Big Game Hunting

A lot of folks will tell you that you have to be, as Elmer Fudd would say. “Verwy, verwy cwafty”, to get a deer. Well, I feel pretty crafty if I can miss a deer in the early morning hours on my way to work. It’s not as though I’m sneaking down the road in my stealthy bright red anti-camouflaged ford pick-up truck with the radio blaring.
It could very well be that these rascals simply know when we are not packing a weapon, and taunting us is somehow a kind of game for them: sort of like hunting.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am all for the hunter and for all of the conservation reasons behind the sport, but really, is it as much of a challenge as it could be?
Consider this: I’m standing here looking out my back door at a yard full of shallow tunnels, mini-mountain ranges and mud piles, proof positive of an alien invasion. Any one who has ever tried to destroy this cloaked enemy of civilized landscape will tell you that there are few greater challenges in the predatory arena. It is an ongoing battle of winner takes all, to thwart the efforts of that lawn-tilling varmint: the mole.
One could go to the sporting goods store and spend a ridiculous amount of money so that he could look like a bush, but this prey does not need to see us, it feels us when we move.
I could get a high powered rifle with a big scope that can see Jupiter’s moons, but the mere discharge of that personal cannon can make cell phones all over the neighborhood automatically dial the police station. And if I miss, I’ve just dug another hole.
So I set traps, and I wait. And I wait… and I wait some more.
Occasionally, I score a direct hit, and when I do, I feel like throwing my kill onto the tailgate of my truck, and having my picture made for the newspaper with my orange hat and my garden hoe in hand.
So, my brother just got an eight-point buck.
Big deal. It’s not like getting a mole.