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Post by Chesapeake on Nov 24, 2019 15:02:32 GMT -5
I spent some time in Canada's High Arctic in the mid-'90s for a story I was writing for the National Geographic News Service about the indigenous Inuit people of Nunavut, formerly the Northwest Territories. When you go that far north (think Ellesmere Island), hunting and fishing (seal, caribou, musk oxen, and char), are critically important for sustaining life. They don't have any Macdonaldses up there. In fact, whatever food they don't catch has to be flown in, and that's expensive.
Their technique for getting seal is to stand hunched over a breathing hole in the ice that the animals have maintained as the water has frozen over for the winter, and wait for one to come along and poke his nose up into it. The hunters are incredibly patient, and sometimes wait for long periods of time in their hunched-over position - itself an iconic image of life in the North.
When their patience is rewarded, the hunter plunges a steel harpoon into it. He secures the line so the seal won't drift away, quickly widens the hole by chipping out the ice, and hauls it up. It must be butchered on the spot because otherwise, by the time they get back home, the carcass likely would be frozen. The whole thing is like working in an open-air deep-freezer.
This all makes quite a blood spatter on the ice. One of my vivid recollections of that assignment was watching the blood spurt out of a seal when it was landed. They make great high arcs in the air, like a fountain, with every failing heartbeat.
Kind of gruesome, but every catch is a cause for celebration. One adult seal can feed an Inuit family (and their dogs) for a long time.
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Post by Chesapeake on Nov 24, 2019 15:23:14 GMT -5
A P.S. to the above: The hunters made a seal stew for all of us one night at their cabin by the frozen lake. Their sled dogs were staked out on the ice outside and howling at the full moon. Real Jack London stuff. The stew was the tastiest I've ever had of any kind, but they would only let me have one cupful because of the vit. A toxicity of seal meat, especially the liver. to those who aren't used to it. They guzzled the whole pot.
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Post by epaul on Nov 24, 2019 16:42:41 GMT -5
Sounds vaguely familiar.
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Post by david on Nov 24, 2019 20:20:25 GMT -5
Paul, did you have to spear that 10 inch fish and anchor it to one of those trees on shore?
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 24, 2019 21:16:16 GMT -5
These parts, there are two primary approaches to deer hunting. Deer stands: Put a stand up at the edge of a clearing or meadow. Wait for a deer to show. Driving: One or two fellows will set up "post" at one end of a woods. The remainder of the hunting group will walk the woods beginning at the other side of the woods. If the plan works, a deer will be 'driven' from the cover in the woods and provide a shot for a fellow posting. A poster that misses an easy shot or makes a difficult on will be roasted or feted at the deer camp come evening (and sometimes for years). You've just describe the two types of deer hunting we have around here. The one I'm OK with, and the one that I can't stand. Or, the kind who are allowed in our timber and the kind who are not. Alan, I didn't know you could bait deer down there. That's a huge no-no around here.
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Post by lar on Nov 25, 2019 9:44:55 GMT -5
The hunt is on in Wisconsin as well. I heard on the radio this morning that the DNR has issued well over 100,000 deer tags this year.
Around here everybody gets in their 4X4s and they all head up to the north woods. Deer stands seem to be the most common method. I have known a number of people though who just tramped through the woods until they saw a deer and then blasted away.
Deer camps up north are legendary. Most are within driving distance of little towns. The taverns eagerly await hunting season every year because they know they will do as much business in a couple of weeks as they do the rest of the year. Many of the taverns bring in strippers just for the hunt.
I've never been much of a hunter anyway but I've never had the urge to join the Wisconsin deer harvest. Our hunters are will known for their love of a little schnapps while they hunt. Heading into the woods with a 100,000 or so other guys all armed with guns and flasks doesn't seem like much of a recipe for a long life.
A friend of mine, who is in his early 60s seems to have resolved the dilemma of the older hunter quite nicely. He and his wife moved up to Door County, WI last year. They have a beautiful 3,500 square foot house on 5 wooded acres butting up against Green Bay. He's posted his land so he's the only one who hunts there. Last year he walked out of his back door to go hunting and a big buck stepped out of the woods right in front of him. And that was that. He had his deer.
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Post by majorminor on Nov 25, 2019 10:19:23 GMT -5
I sometimes forget and take for granted how fortunate we are here in Montana. For edible big game we have moose, elk, sheep, antelope, and both mule deer and white tail. While some species have limited tags and quotas for certain hunting areas for the most part one just buys an over the counter deer and/or elk A tag and finds a piece of public land to go hunt. So for about $150 a year I can hunt elk and deer and upland birds and fish the rivers and lakes legally. Not bad.
Last year and this year I decided I would just hunt casually up behind the house. Pretty much walk my normal 3-4 mile exercise loop but carry a .270 and wear an orange vest. Last year the elk were thick around the place and I wound up shooting a nice little 5x5 bull elk. This year nuttin' so far.
Last years funny story. On a lanyard around my neck I carry a little call for mimicing a cow elk. If I get in to a place where I might make a little noise I try to sound "not too human" with my footfalls and will occasionally make a little cow elk mew with the call. I've selected this call carefully out of several and practiced quite a bit with it so I can reliably make a perfect little as seen on TV "mew" sound with it. My first time out last year I'm slow walking up the trail and down to my right in a brushy creek bottom I hear this distorted erratic cow mew with a comical broken and ragged gurgle mixed in. I thinks to myself "man that guy need to practice his cow call a lot more". I decide I'm going to peek over the edge to see if I can see the guy and of course there is a little herd of 10 or so cow elk standing there looking up at me. I squat down behind a bush and they come up and stroll past me single file at 50 yards. No bull though.
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Post by dradtke on Nov 25, 2019 14:09:47 GMT -5
Deer camps up north are legendary. Most are within driving distance of little towns. The taverns eagerly await hunting season every year because they know they will do as much business in a couple of weeks as they do the rest of the year. Many of the taverns bring in strippers just for the hunt. That reminds me of the hunter who returned from a week deer hunting and complained to his wife that she hadn't packed his spare socks. She told him she packed them in his gun case.
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Post by dradtke on Nov 25, 2019 14:11:46 GMT -5
A friend of mine, who is in his early 60s seems to have resolved the dilemma of the older hunter quite nicely. He and his wife moved up to Door County, WI last year. They have a beautiful 3,500 square foot house on 5 wooded acres butting up against Green Bay. He's posted his land so he's the only one who hunts there. Last year he walked out of his back door to go hunting and a big buck stepped out of the woods right in front of him. And that was that. He had his deer. When Greg Brown built his cabin in Iowa, he said he wanted to live somewhere he could hunt for both deer and turkey from his back porch.
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Post by TKennedy on Nov 25, 2019 17:40:17 GMT -5
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 25, 2019 18:34:13 GMT -5
Interesting post, Terry. Yes, it is a goofy world. A friend of mine, who is in his early 60s seems to have resolved the dilemma of the older hunter quite nicely. He and his wife moved up to Door County, WI last year. They have a beautiful 3,500 square foot house on 5 wooded acres butting up against Green Bay. He's posted his land so he's the only one who hunts there. Last year he walked out of his back door to go hunting and a big buck stepped out of the woods right in front of him. And that was that. He had his deer. When Greg Brown built his cabin in Iowa, he said he wanted to live somewhere he could hunt for both deer and turkey from his back porch. Some of you know Brian Parr of Vinton. He was in involved in the interior of the cabin after it was built. Unfortunately for Greg, who had planned to go elsewhere until the interior was done, it was right after 9/11 and he couldn't fly anywhere. So he stayed while they worked on the house. That's the end of Brian's narrative, as he tells a short story. I assume they all got along well, as I do know the work got done.
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Post by AlanC on Nov 25, 2019 20:22:48 GMT -5
3rd day of the 2019 season and it has been a resounding success so far. Meaning that Killer hasn't shot anything and I haven't had to drag, & gut, & skin, & chop into pieces some poor unfortunate Bambi.
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Post by epaul on Nov 25, 2019 20:32:29 GMT -5
There some sensationalized bullshit in this article. There is nothing "genetically engineered" about selective breeding (using the best examples for studs). Genetic engineering is a defined term with a meaning that apparently escapes this writer. And what the hell is "genetic turbocharging"? By bastardizing the term "genetic engineering" and then following it with the emotive but nonsensical bullshit term "genetic turbocharging" this writer has shown his colors, he is more interested in cheaply sensationalizing his topic than clearly and fairly explicating it. Applying terms such as "genetic engineering" and "genetic turbocharging" to a ten-thousand-year-old breeding process that has brought us beefsteak tomatoes, dwarf ponies, and goldfish is cheap sensationlism and is playing to the fears of the ignorant. The same time honored breeding process that brought us large, well-marbled Angus beef cows has been applied to the deer stocking this guy's hunting farm. It is plain old selective line breeding, no made up mumbo jumbo genetic turbocharging or genetic engineering involved, just keeping the best bucks of each generation for stud and selecting for big antlers and good size. Nor is there any genetic engineering or turbo-charging involved with feeding an animal well, protecting it from the vicissitudes of the wild, and allowing it to grow into a ripe, full maturity. Confusion and ignorance abounds on this topic, it is a shame this article only compounds it. Repeat there is no "genetic engineering" or "genetic turbocharging" going on with this deer farm. The guy is just breeding for big deer the same way others have breed for big cows, big dogs, and chickens with white feathers and a proclivity for egg laying. But, hey, let's light a fire here ... "It ain't natural I tell ya, it ain't natural. The devil is involved with this"
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 25, 2019 20:39:49 GMT -5
majorminor, that reminds me of duck hunting and being disdainful of a nearby hunter's call. So I walked over to see what doofus was making such a ridiculous noise and spooked a group of ducks which flew off, disdaining my birdshot.
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Post by TKennedy on Nov 25, 2019 21:32:48 GMT -5
Thanks for clearing that up epaul. Seriously. I was OK with the selective breeding thing. I thought paying big bucks to shoot them in a fenced arena was kind of weird.
I mean how can you really brag to your friends about a trophy like that? Maybe I am missing something.
Quite a while back we got asked to play for an event at a place near Alexandria that I thought looked like kind of a rural gentleman's club. Big lodge with bedrooms, nice bar and dining room and out buildings.
I noticed some pens with pheasants in them. The guy there told me that people pay to stay there and hunt. They go out and plant the pheasants, sometimes spinning them around by their legs first so they are a little dizzy. The clients and their dogs then would go out and shoot them.
The dogs were frequently sent away to a trainer by their owners. (in fact a well known Lab trainer in Morris MN was one of my patients and he had a ton of wealthy clients all over the country.)
The lodge would clean and cook them for dinner.
It was my first introduction to a game farm.
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Post by Cornflake on Nov 25, 2019 21:40:28 GMT -5
The only time I encountered one, Terry, I also found it distasteful.
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Post by Chesapeake on Nov 25, 2019 22:27:51 GMT -5
My father was a North Carolina farmboy who became a civil engineer, but had a lifelong love of poetry. This icon of Victorian sentimentality, with its slightly anti-hunter bent, he knew by heart.
To a Waterfowl
BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.
Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chaféd ocean side?
There is a Power, whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,— The desert and illimitable air Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned, At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere; Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o’er thy sheltered nest.
Thou’rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form, yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must trace alone, Will lead my steps aright.
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Post by John B on Nov 25, 2019 22:31:28 GMT -5
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Post by Village Idiot on Nov 25, 2019 22:45:56 GMT -5
majorminor, that reminds me of duck hunting and being disdainful of a nearby hunter's call. So I walked over to see what doofus was making such a ridiculous noise and spooked a group of ducks which flew off, disdaining my birdshot. About ten years ago I bought a moth-eaten taxidermied Canada goose at a second hand store for a buck, knowing my duck-hunting neighbor would have fun with it. And he did. He placed the thing on a sandbar, sat back and watched. Blam, Blam, Blam! Some idiot thought it was alive despite the fact that it's head was on backwards, it was missing most of its feathers and it was sitting on an wood pedestal. After it got blasted to pieces the hunter went to retrieve it, picked it up, looked at it, and tossed it into the river.
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Post by Chesapeake on Nov 25, 2019 23:00:13 GMT -5
VI, that's hysterical.
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