From three weeks ago:

Deer hunters statewide are buzzing. Some have been hunting with bows for a few weeks now and others will hit the woods with muzzleloaders in a couple of weeks, but the big event is in three weeks. Gun season opens statewide on October 21.

Some hunters are prepared for gun season. They have zeroed in their guns, checked their stands for safety and placed them in key areas they have carefully scouted. Others will wander into the woods opening day totally unprepared, with guns that are not accurate and stands they may fail and cause injury or death.

The worst of the unprepared will simply drive dirt roads until they find woods without “posted” signs on them and look for deer. These folks are breaking the law since they do not have permission to hunt on private land. It does not matter if the land is posted, the law requires you to have permission from the land owner to hunt.

Some people have put out corn or other bait and will sit near it opening day. That is legal in south Georgia but those in north Georgia, including this area, risk a hefty fine if caught. It seems unfair that half the state can do something legally that the other half can not, but that is the law.

If you are trying to kill a deer over bait, or in my opinion even over a food plot legally planted to attract deer, you are not hunting. You may harvest a deer but it is more like farming than hunting.

I have no problem with killing deer in food plots, I do it. But I do not consider what I do hunting. I am interested in harvesting venison to eat so I do what the law allows to help, but hunting involves much more effort to locate a deer in natural habitat, figure out the way it moves during the day and set up to shoot them.

I respect hunters that put out the effort to kill a trophy buck. It takes a lot of work to truly hunt a wise trophy buck and kill him. But it is not for everyone. Choose what you want to do, harvest or hunt, and act within the law to accomplish your goals.

The rains came just in time. About three weeks ago the weather guessers said it would rain several days in row. I knew the soil in my food plot still had good moisture a couple of inches down from the rains from the hurricane in early September. A little more rain would make wheat sprout and give it a good start, so I sowed wheat.

I should have known better. There was not a drop of rain for over two weeks. The wheat sprouted and got about three inches high, but started to die from the hot sun and lack of rain.

Just before the last hurricane rains hit, I put out winter peas, clover and turnips just as it started sprinkling. The surviving wheat and the new seeds responded to the new moisture and should have a good chance of growing well this fall, providing an attraction so I can harvest my venison for the next year.

A week later, everything looks good – wheat about five inches high, peas three inches high and good leaves on turnips. Clover has sprouted and growing thick.

Hunting Rituals are important

If you have hunted much you probably have rituals you go through. Some, like sighting in your rifle, are critical for success. Others, like carrying a buckeye in your pocket, are more mental that critical. But even those mental ones can be important since confidence breeds success.

Being member of a deer club that has a camp each year will introduce you to many more rituals. For years at Big Horn Hunting Club a big iron pot hung over the fire. Not only was a fire burning constantly from camp opening until the time we all left, water was added constantly all week to keep it full for washing dishes or other hot-water needs.
Then we got a gas fired water heater that produced all we needed. Guess what? The kettle stayed over the fire and we still kept if full of water.

Don’t dare shoot at a deer and miss during camp. You have to admit missing when you come back to camp since others have surely heard you shoot. And the ritual at many camps and even in non-camp groups is to cut out your shirt tail if you miss. I’m pretty sure some guys carried an old shirt they didn’t like in their truck just so they could change if they missed a deer.
Blooding is another common ritual. When a youth kills their first deer some blood from it is smeared on their face, usually just a finger mark down one cheek. And the youth will not wash it off for days, it is a mark to wear proudly!

In many clubs it is a ritual to eat the liver of a deer the day you kill one. There are some good reasons for this. It tastes good – if you like liver. It is easy to process in the woods. All you have to do is set it aside when gutting your deer then slice it up.

Showing respect for your kill is another ritual some of us stick with. Most of them come down from Native Americans who depended on killing game for their survival. From the time I shot my first bird with a BB gun I have always felt a tiny spark of regret for killing something. So when I read about ways to show respect to the animal for giving up its spirit for your needs I liked them.

Of course the most important way to show respect is to make a good shot, killing the animal with as little suffering as possible.

As soon as I confirm the deer is dead, as the Native Americans would do, I pause for a minute looking at the beauty of the deer and thank it for its sacrifice, remembering what it took to outsmart it in its natural habitat, or just the luck I had that day.

That makes me even more determined to use every bit of the deer I can and waste nothing. That is another way of honoring a deer or any other animal you kill.

In Europe a similar practice developed. A successful hunter would place a sprig of an evergreen into the deer’s mouth then put a spring of the plant into their cap, connecting the two. The sprig in the deer’s mouth also honored its last meal.

Some of my rituals bring back good memories. On my first dove shoot when I was about ten years old one of my uncles gave me an old army surplus gas mask bag for my hunting stuff. I killed my first dove that day and to this day I carry some necessities for the hunt in my bag. It has my skinning knife, bullets, a couple of plastic garbage bags, some rope and a spool of cord and toilet paper.

I mentioned a buckeye for success earlier. When I was a kid many of us had one we carried for luck. We would cherish it and polish it often, making I shiny and bright. It was as necessary as our pocket knives and we went nowhere without both.

Zeroing in your gun is critical, especially if you have a scope, which most of us do. Old iron sights didn’t change much but a scope can change a lot from year to year, causing you to miss your shot. A few shots fired at the range before season opens, and again if you drop your gun or hunt in widely changing temperatures, makes sure if you get your shirt tail cut off it is your fault, not your gun’s fault.

The Griffin Gun Club opens its range each year, usually the first Saturday in October, and members are there to help you make sure your gun hits where you aim it. They are experts at sighting in a rifle and can fine tune with just a few shots.

Get ready for hunting by going through all your pre-season rituals and zero in your gun. Then, as you hunt and experience your rituals, remember where they came from and why they are important.

Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation Sues Department of Interior
from The Fishing Wire

Editor’s Note: No Valentine’s notes passing between sportsmen and the Department of the Interior today. Sportsmen are angry over Interior Department actions they call a serious overreach into game management- an area that has largely been a state matter. Today, the Sportsmen’s Alliance explains the reasoning behind their lawsuit seeking to overturn a pair of Obama-era restrictions governing management of National Wildlife Refuge and National Preserve Lands in Alaska.

On February 10, the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation, the Alaska Professional Hunters Association and two rural Alaskans filed suit against the federal government seeking to overturn two Obama-era restrictions governing the management of National Wildlife Refuge and National Preserve lands within Alaska’s borders.

The Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and APHA believe the rules are an overreach of the federal government into the traditional state role of game management, and this action in Alaska sets a dangerous precedent that puts hunting at risk on hundreds of millions of acres of public land nationwide.

The 96 million acres of National Wildlife Refuge and Park Service lands at stake in this lawsuit cover an area slightly larger than Montana, the fourth-largest state in the union.

“Game management belongs in the hands of boots-on-the-ground state biologists who understand the traditions, goals, game animals and ecosystems better than anyone, certainly better than a federal bureaucrat simply reading a report in a Washington, D.C. office,” said Evan Heusinkveld, president and CEO of the Sportsmen’s Alliance and Foundation. “These two rules represent yet another act of the Obama Administration that sets a bad precedent for states across the country that, if not stopped, would allow federal bureaucrats or a future administration more in line with anti-hunting activists to continue seizing control of traditional state decisions.”

The enacted rule changes banned commonly accepted hunting methods, including the extension of wolf and coyote seasons to summer months suitable for hunting in the colder Alaska climate, and use of bait while hunting bears.

“These changes even go so far as to completely outlaw normal wildlife management practices involving seasons, bag limits, and methods and means, even when that is the only feasible way to restore other wildlife species such as moose, caribou or deer,” continued Heusinkveld.

Alaskans and sportsmen around the country have shown broad support for the position of the Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and APHA. The State of Alaska has filed suit to overturn the rule changes, as has Safari Club International. All of Alaska’s senators and representatives oppose the changes, as does the Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), along with numerous other national organizations. AFWA, which is a partnership made up of state wildlife management professionals across the country, has stated that the rules compromise state authority to manage fish and wildlife.

“This is nothing but blatant federal overreach that will destroy Alaska’s predator-prey balance, impact and set precedent for sportsmen and public-land users nationwide and, moreover, decimate residents both economically and in their ability to provide for their families from a subsistence perspective,” said Heusinkveld.

Alaska has specific protections that have been set out in law. On three occasions Congress has directed that the state–not the federal government–has the primary authority to set hunting and fishing rules in Alaska: 1959 in the Alaska Statehood Act, 1980 in the Alaska Lands Act (that created most of the Alaska refuges) and 1997 in Refuge Improvement Act (which also made hunting and fishing priority public uses on all refuge lands).

“It is clear that the federal government has overstepped its authority in this issue, and we’re confident that our lawsuit, coupled with Congressional action and the formal review promised by Interior Secretary-nominee Representative Zinke, will ultimately restore proper and commonsense authority to game management in Alaska,” said Heusinkveld.

About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The 2016/17 deer season is over and results are in. This past season successful deer hunters had to report their kill to the state electronically, either through a smart phone app or home computer, or call it in. This system seemed to work well and gave fast results.

You can go to https://gamecheckresults.gooutdoorsgeorgia.com/DeerByCounty.aspx and see the results. This site allows you to look at the number of deer killed statewide, by county and by region. It breaks it down by buck and does and firearm, muzzleloader and archery kills. It is interesting to see where and how deer were killed, and compare your results.

In Spalding County there were 694 deer killed, 401 bucks and 293 does. Not surprisingly, most were killed with firearms, with a total of 584, with only 17 killed with muzzleloaders and 93 with archery equipment. Compare that to more rural Pike County with 1187 total killed, 669 bucks and 293 does with 1033 killed by gun, 123 with archery equipment and 31 with muzzleloaders.

Those numbers make me think I should hunt with a muzzleloader. I know it is harder to kill a deer with one but the woods are much quieter and deer not nearly as spooky. I have one I bought at an outdoor writers meeting several years aqo but I have never shot it.

Turkey hunters this year have to report their kills the same way as deer hunters did. It will be interesting to see how turkey season goes for local and statewide hunters this year.

Are you a hunter or a harvester? Do you hunt or harvest? In my opinion, and many may disagree, if you put out bait for deer or any other animals, even when legal, you are not hunting, you are harvesting. You are not hunting, you are waiting on the quarry to come to you.

The same applies to planting food plots. Don’t get me wrong, I plant food plots and sit in a stand watching the for deer. And I would put out corn and other bait if legal in this area. But sitting near a food plot waiting on a deer to come to feed is not hunting.

Hunting is going out into your quarry’s natural habitat, studying its movements and patterns and then trying to intercept it on its terms. That is why we go quail hunting and dove shooting. To find quail you go into their habitat and try to find them, usually with the help of a dog. But for doves you sit around a food source someone has planted, waiting on them to come to you.

I am not interested in killing a big buck with a pretty rack. The only reason I go after deer is to harvest three or four for the freezer. I am happy to shoot does.

Most of the time I am sitting where I can watch a field where I plant clover, peas and wheat each year. The deer come to it to feed, usually right at dark, and I can harvest one to eat.

Early in the season I do actually hunt. I go out and look for signs like rubs and scrapes near white oak trees. And I put up my climbing stand in an area where I can be hidden from approaching deer but get a shot at one.

I have shot some nice bucks with big racks but most were by accident while I was out harvesting, not hunting. I can take no pride in killing a big buck when all I did was plant something that attracted it. I am much more proud of my first deer, a small eight pointer I killed when I was 18. I actually went out and studied the area where it lived, set up my stand in a good place and was able to shoot it.

It takes some effort to plant a food plot, much more than just putting out corn for deer. But neither is anywhere near the effort it takes to go out and hunt a deer.

The bottom line to me is hunting is going out looking for your quarry, harvesting is waiting on them to come to you because of something you have done to alter their habitat.

There are exceptions. I grew up hunting wild quail and it was hard to find them, even with a dog. And you never knew exactly where they might be until the dog pointed. But one time I went to a paid trip on a quail plantation. It was fun, but it was not really hunting.

A few plantations where you pay to hunt have wild birds but they are rare and expensive. Most put out pen raised birds in an area and you follow a guide with a dog. You do get the experience of watching the dog point the bird, walking close to make it fly then shooting it.

But the guides know where the birds were placed and they usually don’t go far, so they can help the dogs find them. And pen raised birds don’t fly very fast or far. The one time I went I hit 12 birds with 14 shots, highly unusual for me. They are much easier to hit than wild birds.

To show how slow they are, on one point on my trip the bird got up a couple of feet in front the dog. The dog jumped as it flushed and caught it in the air. In a video on the internet you can see a guy actually reach out and catch a quail as it flies by him. That had to be a pen raised bird.

Doves are fun to shoot at, which describes what I do much better than saying I shoot them. And it takes some skill to pick a good place to set up you blind so you will be where they fly coming into the field. But that effort pales in comparison with going out looking for wild quail.

I have never had much interest in killing a bear. Most bear hunting is done by putting out bait and waiting on them to come to it. In many cases it is impossible to find them without bait since they range over such a wide area and are very hard to pattern. In some areas it is also legal to chase them with dogs, letting them do most of the work of finding the bear.

I doesn’t bother me when people say they are hunting when I think they are really harvesting. As long as it is legal it is fine. But I do make a distinction in my mind between hunters and harvesters.

The leaves are finally falling in large numbers. The moisture in the air from the rain and colder weather is making them drop fast. This should help deer hunters see better in the woods, but it makes it even more important for hunters to stay still since deer can see better, too.

When I squirrel hunted a lot I loved it when the leaves finally fell off the trees. With leaves on them, a squirrel could run to the top of most any tree and I would never see it again. While trying to find one, seeing them shaking leafy branches as they moved gave them away sometimes but usually I had to get close.

With bare branches I could sit on a hillside and see one move up a tree trunk or through overhead limbs for a long way. And I could usually slip up on them before spooking them. Sometimes I would just take off running to the tree they were in. They would usually run to the top of the tree but I could make them show themselves by throwing a limb or rock to the opposite side of the tree from where I was standing. That would usually make them move to my side.

Sometimes they would hide in nests. Some of my friends would shoot the nest and hit the squirrel, and it would crawl out and fall to the ground. I did that some until I heard my .22 bullet hit one and it did not come out. I did not want to waste any animal I killed. I kept shooting until the nest would no longer hold the body and it fell, but it was too shot up to eat. That is when I quit shooting nests. I figured I could get the squirrel on the next trip in a more sporting manner.

I would try to wait one out that was hiding in a nest, but never was able to. They had a lot more patience than I did. I could sit for 30 minutes without moving and they would not come out. That was about as long as I could stand not moving around!

Deer season ends in about a month. Plan a squirrel hunting trip with a kid then. They will definitely have good memories for the rest of their lives, and so will you.

Do as I say, not as I do!

Every year I try to warn hunters to check their deer stands carefully before using them. You can get hurt in many ways, and deer stands account for the majority of hunting accidents every year.

A couple of weeks before season I checked all the bolts and nuts on my climbing stands, tested the plywood and canvass to make sure everything was strong, then hung them on the trees I usually hunt. I climbed up removing any new twigs that might be in my way and also made sure my shooting lanes were clear.

I then went to my tower stand and climbed it. The wind made it rock some so I went back down and made sure feet were tied down, and leveled them. I then went back up and checked for wasps, made sure the chair was in good shape and didn’t squeak when turned, and made sure I could still see the areas where I expected a deer to appear.

I went right by the box stand in the middle of my field several times but never stopped. I don’t hunt it until December, when deer are more likely to come to food plots after all acorns are gone, and where I expect to see does only.

The wind was so bad Saturday morning I decided to get in the box after all. When I got to it in the dark I shined my flashlight all around and spotted some old wasps nest. I cleared out spider webs with a stick and eased inside, checking under the chair and everywhere else I thought wasps might hide.

Wasps get off their nests and get in cracks in wood or under anything they can when it starts to get cold. They try to survive the winter that way. But on a warm day they will get active during the winter. I had a very bad experience many years ago that has made me paranoid about them.

Uncle Adron took me hunting when I was about 19 and told me to climb up in a tower stand on an old fire break. It was a fairly warm afternoon and I was almost sweating when I got to the top and settled in the chair.

There was carpet on the floor to dampen any sound. For some reason I moved a piece of it in the corner. There was a solid red mass slowly moving under it. I swear it looked like thousands of wasps!

I carefully lowered the carpet and didn’t move. No wasps came out from under it so I stayed put, too. I have no idea if a deer came by that afternoon since all my attention was on that carpet all afternoon!

Saturday morning as it got barely light enough to see there was something dark crawling on my thigh. I knew immediately it was a wasps and thumped off. When I turned on my flashlight to kill it there were about six crawling on the floor and walls. It was too cool for them to fly or move very fast. I killed all of them.

I kept checking as it got lighter and lighter and saw no more. But at about 9:00 I felt something crawling on the back of my neck. I knew it was a wasps and did not want to hit at it, but was afraid it would crawl down under my shirt.

When I tried to brush it off I could feel a very light sting. I killed it and stayed in the box another hour without seeing any more wasps. When I got home I ask Linda to check my neck. There was a small red spot she touched but it was not where I had felt the sting, it was right on the scar tissue from my surgery.

The next morning my neck was swollen in two places, the one where I felt the sting and the one on my scar. I guess there are no nerves in the scar tissue to let me feel the pain.

I have heard stories of folks being in stands way up trees on in towers when they woke up a snake. So far I have not had that problem. But I did almost have to heart attacks one morning while deer hunting.

My stand was on the far side of a clear cut that had grown up with weeds about knee high. I was walking across it before daylight with my 30-30 on my back, shining my flashlight on the ground to stay on the path. As I made a step a covey of quail flushed beside my foot.

I guess it was a good thing my gun was on my back or I probably would have emptied it at the unknown critter. It is unreal how much noise a covey of quail flushing from under your feet in the dark make! I stood there a few minutes and my heart finally returned almost to normal, and I realized it had been quail.

About ten steps later another covey of quail flushed. That almost did me in. I don’t know how long I stood still breathing deeply, trying to recover my wits. I was afraid to take another step in case I found another covey!

I finally made it to the tree and climbed it and settled down. I don’t think I saw a deer that day. I may have been shaking so hard the tree was trembling all morning, scaring the deer away.

Sometimes the most memorable things about a deer hunt have nothing to do with deer.