Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Time To Go Hunting  

by Julie Carter

October is when it all gets started, cooler temperatures and the turning of leaves. It is time to go hunting.

Something about fall air that brings out the camo jackets, crock pot recipes and the smell of cedar burning in a wood stove. It is also Mother Nature’s call of the wild to the world of hunters.

The primal instinct to hunt and kill “a little winter meat” rises up like sap in a maple tree. It brings out the stalk, kill and drag it home instinct that has been man’s since time began. Only now it’s not so much about needing to eat.

Today’s mind set declares the season practically a national holiday. Ask any crew boss with hunters in his employ –half his crew will be gone for days or weeks at a time. Vacations are scheduled, marriages arranged, babies birthed –all around the calendar of hunting seasons. I’ve known men that actually would quit a job to be able to go hunting. 

An age-old tradition in some families, the season opener is reason for celebration. Groups of friends and family gather at the “camp” to cook, catch up on news and start the hunting season.

I grew up in a family of hunters. We lived in the mountains, so the hunters hunted early in the mornings, did a day’s work, squeezed in some hunting before sundown, and slept in their own bed each night.  It was a generational skill passed on from the days of actually needing winter meat.

In every small town are signs announcing the sale of licenses, ammo, food and beer flashing up and down the streets and often free meals are offered to the hunters by grateful merchants. One fella said he spent $200 in gas driving from burg to burg to take part in the meals. He declared he wasn’t a hunter, just an eater.

The motels and restaurants are a sea of camouflage. As one local commented when he went into the grocery store to get a loaf of bread and the line was very long with hunters, “I decided it was faster to go home and make biscuits.”

And like everything else, technology has stealthily crept into the sport in both the weaponry and the methods.

One website lists the Ten Best Hunting Apps for the Tech-Savvy Outdoorsman. It declares, and I quote, “One of the biggest thrills about hunting (besides taking home your big trophy) is the ability to detach from the daily grind and feel at one with nature.”

The text then launches into the benefits of taking your smart phone with you. “It could even save your life.”

Among the popular apps is one that provides sunrise and sunset times as well as lunar phases and weather updates. Yet another provides vital information on safety and survival, a photo gallery with detailed descriptions of anything from deadly mushrooms to poisonous plants, a survival checklist, key information supported with illustrations, a Morse code signaling device, a compass and more.

Primos Hunting Calls “allows you to speak the language of nature to attract prey.” There is also an app that has a blood tracking filter that enhances the visibility of the blood trail left by wounded game.

The Ballistic app is for calculating trajectory, windage, velocity, energy, and bullet flight time ensuring the best possible targeted shot. It takes into account temperature, humidity, barometric pressure and altitude.

And my personal favorite -- the Bug Spray app. It emits high frequency tones that will keep the bugs away. Note to the rookie hunter: it will also keep your prey away. I honestly don’t know how mankind survived before all these techno aids to bag a buck. But I do think I hear my kinfolk heartily laughing from the great beyond.

Julie can be reached for comment at jcarternm@gmail.com.