The second day of the month of Santa's Emergence

I have been neglectful of the blog due to a long weekend of travel and an operation on my better half's foot.  Some extensive surgery there, but a way too short stay with the kids in Maryland and Pennsylvania.  Now three to six weeks of playing Nurse Ratchet. At least I hear the Pikes Place Roast making the last sounds of "I'm ready" and that's a good thing.  Very quiet here and I just may have a cup before duty calls.  Dogs have been fed and are quiet.  All I can hear is the dull buzzing of my inner ears.  Don't get old, it ain't for sissies!  On my way to Maryland I passed the usual flocks of geese that make their annual trek to the Chesapeake, but also in the middle of the day at least two bands of whitetail deer racing across open fields.  Only one reason for that behavior in the middle of the day.  No pick me up trucks parked along the roads to indicate deer season.  So must have been more natural, like the rutt.  That is that time of year when the ladies are receptive to the males and the males act like damn fools in order to accommodate the ladies condition.  What if we humans had such seasons?  Well, I guess we do.  Might be called "Friday night at the meet market season".  At any rate the sight brought back tons of memories .... of Deer Hunting Season .... not Friday nights.

This buck is in Cades Cove in Tennessee, but my own pursuit of the wonderful whitetail started in New Jersey where there are more deer per capita than in any other state.  Why is that you may ask?  Well because there are more anti gun/hunter types per capita than in any other state.  And our children have been taught that hunting is evil because 1.) it involves the dreaded gun, and B.) also involves shooting one of natures creatures.  Both lines of reasoning are false, but that's another topic.  As for you green save the earth types (And I am one but of a different stripe than presented on MSNBC, et al), you are all rookies.  Hunters and fishermen have been saving the planet for hundreds of years.  Also another topic.

I am not sure when my first deer hunt occurred.  I know I was in high school.  I know it was with bow and arrow.  And I know I killed or wounded nothing but my pride.  It was reasonably local to where I lived in east central NJ and was probably was somewhere around Martinsville, New Jersey.  My group of friends and I would find a farm, get permission, and then stalk around the area for days after school, scattering game all over the place learning the trade of hunting.  We considered ourselves amongst the likes of the old buffalo hunters (like Buffalo Bill and the [gasp] Indians), providing food for thousands. 

Oh, we would see a lot of deer.  Generally the white tail for which they get their names.  They raise that thing when the are running away from something in alert mode.  Saw lots of them.  The first deer killed was not until we were well into college.  It was a four point buck, killed in Stokes State Forest in North West New Jersey with a running shot that should not have been taken but which did end up mortal, much to my absolute amazement.  The first of only two deer I ever killed before taking up the camera and laying down the weapons.  The first by bow and the second by rifle.  I found that I get far more enjoyment with the camera, but these herds do need to be thinned or the deer will eat themselves into starvation.  Hunting does provide a most humane way of herd management.  And hence the hunters in this world are leading edge conservationists.

My hunting experiences have provided me with the tools to get close enough to animals to make decent photographs.  My father's advice was to go out into the woods young man, scrape a spot clean around a big tree so you can move quietly, sit down, and act like a bushel of apples.  Deer love apples.  What he did not say was how much enjoyment one can get from simply sitting in the middle of a woods quietly, not moving, listening and watching.  Try it sometime, for a couple of hours.  You don't need a weapon or a camera...use the mind's eye.