Suburban Hemingway


Don’t know about Wisconsin, but Minnesota regulates deer hunting by dividing the state into zones. Some zones are restricted to archery, handguns, and rifled shotgun slugs (NOT buckshot).

I don’t know where some of you are coming from on this. Obviously I know that shotguns can be, and are, used to hunt deer, hence the reference to rifled slugs. However, I also know that shotgun hunters are a small minority compared to rifle, bow and black-powder hunters, so the fact that Kerry mentioned a double-barrel shotgun in coordination with crawling on his belly cast serious doubt on his hunting experience.

I have been hunting far more times than I ever wished, as I am the son of a man who is an excellent marksman and a voracious killer of animals. My brothers and I are all good shots – I once outshot a Force Recon sniper with a .357 Magnum at the range – and my brother impressed the Marines at Quantico with his ability to paint it black at distance there when he was still in high school. We bought Dad a bow for Christmas last year, as he nailed four deer on the first day of the season claimed that the deer have gotten so plentiful that it’s too easy. Personally, I suspect he’s finally figured out that it’s warmer during bow-hunting season.

In fact, when my father was the Scoutmaster, we used to be the only pistol-packing troop in the area. We’d go off into the deep woods in January, without tents or much food, and have to build lean-tos and kill rabbits for food and shelter. I even got my Zero Hero when I was ten, which required being camping out by yourself without much in the way of supplies for 24 hours in below-zero weather up North. I think I had a sleeping bag, a thing of matches, a Swiss Army knife and a pound of raw, frozen hamburger. (I smuggled a pair of books in my sleeping bag, of course.)

So, you see, I know how to survive in the wilderness, I just don’t understand the point of subjecting yourself to it unnecessarily.