Fall is still the time to hunt
The days are growing shorter and the nights have a feel of fall.
It must be September, or at least almost September. I always felt September is the official start of small game and a longer wait for deer to enter the picture, but crisp days mean the bucks are or have shed the velvet.
Today’s outdoorsmen are pulling out pictures of bucks taken with a trail camera. Yes, modern electronics entered the hunting field.
There are not only trail cams which, in some instances, replaced pre-hunt scouting, to global positioning systems that prevent getting lost. Scope reticles and arrow nocks that light up and rifle scopes tell the shooter not only the distance but also where to hold.
Yes, technology infiltrated the outdoor activities. Perhaps it all began with battery-heated socks.
As I sit here typing this, I realize I am like the dinosaur and my kind is fast becoming extinct. I still prefer a compass and the reticle in my scope doesn’t light up.
I am an old fogey who doesn’t like depending on batteries that go dead at an impromptu time or are forgotten in the rush to go hunting.
It’s hard enough to remember which ammo to take along, and more than one hunter has headed north without his license or drag rope.
These days, boots are well-insulated but also terribly expensive and synthetics replaced wool and down. This despite the fact wool insulates even when wet – though it does grow quite heavy when wet.
While many things don’t change some things do.
Forty years ago, it wasn’t the first day of deer season that held our attention so greatly. We waited like a kid at Christmas for small game season to open.
Beagles and other dogs of mixed breed strained at leashes and groups gathered along country roads waiting for that magic hour.
Today, the wide spots on the road are empty and the dog rests in front of the fireplace. I know there are still a handful of hunters who still go after rabbits but they are becoming fewer. Stocked pheasants on game lands are but a reminder of days long gone when the wild ones were everywhere.
Both the fox and grey squirrel maintained good populations, but even they are affected by loss of habitat.
It’s not that there is no hunting to be found, but the outdoorsmen changed. Instead of the excitement of small game season, we now get excited waiting for deer to become legal.
Waterfowl, mostly geese, replaced the wild pheasant and the new game in town is the hunting for coyote.
Turkey are everywhere and offer hunting twice a year spring and fall. There is still good hunting to be had but the hunter has to be pliable and shift his methods and hunt what is available.
Yes, it’s almost September and the desire to go hunting flows strong.
While I reminisce about days of long ago with big bucks and smart ground hugging ringneck pheasants, I also will be thankful for being able to look ahead to future hunts.
I still will be wearing a wool shirt but my boots will be insulated with Thinsulate and my jacket may be synthetic. My rifle will have a modern scope and at my side will be a rangefinder.
I might long for those old days when I grabbed the old ’94 Winchester, a knife and went hunting but the reality is that I, like others, will be found using the updated equipment.
Instead of stalking deer through a thicket I will be on a stand and with me will probably be a modern super-accurate bolt-action rifle with a modern high-powered scope.
I retain fond memories of days gone but I am not stupid and I realize as things around you change you must change with them.
George H. Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.