting, among other things. "That's all yucky!"

Art

[MeekAndMild]

But hey, the Christmas tree was alive once, too, and there it is, being brandished right in our collective faces. Where are the indignant protests, and the strident letters to the editor?

Believe it or not I saw a cartoon in (I believe-all these rags look alike) the Atlantic magazine showing a guy with a Christmas tree on his SUV roof, dripping blood. Then a few pages over was a full page advertisement complaining about logging killing trees.

[Poodleshooter]

Believe it or not I saw a cartoon in (I believe-all these rags look alike) the Atlantic magazine showing a guy with a Christmas tree on his SUV roof, dripping blood. Then a few pages over was a full page advertisement complaining about logging killing trees.

HA! That's nothing. My inlaws bleed trees on purpose, then boil down the blood so I can pour it on my pancakes!

[MeekAndMild]

Eww! Gross! Tree blood!

Back to the original topic, I think that the "distraught dad" in question should be investigated for child abuse, as swerving a car full of kids and running it down back alleys is clearly irresponsible behavior.

[HankL]

Art, I'm with you 200% about being proud of taking a good trophy and showing it off. Unfortunately, the idiots who load their 4 wheelers, complete with strapped on 90 lb. gut shot, blood dripping nannie, up in their trucks and drive down major roads and highways does us no good.

The world needs to be a more kind and gentle place. We should only spank raccoon with a 45 70 in private, while taking a varmit coon from the birdfeeder is fine as long as a .22 rf is used.

redneck, wish I had a picture!

MeekAndMild, I agree.

[redneck]

Wish you had a picture too

About this taking pride in a good trophy.... I trapped 16 coons an one possum last summer (an actually got to eat all the sweet corn I wanted for once!). Would it have been considered taking pride to mount them on sticks in a sort of "beaches of normandy re-enactment" display along the front of the garden, rather than bury them in the garden? What with the garden already bein planted I had to get creative on findin spots for all of em after awhile. Mellons sure grow good with coons buried head to tail around the base of em, 14 off one vine


I always enjoy seein a nice deer in the bed of a truck. Generally the truck is travelling safely in a straight line down the road, which tends to give the impression that the guy wasn't drunk when he shot it (assuming it hasn't been in there very long). Got a few neighbors that can't do anything with out a beer in their hand, an they're the ones that are the self professed great white hunters, an bring all their buddies from town out. Makes me avoid the woods at all cost, an I don't like turning the horses out this week either. Got alot of good neighbors that are responsible hunters too, just a few bad apples.

[stephen_g22]

My only complaint about people hauling their deer for the world to see is when the deer is on a hitch hauler on the back of a Surburban soaking up exhaust fumes on a 80 degree November afternoon for the 5 hour trip from the Texas Hill Country to Houston.

Then these same hunters say their deer tastes "gamey."

Also some of the processors around Houston mix all the venison together so you get some of the Surburban marinated venison along with your venison that you carefully quartered and packed in ice. Not that I use those processors.



On a side note. This morning, I picked up 55 rings of jalapeno venison sausage from my opening weekend doe processed by the City Market in Schluenberg, TX. mmmm mmmm

[Art Eatman]

Schulenberg? That's sure the right part of the country for sausage making. If you know any of the Fertsch clan from around Hallettsville, they're my kin.

I guess what I've seen is the combination of environmentalism, urbanization and affluence leading to a lot of folks out in huntin' country who never really "learned how". Some of them drink when they shouldn't, or don't think about exhaust vs. deer, and don't really understand the ethics of the hunt.

For all we gripe, though, the doofus crowd seems to be a minority...

Art

[MeekAndMild]

Would it have been considered taking pride to mount them on sticks in a sort of "beaches of normandy re-enactment" display along the front of the garden, rather than bury them in the garden?

Har! My uncle always used to shoot the first crow of the season in his garden and hang its body up where the other crows could see it. He had zero crow problem the rest of the summer. I don't know if coons are as smart as crows.

Concerning deer on top of the truck, they are a lot less gruesome than 10,000 love bugs smashed on the windshield!

[OkieGentleman]

You might be interested in the German hunting laws about stray cats.

Any hunter seeing a domestic cat more than 100 yards from the nearest house is required by law to shoot it. If he doe not shoot the cat and someone sees him not shoot it, he can be fined a nice hefty fine and lose the license that it took him maybe several years of nite school and $5,000 to $10,000 for class room fees to get.

If you ever have a chance to talk to a German hunter buy him beer and pump him for info until you slide under the table. Those guys are super hunters that know their stuff.

[Art Eatman]

Okie, I don't know if the law has been repealed, but at one time the State of Wisconsin had a similar law on the books. Obviously not really enforceable in this day of rule by media and opinion polls.

This law was mentioned in an article on the state study concerning feral cats and their impact on songbirds. As many as one million feral cats in the state, and as many as 100 songbirds per year per cat...

Art