The Wrangell sentinel., 1940-08-23
OFF To#THE HUNT


 There's a touch Of fall in the air these days. And a touch of some thing else. too, especially marked on clear days and nights.
 The suns rays are beginning to slant and the white moonlight no longer seems to have control over our more aesthetic emotions. Lan- Quid summer is gone.
 We now start to "emotea far dif- ferent impulses. Old, primitive in stincts come down to us from the time when our earliest ancestors east their eyes skyward when the same sun and moon started slant ing down on the domestic cave and Papa Neanderthal sniffed the wind, shook his hairy head and sat down 10 sharpen his arrows with delib- crate intent. Time 10 fill the cave for winter, and off to the hunt.
 With well stocked markets and shops next door man still feels the call of these ancient impulses irres- istible. Papa 20th-century gets the dead-shot 16 or 20 guage and the S0.06 from it's dusty corner of the basement and sits down to lovingly finger, oil and polish the barrel It's time to get away from il all for a few days and off to the hunt.
 The deer season opened last Tues day.
 Times change. Human nature re- mains pretty much the same. There 8 something infinitely satisfying in getting into old clothes, and with gun in hand, tramp over the hills. coming back dead tired with a string of mallards over our shoulder or dragging a fat buck down the mountain side We all still have a hint Of old Papa Nean- derthal stirring in us whether It's fishing or hunting.
 But nowdays hunting isn't so simple We're bound by laws and, We should be, bound by a common courtesy to our fellow hunters.
 Game laws weren't made to serve the government or the people who made them. They were made after careful survey found them needful in order to give us the chance to exercise our Neanderthal tendencies year after year and, perhaps, give our children a break. They'll in- herit the same liking for hunting from us. Every doe shot means less daar +b. fDIIovyiu0 roor and 4yhnn and if, the does get too plentiful the Game Commission will know it before We do. They study feeding conditions continually They'll give us an open season on does. Then, probably, We won't want to kill them We'd rather have a nice four point buck.
 Neanderthal man had another break over us. He didn't have to fear his fellow hunter.
 One of the most tragic of accidents is the hunter who kills his fellow hunter by mistaking him for deer. It's all so senseless. yet, it happens every year.
 Except, perhaps, in most rare cases, there is no excuse for it. The same game laws that try to curb our impulses to shoot everything we see, thus depicting the forests, warns Us that the buck we hope to bring home must have at least three-inch points. Of course we don't get a ruler with our hunting license, three inches has been figured as the size that can be easily distinguished at a reasonable distance That tells us it's a buck and old enough to kill. How can any hunter be law abiding hunter and shoot his fellow Woodsman? The hunter who shoots into any clump of moving brush, and looks for the 3-inch spikes after wards, should carry a pop-gun in- stead Of a deadly 3006.
 So let's give our fellow hunters a break this year. What if we do miss a shot, by holding our fire on that moving brush, and then see a swell four point buck bound up over the hill out of sight? There's always another one around the bend-or there will be as long as we obey the game laws and give MT. Buck s wife a break too.