You can kind of say that the first sign of spring is when Dan starts getting anxious to get back outside and into the great outdoors. So while haunting a website I occasionally visit I found this article;
Where do I begin. Oh yea, bullshit!!!!!!
Sorry about the cussing but I call shenanigans on them. One of the habits I’ve carried from my hunting and fishing hobby to my gaming hobby is the use of a notebook. In it I write down little notes and idea’s that come up before, during and after the hunt (or game). While I’m not as regular with it as I used to be the old notebook is still there and giving lessons back years later. One of them is that farmers are hypocrites.
I’ve spent plenty of time in the country with old timers who will bore you to death with stories of the old days on how pheasants used to live where the Walmart now stands and how kids these days don’t appreciate the way their parents used to live and love the land. I remember these people while flipping through my notebook and count the number of farmers who will in one sentence lament the loss of the country way of life and in the other tell you to get the hell of their land. The irony of course is entirely lost on them. Yes it’s their land so I agree that it’s their right. I don’t own thousands of productive acres to hunt and fish on. I have to crowd into the public land and bump into the idiots who have no idea what gun safety is or go ask the people who do own land.
Shall I now count the no’s I’ve received from the hypocrites? 10, 20, 30, 50, 86 landowners of all sorts have said no while only 1 has said yes. That 1 yes wanted $1,500 per hunter and big restrictions on what, when and where we hunted. No, he didn’t get any of my money.
I’ve heard the excuses;
You’ll shoot yourself and sue me. No I can’t. The law protects you.
You’ll drive your ATV all over the place and dig ruts in the land. No I won’t, I don’t own an ATV.
You’ll shoot the trophy deer I’m trying to hunt. Actually I’m hunting to fill up my freezer full of meat. It’s the young doe’s and ducks I’m after.
You’re not from around here. True but that doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with me any more than something being wrong with you if the geographic situation were reversed.
Now I’m willing to pay for access. Before I became a father I, my brother in law and a friend leased access from a farmer. This is a capitalist society and land is how they makes a living. I just wished that they'd keep in mind that if I can’t afford to buy my own land then I probably can't afford to pay him 1,500K for lousy access. Of couse we don’t actually live in a pure capitalist society do we? Farmer Bob here may own the land but I and 300 million other people own the game animals on it. And we also pay him numerous subsidies that he couldn't own the land without.
So this summer I'll be at it again, knocking on doors asking for permission to hunt on their property. In the fall I'll probably be back on public land again. The difference is this time when I hear a farmer say how kids these days don't appreciate the land and how city folk don't understand I'll pull out a mirror and introduce him to the one responsible.
Nobody will appreciate what they don't understand and they can't understand it until they experience it.
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