Now is the time to scout where you’ll put your deer stand before you forget where you saw deer. I guarantee you that next year the deer will be following the same trails to the same food areas and rubbing and scraping very close to the same places they did this year. DEER HAVE A MEMORY, you betcha!, so move your stand at least 50 yards from where it was this season. Try to place it so the wind blows across your shooting lane or food plot into your face. If you wait until next October when all the leaves, bushes and new growth are in place not only will everything look different, but you won’t remember how the game moved or how well you could see them.

While you’re still in the hunting mode (and season is over) get all your hunting clothes cleaned up and patched. Put them in a plastic bag along with a couple of handfuls of pine needles or cedar twigs so they’ll be ready and de-stunk for next season. More importantly, take your gun or guns apart and give them a good cleaning. While cleaning check every part for wear, breakage and hair-line cracks. Give all the metal a good lube job (that you’ll have to clean off before you shoot them again) and wax the wood. DON’T store them in a plastic gun case or they will rust for sure. Let the air circulate around them. If you can’t do this or just don’t want to, then take them to a gunsmith and he’ll do it for you. Or, you can do like my fren Joe. He does everything but put it back together. He brings it to me all nice and clean in pieces in a box.

NOTE: Quit calling a firearm a WEAPON. The tree huggers jes love the word ‘cause it sounds so violent and evil. A weapon is a THING (any thing) that is used for attack or defense (check your dictionary). So..... a pencil, rock, stick, skillet or whatever can be used as a weapon. Dadburn it, I wish people who use the language would at least find out what the dadburned words really mean.

As a hunter education instructor I’ve done a whole lot of research and reading so I can make my classes better. I’m convinced that conservation is a fine thing and it works very well AS LONG AS PEOPLE WHO DON’T UNDERSTAND CONSERVATION KEEP THEIR NOSES OUT OF IT (read politics and anti-hunters). Here’s a couple of examples: There was an area in Arizona that had very few whitetail deer, so the professional conservationists eliminated most if not all of the natural predators (wolves, cougars, etc.). In ten years or so the deer herd increased to 100,000. This was way too many for the area to support so the conservation folks wanted to open recreational hunting and back it up with professional extermination if that became necessary to bring the herd and it’s habitat back into balance. It would have worked but the anti hunters stopped them. Well Momma Nature stepped in and starvation and disease cut the herd down to 10,000 very sick animals. The Louisiana Whitetail Deer herd is 1.6 million and the National herd is over 25 million. (That’s more than the indians had before the white man ever got here.) Here’s some facts: One northeastern state reported over 50 million dollars in insurance claims for car-deer collisions, 200 deaths and 21,000 injuries nationwide, 240 airplane wrecks (deer on the runway), a tremendous amount of crop damage (deer eat the same stuff we do); in fact deer are in peoples yards munching rose bushes and back yard gardens. Sterilizing does has been tried and it didn’t work. Trapping and relocating deer didn’t work either and man has reduced natural predators to the point that what’s left are not enough to maintain a balance. All that’s left is to increase recreational hunting bag limits, make the season longer or bring in professionals to cull the herds down to numbers that the habitat can support.... or let old Momma Nature do her thing with starvation and disease. I betcha it ends up with Momma Nature ‘cause the anti hunters and tree huggers will raise holy hell if us ole hunters dare kill them sweet lil deer. I’m real curious to see how this problem gets solved.

The basic point I’m trying to make is that everything has to balance; the number of animals must be in balance with what the habitat can support (How ‘bout the number of people the world can feed?). If we don’t take care of this balance I guarantee that Momma Nature will. What can you do about it? Well, if you have a lease or own some land, call in a professional wildlife biologist and have him do a survey. He’ll give you a management plan and IF you follow it you’ll end up with a fine healthy herd and beautiful habitat. The Anti’s love to preach that we only take care of what we hunt. What a crock .... How are you gonna keep the crows and song birds from eating the corn you put out for deer? If we take care of any type of wildlife, all the rest benefit from our efforts. (I can just see the sign by your feeder: "crows, coons and non-deer ain’t welcome to eat here".) Another saying the Anti’s like is; "Just let nature take it’s course". OK, the next time there’s a forest fire in California, let’s let nature take her course and watch California burn up (I never liked California anyhow).

Enough preachin’ arreddy!..... You know how to tell if a good trade was made? Both people walk away happy and thinkin they really stuck it to the other guy!! Til next month, I hope you pass a good time...