Saturday, December 13, 2008

Hunting season from a caching prospective







Hunting season. Those are two words that make any geocacher a bit nervous. I've really paid attention this year to the hunting season's and have personally tried to stay out of the hunting area's while shotgun season is going on. I've made sure to blaze it by wearing bright orange stocking cap or a brightly colored shirt. If I see a car in the parking lot of a hunting area I'll skip it and come back at a later date.

Well this year going with this thinking, I'd figure I wouldn't have any scary hunting incidents. Nope. Today I was looking for a couple of roadside caches which aren't really my favorite kind of cache to do but better that and still get out then sit at home or have a slug go threw your leg or worse. I was down in the ditch looking threw this pine tree and spied that ammo can. I grabbed it and got it down in front of me and opened it up and went for the log book. All of a sudden I hear a KABOOM. I signed it real quick and put it back and headed for the car. when I got back up onto the road I looked into the corn field across the road and spied 5 or 6 hunter's in orange vest's. I was able to see what they where shooting at. There was two deer in the field.

Now I'm not a hunter by any means but you would think these people would pay attention to what's on the other side of what they are shooting at. Yeah there where a couple of deer there but beyond those deer was the interstate. And I sure didn't see those deer dropping to the ground. In fact I saw and heard at least a dozen gunshot's and yes they where aimed right at the interstate.
Then I went along a bit further down the road and stopped for another cache. I saw one of the most disgusting site's I've ever seen while out caching. There was a poor dog that had gotten loss or just dropped off and it had looked like he died from exposure. I was so glad my son wasn't with me to see that. He was laying with his belly up and at first I thought it was a deer carcass someone had dumped over the bridge. Poor dog.
I found this cache pretty quickly and was going to sign it and again KABOOM. I tossed it back in it's hiding place and made way back up to the road to the car. That was enough for me. I have no idea anymore other than sticking to nothing but urban placed caches till shotgun season is over. The weather is really nice so it would be prime to head out into a wooded area looking for a cache but with the hunter's it's just not worth it.
I have no idea why I'm writing this other than maybe someone will run across it before heading out looking for a cache and maybe this will make them think about grabbing a orange vest or something so they are spotted easily.

Be safe cacher's. The last thing I want to see is a article in a newspaper that a fellow cacher was involved in a hunting accident. You can visit http://www.iowadnr.com/ for a pdf file for this year's hunting season's. I've uploaded some photo's I took of the hunter's, sorry about the bad photo's but that wasn't as important as getting out of there without any more hole's in me. There is one to three hunter's in every photo too.

2 comments:

tonka_boy said...

Although you could have picked up a few bird shot pellets, I think the interstate was safe. From the looks of the photos, those guys are pheasant or quail hunting. No deer hunter in his right mind (?) would casually stroll across an open field while hunting.

It's always best to play it safe while hunting season is open. We choose public parks where no hunting is allowed.

Tape worm said...

I don't know what they kind of game they were indenting for. But there was two deer I saw they where shooting at. I'm sure the interstate was safe but it was in the general direction they where shooting. I didn't get very good picture's of them or of the deer at all. I just thought it was best to bail and come back some other time.

Near me it's kind of scary to think about but I've come across many people hunting deer in open field's. Usually they have someone parked along the road and I guess that person is keeping an eye out for car's, so they know not to shoot back towards the road.

But yup the best thing to do is avoid the hunting area's till hunting season is over. I usually try to do more urban caches this time of year and just stay out of the hunting area's altogether.

I've found alot of nice cache's have been placed along biking/walking trails in some of the city's. I did a few down on an Iowa City trail a few day's ago, that had a really nice trail. It made for a nice but cold walk.