On the Hunt

I'm not a hunter but I've worked with many people who were. Years ago, I worked with a guy named Dan. Dan was a big time hunter. There was a point where Dan was going to be going on some hunting trip out west somewhere and he was looking forward to it the way most kids look forward to Christmas. As the trip got closer, it was all he could talk about. This went on for quite some time.

When the day finally came, off he flew to where ever it was. He was picked up at the airport by the tour guide or whatever they call them, and as he and his group were driven through the thick woods up to the hunting lodge, unsuspecting animals frolicked in abundance all around them.

That first night, Dan called home to tell his wife and kids how awesome the trip was going to be and he apparently did a lot of preliminary bragging over the almost guaranteed feast and footwear that he was going to be bringing home. The way he later told it, he hung up the phone just in time to hear the first clap of thunder announcing what turned out to be a week long deluge from which it seems, only the animals were smart enough to take refuge.

Whatever dreams Dan left home with, they had pretty much dissolved by sitting day after day in a cold, blinding rain where the only other living creatures in the woods were the other hunters.

When the day came to finally pack up and leave, Dan and his fellow soggy warriors climbed into the bus to head back to the airport. It was only then that the sun, and the once again frolicking animals, returned. Apparently the animals, at least, were well rested.

Dan was not a happy guy when he got back.

I was reminded of all of this the other day because I tried to get in touch with a guy named Jeff. I sent Jeff an email but I never got a response. Then I remembered that he was also a hunter. He wasn’t the borderline fanatic that Dan was, but I remember in years past, that he had been looking forward to his week off at hunting season, so maybe that’s the reason he couldn't get back to me.

I could have called Jeff to find out what was going on, but that’s not my style. My style is to go online and look up the dates for hunting season and figure it out from there.

When I surfed around, I came across a two page document from the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department. It’s full of various animals and the dates as to when the State allows you to hunt them. Seeing animals on there like bears or deer didn’t surprise me, but there were some animals on there that I didn’t expect.

For instance, I never knew our state had a hunting season for squirrels. This seems kind of weird to me. I’m not sure why anybody would want to waste their time hunting squirrels. I can’t imagine that people would do it for the thrill of the hunt. It must be more like revenge killings. I for one, have a bunch of squirrels hanging around my bird feeders that I wouldn’t mind seeing gone. But other than that, what would be the reason?

Assuming you are big on squirrel hunting, according to this chart, you can hunt squirrels in zones 1-9, wherever those are, on September 8th and keep on shooting all the way through January 2nd. But if you want to hunt them in zones 10-14, you’ll have to wait until October 18th before you can begin. I don’t know if this is because there are already fewer squirrels in zones 10-14 or what the reason is, but if you want to get the most out of your squirrel shooting, you’ll have to figure out where zones 1 through 9 are.

Another animal I’m surprised to see on that chart are bullfrogs. Who hunts bullfrogs? How do you even do it? You can’t shoot them with a gun or there won't be anything left. Do people get up in the early morning hours, put on their camo and then sit out in the reeds and brush all day with a sharp stick?

What is the value in this? Are bullfrogs worth something? Is there some vast, underground bullfrog market? All I can think of is that "hunters" might be selling them to those souvenir places that shellac them and stick little hats on them and make them hold little banjos. But even then, how much of a demand for those are there? I’ve never really been sure who would buy something like that anyway, except maybe the people that hunt them in the first place.

Another thing I don’t get is, how do they enforce the these laws? Does the state seriously send people around to brooks and ponds to see if there are people out there catching any illegal squirrels or bullfrogs? If you’ve got a deer lashed to the hood of your car, it’s pretty obvious what you’ve been up to. But with squirrels or bullfrogs, you could almost get away with stuffing them into your pockets.

Maybe all of this is old news to anyone that hunts, but as I said, I’m not a hunter. It never held any appeal to me and that's when I thought it only involved bears or deer or other large animals. It holds even less appeal to me now that I know it involves animals like bullfrogs. Squirrels are another matter.