02/18/2007

Game deserves respect, not illegal hunting tactics

By Bruce Bischoff
Outdoor columnist
bruce.bischoff@
hotmail.com

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I recently read a survey that said a majority of hunters admit to breaking game laws.

According to study by Southwick Associates published in the North Woods Call, 0.21 percent said they violate game laws "often” and "deliberately” and consider the laws "ridiculous.” The survey also found that "another 13.19 percent said they occasionally, and deliberately, violate.”

Another 38.06 percent admitted to breaking the law, but by accident. Among the respondents, 42.62 said they never break the law.

I won't claim to have never broken a game law, although it's been many years. In the rural northern Michigan where I grew up, violating was common and accepted. When you're young, if your peer group does it, you tend to follow suit. The court of public opinion depended on who was doing the violating and why.

Setting out too many tip-ups, for example, or taking a deer out of season didn't raise too many eyebrows, especially if the results were destined to grace somebody's table. When several of the town fathers were apprehended baiting for ducks with corn, however, it was the talk of the town for weeks.

There was a kind of unwritten backwoods ethos in which violating was a matter of degree. Taking a doe without an antlerless tag or spearing pike in the spring runoff were considered normal and acceptable activities. Even the sheriff kept a perch trap in the river for the spring perch run. But there were limits.

I recall a few years ago when a neighbor about a mile up the road was caught with 13 deer in his garage.

Since he was a pharmacist, folks figured he didn't need the meat, and there wasn't much public sympathy.

Then there were (and still are, I suppose) the professional poachers. One legendary poacher haunted the Mackinac Land & Cattle Co., a ranch of several thousand acres, for years. He was proud of being a poacher, and his signature was leaving deer testicles on the fence wire wherever he poached one.

According to local legend, he diversified a bit, poaching elk near Gaylord and alligators in Florida. He served several stretches in jail, and most recently a stint in prison. He's out now, and I understand the testicles have started to appear on fences again.

Other commercial poachers hunted only for big racks to sell to downstate hunters. I remember working with my dad at a house where the gentleman had several large racks lying in the garage.

"You don't get these during the daytime,” he said.

Since he didn't have any displayed in his living area, and by his general demeanor, I assume they were products for sale on the black market. Public opinion didn't hold with violators who jacklighted the biggest bucks before deer season.

Most of my uncles, having grown up during the Great Depression when meat on the table was meat on the table, weren't too fastidious about poaching. One uncle, an auto executive and dedicated rabbit hunter, told me one day that a partridge breast fits perfectly inside the body cavity of a dressed showshoe hare.

Another relative showed me how to stuff the hide of an illegal deer down a post hole so the dogs wouldn't dig it up.

It seemed as though every week the courts section of local newspaper would include little blurbs about folks who were arrested or sentenced for violating.

I don't see that so much anymore. I suspect part of it is because during the past decade of liberalized deer tags, it's easy enough to get legal venison. And maybe the culture has changed, and young folks have other ways to get their kicks.

Myself, I gradually began to value playing by the rules as part of the game. Violating seems kind of like cheating at cards, and there's an extra satisfaction that you've taken your game fair and square.

Wild game deserves that much respect, at least.

Contact Bruce Bischoff at bruce.bischoff@hotmail.com