The_Dunedan

OK folks, rant time. As many of you probably know, I'm a gun-dealer by trade. I also live in bumfuck, which is inhabited by morons. Bear in mind that while this little "Shuck 'n Jive" is a dance every FFL (licensed dealer or gunsmith) in the country goes through around this time of year, it's getting just plain silly.

Around this time every year, as the opening day of Deer Season approaches, half the male population of the county decides they need to get things set up and ready. The result is an endless parade of entertaining characters. Some are smart, some are dumb, and some are so frighteningly idiotic that I thank God every night for 8 weeks than I don't have to share my woods with them. If I hunted public game lands, I think I'd want an Interceptor vest with all the extras, or maybe a full suit of Dragon Skin (painted blaze orange). The true idiots are few and far between, but they can be genuinely worrisome to the 95% of hunters who aren't stupid, but still have to share the woods with those who are.

1: The Field Artillery: This individual is almost always an overweight, middle-aged yokel with about five teeth and three brain cells. This state of being has nothing to do with drug use of poor dental hygiene, it's because he thinks a 7lb rifle chambered in .338 Winchester Magnum is an appropriate platform for shooting 150lb white-tails from less than 100yds. The resulting recoil has knocked out most of the teeth and brain-cells for which this person might otherwise have had a use.

2: Mr. "Flinch An' A Miss!": Closely related to the Field Artillery, Mr. Flinch is also prone to using hard-kicking rifles. However, because Dear Ol' Dad had the brilliant idea to give him a 7mm Remington Magnum for his 10th birthday, and his choice of calibers has only increased in power and punishment since then, he has developed an enormous flinch. The result is that Mr. Flinch may take as many as half a dozen shots at game less than 100yrds away without scoring a single hit. Mr. Flinch almost always attributes this to the rifle, scope, or rounds he's using, which leads him to upgrade to a more powerful rifle with a more expensive scope and heavier bullets.

It's worth noting that, even when heart-shot by such horrendously overkill rounds, white-tail deer will frequently run for 100+ yards. Hunting a'int like the movies; they don't go over backwards. Sometimes they hardly seem to notice the hit and stroll away casually, only to fall over as if a switch was flipped a few moments later. However, both Mr. Flinch and Field Artillery, convinced that their super-powerful ultra-overkill rifles will simply strike a deer dead in his tracks like some kind of instamatic death ray, will frequently refuse to track or pursue a deer which doesn't fall dead instantly, thinking that anything sort of "BANGflop" indicates a clean miss. The result is lots of wasted meat and lots of happy coyotes.

3: Professor Smallbore: Quite the opposite of the above two, the good Professor prides himself/herself (LOTS of women in this category) on making ultra-precise shots on the spine, brain, or heart (the so-called "Surgeon's Shots) with the smallest legal rounds they can. .204 Ruger, .222/.223, .22 Hornet, and .17 Fireball are popular with this crowd. The only problem you run into with this bunch is that they tend to make Mr. Flinch and Field Artillery feel distinctly inadequate, especially if the good Professor happens to be female.

4: Dan'l Boone: Ol' Dan'l likes to hunt all season long with his muzzleloader. Since this means he usually makes for-sure, close-range shots, he also tends to make Mr. Flinch and Field Artillery feel silly by killing more deer in a week than they do all season. Dan'l's chief difficulties are keeping supplied with powder, shot, and percussion caps or flints. The real fun starts when Dan'l brings in a Brown Bess or Kentucky Rifle and gets into it with...

5: Mr. Wizard: Mr. Wizard is distantly related to Mr. Flinch and Field Artillery, but only through his predilection for constant upgrades. At least every season, sometime 2-3 times PER season, Mr. Wizard will attempt to improve his kill rate by upgrading to the newest, latest, greatest, most high-tech rifle he can afford (and sometimes that he can't afford!). However, since he never actually practices with his rifles (trusting instead to their high-tech magic to do the work for him) he seldom kills anything except at close range, by accident, or by sheer luck. As with his kinsmen, this repeated failure will prompt him to upgrade yet again in the hopes that a more advanced and expensive weapon will cause him to hit his target this time.

6: Boy Wonder: Frequently the offspring of Mr. Flinch or Field Artillery, the Boy Wonder is usually around 10-12 years old, almost always male, and usually vaguely terrified. Dear Ol' Dad, having decided that Boy Wonder is old enough for hunting, has generously provided his progeny with a suitable rifle; say a full-sized Remington Mdl 700 in 7mm Remington Magnum, or a lightweight muzzle-loader which is then loaded with 150 grains of Pyrodex and a 550-grain bullet, ensuring that Boy Wonder will enter adulthood fully cognizant of what being beaten about the head and shoulders with a baseball bat feels like. Boy Wonder frequently makes a kill with this weapon, making Dear Ol' Dad very proud, but will develop Mr. Flinch's signature twitch by the end of the season and may very well go years without killing anything tastier than a pine tree.

7: Tom Beringer: Usually seen in full camo (sometimes a full ghillie suit) even before the season opens, Tom Beringer can frequently be heard alluding to various kinds of military badassery in numerous Third World Shitholes. He (always male) will frequently wax darkly foreboding about is tremendous accurate range, shooting "Hajjis" in "A-Stan" at "1200 meters" with various non-standard weapons, frequently to the quiet amusement of...

8: The Operator: Unlike Tom Beringer, The Operator actually -has- done all sorts of badassed things in Third World Shitholes, and usually has the scars and pictures to prove it, along with the true professionals quiet, competent dignity and lack of flash. The Operator, unlike Tom Beringer, is more than willing to demonstrate his skills for an audience and risk his own money doing so. Having spent -far- too much time wearing such things in far less pleasant environs, The Operator is never seen wearing a ghillie suit, and is frequently among the most successful hunters, since he can make any shot he needs, with whatever weapon is handy, under demanding field conditions.

9: Erzabet Bathory: Countess Bathory is the most common of the female hunters. Competent, voracious, adaptable and mildly bloodthirsty, Countess Bathory will go out of her way to prove herself a superior hunter to any man she doesn't respect (see Field Artillery, Mr. Flinch, Mr. Wizard, and Tom Beringer). She will be awake earlier, stay on her stand longer, track a deer farther, and generally break her back to show up The Menfolk. The biggest, loudest, stupidest arguements in the world break out when she comes to the shop and enounters her arch-nemesis...

10: Oink: Oink, the prototypical Chauvanist Pig, thinks that guns, hunting, and anything remotely strenuous or messy (childbirth aside) are or should be 103% off-limits to "Wimmin," and will frequently make an issue out of it whenever a woman shows up in the shop, especially one who appears interested and is unaccompanied. Snide comments, rude remarks, and occasional "instructions" or "rebukes" are offered gratis when it becomes clear that nobody else is going to "put the wimmin in thur placez." Oink is frequently the subject of much derision by Professor Smallbore, The Operator, and Dan'l Boone because, no matter how much he bitches, Countess Bathory nearly always outshoots and outkills him.

Welcome to hunting season, folks. Next installment, I'll introduce you to all the people you can meet in the woods!

silent_jay

I'm watching one of these guys on Mantracker right now. Put on his ghillie suit to cross an open field, then proceeded to crawl on his belly all the way across said field, leaving a trail that Stevie Wonder could have followed. He was apparently in the Marines and had training as a sniper, but it seems to me like he ripped off some of his buddies war stories and pawned them off as his own. Hell he wasn't even watchig his back trail and Mantracker strolled up on his horse and almost caught them had the not scurried into the burnt ground.

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder

eribrav

Wow, awesome rant!
I'm the little guy who learned over time that shooting the 12 gauge ain't a whole lot of fun, but the .243 is and it does a great job bagging whitetails without slamming me in the shoulder and face.

Ilow

Thanks for the amusing rant Dunedan! maybe this should be in Tilted Weaponry too, for their amusement. I live in a very non-bumfuck place, but unfortunately, every time i go to some of the local gun shops or to the range i see a few of these characters. Thankfully my mentor at the range (who has about every gun under the sun, and the tax stamps to prove it) is an Operator not one of the other morons...

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djtestudo

Despite never going myself (I share Ron White's hunting philosophy), I've known plenty of hunters over the years and...let's just say this should have had a "NSFW" tag since I'm laughing too hard to be reading it here

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"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
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Walt

I'm trying to figure out which category I fall under.

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Calmer than you are...

The_Dunedan

...And welcome back, folks. Time now to turn our attention to the myriad of interesting creatures you can find in the Deer Woods. First off, let's confront the most obvious and common...

...the American Grey Squirrel. These little bastards will drive you crazy. They make noise, they chatter at you and make you twitchy, and if you're wearing electronic hearing protection, the amplification can make them sound like a herd of elephants bashing through the woods.

Deer themselves range from canny and almost ghostly creatures to pure stupid meat on the hoof. They are all equipped with superb senses of hearing and ability to see movement, but are frequently much less inclined to take notice of scent than people think. And let me tell you, folks, deer can be blunderingly easy to shoot. This is part of what makes all the rest of today's installment of Hunting Season Blues so silly and sad.

As for the varieties of Homo allegedly Sapiens which you may encounter in the woods at this time of year, as before they fall into a number of types. Some are nice, some are nasty, and some are just plain odd.

Section A: Poachers

1: Fiddy Cent. Aah, good ol' Fiddy. Dressed in semi-camoflage patterns and looking like the bastard love-child of Ali G. and Ted Nugent, Fiddy figures that all deer, like everything else everywhere, belong to him if he can get his hands on them. As a consequence, Fiddy will happily traipse all over any sort of real-estate that looks promising, despite the fact that he has fired his rifle a total of three times, and despite the further fact that in 7,000 years of recorded human history no self-respecting deer has ever been shot by someone dressed as a carnival ride. When confronted by landowners, lease-holders, and sometimes game-wardens, Fiddy will attempt to bluster and sometimes threaten his way out of a situation. When this fails, and Fiddy is subjected to an ass-beating or a close encounter with the business-end of a .45, he will usually avoid a given area in future. He will not, however, give up on poaching.

2: Robbin' Hood: Robbin' is convinced that "everyone else" is "hoarding" all the deer in a given area, and that he is therefore permitted to poach off his neighbors land and herds, since "they're taking more than their fair share anyway, where else are all the deer going?" Unlike Fiddy Cent, Robbin will not usually become confrontation, except perhaps to lecture a landowner or "Possum Cop" in the process of being ejected/arrested. Frequently posessed of a petty streak a mile wide, Robbin will sometimes need to be ejected several times from the same property before taking a hint and moving on.

3: Guy O' Guisburn: Robbin' Hood's much more dangerous cousin, Guy O' Guisburn likewise believes "everyone else" to be taking "his" game, since he can't seem to find any. Guy, however, is a pure and simple believer in Might Makes Right, and believes that any game he can find, wherever he can find it, is his. Guy is easily provoked, and can become murderously dangerous when confronted. A notorious classic case several years back resulted in several hunters being murdered and over a dozen injured in Wisconsin, when they attempted to evict an Hmong poacher from a hunting lease. A murderous temper and a colossal sense of entitlement make Guy O' Guisburn one of the most dangerous creatures in the deer woods. However, Guy is coming under increasing threat from habitat encroachment and competition from other species.

Section B: Indiginous Wildlife

1: La Loup: Like his namesake, La Loup is heavily armed, highly territorial, and known to hunt in extended family groups. La Loup hunts a well-defined home range with a pack of family and close friends, and only rarely hunts outside of it. Poachers and carrioneers are not tolerated lightly, and La Loup defends his herds as food sources for his pack. Poachers are seen as stealing food from the pack as a whole, and are treated harshly although not usually killed except in self-defense. Guy O' Guisburn and La Loup are frequent antagonists, but La Loup's pack strategy usually leaves him the victor.

2: The American Mountain Gorilla: Large, slow-moving, immensely strong and patient, the American Mountain Gorilla inhabits every mountain range with suitable climates. Usually observed wearing beards and flannel shirts, the American Mountain Gorilla frequently dons various sorts of camoflage for his hunting excursions, and tends to favor large-diameter rounds in the .45 Long Colt-.45-70 class, usually in lever-action rifles. A related species, the American Chimpanzee, is smaller and more agile, though he retains the signature beard. The American Chimpanzee favors smaller-bore weapons with longer range, and is more energetic and vocal than his larger cousin. Like La Loup, both are strongly territorial and disinclined to tolerate poaching.

3: Animal Mother: "Anything that runs is a deer! Anything that stands still is a well-disciplined deer!" Animal Mother, always male and mildly crazy, has racked up quite a kill count over his years. He's decorated the wall of his living room with antlers the size of chandeliers, and the floors with hides like persian rugs. Of course, he's also shot plenty of tree branches, squirrels, bluejays, dogs, cats, cows, rocks...you get the picture. Certain that every sound and movement is another trophy buck, Animal Mother makes certain of them all. Not infrequently, Animal Mother kills a fellow hunter, occasionally even a family member. Thankfully, Animal Mother has begun to decline in recent years, his former numbers falling prey to the superior strategies of more competitive species of super-predators.

4: Mr. Good Time: Male, in his 30s or 40s, and almost always married to a woman who disapproves of alcoholic beverages, Mr. Good Time looks upon hunting season as a chance to indulge. He will frequently wander up into a tree-stand with a few six-packs of beer, to spend the day quietly drinking, reading a book about WWII, and perhaps killing something. Mr. Good Time's stands can usually be identified by the small pile of beer cans at the base of the tree. Mr. Good Time favors blinds, or large-capacity climbing stands with room for a small cooler. Like Animal Mother, Mr. Good Time is known for his propensity for shooting at almost anything. Fortunately for his targets (and unfortunately for everything else he points his rifle at), Mr. Good Time is usually too intoxicated to be truly dangerous anytime after midmorning (unless you happen to be his lawyer.)

5: Elmer Fudd: Elmer is usually older, almost always male, and frequently goes on at some length about how gadget-crazy this younger generation is. In the woods, Elmer is usually found wearing basic coveralls or camoflage, carrying an old-school bolt-action or lever-action rifle, and frequently upstaging his younger rivals by sheer patience.

6: Frick And Frack: A pair, always male, Frick and Frack are usually up to some sort of new ill-advised scheme every season. Frequently willing to spend large sums of money on their latest ploy to draw in the deer, Frick and Frack never seem to give any of their plans enough time for the deer to actually become accustomed to (and therefore respond to) them, and as a consequence seldom kill anything. Many of their endeavors (half-finished feedlots, improperly constructed stands, etc) peter out from boredom or upon reading an article in a magazine about a Better Way To Do X.

7: Frankie Four Fingers: Accident-prone, not terribly bright, and inclined to taking unwise chances, Frankie Four Fingers is a frequent guest at his local hospital and police station, thanks to all of the above tendancies. Whether it's falling out of a tree-stand or being caught with a .30-06 during bow season, something is always going badly for poor Frankie, and he frequently spends the entire season recuperating from the results.

8: The Thinker: Like Rodin's famous statue, The Thinker is capable of sitting still for geologic spans of time. Frequently older, The Thinker will frequently rack up an impressive kill count, but the cracking of joints and groaning of muscles held in one position for hours at a time will spoil many shots at the crucial moment.

9: The Stalker: The opposite of The Thinker, The Stalker prefers to move slowly through the woods, hoping to sneak up on a deer and either shoot it by surprise or as it tries to sneak away. The Stalker lives a dangerous life; besides the risk of poisonous snakes and falling hip-deep into groundhog burrows, he runs the risk of being inadvertently shot by Animal Mother or Mr. Good Time. He also runs an increased risk of running into Fiddy, Robbin', and Guy, since he is actually moving around.

10: The Game Warden: Game Wardens come in all shapes and sizes. Some are lackadaisical; others, dressed in ghillie-suits and armed with dummy deer and thermal-imaging cameras, are Inspector Javert's country cousin. Game Wardens are respected by few, liked by almost none, but obeyed by most because there's noplace like the woods to get shot. The inverse of this, of course, is that over-zealous Game Wardens sometimes go out on patrol...and never come home, having encountered Guy O' Guisburn. La Loup, the American Mountain Gorilla, and the American Mountain Chimpanzee will also defend their territories against the Game Warden in times of extreme food stress.

Borla

Me too.


Though, since I am on private, family owned land (one of my best friend's family has owned it for 3 generations), I know my group of guys is La Loup.

I'd be interested to see what The_Dunedan has to say about my thread in the Weapons forum.

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Coimhéad fearg fhear na foighde!!!!