I felt pretty productive by the time I ambled on to the end of the day. The light was lowering, the temperature had climbed to nearly seventy, the trees were nearing some spectacular colors and the sky was Culpeper Blue with a few puffy white clouds. Raptors wheeled in the air above the farm.
I was wondering whether I should shave. That is about where I wanted to be, except I was thinking for a word that rhymes with “orange.”
Orange County is just down the road from the farm; it is a nice place and even better insulated than Culpeper from the loonies up North. I thought I might try to catch and episode of that new television show- you know, “Orange is the New Black,” which is supposed to be pretty good. I thought it was a show about hunting, or like Duck Dynasty, since the folks over at the Target and the Walmart on the Big Box end of town are stocking up on Hunter’s Orange to avoid getting shot out in the woods late next month.
The black-powder rifles are legal on Friday, though I have found the aficionados of the old technology are fewer and more like bow hunters (they are out there now) than the high-velocity crowd.
I don’t hunt, and won’t so long as the Martin’s superstore is open over in town. I don’t rule it out, should desperate times require it and the dry food stock be running thin, but at the moment the critters are comfortable where they are and I am content to leave them there.
There are issues out in the country, though. The Russo-Socotra compound backs up to State land- largely scrub and an excellent habitat for wildlife. One of my rural Coon-Ass Counselors, a retired Master Chief Boatswains mate, had some tough questions for the city slicker Socotra:
“Is this your first deer season out on the farm? Do you know if you need to post your property to keep hunters in “hot pursuit” from shooting across your property or from making a kill on your property while shooting from other property and crossing your property to retrieve it?”
I was thinking about that when I had the Husky on my back blowing leaves into the woods on the east pasture. I should post the property, though this will be the fifth deer season I have been on the land. If I ever get horses that is only smart. My pal went on:
“Then there is the case of the deer shot on say a nearby hunting lease that wanders wounded onto your property, perhaps crossing to another private property to actually die with hunters trailing. May these trailing hunters cross your property without permission? Sometimes the laws or lack there of can be surprising.
In Louisiana a lot of people have beach-front property. They consider the beach a private possession, but under Louisiana law fishermen have the right to sail right up on their beach, careen and repair their hulls and dry their nets. Where hunters and landowners rights aren’t clearly spelled out you need to have clear personal policy, possibly announced by some strategic signage.
Personally I would actually encourage hunters to retrieve deer dying on my property or allow trackers to cross it (gun’s empty, and breaches open where applicable) to follow the wounded. That helps insure that harvested deer count as harvested and don’t just die opening the door for hunters to kill more than their possession limit, and keep the land owner from having to process dead animals. BUT PREVENTING HUNTERS FROM SHOOTING INTO OR ACROSS YOUR PROPERTY SHOULD BE A PRIORITY.
I had to agree with that- and if there are large animals of my own around, that is an absolute priority.
“Hunting deer in these exurban neighborhoods where the habitat is laced with small farms and estates is best done with archery equipment and shotguns. If anybody is out there with a 30-06 and misses there is no telling when that round will ultimately end up even when fired in dense brush.
Stay out of the woods in deer hunting season, remember quite a few of the leaves are red and orange at this time of the year (at least in Virginia, not here we ‘re in the eighties still and live oak, magnolia, short leaf pine and sable palm, palmetto, and yucca don’t lose their leaves or change color, neither does anything else unless we get an early frost, the deciduous trees just sort of gradually brown out and go bare about January and greens up again the second week of February) you may not stand out as much as you think or emit the level of danger signal that you think.
We shoot very few hunters in Louisiana, I think because the hunting vests actually are visible and unusual. Oh well, let me get off my soap box, before I joined the Navy in my teens and discovered the wonderful religion of boatswainsmat-tology I actually wanted to grow up to be a Louisiana conservation officer.”
I never felt that compelled to go out in the woods wearing bright colors with all those other armed citizens out there, but in the country, I guess Orange is just the new Black, and I am going to be wearing it anytime I am south of the barn for the month of November, anyway.
Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra
Twitter: @jayare303