By: Ted Nugent
I’m just a guitarplayer and I never went to college. I was too busy learning stuff; really important stuff!
You know, all that radical stuff like self-evident truths, logic, commonsense, reality, earning your own way, living within your means, saving for a rainyday, self-sufficiency, accountability, frugality, utilitarian pragmatism, independence, work ethic productivity, responsible conservation, honesty, resource stewardship, giving instead of taking, leaving things better than I found them, hands-on down to earth natural world stuff that remains to this day the basics of quality of life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and allthings American Dream.
Oh, radical, radical me!
It is my 70 years of clean and sober ultra-aliveness that has taught me to believe that no other lifestyle available to mankind will teach these things better than the life of a hunter, especially the life of a bowhunter.
The higher level of awareness and demanding stealth discipline of bowhunting eliminates the failures of stumbling and bumbling along in hopes that luck will win the day.
Luck is critically important of course, but we all know that successful, happy people make our own luck happen.
Discipline, calculated risk and genuine sacrifice prepares us to maneuver, identify, grasp and take advantage of those fleeting moments of luck. The jury is not still out!
I also realize that the hunting lifestyle comes in as many degrees of dedication as there are humans, and I respect each and every level of sporting enthusiasm and participation.
My fear, though, is that the dumbing down of America, as painfully apparent in the runaway scourge of political correctness, fakenews, government and academic dishonesty and corruption and the rise of socialism insanity as manifested in the most dangerous of concept of the animal rights gangs, is chipping away at those basics described above.
When we have to go to such great lengths in 2019 to explain the eternal truisms and proven science of habitat carrying capacity, species’ population dynamics, the essentiality of annual harvests and the inescapable environment catastrophes that result in the abandonment thereof, we know that something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong.
There are many ills plaguing our conservation lifestyle these days, but none more threatening than the self-inflicted apathy and disconnect in our own sporting ranks.
When I hear of state game departments proposing doe only deerhunting seasons, I recoil in shock that my fellow hunters are not up to the task of adequately killing enough deer to bring proper balance to the herds.
I keep hearing how trophy hunting has chipped away at our grand hunting heritage, but I had no idea it was so entrenched as to represent a liability to our deer management responsibilities.
In Buffalo County Wisconsin, the world’s top trophy buck producing zone on earth, it appears that there is such a far-reaching failure to kill enough does each season as to actually jeopardize the future of deerhunting there.
First off, I am well aware that not many of my fellow deerhunters have the luxury of hunting everyday of the season like I do, so are therefor reluctant to give up a possible crack at a great buck to shoot does.
I am also aware that the dream of killing a huge, mature stag is highly desirable, if not downright intoxicating to the average hunter that may just want to kill one deer per season.
On the properties I hunt in Michigan and Texas, it is critically mandatory to kill many, many deer. Add to that the wonderment of sharing much appreciated nutritious venison with soup kitchens, homeless shelters and various charities brings, killing lots of does brings me more satisfaction that any measurement of antler ever could.
The earn a buck regulation was a dismal failure for all the obvious reasons, but I would implore my fellow hunters around the country to work close with their game departments, start stepping up to the plate for effective herd balance, and start whackin’ and stackin’ some more she-deer for all the right reasons.
“X” ground will only support “X” life, and with the increasing agriculture depredation, hiway slaughter and danger, habitat marginalization and other environmental considerations, I would hope America’s hunting families would better participate in the win-win quality control of deer populations instead of the inevitable lose-lose after-the-fact damage control.
As summertime looms ahead and we drool over our sacred upcoming season-O-harvest, now is the time to plan ahead for better hunting timing and strategies to keep our beloved sport in the asset column instead of the liability column.
Shooting does is fun, sport, meat, trophy, conservation perfection. Let’s show them we can get the job done.