Well this one really took off.......I saw LJ's post before I went shopping and now........wow.

Oddly enough, I tend to agree with everyone on the thread except that dumbass Bambi thing. Like Kendall, I'm a recovering hunter. I don't hunt anymore although I used to enjoy it a lot. When Mick describes it, I can relate....and I can relate to the hunter who wrote the poem in kat's post.

My friend Wayne hunts to put meat in the freezer. This year has been good and we too always share in Wayne's success and I have a freezer with a lot of venison in it. Neither of us is loaded with dough and frankly the deer stretches the food budget for both families. We butcher it ourselves and use damn near everything. Wayne also tans the pelts in the old way and has learned some taxidermy skills. He doesn't hunt for trophies, but on the occasion that he gets a nice one, he mounts the head too. He got a 13 point a few years ago that was a monster......wouldn't fit in the bed of the pickup!

All this to say that those who do and who do with responsibility are not the problem. Wayne bowhunts and spends many days out and for him there is no greater relaxation and pleasure. Where I have a problem is that short time that gun season occurs and especially the first day. There are more yahoos per acre than I can believe and around here it sounds like a friggin' war zone. One numbnuts cahsed a deer out of the woods and shot it next to a high fence bordering (and about 200 feet from) the elementary school! We have several shot on the first day and this year, a guy shot his wife before he left the house. The dumbass blasted a deer slug accidentally through his wall, grazing his wife in the head. She was in the kitchen, he in a bedroom. He also killed his microwave.

Spaw