Don't blame you one bit, Cap. Give an inch and the next thing you know there are hunting blinds and stands all over your property. Neighbors asked us last year if they could hunt our timber and we said no. We've hunted in the past but have never gotten a shot off.
I had a buck in my sights once. It was just on the other side of the fence in our neighbor's property though. I set and watched it wondering if it was going to jump the fence. It never did and in a way I was glad. When I had it in my sights and my finger on the trigger I realized that with a click I would end it's life. All it was trying to do was perpetuate it's species. It wasn't being aggressive or destructive. All it was trying to do was live.
Made me look at things from a different angle. I'm not naïve. I eat meat and know for us to eat a steer or chicken has been butchered. I also know that logically the numbers need to be controlled to keep disease down in the herd. Guess we just aren't hungry enough to kill a deer. Maybe someday but not now.
We tracked three bucks all fall on our game camera. Got to know them. They were always following one another. Then youth season came and went one weekend and suddenly we didn't see the three bucks any more. Kinda made us sad.
Plus I have laid down the law to the neighbors that nobody would hunt wild turkey on our property. I call them my 'wild' flock.
