Hunting is a Sacred Heritage

This is a response to a letter in the Springfield News-Leader, November 25th, 2007 editorial page.

Hunting is more than and sport and more than a wildlife management tool; it is also a part of our culture and heritage. I am offended by people who make judgments and un-informed opinions on hunting that are not accurate or true. I challenge Nancy Kabonic to take a hunters safety course and then to come hunting with me and learn the truth about the “sport.” Baiting animals in the state of Missouri is illegal, hunters must adhere to fair chase rules; deer have an acute sense of smell, hearing, and four legs that can run faster than any human, deer have a level playing field. To get close enough to a deer to harvest it is in fact a challenge. I also challenge Nancy Kabonic to read the Nov. 07 National Geographic article on hunting; according to the US Fish and Wildlife service hunters are responsible for 1.22 billion dollars that goes to improving or purchasing wildlife habitat; without hunters many of the hunted species would likely be extinct due to loss of habitat and urban encroachment.
Trophy animals are not harvested just for their antlers, these animals are eaten just as other animals harvested only for food. If hunters aren’t suppose to have fun or enjoy hunting and killing animals then the sport would not exist at all, and all that habitat money would be gone. According to the Missouri Department of Conservation hunters in Missouri donated 322,469 pounds of venison in 2006 at their own processing expense, to homeless shelters and other charity organizations.
Hunting is a very important and legitimate tool to manage wildlife populations. Humans have replaced natural predators; therefore hunters are needed to balance out populations so that deer and other animals don’t die needless and painful deaths from starvation and disease that come from over population.
Animal rights activist and other people who wish to stop public display of harvested deer are no different in my eyes to atheists who want to stop public display of Nativity Scenes. I don’t think that hunters should purposely hide their game so that people who “might be offended” can’t see it; Americans have become too complacent and out of touch with reality and where their food comes from. Hunting is a sacred part of our culture that has been ingrained in the human species for millions of years. People who have moved to the Ozarks and are offended by our way of life should have thought of that hunting stuff before they moved here.

Deer Chronicles Part V

Regular firearms deer season is over. Dad, Luke and Wayne each got one deer, I didn't get any. We spent over an hour looking for a deer luke shot, we followed blood and it got dark, we looked after dark but never found the deer.

I saw the big bug a second time and couldnt shoot again because he was across the road. Bobby and I spent a couple hours hunting near the house and all I saw was a turkey.

Tommy and I went to Springfield the night before Thanksgiving, it was a good time to go because the stores were almost empty, everyone was trying to get out of town for Thanksgiving. I wanted to buy some shoes but they didnt have my size in the shoes I wear. We went to the Bass Pro where I bought some stuff for muzzel loader season. It is the second day and I havent been huntin yet, I need to get out of the house and into the woods but it is so cold and no one wants to go with me.

Deer Chronicles Part IV-Playing by The Rules

Today was day 6 of Fall Firearms Deer Season in Missouri and the opening day of furbearer season.

I woke up pretty early when the sun was coming up, I didnt get out of bed though, I dont know why I was so tired. Bobby camed over late and Luke's back was hurting. Bobby cooked breakfast and we ate, but afterwards everyone just left and no one wanted to go huntin. I didnt want to go by my self today so I just watched tv until it was time to feed the rabbits. When dad got home we drove over and picked up Wayne and then went to my sisters. I walked through a big holler for about 40 minutes and then we walked over behind my sister's house, I saw some turkeys. The squirrels over by Marshfield must be eating better than the ones in Matney Holler, because they were everywhere and as big as house cats. I heard what sounded like a hundrid turkeys and they were all squaking over something. I went and got dad and we drove over and picked up Wayne. We started driving down the driveway and when we got to the road there he was. A great big huge buck with a nice rack, standing broad side, and Wayne has a permit to shoot from the truck, but there was just one problem you see. There was an invisible shield between us and this deer, this sheild was only marked by the county road he was standing across from. If I would have gotten out and crossed the road into the field he would have been gone, he just stood there and starred at us broadside while we just sat there and said there was nothing we could do. Shooting across a public road is against the law, and we couldnt have walked across the road. He finnaly turned and flaged that white tail and bounced off. Sometimes the rules suck, but this is life.

Deer Chronicles Part III

Day 5 of Missouri Fall Modern Firearms Deer Season



This morning started out around 8 am for me, I shouldnt have stayed up watching CSI Miami so late last night. I went over to the house and Bobby and Luke were already there and joking about stuff. They gave me a hard time and said it was my turn to cook. I said we didn't have any eggs, the chickens havent been laying and I think that most of the new chickens we got are roosters. I went and got some toaster stroodels with eggs in them, I burned my finger on them. Luke and Bobby spent five minutes making fun of me for burning my finger. After we ate some bacon that Bobby cooked we decided to head out and go huntin.

Bobby and I walked up one of the hills that has a path on it, he went on and I started back down the holler really slow. I guess Bobby was walking along the other ridge faster than I was walking. He met up with Luke, Luke wanted to shoot Bobbys gun so they were taking turns shooting. Well I thought they were shooting at deer, so I was ready for some deer to run on me that were trying to get away from them. Well I kept walking down the holler and I saw something moving really fast, it was that four point I've been seeing, now its getting personal, I dont care if he is a small buck, I want to get him just because he has givin me the slip for the past five days. I was only 25 feet from where he had just crapped, there were cedar trees in the way so I never saw him until he ran off. On the other ridge I saw a doe run off. By that time it was sprinkeling, it started raining really hard and I got back over to where Dad and Bobby were. Well Luke had went and sat in the truck, he just waved when I walked by and went back in the other woods. When Dad and Bobby got back we got in the truck and left.

I went back out after lunch and walked around, I found some airplane wreckage! It was the remote controlled airplane that the neighbor kid had lost, I picked it up and took it over to the neighbor's, they couldn't belive that I found their plane after a month after they lost it. I came back in the house and watched That 70's Show for an hour, then went back out. The last hour I didnt see anything but a neighbor's dog.

Deer Chronicles Part 2

Day 2 was Sunday and I went to church, after church Dad and I went hunting again and didnt see anything at all. Day three was Monday and it started out raining, I didnt go out until sometime around 2, it was pretty wet and I was able to sneak around the woods really well. I sat in the tree stand after a really long walk without seeing anything. It seems like a waste that the leaves were so easy to walk on and I didnt even see anything.

Day 4 was Tuesday and I did'nt even go out in the morning, I was really tired and it looked like it was going to rain. Dad and I went out again and I made my way to a spot I like to sit. I sat there for about 30 minutes, I knew I was hearing something bigger than squirrels, two turkeys were walking through the holler, they came over my way and one got with in 15 yards of me, I just sat there really still, he better not be so stupid next spring turkey season, I think i'll wear bright orange during turkey season, they seem to not be afraid if you are wearing orange. It was getting dark and I was walking down the side of the holler, I should have been a few yards up the hill because I saw that four point buck again, while it isnt really a good management tool to kill a buck so small and young, it would have been something. He was just a silouette up the hill from me, I only saw him for about 3 seconds and he was just gone, I was too far down the hill. Maybe I'll have better luck in the next few days.

The Deer Chronicles

Day one I woke up too late, it seems the night before opening morning its always hard to sleep. Luke and I went to our usual spots, as I was walking up the hill there were alot of limbs in the way that had fallen from January's ice storm. There were some sticks and a branch in the path so I had to walk around them, I was looking down so I wouldnt trip over the stuff and that's when I heard the first deer of the morning bouncing off and out of my life forever, it looked like a real nice buck from the brown and white flash that I saw. I snuck on up the hill and sat down in the holler, a bout an hour later I saw the four point buck that dad and I had seen when going to the minner (minnow) pond the other day. He was going to cross the holler and get far out of range, it was a long shot with the open sites but I went ahead and shot. I jumped up, my adolesent instincts to run toward the deer were quelled, I knew that I had to keep focused on where the deer had been standing, I jacked another shell into the .30.30 and calmly walked to where the deer had been before he bounded up the hill. I thought I had hit him, but there was no blood anywhere to be found. I followed his path up the hill, it wasnt a few more seconds and Luke was on the phone wondering if I had hit him. I walked a few steps and stopped a minute or two and kept that up for 20 min or so, I had stopped and was looking around and from the corner of my left eye I saw some movement. It was two does coming my way, and there I was with no cover, the nearest tree was five feet away and they were moving closer. They were sniffing the ground for acorns I managed to raise my rifle and aim, they kept going behind trees and brush, I would have let them keep coming but one of the does looked right at me, she probably would have kept coming along but I thought I had better take the shot. I thought it was a good shot, I aimed right for her neck, but again, there they went, two big white flags and they were gone out of my life forever, no blood no nothing.

I talked to Luke on the phone again, he thought I was in the wrong holler, but I was in the place he told me to be, I walked out of the bottom and saw that Dad and Wayne had showed up. They drove down by one of the ponds and sat, Wayne has a handicap permit. I walked down a path and sat down on a stump, I got up after about 2o min and had a numb butt, then I heard a shot, it was close enough to make me jump, then I heard another shot. By the time I got to where Dad was I saw Luke bend over a deer gutting it. Dad had shot an old buck who's antlers were broken completly off from fighting, I would say he propably had poor nutrition. Luke and I pulled it up the little hill and loaded it in Waynes truck. Then Wayne said that Matt had took the spare tire and that he had a flat, it was like the three Stuges trying to get the tire off, finally Dad and Luke went back to the house and got two air tanks, we aired the tire up so Wanye could drive to the house, it was pretty funny, while airing up the tire the jack moved and the truck fell, I did'nt know what the hell had happend but I jumped away from that tire I was airing up. We jacked it up again and Wayne made it back to the house. It was several hours later before Dad and Wayne got back from his house and fixing the tire.

We went back out that evening and I saw one deer but didnt get a chance to shoot.

What it Means to Live in the Ozarks

Recently while listening to the Vincent David Jericho radio show I heard a caller who moved here from out of state describe how he thought that the people in his area didn’t like him just because he was an outsider, because he had just bought “a piece of property.” Well maybe that’s just it, maybe it wasn’t because he was from out of town, maybe the neighbor’s didn’t get to know him, or maybe it was that attitude, you see to him, its just a piece of property. For us whom were born and raised here, this land we live on is a lot more than a piece of property. Now my mother wasn’t from around here, but she married my dad who was born over there on Preston Holler road in a little house that is still barely standing. And my Grandma was born right down there on Goss Cave road in 1910. Roots run deep in the mind of Ozarkers, its been said that to get to know an Ozarker you have to listen to him, and know them a long time before you really get to know them. Growing up here and traveling around the country and other parts of the world, I find that this is one of the friendliest places in the United States. Where else do people wave when you meet them driving, or wave when they drive by your place. People are kind and hold open doors, smile and say hi, well for the most part they do.

Going back to what that man said though, “a piece of property.” Before he bought that land it could have been more than that to someone else. Some pioneer back in the early 1800s stole it fair and square from some Osage Indians; they fought back winter, hunger and disease. Passed on through generations, the only way most Ozarkers survived was to live off the land, grow their own food, keep animals for meat, eggs and maybe try to make a little money off what they could raise. It was a hard life back then, even when my grandma was young in the early 30s, the depression hit hard here in the Ozarks too. My great uncle worked for the WPA to keep the family going.

Ozarkers today still remember the Civil War, not one of us alive today saw the horrors of that war first or even second had, but we remember it. My Grandma’s Grandpa fought to keep the Union at the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas. Many other relatives fought in several skirmishes here in Missouri, which has the 3rd most Civil War battles and skirmishes fought. This type of history is ingrained with in us, passed down through the generations. We are a people connected to the land, we know every hill and holler where we live, we have hunted and fished and farmed and scratched out a living in these Ozarks for three to four to five generations. Sure, life is a lot easier now; we work in places like Springfield, run business and work in factories. Still a few of us try to hold on to the family farm and live what kind of rural life we can in this day in age. You see, to us, when we look at that hay field, or cow pasture, or those rolling hills filled with oak and hickory trees, we don’t see just property, we see the hard work and history of past generations that went with that. It’s like having a special connection with the land, the places where our ancestors lived and died, and that is why these places are so special to us.

No wonder we don’t want outsiders with lots of money coming in building ethanol plants, taking the water and telling us to all just go to hell, or to move away. No wonder most of us don’t like the idea of the government saying what we can or can’t do with our property; no wonder we don’t like it when some city dude yuppie moves here and raises hell when they see someone out hunting for deer or turkeys on public land. I’m not saying we need to be unfriendly or even mean to those people who move in here, maybe we should sit down with them and let them know how much this land means to us, tell them the history of this place. I know so many people who have moved here and are making a positive difference in the community, they have managed to fit in, several of them have even taken an interest in the history and preservation of our community, and I say that they are a valuable asset; because in many cases I see where people who have been here forever don’t step up and try to preserve that history. So many people who have moved here are friendly and nice and I even call a lot of them friends.

Sometimes the people who have been here forever aren’t all that great though. I have it on good authority that a certain landowner somewhere along K highway plowed up a cemetery on his property, a cemetery with quite a few graves in fact; of course it was never reported in the paper. Speaking of which, there is an old graveyard on the property that the GBE wants to build the ethanol plant on.

I just think that developers and people need to realize what they are taking away when they start building strip malls, ethanol plants, off road ranches, housing subdivisions and other eye sores in this area. I think that the best way to keep this small part of the Ozarks in our rural traditions is to do something most of us never wanted to do, but I belive that Planning and Zoning is a necessary evil which we need to keep undesirable things out of our community. Let in the outsiders we like and keep out the ones we don’t, like Greg Willmonth, or what ever his name is.