It's Deer Hunting Season

The first Missouri deer-hunting firearms Youth Weekend begins tomorrow, Nov. 2-3.

Regular November firearms deer season is Nov. 16-26. (Out near here it'll be "bang, bang, bang!" all day.)

Antlerless deer firearms season: Nov. 27-Dec. 8, in selected areas. In my area, hunters can take only one antlerless deer.

Alternative deer-hunting methods: Dec. 21-31. This includes deer-baiting and hunting on food plots.

The second youth deer-hunting firearms weekend: Jan 4-5. (Hey, kids, you can take only one deer.)

Information from MDC.mo.gov. I liked the T-shirt.

View From Hughes Mountain

Some of the oldest exposed rock in the world, 1.5 billion years old (that's old!), can be seen on Hughes Mountain, an ancient volcano in a Natural Area south of Potosi, MO, in Washington County, just off of Highway M. Most people don't know that this area of eastern Missouri, the St. Francois Mountains that you see, so rich with lead and iron, is not your mother's Missouri. It's igneous or volcanic rock: lava. This area was once a bunch of boiling volcanic islands that blew their tops. On the trail, keep going, keep going, up the stream bed; it takes about half an hour from start to to the big open glade at the top. You'll see rocks and columns six-sided or four-sided, like cubes, crystals, bricks, Lego pieces.

This area is locally called the Devil's Honeycomb (geologists say, "polygonal joining") and geologically it's like the Devil's Tower in Wyoming. The Hughes family came from Tennessee in 1810 and bought 120 acres of the mountain, but couldn't make a living out of the soil here so John Hughes and wife Suzanna ran a grist mill. The Department of Conservation has added 306 more acres to the area. Not too far away is a better-known Eastern Missouri volcanic-rock attraction: the Elephant Rocks. But Hughes Mountain and perfect weather suited me just fine on a day that I got my work done early and said, "Let's go somewhere I've never been." Click on the photo for the full panoramic view.

Is This Buck Legal?

How to survive if lost in the woods: Build a fire using your waterproof matches or a cotton ball smeared with Vaseline; fire your gun three times after hunting hours; and hope you left a hunting plan and a stamp of your bootsole on foil beneath your car's window wipers. Stay where you are; find or build a shelter for the night; know that you can live for 14 days without eating but only 3 days without water; and no Missouri stream is clean enough to drink straight up. How to hunt turkeys in season (April and November): Don't wear red, white, blue or black, turkey colors; keep your back against a thick tree or rock; don't make too loud of a turkey call; don't shoot roosting turkeys (it's not fair); aim at their heads; put the turkey that just bought the big casino into a hunter's-orange bag, tucking the wings in so no other turkey hunter imagines it's a live one. . .some of the many tips from Missouri's ten-hour hunter's education course. Free to all students 11 and older thanks to Missouri's one-eighth-of-one-cent sales tax that funds our marvelous state parks, conservation areas, shooting ranges and programs. A husband-and-wife team taught us how a muzzle loader works, how to track game, I.D. six kinds of firearm actions, and the six ways to carry long guns safely on the hunt. Much emphasis on safety. A million Missouri hunters have taken this course, reducing the average number of fatal hunting "incidents" from 20 per year to 4. I passed the 50-question written test, earned the coveted orange patch and now with this credential maybe with my squirty little .410 I can tag along with friends who hunt birds at Marais Temps Clair. I've never hunted. My father did, sometimes. He certainly wouldn't have taken a female along.

My coveted patch, earned 3/22/12

Our first speaker, though, was a young former hunter who accidentally killed his best friend's father--involuntary manslaughter normally avenged by eight years in the pen. He got five years' probation and cannot own a firearm or hunt. The best friend and his family withdrew their friendship, which he understands, he said. As the speaker left the front of the room, one man, with great simple American manly grace stood up, took the young man's hand, and said, "I'm sorry, brother."

Why'd I take this course, mandatory only for hunters born after 1966? Because this is the environment I live in and the people I meet.

Buy Missouri Tree Seedlings Super Cheap

The Missouri Department of Conservation asks you to plant these native trees wherever you've got the space and desire -- their chart tells you what type of soil the trees will thrive in. Oak, Sycamore, Tulip Tree, Osage-Orange, more -- if you are Missouri, your small investment of $8 or so per seedling will last several lifetimes! Look here for the details.