Unfairness of the hunting field

Published 2:52 pm Thursday, November 12, 2015

Editor:

In response to the letter on Oct. 28, “No pride in hunting with bait,” is there pride in killing deer with dogs? Where does patterning, tracking and deer habits come into play when dogs are cut loose, scattering the deer?

Dogs are a legal and accepted way to deer hunt in Virginia. If bait makes deer hunting too easy perhaps avoiding bait on the next fishing trip will also make one a true fisherman!

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The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has made baiting deer legal provided you are a wealthy landowner who plants crops.

You can legally hunt over tons of corn on your 100-acre field with no restrictions. Poor hunters, however, with few acres and no means to plant will be prosecuted should they dare set out a Dixie cup of bait! The law is presently set up so the hope of killing a deer is very poor if you’re very poor and very high if you’re very wealthy. The hunting field is very unfair to poor hunters, and it’s very clear to see! 

Older and disabled hunters must hunt where they can, not where they want. Baits would help them. Tracking, scouting and locating deer is fine if you are able. What if you hunt from a wheelchair? Mark Fowler makes his ethical hunting edicts especially difficult if you’re both poor and/or disabled. Bait or no bait, getting up before daylight to sit in the sub-freezing rain is anything but easy.

Karl Schmidt

Farmville