To all of those who expressed interest in my 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™' class, I have scheduled 2 more classes in the near future in order to accommodate everyone who has been kind enough to email me over the past week. One course is intended for people who live near Charlottesville, Virginia and the other is designed for people coming from much farther away.
The class for locals will meet once a week on Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm. Class is nominally an hour, but in practice I have found with all of my other classes that 90% of the students like to hang around and ask more questions for another 45 minutes. This 7 week course starts on December 9th. We will have a class trip to a shooting range on Saturday, January 9th. Ammunition, loaner rifles and other shooting supplies will be provided. No experience of any kind with either hunting or use of firearms is required. There will also be several field dressing demonstrations scheduled. The last class will be on final butchering and cooking, which will be held in a commercial kitchen in Charlottesville (although the butchering methods that will be taught can be applied at home with common kitchen utensils).
The cost for this course is $130. Class size is limited to a maximum of 10 students.
Not everyone can commute to Charlottesville once a week for almost 2 months. So for those of you coming from well out of town (or out of state and even out of country, in a few cases), I am offering an intensive 2 day course here in Charlottesville in which my usual curriculum is condensed into a single weekend. This will be held on the weekend of January 16th and 17th. The weekend course includes lunches, shuttle service to and from both the field dressing site and the shooting range, all course materials, use of rifles, ammunition and range supplies, snacks, etc. Information about hotels, sightseeing and evening entertainment will all be available.
The cost for this course is $320. Class size is limited to a maximum of 10 students. Because of the need to order materials in advance and reserve classroom space, a commercial kitchen, shuttle vehicle, etc., a $50 deposit via cash, check or Paypal is required to reserve a space in this class. If an insufficient number of people have signed up for this course by December 21 then I reserve the right to cancel it and refund all deposits in full. Please keep this in mind before purchasing non-refundable airline tickets.
If anyone has any questions about anything, please do not hesitate to ask.
The class for locals still has spaces available. The weekend course has already filled up to 80% of capacity only 12 hours after I announced it in a email. If there is enough interest then I will consider doing another weekend course. I regret having to charge as much as I am for these, but there is a tremendous amount of work, preparation and overhead involved in putting these weekend classes on and there is just no way that I could offer these classes at all otherwise.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
5 Deer Hunting Gadgets That Really Work
Locavore hunters like myself have an easier time hunting deer than trophy deer hunters do. We don't need to use such elaborate techniques to catch up with our prey as trophy hunters do. While a 6 year old buck requires tremendous wits and patience to encounter in daylight during hunting season, it isn't nearly so difficult to get a clear shot at some random yearling doe that doesn't have half the cunning of an old buck. We just want the meat.
I should make it clear that American trophy deer hunters are also meat hunters. They are just very choosy about what sort of head gear is attached to their meat. In the process, they have to use all sorts of tools that typical locavore hunters do not. Doe estrus scents, rattling antlers, etc. But there are a few items beyond rifle and blaze orange that are worth picking up, even if you are only hunting for food. Here are 5 hunting accessories that not only work but are worth bothering with even if you aren't after the biggest buck in the woods. With Christmas looming during a recession, note that these things are all pretty cheap.
1. The Butt-Out tool. Everyone will be much happier if I describe the particulars of this object as little as possible. Suffice to say that it makes an awkward and time-consuming stage of field dressing go much more quickly and smoothly. Well worth the $10 or so that it runs.
2. Any grunt call. Sometimes you'll have a deer that is walking along and just isn't going to stop and present you with a shot. Not everyone is comfortable with or capable of taking a shot on a walking deer. In that case, you need to encourage the creature to stop for a few seconds. Deer are inherently social creatures. A quick bleat through a grunt call will make a deer stop in its tracks and look around for at least a few seconds while it tries to figure out where the other deer is. At this time you must put a hole through it with all dispatch.
3. A collapsible monopod. Get really steady with your rifle, really fast. My personal technique for setting one of these up is to unscrew the yoke from the end and place the ring of a carabiner-style key chain between the ring and the screw of the monopod. Then I wrap the carabiner with camouflage duct tape. With this set up I can clip the thing to my belt while stalking to my blind so that my hands are free to take any shot that presents its self along the way. The duct tape silences the metal of the carabiner from clinking audibly against the monopod. The whole thing deploys very quickly with one hand with practice.
Anyone who is really thinking ahead will apply a bit of Loctite to the screw that holds the yoke in place, or else it will work its way off eventually. I am clearly not among this group, having lost monopods in some of the finest corners of thorn and swamp riddled wilderness in Virginia at the rate of about one per year.
4. A collapsible camp stool. I don't bother with tree stands, because they cost around $100 each, plus the harnesses and steps and all of that. I don't have 2 dimes to rub together, so I hunt from the ground. Sitting on the dirt isn't the worst thing, but sometimes one needs to get one's eyes up above the tall grass. I've been using this collapsible camp stool for 3 years now and its great. I clip it on to a belt loop on the other side of where I have the monopod. For quieter deployment it helps to wrap electrical tape around the ends of the mid sections of the legs.
5. A cooler with wheels. There are a ton of different models along these lines. I teach all of my students how to quarter a deer in the field when necessary, removing all of the meat right there in the woods and leaving behind nothing but gut pile, skeleton and head. It isn't very difficult to do once you've been taught how and I promise you that it is much easier to drag a cooler on wheels through a mile or so of woods than it is to carry an entire gutted deer. Also, you can put the cooler in your trunk or on your front passenger seat rather than getting an entire dead deer home. No need to buy a pickup truck if you don't already have one. This makes particular sense for any would-be hunters who live in apartments or other situations where butchering the whole deer on the front walk will be frowned upon by people whose opinions may count for something.
My daily driver is a 1998 Ford ZX2, which is a 2 door coupe that nobody would ever expect to see parked on public land next to a line of super duty pickup trucks during hunting season. But the fact that I can stick an entire deer's worth of meat in a cooler in even a compact car means that I can enjoy my 31 miles to the gallon without compromise. Trust me, a cooler with wheels is way cheaper than buying another vehicle.
I should make it clear that American trophy deer hunters are also meat hunters. They are just very choosy about what sort of head gear is attached to their meat. In the process, they have to use all sorts of tools that typical locavore hunters do not. Doe estrus scents, rattling antlers, etc. But there are a few items beyond rifle and blaze orange that are worth picking up, even if you are only hunting for food. Here are 5 hunting accessories that not only work but are worth bothering with even if you aren't after the biggest buck in the woods. With Christmas looming during a recession, note that these things are all pretty cheap.
1. The Butt-Out tool. Everyone will be much happier if I describe the particulars of this object as little as possible. Suffice to say that it makes an awkward and time-consuming stage of field dressing go much more quickly and smoothly. Well worth the $10 or so that it runs.
2. Any grunt call. Sometimes you'll have a deer that is walking along and just isn't going to stop and present you with a shot. Not everyone is comfortable with or capable of taking a shot on a walking deer. In that case, you need to encourage the creature to stop for a few seconds. Deer are inherently social creatures. A quick bleat through a grunt call will make a deer stop in its tracks and look around for at least a few seconds while it tries to figure out where the other deer is. At this time you must put a hole through it with all dispatch.
3. A collapsible monopod. Get really steady with your rifle, really fast. My personal technique for setting one of these up is to unscrew the yoke from the end and place the ring of a carabiner-style key chain between the ring and the screw of the monopod. Then I wrap the carabiner with camouflage duct tape. With this set up I can clip the thing to my belt while stalking to my blind so that my hands are free to take any shot that presents its self along the way. The duct tape silences the metal of the carabiner from clinking audibly against the monopod. The whole thing deploys very quickly with one hand with practice.
Anyone who is really thinking ahead will apply a bit of Loctite to the screw that holds the yoke in place, or else it will work its way off eventually. I am clearly not among this group, having lost monopods in some of the finest corners of thorn and swamp riddled wilderness in Virginia at the rate of about one per year.
4. A collapsible camp stool. I don't bother with tree stands, because they cost around $100 each, plus the harnesses and steps and all of that. I don't have 2 dimes to rub together, so I hunt from the ground. Sitting on the dirt isn't the worst thing, but sometimes one needs to get one's eyes up above the tall grass. I've been using this collapsible camp stool for 3 years now and its great. I clip it on to a belt loop on the other side of where I have the monopod. For quieter deployment it helps to wrap electrical tape around the ends of the mid sections of the legs.
5. A cooler with wheels. There are a ton of different models along these lines. I teach all of my students how to quarter a deer in the field when necessary, removing all of the meat right there in the woods and leaving behind nothing but gut pile, skeleton and head. It isn't very difficult to do once you've been taught how and I promise you that it is much easier to drag a cooler on wheels through a mile or so of woods than it is to carry an entire gutted deer. Also, you can put the cooler in your trunk or on your front passenger seat rather than getting an entire dead deer home. No need to buy a pickup truck if you don't already have one. This makes particular sense for any would-be hunters who live in apartments or other situations where butchering the whole deer on the front walk will be frowned upon by people whose opinions may count for something.
My daily driver is a 1998 Ford ZX2, which is a 2 door coupe that nobody would ever expect to see parked on public land next to a line of super duty pickup trucks during hunting season. But the fact that I can stick an entire deer's worth of meat in a cooler in even a compact car means that I can enjoy my 31 miles to the gallon without compromise. Trust me, a cooler with wheels is way cheaper than buying another vehicle.
Friday, November 27, 2009
American as Turkey on Thanksgiving
I have never considered myself a turkey hunter. Nobody has any business calling themselves a turkey hunter in America unless he knows how to sit there with his back against a tree all morning, shotgun in hand, making turkey sounds with a call or with his mouth (which he has probably practiced in the car on his way to work every morning, feeling faintly ridiculous when people stare at him at stop lights). I am a deer hunter and in spite of having busted my fair share of clays with a pump action 12 gauge I will always be a rifleman at heart. Since the Commonwealth of Virginia allows turkeys to be hunted with any firearm, it is my natural inclination to reach for a rifle.
There are few things more satisfyingly American than bagging a wild turkey on Thanksgiving, rifle or no. Even the purist must admit that the sheer aesthetic of the day outweighs the absence of a shotgun. I took a wild turkey on Thanksgiving yesterday and it was the tidiest thing. Almost.
I decided that I would take a turkey when we got to my wife's parents' house a few hours ahead of Thanksgiving dinner, and I decided that I would use a .22 LR rifle rather than a shotgun because I was expecting the range to be a bit longer than birdshot is good for and also because I do not enjoy picking tiny balls of lead out of my food. I announced to all and sundry that I intended to shoot very quickly and take my legal limit of 2 birds at one go.
As luck had it, as we pulled into the driveway I saw a pair of jakes jogging across a field no more than 150 yards from the house. We went inside, said our hellos to everyone and then my father-in-law noted that what I assume to be the same pair of birds were picking their way around the edge of the woods in the backyard.
I slung the rifle over my shoulder and walked quickly to a covered position. Every male in the house followed, including my 2 year old son. All of us doing our best to be quiet without succeeding particularly well.
I'd intended to shoot each bird in the head at the range of about 60 yards that they were at. As it turned out the heads were in such constant motion that it was impractical. Not wanting to spoil good meat, I got steady and aimed for the base of the neck.
The rifle cracked off and as I worked the bolt the first turkey took wing into the woods. I snapped the bolt shut and about a second later I took what felt like an identical shot on the second turkey.
We filed out into the woods. First me, followed by every other male who had come for Thanksgiving dinner. All would enjoy the undeniable satisfaction of taking a wild turkey on Thanksgiving by joining in the search for the birds.
Bob saw the second bird upside down among the pines right away. I was silently cross with him for walking straight up to it ahead of me and picking it up by the legs. It was my turkey and I wanted to touch it before anyone else did. This was childish of me so I said nothing.
He was a great, splendid bird with a broad fan of tail feathers like something that would be cut out and laminated on the wall of a Kindergarten classroom in mid-November. His bald face was blue and red. It felt rubbery.
The first bird turned out to be a miss. There was not so much as a spot of blood on the ground in the area where he was when I'd shot. After an exhaustive search the consensus among the ad hoc committee of male relatives between the ages of 2.5 and 58 was that the bullet had zipped through feathers without touching flesh.
I was disappointed because the shot had felt good and solid. But the sheer glory of having this other enormous turkey literally in hand on Thanksgiving day was so bright that the failure to bag the other half of the pair did not seem hardly worth even taking note of. I had announced that I intended to take 2 turkeys; minutes later providence sent exactly 2 turkeys strutting into sight and I shot exactly twice and did almost precisely what I'd said that I would do. It really was the tidiest thing, just about. I will certainly be insufferable for at least the next month.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
So You Want to Be a Locavore Deer Hunter?
The New York Times was kind enough to run a feature article today that is largely about my class, 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™.' There is also a video companion piece on the website.
Naturally I have about a million emails from people all over the world this morning who are interested in taking my class or looking for help in finding something similar in their local area. As far as I know, there is nobody else teaching a class that is even remotely comparable. Because of this, I have been writing a book, 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™,' which is intended to make the case for the concept of locavore hunting while also serving as a complete 'how-to' manual for the total neophyte. The book encompasses all of the material taught in my classes with loads more science, natural history and information on hunting weapons than I dare make my students sit through.
Until my book is finished and finds a publisher, there is no one source that I could point people to. However, for someone who lives nowhere near Virginia or NYC (where I might be teaching the class in a couple of compressed weekends), I recommend the following books as a basic foundation of knowledge for the would-be deer hunter.
Whitetail Advantage, by Dr. David Samuel and Robert Zaiglin. This book is full of the most recent scientific research on deer behavior. Deer hunting in America, as an oral tradition, is unfortunately blighted with many myths that go back generations. Reading 'Whitetail Advantage' will prevent you from falling for some of those misconceptions. In order to hunt deer successfully, you need to understand their behavior and this book gets you there faster than any other book that I have read.
'Finding Wounded Deer,' by John Trout. The vast majority of the time, a deer shot in the right place will be die within a minute and can be found within 100 yards of where it was standing when it was hit. But even if you only have a missing deer once in your life, it is worth knowing what to do. In heavy brush, a wounded deer could run far enough in 30 seconds that it takes you the next 4 or 5 hours to find the dead deer. Googling the problem may not be an option when you're standing there in the middle of the woods and the sun is going down, so it would be best to have those tracking skills before you even start. John Trout's book is the way to go.
Also, pick up 'Making the Most of Your Deer,' by Dennis Walrod. He gives a good explanation of simple butchering techniques and even gets into topics like tanning deer hides and making soap from the fat.
None of these books delves into choosing a firearm, how to hunt without a pickup truck, deer evolution or any of those other related subjects that will be included in my own book. But they all contain tons of indispensable information for a new, adult hunter.
Naturally I have about a million emails from people all over the world this morning who are interested in taking my class or looking for help in finding something similar in their local area. As far as I know, there is nobody else teaching a class that is even remotely comparable. Because of this, I have been writing a book, 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™,' which is intended to make the case for the concept of locavore hunting while also serving as a complete 'how-to' manual for the total neophyte. The book encompasses all of the material taught in my classes with loads more science, natural history and information on hunting weapons than I dare make my students sit through.
Until my book is finished and finds a publisher, there is no one source that I could point people to. However, for someone who lives nowhere near Virginia or NYC (where I might be teaching the class in a couple of compressed weekends), I recommend the following books as a basic foundation of knowledge for the would-be deer hunter.
Whitetail Advantage, by Dr. David Samuel and Robert Zaiglin. This book is full of the most recent scientific research on deer behavior. Deer hunting in America, as an oral tradition, is unfortunately blighted with many myths that go back generations. Reading 'Whitetail Advantage' will prevent you from falling for some of those misconceptions. In order to hunt deer successfully, you need to understand their behavior and this book gets you there faster than any other book that I have read.
'Finding Wounded Deer,' by John Trout. The vast majority of the time, a deer shot in the right place will be die within a minute and can be found within 100 yards of where it was standing when it was hit. But even if you only have a missing deer once in your life, it is worth knowing what to do. In heavy brush, a wounded deer could run far enough in 30 seconds that it takes you the next 4 or 5 hours to find the dead deer. Googling the problem may not be an option when you're standing there in the middle of the woods and the sun is going down, so it would be best to have those tracking skills before you even start. John Trout's book is the way to go.
Also, pick up 'Making the Most of Your Deer,' by Dennis Walrod. He gives a good explanation of simple butchering techniques and even gets into topics like tanning deer hides and making soap from the fat.
None of these books delves into choosing a firearm, how to hunt without a pickup truck, deer evolution or any of those other related subjects that will be included in my own book. But they all contain tons of indispensable information for a new, adult hunter.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
The 10 Point GOP Purity Platform
I think that this is a very smart time for the Republican party to take a close look at their national platform and find opportunities to present that platform to the American people. Hooray for that. But looking at the current draft of a platform that the RNC is looking at, I don't think they all quite get what a platform is supposed to be. Here's the platform (as reported by the New York Times):
Without getting into the merits of any of these ideas or positions, it seems like a real mistake to put Barack Obama's name in the platform multiple times. A platform should be a statement of broad principles. Putting Obama in there -- especially right up top like that -- makes them continue to look like people who are defined by a blind hatred of a man whom most people rather like. This just reads like 'Obama sucks' and is too narrowly focused on specific legislation rather than broad issues.
What does it even mean to oppose "Obama-style government run health care"? Obama hasn't insisted on any particular style of government's role in health care. He just said he wants a health care reform bill to happen. Its not clear to me what they are even talking about, which is part of the problem with dragging issue-of-the-hour stuff into a platform as opposed to basic principles.
Number 9 on the platform is awkward, cramming two completely unrelated things into one item. Plenty of people will be for one of those but not the other. The whole 'health care rationing / death panel' thing has been pretty well debunked at this point. Its right up there with the theory of the moon landing being faked. There is no room for intelligent debate on that one, regardless of political affiliation.
While I am very much so a member of the Democratic Party, I feel kindly towards Republicans. I do not hate them and I do not want to see them lose every single election. It would be nice if they could craft a party platform that clearly articulates conservative principles. Whatever those might be today.
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run health care;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.
Without getting into the merits of any of these ideas or positions, it seems like a real mistake to put Barack Obama's name in the platform multiple times. A platform should be a statement of broad principles. Putting Obama in there -- especially right up top like that -- makes them continue to look like people who are defined by a blind hatred of a man whom most people rather like. This just reads like 'Obama sucks' and is too narrowly focused on specific legislation rather than broad issues.
What does it even mean to oppose "Obama-style government run health care"? Obama hasn't insisted on any particular style of government's role in health care. He just said he wants a health care reform bill to happen. Its not clear to me what they are even talking about, which is part of the problem with dragging issue-of-the-hour stuff into a platform as opposed to basic principles.
Number 9 on the platform is awkward, cramming two completely unrelated things into one item. Plenty of people will be for one of those but not the other. The whole 'health care rationing / death panel' thing has been pretty well debunked at this point. Its right up there with the theory of the moon landing being faked. There is no room for intelligent debate on that one, regardless of political affiliation.
While I am very much so a member of the Democratic Party, I feel kindly towards Republicans. I do not hate them and I do not want to see them lose every single election. It would be nice if they could craft a party platform that clearly articulates conservative principles. Whatever those might be today.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Puzzling Reactions to the Deer in the Lion Enclosure
Naturally I've got to throw my two cents in on this past weekend's incident with the whitetail deer that managed to jump into the lion enclosure at the National Zoo in DC.
The deer was badly mauled by the lions before staff showed up to interfere. According to the Washington Post:
"Zoo personnel sent visitors away and got the lions indoors. With the enclosure empty, the deer left the moat on its own. It was anesthetized and taken for evaluation by specialists. "
This whole thing is ridiculous to me on so many levels. In the first place, they have these lions that are kept in a tiny enclosure with nothing to do all day for the purpose of being stared at by tourists. Kind of a bad situation in the first place. These animals spend their whole lives completely miserable in a big concrete pit. For one brief, shining moment they got to act like proper lions and the zoo keepers had to take that away from them? Why?
Even if the goal was to try to save the deer's life, once it was clear that it could not survive, what purpose was served by anesthetizing it rather than just putting it back into the enclosure for the lions to eat?
What are the lions normally fed? Soy burgers? No, they eat meat from animals that were just as alive as the deer was. There is no set of distinct moral options to choose from here. Other animals either die to feed them or the lions starve.
The sending away of visitors is especially idiotic. Anyone who is offended by the sight can, in the first place, walk away on their own. In the second place, didn't everyone show up to see lions? This is what lions are and this is what they do. If you don't want to see predation then perhaps you shouldn't walk up to the edge of a concrete pit in which predators are being held. What purpose was served by the staff of the zoo forcing people to leave the public area where they were watching the animals act like themselves?
I understand that there was probably a certain amount of panic on the part of the staff and they felt like they had to make fast decisions. But I would hope that further reflection on the incident will lead them to realize the absurdity of the whole thing. If anything, I think it would be a very charitable thing for the lions if they were to periodically release a deer for them in a deliberate manner. Snakes in the reptile house are regularly fed live rodents, so frankly I don't see what the difference is in this case.
The deer was badly mauled by the lions before staff showed up to interfere. According to the Washington Post:
"Zoo personnel sent visitors away and got the lions indoors. With the enclosure empty, the deer left the moat on its own. It was anesthetized and taken for evaluation by specialists. "
This whole thing is ridiculous to me on so many levels. In the first place, they have these lions that are kept in a tiny enclosure with nothing to do all day for the purpose of being stared at by tourists. Kind of a bad situation in the first place. These animals spend their whole lives completely miserable in a big concrete pit. For one brief, shining moment they got to act like proper lions and the zoo keepers had to take that away from them? Why?
Even if the goal was to try to save the deer's life, once it was clear that it could not survive, what purpose was served by anesthetizing it rather than just putting it back into the enclosure for the lions to eat?
What are the lions normally fed? Soy burgers? No, they eat meat from animals that were just as alive as the deer was. There is no set of distinct moral options to choose from here. Other animals either die to feed them or the lions starve.
The sending away of visitors is especially idiotic. Anyone who is offended by the sight can, in the first place, walk away on their own. In the second place, didn't everyone show up to see lions? This is what lions are and this is what they do. If you don't want to see predation then perhaps you shouldn't walk up to the edge of a concrete pit in which predators are being held. What purpose was served by the staff of the zoo forcing people to leave the public area where they were watching the animals act like themselves?
I understand that there was probably a certain amount of panic on the part of the staff and they felt like they had to make fast decisions. But I would hope that further reflection on the incident will lead them to realize the absurdity of the whole thing. If anything, I think it would be a very charitable thing for the lions if they were to periodically release a deer for them in a deliberate manner. Snakes in the reptile house are regularly fed live rodents, so frankly I don't see what the difference is in this case.
Monday, November 09, 2009
New 'Deer Hunting for Locavores' Class About to Start
The first run of my class, 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™' just wrapped up last night with an evening of butchering and cooking. I can honestly say that the eight session class was a success. A group of nine people went from zero to sixty as locavore hunters in space of only a few months.
The new class with a new group of people will be starting this Sunday. I still have a few spots open and am hoping to fill them before this weekend.
There are a number of reasons to consider learning how to hunt for your own food. Many people reading this probably feel a little bit bad about eating meat but not quite bad enough to actually stop. If you feel that you've been somehow dodging the ethics of meat and animal cruelty in your own life, there is no more effective way of facing the matter head-on than by learning to hunt and butcher the food yourself. As a hunter, the experience of the animal that you eat is up to you. A whitetail deer in Virginia can live a good and natural life in the wild and then have one bad morning before becoming food. Which is an ethically better source of obtaining meat? From a wild deer or from a pig raised in a factory farm under Auschwitz-like conditions?
Commercial meat is typically filled with hormones and antibiotics and is fed on grain that required high amounts of petroleum to fertilize and transport. Wild venison is free-range and free of hormones, antibiotics and the cruelty of captivity. If you are concerned about 'food miles' and the impact that your own diet has on the environment, hunting is a very practical way of addressing this. There are wild deer in high numbers in nearly every area of the Eastern US. Many people reading this can either hunt literally in their own backyards or could be helped to find land within 25 miles on which they can hunt for deer. Literally, you could be measuring your food miles by looking at your odometer.
Processing and butchering your own deer is not difficult. Even if you live in a small apartment and drive a compact car there are methods that I'll be teaching which will allow you to do all of this work yourself without the need for a pickup truck or a garage.
The class meets once a week for 8 weeks. We'll be learning natural history, ecology, anatomy, ballistics, field dressing, butchering and everything else that you need to be an ethical and successful locavore hunter. The cost is $50. No experience with firearms is necessary, nor is anyone required to own a weapon in order to take the class.
Interested persons can email me at jack.landers@gmail.com for more information or to sign up. You can also find coverage of the last class in The Hook, and in a forthcoming article in the New York Times that is supposed to run around Thanksgiving. I'll also be WINA talk radio on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 pm to talk about locavore deer hunting.
The new class with a new group of people will be starting this Sunday. I still have a few spots open and am hoping to fill them before this weekend.
There are a number of reasons to consider learning how to hunt for your own food. Many people reading this probably feel a little bit bad about eating meat but not quite bad enough to actually stop. If you feel that you've been somehow dodging the ethics of meat and animal cruelty in your own life, there is no more effective way of facing the matter head-on than by learning to hunt and butcher the food yourself. As a hunter, the experience of the animal that you eat is up to you. A whitetail deer in Virginia can live a good and natural life in the wild and then have one bad morning before becoming food. Which is an ethically better source of obtaining meat? From a wild deer or from a pig raised in a factory farm under Auschwitz-like conditions?
Commercial meat is typically filled with hormones and antibiotics and is fed on grain that required high amounts of petroleum to fertilize and transport. Wild venison is free-range and free of hormones, antibiotics and the cruelty of captivity. If you are concerned about 'food miles' and the impact that your own diet has on the environment, hunting is a very practical way of addressing this. There are wild deer in high numbers in nearly every area of the Eastern US. Many people reading this can either hunt literally in their own backyards or could be helped to find land within 25 miles on which they can hunt for deer. Literally, you could be measuring your food miles by looking at your odometer.
Processing and butchering your own deer is not difficult. Even if you live in a small apartment and drive a compact car there are methods that I'll be teaching which will allow you to do all of this work yourself without the need for a pickup truck or a garage.
The class meets once a week for 8 weeks. We'll be learning natural history, ecology, anatomy, ballistics, field dressing, butchering and everything else that you need to be an ethical and successful locavore hunter. The cost is $50. No experience with firearms is necessary, nor is anyone required to own a weapon in order to take the class.
Interested persons can email me at jack.landers@gmail.com for more information or to sign up. You can also find coverage of the last class in The Hook, and in a forthcoming article in the New York Times that is supposed to run around Thanksgiving. I'll also be WINA talk radio on Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 pm to talk about locavore deer hunting.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
I Ate the Worm: An Account of Hunting Pigs in Back Bay, Virginia
I really wanted some bacon. Not just any bacon -- I wanted some free-range, hormone and antibiotic-free bacon. Oh, and I'd also like it to be just plain free. There's only one way to meet that set of criteria, short of armed robbery at Whole Foods. I was just gonna have to go and shoot the stuff myself.This was precisely what myself and Bob Smith, my father-in-law, set out to do this past weekend. There are only two games in town for hunting pigs in Virginia, unless you want to go to some kind of game preserve (which is not my style). Private land around Culpeper and the managed deer and pig hunt at the Back Bay Federal Wildlife Refuge near Virginia Beach.
Not knowing anyone with pig-infested land around Culpeper, I entered the lottery for a spot in the Back Bay hunt. This was my second year of entering. Last year I drew a date that I couldn't show up for, and an island hunting zone that required a boat I don't have. But this year my efforts paid off and I got exactly the day and zone that I'd requested for this shotguns-only hunt (don't even get me started on that rule).
We showed up at the refuge the day before the hunt to scout our zone. The nice, mustachioed gentleman at the gate wouldn't let us in. Apparently one could only scout on a specific day a week earlier. Not such a great rule with people like us driving in from 4 hours away. The result was that we'd be going in there more or less blind.
Bob and I stayed at the KOA campground nearby on the day before we were going to hunt. As it turns out, cabin number 1 at the Virginia Beach KOA campground is precisely the spot where every single F-18 at the local naval air base slows down and turns a sharp left. Literally, at increments of between 5 seconds and no more than 5 minutes these things would come blasting over us so low that you could have hit one with a baseball. This 'sound of freedom' wasn't just loud. It was so deafening and so close that every single time my body would tense up under the assumption that the plane was about to crash into the cabin. I could think of better places to put a campground. Like maybe the middle of a Nascar track, or in the basement of CBGB during the mid eighties.
That went on pretty much all night. I might have gotten as much as 3 hours of sleep.
At 4 am we showed up at the wildlife refuge to check in. I should mention here that on the DGIF website and in the materials that they mailed to me, they said specifically that a hunters education certificate must be presented in order to go on this hunt. Not just a hunting license, even though a hunters education course is required in order to get one's first hunting license. Bob got his first hunting license something like 40 years ago, so he certainly didn't have a certificate kicking around. Consequently he spent 3 days sitting through elementary hunters ed with a bunch of teenagers in order to get the stupid certificate to come on the pig hunt.
Ok, that would be fine except that when we got there they didn't care about our certificates. They said they didn't need to see them at all. So why do you tell everyone to bring them on the website? Why did you make Bob waste 3 days on remedial hunters ed for no reason?
Finally, we got all checked in. They gave a little speech telling us and the other 20 or so hunters that every one of the normal Virginia hunting laws applies here. But then they took our hunting licenses to hold them until after the hunt (why?). Meaning that not only were we being told to technically hunt without a license, but it was also impossible to comply with the legal requirement of immediately notching a deer tag before moving or dressing the deer.
Then they loaded us onto a large, open-air tram that was about the size of a bus. The tram was driven, swaying and jolting, down rough gravel roads over narrow causeways in which a bad move would result in the whole thing sliding sideways into freezing water of unknown depth. This would be fine except that our driver, an elderly woman, told us that she was a volunteer and had never driven this thing before in her life. So naturally 5 o'clock in the morning in pitch black darkness would be the perfect time to learn!
The tram ride lent a unique 'third world' sort of flavor to the day, which I appreciated in the interest of living the strenuous life and so forth. If only the driver had managed some pidgin English then it would have been perfect.
In this darkness there was no announcement of what zones we were in. Each hunter had to just guess whether or not the bus was passing through his assigned zone. I suppose there was just enough mall glow on the horizon to make out whether one would be stepping off into the bay or onto dry land. Oh, and of course we had just been given a speech about how serious the game warden was about writing up a summons for anyone caught hunting in the wrong zone.
When we figured we were probably in the middle of our zone, Bob and I asked the driver to stop and we got out and stood there with no idea of where to go on account of not having been allowed to walk in and take a look the day before. We decided just to start bushwacking through the brush and swamp in the general direction of where we figured the Bay was.
This part was fun, because I am a lunatic and have always perversely enjoyed crashing through seemingly impenetrable brush in total darkness and still generally navigating to my intended destination. Of course in this case we had no intended destination. We had a pretty good idea of where the road was but no idea as to where exactly we'd been dropped off. After a while we came to a high spot in the swamp with some scrub pines and this looked like as good a place as any to sit down for a while and wait for the dawn.
We both probably fell asleep at various points while laying on the soft bed of pine needles in the warm night air. I felt something move against my boot and wondered if a cottonmouth was winding its way across my foot. After giving it some thought I decided that if this was in fact what was happening then the best thing would be to not turn on the flashlight or even confirm that it was the case. Just stay perfectly still until the sun comes up and the thing will slither off into a nice patch of sunlight. If in fact there was a cottonmouth at all, which there almost certainly wasn't.
The dawn seeped in through the veil of pine boughs in the typically undramatic fashion that daylight presents its self. Any poetic majesty must have been out of view.
Suddenly the new dawn's poetic majesty, or lack therof, was punctuated by a series of distant shots from different directions. It was time to get moving.
We bushwhacked a ways farther until emerging at the edge of a vast marsh. The wind swept in great waves across the tall, sun-bleached marsh grass. Starlings fought their way against the stiff breeze out over patches of open water. We had a nice strip of solid ground beneath us, vegetation nibbled down to stubs by the various absent herbivores.
There was plenty of pig sign in the form of scat and oblong craters of uprooted earth around this marsh edge. At first thought we'd hit paydirt. We could see a a long way and sat on that spot for about 45 minutes. Then we realized several things. First, that beyond the small strip of solid ground the marsh grass was too tall to hope to spot a pig at more than 5 yards distance. Secondly, that since these pigs have been hunted before during this season they would have all scooted from feeding areas at the sound of the first shots and there was no way we'd catch them rooting in the open right then.
At least it was a nice view.
Moving through the woods and swamps parallel to the marsh, we eventually found ourselves going straight into the thickest crud we could find. I figured that if the pigs were spooked back into their bedding areas then we were just going to have to go in there after them. Wide pig trails through very low brush began to appear. Very large hunks of pig scat were in evidence. Every stalk of greenbriar had been nibbled. This was the right track.
Following up one of these trails, we spooked a pig from its bedding area from a distance of about 13 yards. It grunted and snorted as it took off. I raised my weapon but never had a shot at it.
It was close to 11 am. The temperature was steadily dropping. I poked apart the most recent-looking chunk of pig crap to see what was in it. Acorn shells. Aha! Now I knew what food source they'd be hitting if they attempted to feed at all.
We moved out from the bedding area to the nearest stand of live oaks with acorns on the ground. I got up into the wide, low boughs of an oak tree. Mostly just because it is fun to climb trees. Bob set himself up on the ground at the base of another tree. He wasn't wearing camouflage, but he stayed very still. If any pigs did chance to realize what they were looking at then I would like to think they'd decide his faded blue jeans and earth-toned shirt indicated that he was not a hunter and therefore he might serve as a form of bait for the large, omnivorous beasts.
We faced towards the bedding area and waited for a very long time. I'm not even sure how long we were there for. No pigs. Good theory but no luck.
The rest of the day went more or less along these lines. We saw some very interesting landscapes and interesting wildlife. I counted at least 4 different species of tree frogs and 1 toad in one spot alone. But the day grew colder as it wore on and the amphibians disappeared. The sky began to spit rain. Bob and I were both covered with thorn scratches and my cold had come back with a twist of mild laryngitis. Besides, I had accidentally left a wedge of soft Bavarian cheese in a cooler back at the truck. I wanted very much to eat this wedge of soft Bavarian cheese. Therefore it was time to leave.
It was around 5 pm when we finally pulled out of the parking lot. Pigless, deerless and exhausted. But on the other hand we'd seen something of an interesting habitat, had bragging rights for having bothered to hack our way through the swamp at all, and most importantly we know the lay of the land for next time.
Hunting wild pigs in Back Bay is not unlike eating the worm at the bottom of a bottle of tequila. The experience is empirically unpleasant, and yet somehow kind of fun and sooner or later I'll probably find myself doing it again.
Monday, November 02, 2009
'Deer Hunting For Locavores:' Sign Ups for Second Class
As I approach the end of the first run of this class I've been teaching, 'Deer Hunting for Locavores™,' I've already got people asking to sign up for the next go-round. So apparently I'm starting it over again.
The new class begins on November 15th here in downtown Charlottesville. The course will run 8 sessions, including both classroom segments and field trips to the shooting range, field dressing, etc. The class is limited to 12 students due to the constraints of space and maintaining a sensible instructor-to-student ratio on range day. This is a class aimed at adults with little or no hunting experience. No prior experience with firearms is necessary or expected.
Now that I have a better idea of what my real costs are for ammunition, course materials and gasoline are, I will be charging a total of $50 for the 8 week course. This cost includes ammunition for range day, when students will have an opportunity to try a variety of deer rifles in various cartridges and action types.
The course is open to all sorts of people. You don't have to look or feel like whatever you think is the usual type of person to hunt deer. You can be male, female, Asian, white, black, Indian, gay, straight, disabled, 80 years old, liberal, conservative or whatever. So long as you are mentally and legally fit to use a potentially dangerous tool and are ready to learn more about deer, you are probably capable of becoming a good hunter. Hunting is not political. It is a major part of the common history of all human beings. If you are human, you can do this. The genes and the instincts are still there and ready to assert themselves for you.
I was recently contacted out of the blue by Nelson Lafon, the deer project coordinator for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He has graciously offered to help me to obtain freshly killed deer during the off-season for field dressing and butchering demonstrations. This means that I will be able to offer the class year-round for as long as there continues to be enough interest to fill up the class. Mike Dye, the state wildlife biologist for this district, will be helping to get deer through existing depredation permits or any other avenue that makes sense. I really owe these guys a lot of thanks because going out to hunt without knowing for sure how to field dress a deer is probably one of the greatest barriers to taking up deer hunting as an adult.
The new class begins on November 15th here in downtown Charlottesville. The course will run 8 sessions, including both classroom segments and field trips to the shooting range, field dressing, etc. The class is limited to 12 students due to the constraints of space and maintaining a sensible instructor-to-student ratio on range day. This is a class aimed at adults with little or no hunting experience. No prior experience with firearms is necessary or expected.
Now that I have a better idea of what my real costs are for ammunition, course materials and gasoline are, I will be charging a total of $50 for the 8 week course. This cost includes ammunition for range day, when students will have an opportunity to try a variety of deer rifles in various cartridges and action types.
The course is open to all sorts of people. You don't have to look or feel like whatever you think is the usual type of person to hunt deer. You can be male, female, Asian, white, black, Indian, gay, straight, disabled, 80 years old, liberal, conservative or whatever. So long as you are mentally and legally fit to use a potentially dangerous tool and are ready to learn more about deer, you are probably capable of becoming a good hunter. Hunting is not political. It is a major part of the common history of all human beings. If you are human, you can do this. The genes and the instincts are still there and ready to assert themselves for you.
I was recently contacted out of the blue by Nelson Lafon, the deer project coordinator for the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He has graciously offered to help me to obtain freshly killed deer during the off-season for field dressing and butchering demonstrations. This means that I will be able to offer the class year-round for as long as there continues to be enough interest to fill up the class. Mike Dye, the state wildlife biologist for this district, will be helping to get deer through existing depredation permits or any other avenue that makes sense. I really owe these guys a lot of thanks because going out to hunt without knowing for sure how to field dress a deer is probably one of the greatest barriers to taking up deer hunting as an adult.
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