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Observations: Squirrel season 2005 and crossbow issue
There will be no going to the woods to hunt this morning. Dawn has brought a drizzle, a deceptively gentle precursor to the drenching that Katrina's swath up the Ohio Valley might bring. We will get far more rain than is good for cultivated plots, even after a summer of terrible drought, but water-starved woodlands and fallow meadows and the empty streams can use it. We hope that Providence spares us from tornadoes and that the predicted high winds wreck no buildings or topple no valuable mast trees. But whatever this dying monster brings us with her last blows, we will do well compared to our suffering countrymen in the Gulf region.
I cannot say that squirrel season has been a disappointment, for disappointment comes only when we get less than our expectations. I have long known 2005 would be a bad year for bushytails. One of nature's great truisms is that low numbers of squirrels always follow years of little or no mast. But there is hope, for this season the trees are bearing nuts aplenty. Most walnuts along roadsides, in creek woods, and the border areas of our upland forests are sporting lime-green globes on their early-thinning branches. There are acorns of both black and white oak groups, and even tiny acorns on blacks for the 2006 crop. Wild grapes are adding soft mast dessert to the smorgasbord. Best of all, I have found scores of hickories of shag bark, pignut, small-fruited, and bitternut species, which are cropping heavily.
The few squirrels around are cutting hickory-nuts with enthusiasm, and I have had no trouble finding them. But it is very few - just a squirrel or two in major cutting trees. The abundance of nuts makes locating squirrels more challenging, for there is no need for the animals to concentrate in food hotspots.
True squirrel men, not merely those who want to fill a freezer or rack up a kill tally, can rejoice in this season because of another great truism: squirrel numbers always increase after a year of abundant mast. I am looking forward to enjoying a happy fall, unlike that of 2004, simply because the trees are bearing, and I know that the game we have will survive when the cold and snows come.
The strength of 2006's upsurge depends on variables we cannot control. Nut crop failure in other regions could cause squirrels to migrate to our area, but barring some such natural phenomena, we should not expect too great a spike, for our local stocks are down so much. We can help by limiting this year's kill, by allowing females to raise their late litters. This is a fall in which we should take the long view, for a real recovery will require two consecutive seasons of adequate mast. The Department of Fish and Wildlife could help the situation by canceling the ridiculous January-February phases of the season. The late winter hunting is a terrible idea even under the best of circumstances, and this year, it could negate much of the good effect of our mast crop. Hunters should ignore the late season.
Mention of the department provides a springboard to another issue: the decision not to allow crossbows for the entire deer and turkey archery seasons, though the commission had voted to do this. We can blame elitism for the loss of crossbow hunting opportunity because Kentucky's cadre of bow hunters, who are apparently unwilling to share their over-abundant hunting opportunities with those who might take up the crossbow, made bitter wail about the intended change.
I had decided that this poor squirrel year would be a fine time to acquire a crossbow and spend more time in the woods hunting turkey (I had not planned to expand my deer hunting efforts). Alas, such was not to be, and it is just as well that I had dawdled in buying a crossbow and accessories. Bow hunters' gripes have cost wildlife the Pittman-Robinson excise taxes I would have paid on the crossbow set I will not purchase, and the price of the archery permit I will not need.
It's all a matter of turf defense and selfishness, and the constant risk we run of feeling too highly about ourselves. There has arisen a tendency to think of bow hunters as the royalty among outdoor sportsmen, and to treat them as such with long seasons and generous harvest limits. By the time one can use a modern firearm for deer hunting, we have jaded the herd with over two months of pursuit from hostile humans, to a man (or woman) armed with compound bow- weapons bearing as much resemblance to the primitive "stick and string" as a modern in-line muzzle-loader has to a matchlock. The elevation of bow hunters to this pedestal is not entirely rational. While it is true that developing bow skill requires a greater discipline than with a firearm, the bow does not magically imbue its user with a higher morality. A rouge is a rogue whether he carries a bow or a gun, and the bow is a stealth weapon, which gives its user the opportunity to encroach and act with a silence the gun does not afford. Innovations in bows and accessories such as sights and trigger releases have created a large contingent of very good shooters, many of whom practice trophy hunting. But it is naïve to assume all bow hunters are as skilled or discriminating as those we read about in outdoor magazines.
It has become trendy to play at doing things the "old" way while using modern gadgetry, such as in contemporary muzzle-loading. We cannot evade the analogy between state-of-the-art compound bows and contemporary front-stuffers such as Knight's disc rifle or the Remington 700ML. The current compound is a great advance from the recurve bows in use at the time of deer hunting's revival over forty years ago, and we cannot honestly call it a "primitive" weapon. I have no quarrel with improvements in weapons technology. We should always strive to make things better, but we should pay art and science their due respect, keeping our own abilities in perspective. Compound bow shooters who disdain us aspiring crossbow hunters are preaching from a rickety pulpit.
There are those who are true black powder shooters, men of the muzzle-loader who are historians and re-enactors practicing the authentic field and hunt craft of the pioneers who opened the wilderness. These traditionalists loathe in-line weapons. Most of them favor the flintlock. It would seem that archery purists would also opt for a more traditional instrument, and I know of some bowmen who are returning to the challenge of using a recurve. But if one really wants to bow hunt with an old-time weapon, to experience how Robin Hood and the Merry Men bagged their venison, there is a craftsman at the Ohio Renaissance Festival who makes and sells English longbows with hundred-pound pulls.
Pat Taylor was as spot-on as a round from a Marine sniper when he recently wrote that if wildlife authorities hear from enough folks favoring the crossbow expansion, they will let it happen. Consider this my "yea" vote.
I cannot say that squirrel season has been a disappointment, for disappointment comes only when we get less than our expectations. I have long known 2005 would be a bad year for bushytails. One of nature's great truisms is that low numbers of squirrels always follow years of little or no mast. But there is hope, for this season the trees are bearing nuts aplenty. Most walnuts along roadsides, in creek woods, and the border areas of our upland forests are sporting lime-green globes on their early-thinning branches. There are acorns of both black and white oak groups, and even tiny acorns on blacks for the 2006 crop. Wild grapes are adding soft mast dessert to the smorgasbord. Best of all, I have found scores of hickories of shag bark, pignut, small-fruited, and bitternut species, which are cropping heavily.
The few squirrels around are cutting hickory-nuts with enthusiasm, and I have had no trouble finding them. But it is very few - just a squirrel or two in major cutting trees. The abundance of nuts makes locating squirrels more challenging, for there is no need for the animals to concentrate in food hotspots.
True squirrel men, not merely those who want to fill a freezer or rack up a kill tally, can rejoice in this season because of another great truism: squirrel numbers always increase after a year of abundant mast. I am looking forward to enjoying a happy fall, unlike that of 2004, simply because the trees are bearing, and I know that the game we have will survive when the cold and snows come.
The strength of 2006's upsurge depends on variables we cannot control. Nut crop failure in other regions could cause squirrels to migrate to our area, but barring some such natural phenomena, we should not expect too great a spike, for our local stocks are down so much. We can help by limiting this year's kill, by allowing females to raise their late litters. This is a fall in which we should take the long view, for a real recovery will require two consecutive seasons of adequate mast. The Department of Fish and Wildlife could help the situation by canceling the ridiculous January-February phases of the season. The late winter hunting is a terrible idea even under the best of circumstances, and this year, it could negate much of the good effect of our mast crop. Hunters should ignore the late season.
Mention of the department provides a springboard to another issue: the decision not to allow crossbows for the entire deer and turkey archery seasons, though the commission had voted to do this. We can blame elitism for the loss of crossbow hunting opportunity because Kentucky's cadre of bow hunters, who are apparently unwilling to share their over-abundant hunting opportunities with those who might take up the crossbow, made bitter wail about the intended change.
I had decided that this poor squirrel year would be a fine time to acquire a crossbow and spend more time in the woods hunting turkey (I had not planned to expand my deer hunting efforts). Alas, such was not to be, and it is just as well that I had dawdled in buying a crossbow and accessories. Bow hunters' gripes have cost wildlife the Pittman-Robinson excise taxes I would have paid on the crossbow set I will not purchase, and the price of the archery permit I will not need.
It's all a matter of turf defense and selfishness, and the constant risk we run of feeling too highly about ourselves. There has arisen a tendency to think of bow hunters as the royalty among outdoor sportsmen, and to treat them as such with long seasons and generous harvest limits. By the time one can use a modern firearm for deer hunting, we have jaded the herd with over two months of pursuit from hostile humans, to a man (or woman) armed with compound bow- weapons bearing as much resemblance to the primitive "stick and string" as a modern in-line muzzle-loader has to a matchlock. The elevation of bow hunters to this pedestal is not entirely rational. While it is true that developing bow skill requires a greater discipline than with a firearm, the bow does not magically imbue its user with a higher morality. A rouge is a rogue whether he carries a bow or a gun, and the bow is a stealth weapon, which gives its user the opportunity to encroach and act with a silence the gun does not afford. Innovations in bows and accessories such as sights and trigger releases have created a large contingent of very good shooters, many of whom practice trophy hunting. But it is naïve to assume all bow hunters are as skilled or discriminating as those we read about in outdoor magazines.
It has become trendy to play at doing things the "old" way while using modern gadgetry, such as in contemporary muzzle-loading. We cannot evade the analogy between state-of-the-art compound bows and contemporary front-stuffers such as Knight's disc rifle or the Remington 700ML. The current compound is a great advance from the recurve bows in use at the time of deer hunting's revival over forty years ago, and we cannot honestly call it a "primitive" weapon. I have no quarrel with improvements in weapons technology. We should always strive to make things better, but we should pay art and science their due respect, keeping our own abilities in perspective. Compound bow shooters who disdain us aspiring crossbow hunters are preaching from a rickety pulpit.
There are those who are true black powder shooters, men of the muzzle-loader who are historians and re-enactors practicing the authentic field and hunt craft of the pioneers who opened the wilderness. These traditionalists loathe in-line weapons. Most of them favor the flintlock. It would seem that archery purists would also opt for a more traditional instrument, and I know of some bowmen who are returning to the challenge of using a recurve. But if one really wants to bow hunt with an old-time weapon, to experience how Robin Hood and the Merry Men bagged their venison, there is a craftsman at the Ohio Renaissance Festival who makes and sells English longbows with hundred-pound pulls.
Pat Taylor was as spot-on as a round from a Marine sniper when he recently wrote that if wildlife authorities hear from enough folks favoring the crossbow expansion, they will let it happen. Consider this my "yea" vote.
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| Lisa Dunbar | Pat Taylor |
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