tcknight wrote:

them mangy pine goats.

...good one!

I call 'em forest rats. But I like the mangy pine goats too!

In this area of South central Michigan, we call them "swamp ghosts". Or some of the local farmers call them "tall hogs".

More cool names! I learns sumpin new every day here at the .Nut...

We affectionately refer to them as road goats.

wiersy111 wrote:

I haveta play inside the rules as the area I live in had a problem for a while with people that didn't like rules. Around here ya never know when the Warden will crawl out from behind a bush.

Chambered and I are razing each other Wiersy. No rule breaking around here or you get run off my land.

wiersy111 wrote:

We affectionately refer to them as road goats.

Oh. I only call them "mangy pine goats" when they cause me problems. When I want to be affectionate, I call them "dinner".

Good call.

We call them bean/corn munchers !!! If we miss them we call them !!!

It happened again !!! How do these smileys know what I post ???

I'm thinking it's a conspiracy.

Thanks to a friend I got to hunt some yesterday. Ladder stand in the woods along a creek. Pretty windy until dark. I saw what looked like a nice whitetail buck chasing a doe but too far through the trees for a shot. A doe went by about 20 yards away, walking right in the creek, following every turn. She came in to my right and I couldn't get turned enough for a shot. All in all I had FUN. When the wind died down and I could hear that little creek gurgling it was so peaceful that I caught myself nodding off!

Thanks to another friend I'll try a different spot this afternoon. Also on a creek in the woods. Might catch another nap...

I found out there are officially 4 deer in Minnesota. But the only time they show themselves is on the road. I walked for 3 hours this morning and didn't jump anything except a couple of roosters.

We got in the truck to check out a couple of other spots and low an behold there they are on the roads.

Went to one of my favorite spots tonight..... nothing again.

Oh well still good to be out.

Wiersy: When I was attending college, I went home every Saturday morning along a route that took me through a National Wildlife Refuge. The State was in the process of 4-laning the highway and had built the additional lane and seeded it to grass to wait on bridges to be built. I would see five or six trucks parked along this lane every Saturday morning, about 1/4 mile between each of them, and KNEW the hunters hit the woods and went as far away from the road as possible so they could feel they were "backwoods hunters". Every Saturday morning, there would be 16 to 20 deer grazing between their trucks with a few good bucks in the mix. Brought a good laugh to me every time.

Rule number 43 in Tim's Rules of Deer Hunting: Hunt within 1/4 mile of major highways. No one else does, and the deer know it.

If you don't hear the slap of steel belted radials hitting the highway, you are not close enough.


Note: Follow state law on the minimum distance to a highway you can legalling hunt.

Well. I opened Mississippi deer season last Saturday. On my farm I have a good mix of cut over, thickets, pine plantations, hardwood ridges and bottoms and green fields. Over the course of the week, my nephew and I found the deer to be really spooked. The only conclusion I could reach is that my neighbor had opened season early and had the deer stirred up. A couple of weeks before, I heard a couple of shots around mid night and called the game warden. I don't know if he caught them or not, but I believe this had an expected effect on the deer.

Anyway, we ended up seeing a few button bucks, a couple of spikes, four and six points and a good eight. But all the bucks were 1/1/2 and 2 1/2 years old so no shooters. Saw a MULTITUDE of does so maybe will thin that population down a bit after the rut (Third week of December to 1st week of January in this neck of the woods).

Hope the deer will calm down a bit before I go back.

Seems I have popped up a bit of cancer somewhere and the doctor's want to start me on radiation and chemo soon. I am hoping this will not take place until AFTER the rut is over. Trying to put them off as long as I can!

Plus, I think the coyotes have heard about this and are resisting the call until after (dirty rotten scoundrels). These are REALLY smart coyotes.

Seems some of you guys liked my colloquial name for deer (pine goats). I can’t take credit for that; it originated with Bruce Leopold, my Wildlife Ecology instructor at Mississippi State University. However, we have plenty more where that came from. In Mississippi, nothing is known by a common name. Here are a few more:

Squirrel: “Tree rats”. We have both red and grey squirrels but no one calls them that. When squirrel hunting in Mississippi you hunt either “cat squirrels” (grey) or “fox squirrels” (red). Our fox squirrels have a black phase in the Mississippi Delta and are known simply as swamp squirrels. But, all of 'em are "tree rats".

Rabbits: We hunt two subspecies here. Hill rabbits (cotton tail) and swampers (don’t even know the real name for these). Swampers are much larger than cottontails and will take a pack of beagles on a circuitous route similar to a deer, with the dogs going in and out of hearing distance. I once had a swamper to swim a creek twice then go back in to it. I finally found him with only his nose sticking out of the water in a log jam. The dogs were stumped. I called them in and let him go. No sense in killing something smarter than your average beagle.

Quail: "Birds". If you are a southern quail hunter you are simply known as a “bird hunter”. All the other things that fly are something else that doesn’t even deserve a name. If a man tells you he is going “bird hunting” and you have to ask what kind of bird, you must be a Yankee. All normal people KNOW what “bird hunting” is. While bird hunting, if ANY other bird is seen, it is a “dickey bird”. Used in a sentence such: “Dad blasted worthless hound is pointing “dickey birds”. Shoot him!”. Such worthless hound is usually a $5,000 high bred liver spotted pointer.

Raccoon: ‘Coon. Rarely used this way except in conjunction with another word. A dog used to tree ‘coons is a “coon-hound”. Invariably a large one is called a “boar-coon” and a small one is called a “sow-coon” (regardless of sex). You will go “a-coon-huntin” in the “coon-woods”. You will receive instant permission from small farmers who try to grow sweet corn because of his/her hatred of “thieving-coons”.

Turkey: “Field chickens”. Enough said.