From: dougr@meaddata.com (Doug Ritter)
Subject: Re: Michigan Deer Season
Organization: Mead Data Central, Dayton OH
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 18:28:09 GMT
Distribution: na

In article <1992Nov18.134536.4686@tellab5.tellabs.com> don@tellabs.com (Donald Leonard) writes:
>In article <1992Nov17.161735.14218@meaddata.com> dougr@meaddata.com (Doug Ritter) writes:
>>Just talked to my Cat dealer this morning about this and that, and
>>during the conversation I mentioned that I was hoping to go to Cadillac
>>MI in a couple of weeks (Dec 1 or 2).  He told me not to go before
>>Dec 1 because deer season is on until then and it was illegal to ride
>>before that.
>>
>>Is that true?  It wasn't true in Wisconsin back when I used to ride
>>up there - the hunters and sledders and skiers all co-existed (sometimes
>>uneasily, I admit) in the woods.
>>
>>If noone here knows the answer to this, I'll call the Chamber of Commerce
>>in Cadillac.  I'll post what I find out.
>>
>>--
>>Doug Ritter (dougr@meaddata.com)
>I'm not exactly sure about dates but in WI its the same way. I know
>the hunting season (except for bow) is over by the 10th of Dec
>because thats the first legal riding weekend. 
>Why worry about shotguns - just get a new kevlar helmet ;-)
>
>don
>-- 
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>Donald T. Leonard	|Honda Sabre	| "Bumpy trails? 
>don@tellabs.com		|		|  Don't get mad get rad!"
>..!uunet!tellab5!don	|Indy 650	|
>---------------------------------------------------------------------

This is really interesting.  Why exactly is there such a fear of being
shot during deer hunting season?  There can only be 3 possibilities:

1) The hunters are idiots who can't tell a brightly colored, loud, fast
   moving snowmobile from a brown, silent, stealthy deer.

2) The hunters are angry-young-men types who will blow your head off if
   you screw with their hunting prospects by riding a snowmobile through
   the woods.

3) You might get shot accidentally if you come flying through the woods
   between a hunter and his prey just as he fires.

Granted, in any of the three cases, you're just as shot.  But what does
#1 say for hunters?  I was once a hunter myself, so I feel like I can
converse on the subject intelligently, and I just can't buy reason #1.

#2 is really no more intellectually attractive to me.  Has our society
really degenerated that far?  I know we're a collective mess, but come on!
Are the woods really filled with cold-blooded killers?  I can't buy
*that* either!

So that leaves me with #3.  And what are the odds of this happening?
Look, I've hunted.  I *know* that it's not like the Daffy Duck cartoon
where everything that moves is blasted by a hail of gunfire.  It just
doesn't fly that a law has to be passed to protect snowmobilers from
hunters.  So is it possible that it's just an issue of "fairness"? What
I mean is, is the legislation designed to keep the snowmobilers out of
the woods to give the hunters a better chance of getting a deer?

*That* I *can* accept.  Anybody know for sure what's behind this kind
of legislation?  Are other states besides MI and WI doing this?

--
Doug Ritter (dougr@meaddata.com)
Newsgroups: alt.snowmobiles