Oh, fer chrissake.

If anybody's a big fat phoney it's Bush.

I grew up on a farm and my folks now have a "ranch" (i.e. a farm on which you quit growing stuff and now just have cattle.)

Any real farmer should know that Bush is a phoney, because any real farmer who got as filthy stinking rich as Bush would never get out in the rattlesnakes and poison ivy and mosquitoes and horseflies and sweat bees and clear his own damn brush. It makes for good teevee for all the regular guy wanna-be's out there, but it's a hoot to me.

And as for deer hunting: no, you don't ordinarily crawl around on your belly, but you do sometimes. You can hunt deer by walking and tracking and trying to sneak up on 'em. (Heck, it's even *possible* to do this with turkeys, believe it or not...but you can imagine the success rate there...) That's the fun stuff. Sitting around and waiting in a tree is just deer murder. Efficient, and fine if you really need to put meat on the table, but I've never seen the fun in it.

The American people virtually demand that their presidential candidates be phoneys to some degree. Kerry's at least reluctant about it. Bush revels in it.

I'd like to watch someone sneak up on a deer!!!

Kerry's reluctant about what??? he never saw a gun law he didn't like and he does photo ops with weapons in his hands that would be illegal if the laws he voted for were passed!!!

I've walked up on deers lots of times, and I'm not even a good hunter. It's not like you have to sneak up close enough to wrestle 'em to the ground, you see. One ordinarily uses a rifle, you see...

The question is, are you really interested in killing a deer? When I used to hunt (I don't anymore, but just b/c it's inconvenient for me now), deer hunting was really an excuse to just walk around in the woods with guns. We almost NEVER got anything, but it sure was fun. Since that's how I learned to hunt, I've always been baffled by people who think it's fun to do it the other way...

But, then, since we always had cattle, we never had to rely on hunting to get food, so I guess we could afford to be inefficient.

I go for a week every year with my father and my brother...we do both, walk some...sit and wait some...go eat breakfast...then go back and do it all again...for me, it is more about the time I get with my father and my brother than the actual hunt itself.

Like you said, a good excuse for a walk in the woods.

But crawling around on your belly??? I just got this picture of a snake, with kerry's head on it...slithering around in the weeds!!!

What a picture!!!

a goose is just a stupid bird (no offense meant, and I hope that none was taken).

I certainly hope none of our pro-goose readers happen upon this bit of racist, anti-goose propaganda. ;-)

Vic

O.k., granted. Crawling around on your belly while deer hunting is probably extremely rare.

Would it be overly charitable to suggest that he spoke in haste and got a little hyperbolic, when what he really meant was something like "slog around in the mud"?

Oh and:

I've only seen him with a shotgun. I've never heard him say anything in favor of banning shotguns. He's just simply NOT anti-firearm. I bet he'll try to re-institute the assault weapons ban, which I disagree with, but that's a kinda tough borderline case.

Just means I've gotta run out and buy some high-cap guns before it's re-instituted...

for me...it would be overly charitable...but I respect your right to believe that he "spoke in haste".

Some would call that, putting your foot in your mouth!

Well, if it's overly-charitable then I don't want to do it. That would be unreasonable.

perhaps you're right.

It seems like a pretty minor thing to me, though.

Winston...the Shotgun that he was holding up was a semi-automatic shotgun...some of the weapons ban legislation that has come up in congress would ban ANY weapon that could be converted to full auto. And like I said...kerry never saw a weapons bill he didn't like...unless it was for teh military!

Did Kerry vote for that *particular* proposed ban? If so, then he was definitely wrong. It would make my endorsement of him rather less enthusiastic.

But technical question: can ANY semi-auto be converted to full auto?

I figured, you being a member of the Smith family, you would be able to answer that question better than I!!!

I will see what I can find out...but I do remember a few gunners mates that told me that just about anything that was semi-auto could pretty much be changed to auto with a few modifications.

The technical acumen must have been on the Wesson side...

now andy, the concrete jungle kid from new jersey, is gonna lecture us on how to hunt. sheesh, joisey, is there anything you're NOT a know-it-all expert on??

curt,
a 5th generation montanan

LOL...I am a wealth of useless knowledge curt...what can I say!!!

I will be in Joisey, as you say, in a few weeks, to kill bambi!!!

I have an 8 pointer, mounted...and it is the only deer I've ever killed...

I grew up in Central Joisey...lot of open spaces...you'd be amazed...

I guess you're right...I do have a lot of opinions...

joisey andy -

please don't take this wrong, but if you were to mount and then be proud enough to actually display a 4-point buck (out here we count only one side) in montana, you'd be laughed all the way back to joisey.

p.s. joisey don't stink so good no moiw!

yeah well....they don't grow as big back here in the big city!!!

And the guy who stuffed it said I could call it as many points as I want to...it is my deer after all....

I would of thought you'd like joisey...they vote liberal all the time...

joisey andy -

so central joisey has a lot of open spaces, ehe? just for the record, montana has 917,000 people in 147,000 square miles, while new joisey has 8,638,000 people crammed into 8,700 square miles. that's 8 times more people in 1/17th the area. we've got wheatfields bigger than the entire state.

and as for your "monster" buck, a montana jackalope is bigger than a new joisey deer. maybe the guy who stuffed it just didn't want to hurt that fragile ego of yours.

curt....I think you're trying to hurt my feelings!!!...not that I have any...

One of joiseys claims to fame when i was a young man was that it was the most densely populated state in the country...not sure if that's true anymore...but hey, it's where I grew up and it was a lot of fun. I don't live there now...I can't afford to pay the taxes.

fragile ego...am I that transparent???

Curt,

Inside Yankee sources of mine report that Joisey is actually quite beautiful as soon as you get away from the industrial wasteland of the I-95 corridor...

Never seen it myself, but my source is reliable. For a Yankee, that is.

andy,

i just found it amusing that the same guy who was making fun of john kerry's hunting would also brag about killing, mounting and displaying a 4-point buck.