Smuggling Deer... and possible disease

For some crazy reason, I actually thought I would have a problem finding ways to keep the conversation about hunting going throughout the winter. So far, I have been lucky with all of the things happening... such as this story about a Texas breeder who smuggled in many deer, including 2 monster bucks, and risked the lives of the entire deer population in Texas.

I had to laugh at the names of these monster bucks "Barry" aka "Fat Boy" and "Hit Man" aka "Silver Storm" For one thing, who names their deer? And why not tag them and refer to them as #123 and #456. It seems to silly to me. But, its a huge 2+ billion dollar industry that could have been wiped out by greed. Any of those smuggled in deer could have carried bovine tuberculosis and chronic wasting disease, that could have hit the wild deer population and spread. Instead, hundreds of deer had to be killed and tested to make sure they were not sick.

Is it really worth that sort of risk? A monster buck with good genes or a healthy deer population for the entire state. To me, it doesnt seem like that hard of a choice. But, clearly for some, it is. I think the best line in this entire article was "Breeders say they can sell semen from outstanding bucks for up to $35,000 a sample" Those samples had better contain some potent little swimmers!

And here is proof that you don't need to screw with the gene pool to get a monster buck. This deer was taken, in the good ole woods of Maine during hunting season in 2010. Here is the write up from the local paper.

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Taking Turkeys to Texas

There are a few less turkeys in Maine to hunt this year. A few months ago, Maine Inland Fisheries & Wildlife in partnership with the National Wild Turkey Federation , captured and released more than 50 birds into East Texas with the hope of rebuilding their population. “Eastern turkeys are where the restocking efforts originally began,” explained Shawn Roberts, Director of Field Operations for the National Wild Turkey Federation, “We tried in the 1920’s but it didn’t work. We tried pen-raised birds and that didn’t work either. The only thing that was successful was to trap birds and relocate them to good habitat.” “We started this current effort in the early ‘80s and we had to begin looking outside the state to see if we could get them moved in. We didn’t want to violate The Lacey Act so we had to come up with a way to compensate the states that were giving up a resource either by trading other wildlife or paying them monetarily,” said Roberts. Texas is on the very edge o

Utilizing technology to make you more aware

Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us and we could watch the dot (that represented us) on the map move as we walked out of the woods and got closer to the truck. In another adventure, my son and I headed out on a shed hunting mission. When we got into the woods, I turned on the tracker

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it.

and a strong cup of coffee

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