Birdshot and backlashes

The 60 mph Road HunterThe deer harvest was down about a fourth, sayeth the Department of Natural Resources. It was a good year, but not as good as 2003. The DNR, along with Minnesota’s 400,000 hunters have been holding a post mortem.Reasons abound, such as unseasonably warm weather, no snow, late rut and a variety of other excuses; but one which is never mentioned is the excessive speed apparent this year by road hunters. To the non-hunter, an explanation is due: “Road hunting” has nothing to do with hunting for a road; like the time Uncle Arvo missed the turn going to Side Lake and wound up in Kinney. “Road hunting” refers to hunting from a vehicle on a road.There have always been road hunters even before autos. Great, great grandpa did his road hunting from a horse-drawn surrey, but that was even before the DNR became concerned. Or even before there was a DNR.The automobile, of course, facilitated road hunting. Note all those folk in blaze orange tooling down the roads, eyeballs glued to the side windows, attempting to spot a buck peering back from the forest.There is nothing illegal about this as long as the hunters do not have loaded, uncased guns in the car. And it is legal as long as the hunter does not slam on the brakes and shoot. It is illegal to discharge a firearm over or on a public road. Or worse, crank down the window and fire from the car. The law states: “No one can take a wild animal with a firearm or by archery from a motor vehicle.” But this is followed by an “except.” And that is “…except a disabled person with an authorized permit.”The state allows a medically handicapped person to get a special license which allows them to shoot from a vehicle.But just looking out of the window of a vehicle is OK. And, if a deer is spotted, it is all right to stop the vehicle, get out, go into the woods, load up the firearm and shoot the deer, provided everything else fits the regulations.Veteran road hunters travel very slowly. However, there are now growing numbers of 60 mph road hunters as indicated by numerous black skid marks on paved roads where hunters slammed on their brakes and slid some distance past the observed animal. Usually, this results in the deer being spooked before the hunter can get out for a shot.But why did so many hunters this year race down the roads? First, most are neophytes and don’t know how to road hunt. They are often in a rush to get in several miles of road hunting before racing home to watch the Minnesota Gophers (Saturday) or Minnesota Vikings (Sunday) on TV.The real problem comes if a road hunter follows the rules and somehow bags a buck. He then must dress out his deer, drag it to the vehicle, load it into the car or pickup truck and drive to the state registration station where the kill is recorded. There goes most, if not all, of the football game, anyway.There was a lot of sloppy, even illegal, high-speed road hunting going on in northern Minnesota this season and it is no wonder the deer kill dropped by a fourth. Perhaps the DNR could come up with some emergency funding between now and deer season 2005 and initiate a hunter education program in the schools, possibly called Road Hunting 101.At the very least, The DNR Hunting and Trapping Handbook for 2005 could have a paragraph pointing out. “Successful road hunters never drive over 10 miles per hour! But watch your rear and avoid whiplash!”