Lilred's Rant of the Week: The Commonwealth

[fabsroman]

TreeDoc,

I have no doubt that the hunting will go, but it will go for the very same reason that it will go for where I live right now. I used to hunt doves and geese just 5 minutes from where I live now. The main road I live off of now runs east to west and was the dividing line between firearms zone and nonfirearms zone. There were a ton of cornfields around this place. Now, there are a ton of homes and almost no place to fire a firearm safely. That is why hunting and shooting will go from these places. It is kind of like trying to hunt in a crowded downtown street in Washington, DC. First off, there isn't any game and second of all it is too dangerous for the people around you.

The farm that I used to hunt on was sold about 5 years ago, so I don't hunt there anymore. However, I was able to hunt deer on a farm just down the road form it where the deer were causing massive crop damage. The DNR gave the farm owner a ton of crop damage permits and required that the hunters sign up to hunt there with the owner's permission and qualify to hunt there by putting 3 out of 5 shots in a paper plate at 40 yards (which I think is ridiculous since a person should be able to put all 5 shots in that plate if they want to hunt in a residential zone).

Essentially, the homes drive the geese and deer to secluded spots in between them. I have geese and ducks living right behind me in a 5 to 10 acre wetland that was created between some condos, my townhouse section, and some single family homes on the opposite side of me. Problem with hunting down there is that homes are in any direction that you set up to shoot in. The ducks and geese love the environment, but it just isn't suitable for hunting.