Driving to work every day, staring into a computer for hours and then driving home again is nothing to be ashamed of. It's just modern life. Yet this contemporary obligation removes a modern hunter from the habits of what hunters once were. We buy a hunting license, we make certain we've got the proper stamps and a firearm owner's identification card, then we go hunting. It's how hunting works in this state.
Kids have to take a beginner's course before they hunt for the first time.
But once kids pass it, they're set for life. For the rest of us, there is no training or test required to be a hunter, and it's our priviledge to be as bad as we happen to be and still be allowed to go hunting. Procrastinators and lousy shots have equal opportunity under the law. The leaves are falling early from the hickory tree behind the house. Maybe it's the drought.