We have both an early and a late muzzleloading season here in VA. Both are so much more peaceful and productive than the two weeks of gun season. That's when the crazies come out. I remember when we had an opening day for trout fishing. The streams would all get stocked and marked, and the crazies would wait for the 12 noon hour on that opening Saturday. What a mess. There were idiots with waders splashing through the pools stepping on the zillion lines that all got tossed in at that one particular minute. They left about dark and the following morning would reveal a horror of trash in and out of the water.
Sort of the same thing when gun season opens for deer. Orange hats and pickups tearing across the mountain roads. Just before daylight, guns start going off from every direction. It goes on for two weeks, the worst time of the year to venture into the wilds. Thank goodness for m/l seasons.
We all want something different from the game authorities. If I had my way, all hunting would be done with a flintlock rifle shooting a patched roundball. That ain't gonna happen, but then I don't suppose any of us get the exact thing we want.
You know what else I'd like to see in the hunting laws? No batteries and no plastic while engaged in hunting. No cotton and no aiming devices other than iron sights. We'd be wearing the wool and leather of the Colonials. That would really give the game a break, because when you think of all the things made of plastic or uses batteries, you'd probably realise that you've never gone hunting that way. You'd get a ticket for the plastic ends of your bootlaces. No flashlight, no GPS. No cellphone. No baggies. No rubber gloves. No plastic prescription medicin bottles. No plastic drink bottles. No plastic buttons on your shirt. It would take us so far back in time that our animal populations might recover.
Fantasy, I know, but I think we all have one or two.
