Slugs & Plugs

Deployed Wisconsin soldiers get first shot at deer

A regulation change approved this month by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will give some veterans of the overseas conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan the opportunity to go deer hunting in coming months if they missed their opportunity during the regular deer season.  

Starting in early February, Wisconsin servicemen and women who missed the state’s 2009-2010 deer hunting season because of overseas deployment will be matched with landowners whose crops are being damaged by nuisance deer. The regulation allows the vets to hunt now through September, when the regular deer-hunting seasons resume. 

The new hunt is the result of a special arrangement negotiated by Senator Kathleen Vinehout and Rep. Chris Danou. The two rural Wisconsin state lawmakers introduced legislation establishing a one-time weekend deer hunt for returning troops. Following introduction of the proposals, officials at the Department of Natural Resources worked with the legislature to find a way to allow returning troops to hunt without the need for a law. 

“Last February, more than 3,200 soldiers of the Red Arrow Brigade Combat Team were mobilized in the largest operational deployment of Wisconsin Guard troops since World War II,” said Rep. Danou. “Because of their service to our country, these soldiers missed things we take for granted, including the traditional gun deer hunt.”

A gun year for the books

Now that 2009 is safely in the rear-view mirror, the final statistics for what was a history-making year in certain sectors of the firearms and ammunitions industry are becoming available for our examination and interpretation. 

And as spectacular as the year-end figures on firearms sales appear at first glace, the corresponding number of concealed-carry permit applications and renewals was equally mind-boggling.

One of the most accurate indicators of individual firearms purchases is found in data acquired by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). Last week, the FBI reported it logged 1,407,155 checks in December 2009, ranking the month in the top five for most NICS checks in the system’s ten-year history. 

That number, while 7.6 percent less that the 1,523,426 checks conducted in December 2008—the beginning of the ongoing surge in firearms and ammunition sales—reflected an increase of 14.4 percent over checks in December 2007. 

But most impressive was the year-end calculation, with 2009’s background checks for 2009 totaling 14,033,824, an increase of 10.4 percent over 2008, which was also a record year. 

The total number of background checks reported since the beginning of NICS in late 1998 is 110,017,832. 

It’s also important to understand that the number of checks performed reflect purchases made by an individual at a federally licensed dealer, which could have included multiple firearms at the time. 

Also indicative of the momentous year just past are the stories of record-breaking numbers of concealed-carry permits issued by states in 2009. 

Just-released data from the Michigan State Police indicated that more than 73,000 people sought to obtain or renew CCW permits in fiscal 2009 and 66,446 were approved. The Michigan surge more than doubled the permits issued during the previous year, when 33,411 applications were received and 26,578 were approved. 

Another indicator state was Florida, where the state Division of Licensing required emergency funding from the state legislature to hire 61 temporary workers to deal with a backlog of CCW 95,000 applications. 

However you look at it, 2009 was definitely one for the books.

Ginseng poacher gets jail time

A North Carolina man who admitted selling more than $100,000 worth of ginseng in 2005 without the proper export certificates was sentenced last week to serve one year in prison. 

According to the U.S. Justice Department, which oversaw the prosecution, Howard William Ledford, 55, was also fined $50,000. 

Ledford pleaded guilty on Nov. 9, 2009, to two counts of selling and transporting wild American ginseng in violation of the Lacey Act. He admitted that in 2004 and 2005 he sold wild ginseng for approximately $109,000 without the required export certificates and transported, or caused the transport of wild ginseng into Georgia from North Carolina. 

The conviction arose from a three-year anti-poaching investigation intended to document the unlawful take, purchase, sale and transport of ginseng and bear parts within and along the southern Appalachians. 

The individual to whom Ledford illegally sold the ginseng, Chiu Hung Lo, aka Sherry Lo, also pleaded guilty on Nov. 9, 2009 and will be sentenced at a later date. 

Under the Lacey Act, it is a federal offense to illegally transport both wild game and plants across state lines that have been taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of state law or regulation.

Treestand thieves fingered by trailcam

Their first mistake was filching the stacking treestand steps belonging to a Michigan State Police detective. The second was committing the act in view of the detective’s hidden trail camera. 

And last week, two 20-year-old Midland County men owned-up to the Nov. 17 theft occurring in rural Homer Township. 

The confession took place just hours after an article about the incident appeared in the Midland Daily News on Jan. 1. A photo of the two suspects caught on Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. Andrew Longuski’s camouflage trail camera accompanied the news story. 

“I had multiple calls coming in, saying ‘I know who that is,’” Bay City Post Trooper James Willing told the Daily News. 

It wasn’t long before one of the men pictured in the photo called and identified himself and his companion to Willing. 

According to the State Police trooper, the caller said he thought the treestand was on Chippewa Nature Center property, and that the owner had no right to have it there. 

“Unfortunately for them,” Willing said, “he did.” 

Charges were pending against the photographed duo.

S&P random quote

"I killed hundreds of ducks in my boyhood, yet as I strive to recall the circumstances it is not the plummet-like descent of their stricken bodies I see, nor do I hear in fancy the soul-stirring thud as they crash down upon the water. Memory paints, rather, a picture of the frost-browned grasses, with the sea wind stirring them into undulating motion, and the cloud shadows chasing one another interminably across them. I smell their salty sweet tang once more, and hear again the murmur of the distant ocean and the gentle lapping of the tide waters among the tules along the river bank."

-Burton L. Spiller, More Grouse Feathers, 1938

Basketballer's bus bags big buck

To some city dwellers, the thought of a dead deer being transported in the aisle of a public school bus might seem unusual. But it didn’t bother the members of the Rushford-Peterson High School basketball team, whose bus hit and killed a magnificent 10-point buck while returning from a game in a holiday tournament. 

In fact, for the boys and their coaches who call rural southeastern Minnesota their home, it seemed downright natural—and absolutely the right thing to do. 

“We’re all deer hunters, and to see a deer of that quality, well, it’s a bad way to go,” coach Tom Vix told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune newspaper. “It’s sad that some hunter didn’t have that privilege. And that poor deer made it through bow season, two shotgun seasons, a muzzle-loader season and only had two days left. So that’s kind of tough.”  

Spoken like a true deer hunter. 

After the bus smacked the huge whitetail on that cold and icy December 28th night, the driver stopped and the coaches got out to evaluate the damage and check on the deer. There was minimal damage to the bus, and the deer lay stone dead, just yards away from the point of impact. 

Talk about your WOW Factor. The 180-class, 280-pound whitetail had a 22-inch spread and was the biggest buck most of the coaches or the boys had ever seen. 

And for that entire busload of Minnesota deer hunters, it seemed like a waste to just leave it by the roadside. 

So Coach Vix phoned the DNR to obtain permission to keep the animal, and after doing so, it was loaded into the bus via the emergency back door. 

Junior basketball player Justin Boyum posed between the bus seats with the big bruiser, while cell phone cameras snapped wildly. 

Later, as word spread of the basketball team’s “trophy,” an area taxidermist volunteered to mount the head to be displayed in the school’s natural resources classroom. 

“Sometimes things happen and you have to react to them,” Vix told the newspaper. “If this deer can be in the classroom and educate kids and be a memory that’s positive, that’s good.”

Florida hunters encouraged to kill chilled pythons

In the wake of record cold temperatures in usually balmy Florida, the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is encouraging hunters to take advantage of the conditions to cull Burmese pythons and other unwanted invasive species on state wildlife manage areas (WMAs). 

The reptiles are more likely to be in open areas to find warmth in the sun, making them vulnerable to hunters, said an agency spokesperson. 

All properly licensed and permitted hunters have the authority to harvest pythons and other reptiles of concern (Indian python, reticulated python, northern and southern African rock python, amethystine or scrub python, green anaconda and Nile monitor lizard) on Everglades, Francis S. Taylor, Holey Land and Rotenberger WMAs and Big Cypress National Preserve during specified hunting seasons. 

“During the warm-weather months, Burmese pythons stay hidden out of the sun, but with the temperatures dipping below normal in these areas, they have to find a way to stay warm,” said Jenny Tinnell, FWC biologist with the exotic species section. “They may be out in the open more than before to find the warmth of the sun, and we hope hunters, in the normal course of hunting in these areas, will take advantage of the opportunity to help stop the spread of this non-native species.” 

Small-game seasons on all four management areas continue through March 7. On Big Cypress, however, the small-game season ends Feb. 1. In all four WMAs, only a Florida hunting license and management area permit are required to hunt reptiles of concern from now through the end of the small-game seasons.

A pistol-packin’ barista

If you’ve been reading Slugs & Plugs in recent months, chances are you’ve seen several references to the increasing number of women who own firearms in the U.S., both for hunting and for personal protection. 

Recently we told you about the growing popularity of firearms for women as Christmas gifts in 2009. 

One woman who was fortunate to have a caring husband who gave her a handgun for protection this Christmas already learned the importance of her gift when she thwarted a would-be armed robbery at her drive-in coffee kiosk located in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. 

Sunshine Espresso owner Michelle Cornelsen was working inside her shop last week when a 17-year-old male strolled up to the service window, pulled a gun and demanded money. 

“I just said ‘You aren’t going to shoot me are you?’ And he said, ‘No, I don’t really want to. I just need you to put the money in the bag,’” Cornelsen later told Spokane (WA) TV station KREM. When another customer approached the same window and temporarily distracted the armed teen, Cornelsen grabbed the 9mm Kel-Tec handgun she received just days earlier from beneath the counter. 

“A customer came around on this side and he covered the gun with his hand,” she recalled. “I grabbed mine and put it in (the robber’s) face.” 

That was enough to send the would-be perpetrator quickly hoofing down the street, where he was soon apprehended by one of Coeur d’Alene’s finest after Cornelsen called 911. 

“I was thinking, ‘Oh my gosh. I don’t want to hurt this guy (but) I’m a business owner and I’ve got to protect what I have,” said the pistol-packing barista. 

Make mine a café mocha with a full metal jacket, please.

Treestand accident & injury study

A new study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham indicates that young hunters between the ages of 15 and 34 are the most likely to suffer serious injuries in treestand accidents. 

The study is featured in the online Journal of Trauma Injury, Infection and Critical Care. 

Using data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System established by the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the UAB researchers found an estimated 46,860 injuries related to treestand use between 2000 and 2007. 

Of those injured, men were twice as likely as women to be hurt, and younger hunters more likely than older ones. Hunters aged between 15-24 had injury rates of 55.7 per 100,000, and those aged 25-34 averaged 61 injuries per 100,000. Hunters over 65 had injury rates of only 22.4 per 100,000. 

Younger hunters may have higher injury rates due to a willingness to take risks, less exposure to safety information and more time spent hunting than older hunters, said Gerald McGwin, Jr., associate director for research at UAB’s Center for Injury Sciences.

S&P random quote

"No shotguns, no poetry. No shotguns, no exuberant competition. No shotguns, no silent days alone, or with a dog, to merely walk and think. Take the shotguns from my life and take the books that go with them. Take the paintings and the etchings and bronzed pointing setters and Labs with a proudly carried duck. Take my decoys and my marsh boat and my string of calls. Take my old photographs of friends of gun clubs and ducks camps and at the simple farms. Take my faded coats and briared boots and old soft hats. 

"Take my whistles and dog bells and the red and yellow field trial ribbons from their frames. What friends I have, what days I treasure most, what places that I think about and smile … they are because shotguns are. Without them I would have been empty. They have made my life full."

- Gene Hill, “Our World Without Shotguns,” Field and Stream, March 1981