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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

keith bellinger wrote:
> Our season opened a week and a half ago, with my management unit 
> insisting on antlered deer only the first five days. I didn't buy a 
> doe tag anyway so no problem there, except the buck must have a 
> minimum of three points on at least one antler. I passed up a legal 
> one opening day and am beginning to regret not wanting my season to 
> end so quickly. He used to be an eight-point but had one antler 
> broken off to about three inches high; I'd take him now. On Tuesday I
>  shot at a six-point and don't know how I missed. Wednesday I saw a 
> four-point and let him pass. Other than them I've counted over fifty 
> deer. It's pouring rain right now and I am completely soaked to the 
> skin. The chimney needs cleaning so we let the fire go out this 
> morning and it is cold in here. Not as cold as sitting in the woods 
> when the temperature is twenty-two but cold. :)
>
> Bev, I'd love to compare journal notes. A gray squirrel almost ran up
>  my leg this morning. A grouse in full ruff strutted across my path 
> the other day. I almost dropped my rifle and chased a small flock of 
> turkey poults they were so close. :)
TJ has had a squirrel jump across his leg...
I've never seen a grouse, and wonder if we have them here.  I will have
to look that up.
I think I might have gone for the poults, too!  There is a small stand
of pines on the hill next to where I sit and turkeys often roost there.
 As you know, deer and turkey often move together, so I always come to
extreme attention if I hear a turkey.  They don't usually gobble, and
they are about as silent as a deer as they walk through the woods, but
you can hear them fly up into the trees to roost..Unmistakeable whoop,
whoop whoop of their wings fighting the air into submission.
It poured here last night, and while it is not raining now, it is
miserable out, and I don't think it is over.  I don't know if I
mentioned this, but the DNR is closing all of the state WMA's.  There
will be no more managed hunts(I've never been on a WMA hunt anyway, I
have always hunted from my house or back pasture/woods-we are part of
the WMA/NF and I never figured the deer to know where the boundaries
were..lol)  Apparently, it is a funding issue.  The downside of this,
for me, is that now, with no WMA next year, people will be able to hunt
in the NF with no oversight, and like the deer, they won't know where my
property line is, so people could actually be hunting on my land.  Now,
I have to get some signs and tacky up the woods by the ravine....sucks.

I was thinking about this last night, actually, that while I have missed
maybe 2 opportunities to hunt, that really, I've done pretty good to get
out there and watch and wait. Our season opened in October and closes
the first week of January..there's a limit of 12 and I believe this year
they can all be does.  That makes it easy for people like me who don't
see well to get something in the freezer. :)

For those that don't hunt, you don't go hunting in the rain. The deer
generally don't move because the rain overpowers their senses.  They
hunker down under a tree or in a thicket and try to stay dry.

Bev
--
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering.”        Yoda