Our crazy liberal friends think that the evil black rifle the so called "assault rifle" is baaaaaaaad! If you have a pack of these wild dogs roaming your neighborhood who wouldn't want one!
Lib's attitude is that the coyotes were here before us so we should share the space and let them live. I met a young woman who worked for the County Conservation Dept., and lived on a public hunting property as pay for watching the area. She also had a day job in town. She was ok with the hunting, she just did not like talking about it or hearing that someone got this or that wild animal while hunting. She told me once that every night she and her 3 dogs walked down to the end of a cornfield planted as a deer feeder, and several times she heard coyotes yipping and howling. I told her to make sure the dogs did not get taken in by the friendly little wild animals.
The coyotes came out a few times and played with her dogs like little kids and the dogs were ok. Then one night a couple dogs didn't come back. She heard the noise and heard her dogs being torn apart by the rest of the pack back in the woods. I didn't hunt that area the rest of the season, as that was a couple years ago when I started getting sick and just did not have the energy to go beat around in the bush. When I did go back all that was left of the house the woman lived in was a big bare spot in the dirt. An open sided pole barn was gone as was all the equipment, tractor, combine and hay baler, and a hay wagon. The electrical service poles were gone and it was just a small parking lot for the hunters and hikers to park.
I think one reason the county stopped maintaining the property was so it could lessen their liability. If her dogs got invited to dinner and never came back, well, it may have scared her bad enough she decided to get a lawyer. If it is wild and not like a farmed area, the insurance would probably be less. I don't really know but it was always well maintained. But there was nothing there to hunt either because it was easy access. Now you have to work for every foot you hunt.
I think another reason the county had to close up the "ranger station" because they couldn't afford the costs of maintaining the place and paying someone to play overseer. Now it is over run with prairie grass and tall stiff stuff I cannot walk through. I think someone cut a road through the grass to get down to the lower 40 where a wide canal ran through. That was a crossing for either the farmer who owned the property across that canal, or it all belongs to the county, thus, the county did not worry about cutting off the access point. Someone must have dumped in some rock because someone always has a crop in that field.
There was an old bridge over the canal that got flooded out. It is gone also. Now the place is just a wild 370 acre hunting area, unless you can get across that canal/creek. Pickups may be able to drive down to setup stands but I know they are not allowed to park. That will be one of my turtle and crawdad haunts this summer. Coyotes also. I know it is flooded now. So I have to head for higher hunting ground. That just means I have to take the long way around. As for Crawdaddin and bullheading...the canal and the bottoms are the best bet.
Sorry. I got to wandering off topic there. I just talked myself into going out there to see what's what.
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