It is one of those rare afternoons when the combination of the golden sunlight reflecting off the colorful autumn treetops and that quick, crisp chill in the air produce what is truly a perfect time to hunt in the deer woods. If offers a most welcome respite to the brutally hot days of summer that we endured through August. As I breathe in the stillness, I am deeply appreciative for the opportunity to experience this.
And then it begins, almost subconsciously. A rising clamor in the distance replaces my harmonious sentiments with the deepest sense of dread. What was once a peaceful scene of serene stillness has been utterly shattered by the loud, tumultuous din of a pack of deer hunting dogs. As they get closer, I can hear another sound slightly ahead of them. It is the sound of a bounding deer. Just then, a small doe, maybe a year old, bounds out of the brush across my shooting lanes and into the thicket on the other side.
Seconds later, the dogs burst into the opening howling at the top of their lungs. They are thin, many of them with ribs showing, wearing bright orange plastic collars. Some have radio collars that transmit their location back to their owner. The dogs are not supposed to be here, although they were put out on the properties adjacent to ours, they are not aware of boundaries, only the smell of the deer running ahead of them guides their way. This scene, if you can imagine it, occurred no less than four consecutive Saturdays one year. As unfortunate as it is, there is absolutely nothing I or my hunting partners can do about it.
Time and again, we have been forced to live out this scenario and ride home with nothing but another broken, hopeless afternoon. Our efforts of spending countless hours throughout the spring and summer building deer stands, tilling, fertilizing and fencing in food plots have been rendered completely useless in only five short minutes by a pack of long-legged walker hounds bearing bright orange collars that were simply dumped out of a dog box on the side of a state road.
My hunt is already over. Theirs will end when the tired little doe with tongue dangling out of her mouth makes the fatal mistake of crossing the road in front of the dog hunters who will proceed to blast several rounds of buckshot her way.
No one appreciates hunters’ rights more than I. I am a still-hunter. If I sneak onto someone else’s property and kill a deer out of one of their deer stands, I can be legally ticketed, fined, have my hunting license suspended and even jailed. However, several packs of hunting dogs can run all over our property, ruin mine and my friends’ time in the woods, and our only solace is, “Maybe it won’t happen next time.” I don’t ask for much, just a peaceful afternoon in the woods that I have looked forward to all week. To be deprived of such should be viewed for what it is: a violation of my rights to hunt game in a legal manner of taking.
