This sign greeted me when I got off the plane last night. It’s like they wanted to make double goddam sure that I knew I was entering a red state.
Reader Interactions
129Comments
Comments are closed.
by $8 blue check mistermix| 129 Comments
This post is in: The Decadent Left In Its Enclaves On The Coasts
Comments are closed.
trollhattan
Needs moar “Duck!”
Yeah, you’re in hip-deep now. Bless you.
Napoleon
Love the tag. Where are you at?
scav
Needs a photoshopped “Enter at Your Own Risk” legal boilerplate below with the cheery Corporate State Tourism Logo for good measure.
whidby
Don’t be so binary. There are plenty of people who hunt, like myself, who are Obama supporters and who live in Blue states, like California.
Drive up into the Central Valley this time of year and just about every little hotel and restaurant will have a “Welcome Hunters” sign out.
catclub
Woody Allen’s movie “Love and Death”
on walking into Chelm the banner reads ‘Welcome Idiots’
(it _was_ a village idiots convention)
elmo
Heck, I used to have the same sign at the entrance to my property. Figuratively, but they knew they could hunt there as long as they paid the requisite tribute.
Mmmmmm, venison.
MikeJ
@trollhattan:
Needs more rabbit.
JGabriel
__
__
Yesterday’s Satire Is Today’s Reality:
Serbia Deploys Peacekeeping Forces To U.S. — The Onion, Nov. 15 2000
Serbia, Belarus, Kazakhstan to Monitor US Elections — Mother Jones, October 23 2012
.
ploeg
Hunting charters, where “checking for weapons” means making sure that you didn’t forget yours at home.
karl
It could be a family reunion.
scav
@elmo: See, there is that slight element of “you’re welcome so long as I get my share” to your sign as well. That orange and font isn’t screaming welcome so much as vague warning/threat. Cheerfullness has skipped the message.
vayama
I drove to South Dakota once, where the only legal billboards along the highway are those constructed by the local landowners. The minute I crossed the state line, I was greeted with a gigantic SOUTH DAKOTA HATES ANIMAL ACTIVISTS. I still think maybe they should have gone with “Welcome to South Dakota.”
Raven
@catclub: In Minsk.
trollhattan
@vayama:
Totally rules out cattle participating in GOTV efforts.
General Stuck
In the second Obama administration, the sign will read,
Do you have any guns, knives or wetsuits to declare?
If not, go home.
Cris (without an H)
Rural states, we know on which side our bread is buttered.
karl
@scav: Orange isn’t a threatening color, it’s the color of hunting vests and jackets. Don’t go overboard, bro.
Spaghetti Lee
@vayama:
the only legal billboards along the highway are those constructed by the local landowners.
Oh, that sounds like hours of fun.
Geoduck
@vayama:
Isn’t that the state that’s plastered from one end to the other with Wall Drug billboards? (Of course, it’s nice to have something to look at while driving across South Dakota..)
Spaghetti Lee
Welcome Hunters!
…and may the odds be ever in your favor!
DonkeyKong
I’m so used the the “Welcome Gatherers” that greet me in Blue State airports.
PeakVT
No billboards are allowed in VT, and let me say that restriction – dare I say, regulation – is truly a wonderful thing.
BGinCHI
@DonkeyKong: Nice.
I was going to say that with the colors scheme it could refer to trick or treaters. Maybe they just take candy hunting more seriously in that state.
rlrr
@PeakVT:
That’s one of the things I miss about Vermont…
Culture of Truth
Welcome Hunters!
Oh deer
Mnemosyne
@whidby:
Restaurants, convenience stores, hardware stores, sure. But it’s kind of odd in an airport.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Spaghetti Lee: @DonkeyKong: Stop it! You guys are killin’ me here.
Realist
That is hilarious.
Villago Delenda Est
It’s autumn. Prime time for hunters.
I remember when CBS ran a news special on “The Guns of Autumn” that was never repeated, because it pointed out that having a lot of middle aged men who like to drink a lot running around in the woods with guns is not a terribly good idea.
A lot of hunters did not like such an unflattering portrait of their activities.
maya
Wow! I didn’t know they had gun racks on planes? On the right wing only, I suppose.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
Wabbit. Needs more wabbit.
maya
@Villago Delenda Est: IIRC, Pennsylvania used to lead the country in hunter “accidental” deaths every year.
GeneJockey
Living in California the last 30 years, I forget just how many deer there are in a lot of the states Back East, and how much the states depend on hunters to limit the populations.
I have friends in red states that pretty much fill their freezers every year, and eat more venison than beef – which I’d probably do too, if I were them. One tells me that he could legally (since he bowhunts) kill one doe every day for over a month.
huckster
Shoot, the strip-club in my town has a “hunter’s special” breakfast every deer season.
GeneJockey
@Villago Delenda Est:
Because it was not an accurate portrayal. It’s the anti-hunters idea of hunting and hunters.
kindness
I don’t know. Maybe they are hunting lying media dicks. Or some other justifiable group.
bemused
If you live in a state with multiple hunting seasons that bring in money to the state and local coffers, of course there will be welcome hunters signs. You are being a wee bit dramatic.
Ash Can
Having seen loads of “welcome hunters” banners around rural Wisconsin during deer season, this doesn’t strike me as ridiculous. I just assume that where you are, hunting is a big part of the tourist business. I wouldn’t get too nervous about it. Just don’t go off on a trailblazing walk through the woods out in the middle of nowhere wearing earth tones, that’s all.
Napoleon
@GeneJockey:
Tuesday morning woke to find a dead deer in my front lawn from a car strike. Those damn things are everywhere.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: My dad quit deer hunting after the second time he heard a bullet fly by his head. Some people simply do not understand that you can not just assume that the thing you hear moving through the woods is a deer.
ThresherK
@PeakVT: And I also enjoy those little signs that tell me how far off the “beaten path” something is. Who decides what gets one of those signs?
In Vermont it’s “1.6 miles” or “4 miles” to a winery, pottery studio or B&B. In my county, the fantasy billboards tell us is that some place is “20 minutes away”. In the dead of night, if I’m going “the tonne”, maybe.
PeakVT
@Ash Can: Or a skunk costume.
John O
A weird welcoming sign, for sure, but there ain’t nuthin’ wrong with hunting if you eat/use what you kill.
It’s killing for sport that bothers me.
R-Jud
@GeneJockey:
This. I don’t hunt myself, but my parents used to own a B&B/restaurant in the Poconos, and in the autumn we would always have hunters staying there. They were all very polite and circumspect people who would talk with my Dad about tracking and bird-watching while he was getting their breakfasts at 4:45.
Within my own family, my brother-in-law and several cousins hunt, and they’re all responsible gun owners– and flaming environmentalists, too. (My Mom sometimes brings down deer with her bow, but that’s just to keep them from eating her plants, so I don’t consider it hunting.)
Also, too: venison is DELICIOUS.
rlrr
@John O:
It’s killing for sport that bothers me.
Like what Dick Cheney and his buddies do…
Cris (without an H)
Heh heh. “Does it matter which road I take to St. Johnsbury?”
j
From the UP of Michigan, “Da Yoopers” doing “Second Week Of Deer Camp”.
In other news, Trump REFUSES to release HIS passport and education records to Business Insider Magazine.
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-refuses-to-release-his-own-college-and-passport-records-2012-10
Mnemosyne
@GeneJockey:
We still have plenty of deer in California, but the mountain lions and bears do a decent job of keeping the population in check.
All of their natural predators were hunted to extinction back East, so now you have deer running rampant. Short of re-introducing large predators, I’m not sure what other options there are.
ETA: If you drive on the 134 freeway through Burbank at dusk, you can see the deer come down from Griffith Park to eat the flower arrangements off the graves at Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills.
whidby
John O
In every state that I have hunted in just killing a game animal and leaving it is called wanton waste and it is a crime.
theturtlemoves
I think that sign is up semi-permanently. I could swear it was up the last time I flew out of that airport years ago, which was when I was moving away from the land of corn and soybeans to the land of fir trees and rain.
bemused
@Ash Can:
We (Minnesota here) don’t go into the woods at all during deer hunting season…walk the dog on the highway instead wearing blaze orange. I wear orange to walk down the drive to the mail box. Even then, you keep your eyes and ears open. Even non-idiot hunters do dumb things without thinking.
It’s gets very old over 16 days restricted free movement outdoors.
Mnemosyne
@R-Jud:
I don’t find it odd when small businesses have “Welcome Hunters!” signs. I do find it odd in an airport. Do they really get that many out-of-state hunters flying in? And how do you bring raw venison onto an airplane, anyway?
ETA: My dad used to go up to Canada to fish and hunt ducks, but I think they used to drive (from northern Illinois). Though I also remember seeing fish in the freezer frozen into blocks of ice, so maybe that was how they transported them.
scav
@karl: Yeah, it’s the hey do’t shoot me I’m not a deer color. Pictures of deer and woods and shit are more cheery options bro.
bemused
@j:
I know of the Yoopers…even visited the Yooper store once on a trip.
PeakVT
@ThresherK: Businesses apply for an Official Business Directional Sign (ODBS) and pay for it if approved.
tBone
Jesus, some of you delicate flowers ought to get out of your Blue State bubbles more often.
If you were actually in Real ‘Merica, that sign would have read “Abortion Stops a Beating Heart” or “Your Mother Chose Life” or “Jesus Saves” or some other treacly BS with a vaguely threatening undertone.
jeffreyw
Corn fed whitetails.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it needs more Elmer Fudd.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Put me down in the “not my thing, but to each their own” category. Also the “would happily accept your free venison” category. And without hunters, people like me wouldn’t have known Sarah Palin was faking it to get her father extra tags.
@j:
But is he gonna take Colbert up on his counter-offer?
huckster
@tBone: “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” comes to mind
geg6
@Spaghetti Lee:
Heh, good one.
theturtlemoves
@Mnemosyne: Not really out of state deer hunters in eastern SD so much as out of state pheasant hunters. Pheasant are a little easier to pack or ship back to wherever folks came from. Actually good money to be made for farmers to have guided hunting on their land. I’ve only killed one pheasant myself and that was with the grill of an ’84 Mustang on my way back to college. They are somewhat thick out there on the prairie.
Roger Moore
@tBone:
We have those in Blue States, too. We even get them in other languages here.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
I guess the pro-hunting stuff that especially annoys me are the bumper stickers that say, “If it flies, it dies.” What does that mean — would you shoot every single friggin’ bird you see? Do you want to kill all birds everywhere? Too much macho. And don’t forget that seething fountain of 12-gauge machismo, Ted… what the hell… I actually DID forget his last name. The crazy hunter guy who once had a hit record some 30 years ago… Ah, yes, Nugent! Fine, Ted, you like to hunt. Do you have to gloat with every kill and roll around in the blood in orgasmic delight?
gex
@whidby: I think this stereotype was drummed up by the right. They made hunting and pickup trucks a Republican thing, when it is no such thing. It lays the ground work for culture wars and creating a group called “real” Americans.
Hill Dweller
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Colbert’s Trump challenge was hilarious, but the bit ridiculing Fox’s obsession with Benghazi was even better.
tBone
@huckster:
Score. That’s about as RealMerica as it gets.
@Roger Moore:
Welllll, aren’t we fancy, in our decadent enclaves.
PeakVT
@PeakVT: Err, OBDS.
Mnemosyne
@theturtlemoves:
Ah, okay. Like I said, I come from a duck hunting family, not a deer hunting family, so I wasn’t sure. My dad probably brought home a pheasant or two at some point, but I don’t really remember. None of that Dick Cheney canned hunt bullshit for him — you went out and tramped around in the woods looking for things to kill, and if you didn’t find anything, you came home.
LiberalTarian
Lame.
I’m from a true blue family from way way back, and they were hunters everyone. Me? Not so much. Doesn’t mean I knock hunters. Venison and elk and all manner of game are good eatin’.
You might try to get over your own liberal-effete-elitist stereotype. Of course, a “Welcome Liberal Effete Elitists” sign wouldn’t gather a very vibrant, diverse community, and would probably taste like shit.
Feudalism Now!
Syracuse has a sign like that just outside the airport. New York is a red state now?
GeneJockey
@Mnemosyne:
There are plenty of deer, but primarily where you can’t hunt them. Where you can hunt them, there aren’t so many.
But there are a LOT MORE Back East. For example, as I understand it the CA deer herd is estimated at about 250,000 animals. Pennsylvania ALONE has over 1 million!
There’s just much better habitat there – for example, it rains all year!
A lot of the states DO get plenty of out-of-state hunters. That’s where the DFG-equivalent in those states gets a lot of money, from non-resident hunters. In fact, many of the hunters I know out here barely even hunt in CA, preferring places like Montana, Iowa, even Maryland.
As far as hauling raw venison, it’s easy enough to freeze it before your return flight. And most states with lots of hunters have lots of professional processors who will ship – drop off your deer, and the neatly packaged, frozen meat arrives sometime later.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@tBone: Oh, we’ve got a lot of those signs up here in Northern California! We also have a truck trailer that’s been parked in an ag field for years that reads “He died for you sins” with a bleeding hand that has a big nail driven through the palm. Gotta proselytize and make people feel shitty at the same time — a twofer!
theturtlemoves
@Mnemosyne: There’s a pile of that canned hunting stuff in SD, or at least was when I escaped eight years ago. The really hilarious ones have covered fields with pheasant that were raised in captivity. It’s like shooting a chicken. Not sure how that is fun.
J.D. Rhoades
@Omnes Omnibus:
My dad quit deer hunting after the second time he heard a bullet fly by his head. Some people simply do not understand that you can not just assume that the thing you hear moving through the woods is a deer.
Exact reason why I quit. (well, that and my grandpa with whom I hunted got sick).
And the other day, I was walking in the woods with my dog when I found that someone had constructed a tree stand along the path where we usually walk. Lovely. Looks like I’ll need to dig out the old blaze orange vest. The dog and I can take turns wearing it.
MikeJ
@GeneJockey:
Which is why there’s a lot more lyme disease back east too. Those fucking white tailed rats are everywhere.
geg6
@PeakVT:
I’m ashamed to say that incident happened in my county. Fuck, the hoopies (may be a regional expression, but you can imagine what it means) we have here in Western PA.
In my defense, I live at the other end of the county where we consider ourselves a bit more cosmopolitan being closer to the city and all. New Sewickley is farm country.
Ash Can
@R-Jud: I’m not a hunter either, but my bro-in-law is an avid bow hunter. He’s very well trained, and in the unlikely event he doesn’t make a clean kill he’s expert at tracking the injured deer and finishing it off quickly, just like any other responsible hunter. It’s probably the most humane source of meat we have. And he lets nothing go to waste — his freezer is packed with sausages, cutlets, steaks, jerky, etc. year-round, and he shares with all us relatives. And like other responsible hunters, he’s an avid environmentalist, and is very well-versed in plants, trees, mushrooms, land formations, etc. I suppose it’s no surprise that he votes Dem, either.
@Mnemosyne: I wouldn’t be surprised if there were loads of professional butcher shops and meat packers in that area that pack and ship the venison anyplace the hunters want. Besides the cold packers there are smoke houses that smoke the meat and sausages and make it that much less perishable and easier to ship. I believe also that local food pantries get any venison the hunters don’t want to take home. IIRC, the bro-in-law has told us that this is what happens in Wisconsin.
geg6
@GeneJockey:
That’s generally how it works here in PA. There are dozens of good processors in every small town in hunting country here. Old friends who live out of state come back almost every year to hunt and they just take it to the processor and have it shipped to wherever they live.
GeneJockey
@MikeJ:
Oddly enough, that’s not the only reason there’s more Lyme disease there. The other reason is that they don’t have our Western Fence Lizards.
It seems that there’s a substance in lizard blood that kills the Lyme disease bacteria, so if a tick has fed on one before he gets to you, there’s no disease to transmit.
I learned this when my son’s favorite activity was catching lizards, and they’d always have a tick or two in their ear ‘oles. Worrier that I am, I looked it up.
Liberty60
@JGabriel: Oh Gawd.
So this is what we have become.
Dr. Squid
Sioux Falls. Must be pheasant season. S Dakota just crawls with pheasant hunters about this time of year.
Democrat Partisan Asshole
@whidby: I was born in California and have never lived anywhere else. The Central Valley is in California by a technicality. I think of it as land and people rightfully belonging to Texas.
GeneJockey
@geg6:
That’s what I did when a friend invited me to hunt in Montana. My doe as transformed into a lovely box of steaks, stew meat, burger, and breakfast sausage.
Sadly, it turns out my wife doesn’t much like venison, so I haven’t gone back.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Could have said “Welcome Hunted!”
Gravenstone
Would “Welcome Frackers” be less off putting?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Could have said “Welcome Hunted!”
Liberty60
@geg6:
Nope, thats not convenient enough for me.
I am one of those hunters who has a service that kills the animal, dresses it, butchers it into various cuts, packages them, and ships them by refrigerated trucks to a dealer down the street, where I go to pick them up and pay for them.
Actually, they hunt cows, chickens and pigs instead of deer.
Well ok they don’t so much hunt as raise from infancy then slaughter.
But still, its pretty much the same.
Randy P
@Feudalism Now!: In the part outside the cities, very much so.
celticdragonchick
@Spaghetti Lee:
I went and got the bumper sticker of that and put it on my car. Hunger Games geek!
Gravenstone
Would “Welcome Frackers” be less off putting?
LanceThruster
@PeakVT:
We can only dream of such a world in sunny CA.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Speaking of Redstate…
The place is a ghost town lately. The total number of replies to their front page postings today is 22.
I like that. :)
GeneJockey
@Gravenstone:
Not if you watch Cattlecar Galactica.
Scout211
@GeneJockey:
We live in rural (Northern) California and we have to fence our garden and all the trees we have planted on our 5 acres because the deer eat everything or the young bucks use the new tree trunks to rub their antlers over them, which removes all the bark and eventually kills the trees. We do choose deer-resistant bushes and plants. But all the trees have to have a fence around them.
We have cars of hunters driving through our area for every hunting season, particularly on opening day. Most of the neighbors have ranches with fences, but there are many large areas of bare land that they trespass on to hunt doves, turkeys and deer during season.
Waking up on a Saturday morning to multiple gunshots starting at dawn is not my idea of fun . . . . but that’s just me.
celticdragonchick
@R-Jud:
This.
I have been considering putting a scope on a WW I Eddystone Enfield rifle I inherited to make it a bit better for deer hunting, but I haven’t had the heart to do it.
I do love me some venison, though.
Quincy
Alex Pareene has stumbled across the apex of both-sides-do-it stupidity. Their may not be peak wingnut, but if there is such a thing as peak village, this is it.
TR
Pffft. That’s nothing. I was in eastern Tennessee last week and saw a billboard on the highway from the local chapter of the teatards:
OBAMA OR AMERICA
YOU CAN’T HAVE BOTH.
I had no idea I’d been living in Luxembourg these past four years.
GeneJockey
@celticdragonchick:
If you want to stick with WWI armament, an M1903 Springfield may be a better choice for deer. I believe most gun hunters think .30-06 is a better round for deer than .303.
geg6
@GeneJockey:
Correctamundo. .30-06 is the round of choice among the hunters (which used to count me but not since I was a tween girl of about 14) in my circles.
Democrat Partisan Asshole
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.): Two words for you – Punt Gun.
Running out of ducks in the late 1800s, and the development of commercial chicken farming, thankfully put this practice largely into the history books.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
California deer population is way down; they’re still researching the causes. This article gives an overview but doesn’t mention poaching, which is rampant per the game wardens I know. (And of whom there are fewer than 400 in a state of nearly 40 million.)
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/State-s-deer-population-appears-to-be-plummeting-3255326.php
Odie Hugh Manatee
@GeneJockey:
Isn’t that the movie about an interstellar holocaust?
DonkeyKong
We get bears in our vineyard up in Knights Valley. They knock down the fence and eat some of the fruit. The deer bat cleanup and decimate entire rows.
The funniest thing is watching the owner/winemaker look in horror at a $400 cabernet sauvignon basketball size bear shit on the ground outside the vineyard.
Like I said I’m a gatherer. Harvest was good this year.
GeneJockey
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Oy.
I’m trying to come up with a rejoinder that’s even anywhere close to being A) funny, and B) not incredibly inappropriate.
………..
Nope. Don’t got one.
uptown
We hunt on the west coast. It’s just not a big deal for the economy, like in some economically challenged fly-over states. Now fishing…that’s a big f* deal.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@GeneJockey:
I know how you feel. I had to think that one over for a few before posting.
The “Too soon?” line will always apply to the Holocaust.
ThresherK
@Cris (without an H): “Does anyone get hurt driving on this hill?”
“Nope, not a one.”
(A near-disaster later…)
“I thought you said nobody gets hurt on this hill!”
“Y’asked me bout the hill, didn’t ask me bout the bottom.”
cckids
@vayama: “Welcome to South Dakota.”
Wolfdaughter
One more possible explanation for the sign.
Mastermix, you don’t say which state. I don’t know enough about your life to know which state you hail from.
A friend of mine is named Hunter. His family holds a family reunion in Colorado every few years. I’ll have to ask him if his family ever posted such a sign in the Denver airport.
Other than that, I agree with some of you. It does seem a little…weird in an airport.
ThresherK
@PeakVT: Thanks on that.
celticdragonchick
@GeneJockey:
The M1917 Enfield Eddystone is a US rifle chambered for .30-06.(Not to be confused with the British Lee-Enfield)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1917_Enfield
I have taken it deer hunting, but as I said, I just don;t have the heart to completely sporterize it.
Maude
The county I live in had hunting during the season. There are city folks here now. Some hunters that must be new to it have been careless.
A bullet went through a window just above the crib of a baby. A woman was killed by a bullet while hanging out her wash.
There were processors and they were busy during the season.
We have an overload of deer and it is nerve wracking to drive here at times.
I had a landlady whose, friend came running into the yard saying there was a fresh deer road kill. They went and got it and took it to the processor.
Here in NJ there is a serious problem with too many deer.
J R in WV
Here, when you own a farm (woods) you can shoot a deer without even buying a license! Just tag the deer when you shoot it, take it to the game check station, then go home , butcher, and start eating.
I too don’t hunt anymore after hearing rounds overhead, but I wish more folks would come out into our hollow, those damn deer even eat non-deer-digestible plants!
Mike G
@tBone:
Or “Show Us the Birth Certificate” that I saw on I-5 in northern California.
jnfr
I thought it was about World of Warcraft.
tBone
@Mike G: @West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
Nonsense. Everyone knows that billboards in California are devoted exclusively to pretentious food, socialism, and the Gay Agenda.
Seriously though, it’s amazing how fast the billboards turn wingnutty when you get outside a metro area. Somebody should start a site devoted to them if one doesn’t already exist.
GeneJockey
@celticdragonchick:
Ah! Fooled by ‘Enfield’, just as you deduced.
As Emily Litella would say, “Never mind.”
opie jeanne
@West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.):
On the I-5. I see that every time we travel from Seattle to LA by car.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@Democrat Partisan Asshole: Never heard of a punt gun before; thanks for the link. Looks like Duck-ageddon or The Duck Apocalypse! I’m glad that gun has been outlawed.
joel hanes
@Scout211:
The commercially-availble deer repellent made from powdered rotten egg yolks actually works pretty well. You apply it with a puff gun.
Highest-scoring brand is Deer-Away BGR.
But it washes off with rain or snow and has to be re-applied.
In Iowa where I used it to protect walnut saplings in winter and young red pines during the antler-stripping and rut, precipitation is a year-round thing, and we had to re-apply ten times a year. But in CA, with its six-month dry season, it’s a more reasonable proposition.
OTOH, we also tried the wolf-pee and coyote-pee approaches, and as far as I could tell they weren’t effective at all.
opie jeanne
@J.D. Rhoades: I never thought deer stands were sporting.
West of the Rockies (formerly Frank W.)
@opie jeanne: Yes, it’s on Interstate 5 (the west side) between Corning and Red Bluff. Damn thing has been there for years and years. I think they repaint it every so often so that now the blood actually glows in the dark.
RedKitten
Yeah, I don’t get too worked up about hunting, as long as it’s done ethically and responsibly. A lot of hunters are hardcore conservationists, actually.
Myself, I have no desire to hunt. I’ll shoot a deer with my Canon Rebel T1i, and that’s more than good enough for me. Let everybody else sit freezing their arses off in a duck blind at 5am, thank you very much.
Everett Volk
@whidby: Fellow lib-tard hunter here. I love the act of hunting, I love the insight it brings, I love the food it provides.
BruceFromOhio
Dude, chill. Ohio is a lovely purple when viewed from space. On the ground you gots your reds and your blues. I expect you landed in Cincinatti or Columbus. Its fall turkey season, and hunters generate a nice revenue stream for the little itty bitty out-of-the-way places in the south and east of the state.
Spin it how you wish, but I think you’re reading it wrong.
Cacti
@GeneJockey:
You’re right that hunters don’t travel out west for those puny whitetails you easterners are so fond of.
They come for 800 lbs bull elk (which also happens to taste better than deer).
Also too, just a quibble for the thread in general, but Venison = meat of any wild, antlered animal. Venison =/= deer meat only.
Unsympathetic
Is that a rolled-up Constitution underneath that sign, or are you just happy to see me?
..or is it a pile of man-portable Stinger missiles, because that’s exactly what you want to see in a public airport?
dance around in your bones
The only hunting ever done when we lived on the East Coast was by our dog dragging home rotten deer parts left behind by some conscientious hunters.
Though technically, I guess you would call that gathering.
Mu husband DID go salmon fishing with a buddy in British Columbia, and we took the catch to a place that packed it in ice in a kind of fish suitcase so we could fly it home to San Diego.
That was kinda cool to pick up on the baggage carousel.