After reading Don Zaidle’s October issue column, " The Possum Who Mocks No More," I remembered a few of my own "if you have ever/you might be" situations:
--- Had to explain blood in the bed of the truck to border patrol agents at the checkpoint on highway 59 south of Freer.
--- Had to explain to the game warden why in September you have deer stacked like cordwood in the bed of the pickup. (MLDP type 3 management hunting)
--- Used a shotgun to retrieve a white and chartreuse ChatterBait stuck in a tree above the beaver lodge on the cross-over dam at the back of the pond.
--- Shot a big water snake under the dresser in the lake house bedroom with a .357 and rat shot (and then replaced your baseboard and some minor sheetrock repairs).
Tim Sharp
Plano, TX
It’s ALL "Consumptive"
Doug Pike’s sentence, "The subjects of hunting and fishing and all outdoors things ’consumptive’...", (Pike on the Edge, October 2012) stuck a nerve. He reminds me that:
Yellowstone is "consumptive." The infrastructure and tourists have consumed the wilderness itself. It is a Disneyland with wildlife managed to entertain the guests. It is no longer a wild and natural place, it is settled country with a high human population density.
Hunters and fishermen move quietly through the Rockies in small numbers, needing little or no infrastructure, and leave little or no trace of their presence. As human hunters, they are a 15,000-year-old element of the North American ecosystem. They are not guests or spectators.
Jay Bute
El Lago, Texas
Deer Belong to the People
Ted Nugent says that in all states but Texas, a high-fence landowner can hunt deer year-round. My neighbor has a high fence, he opens a big gate and puts a feeder just inside his fence, and when the deer come in to feed, he closes the gate and captures them.
I called my local game warden to see if he could do it legally in Texas. They told me there was no law to keep him from doing it.
I believe in Texas the whitetail deer belong to the state (that’s you and me). Even if they are inside a high fence, they should be hunted only when it is legal to hunt them in all of the State of Texas.
Larry McNiel
Via email
New (Old) Fan
Chester Moore, I really enjoy my magazine---most of the writers are dead on. I think you do an outstanding job.
I will admit it took me a little while to warm up to you, but now I am addicted.Please continue your crusade for east Texas outdoors. We really do have it great in Texas.
Thanks again Chester, you have a new (actually old) fan.
