Hunting Season

It's not that I hate hunters; I just hate hunting. Here in South Jersey, going after wild game is too often a wild game in itself. The peace of our pinewoods province is invaded annually by average humans who become predators more animalistic than their prey. They conduct a deer roundup that is much like an African jungle expedition. The major difference is that tribesmen go after game for food, while these local yokels are most concerned with impressing one another with their marksmanship, which sometimes gets sidetracked and threatens pets that get in the way. Gangs of hunters stand along our country roads, stationed within sight of each other, and proceed to behave like hedonistic Hottentots.

John Goodson likes nothing better than the bite of an autumn wind as he strides through the low field grass, his dogs yelping and barking as they sniff the ground. The wind will whistle against his shiny orange cap and try to find its way down the neck of his thick camouflage jacket. Goodson will tighten the grip on his featherweight 20-gauge Ithaca shotgun - "That's my baby," he says, "I lose that, I'll give up gunning" - and keep on tromping along, looking for quail. This is hunting season.

Five years ago, June Savoy and her husband decided they'd had it with shotgun-toting hunters traipsing about their back yard in pursuit of a buck. Their property, off Broadlane Road in Williamstown, abuts the Winslow Fish and Wildlife Area, one of South Jersey's most popular hunting spots, where thousands of acres of woodlands, nature trails and streams provide an escape from the bustle of the Black Horse Pike. So the couple bought two rottweilers to make sure hunters respected the border between the state-managed property and the 10 acres they own behind their house.

Oh, Howard Henderson, you 72-year-old flirt. You dressed up in those funny clothes and, in the early dark every morning last week, you sneaked deep into the woods in your township of Lower Alloways Creek near Delaware Bay. You played hard to get, but all along you were really hoping old Tom and young Jake would come trotting to you. And you knew - or you believed, at least - that you were toying with their unrequited lust. Tom and Jake turkey, that is. Well, now the world is going to know just what happened out there in the almost dark when you and 8,475 other fellows set out to take advantage of the male turkey population's - how shall we say, forced celibacy?

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania hunters may now set their sights on porcupines - but only between September and the end of March. The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Tuesday amended its plan to approve a wide-open, shoot-'em-anytime season on the nation's second largest rodent. But the commission, over objections of wildlife biologists, lifted the 30-year-old protections that had made it illegal to hunt the porcupine, a shy, nocturnal forest-dweller whose only protection is its spiky suit of 30,000 quills, and who is rarely seen in many parts of the state.

With opening day for Pennsylvania's hunting season for archers set for Saturday, Elio Tafuri ventures to a secluded area near the JFK Stadium parking lot yesterday to rehearse his compound bow techniques. He chose the area for target practice because it's relatively out of the way and free of encroachment by passers-by. Successful handling of the powerful weapon demands both physical strength and manual dexterity.

GLANCING through your Dec. 8 edition, I saw a picture that I first thought was that of the Adopt-A-Pet. Then I realized it was in the front section of the paper. Upon closer perusal, I figured it was a story concerning a creature escaped from the zoo or SPCA. Putting on my specs, I zoomed in - and lo and behold it was Howard Eskin minked up to his neck, exposing just whiskers and beady eyes, topped off with a mink cap. I would like to advise Howard not to bend over, which he does often looking for loose change while wearing the mink.

If your canine companion is the light of your life, you will welcome RuffWear's Track Jacket, which can make him more visible - and safer - when he's out and about. The bright orange nylon vest with 3M Scotchlite reflective piping rests lightly on the dog's back, held on by adjustable straps at the neck and ribs. A beam from any light source, such as car headlights or a flashlight, will make the reflective trim glow - a welcome safety measure at night and during hunting season. The water-resistant material helps protect the dog from the elements, and a polyester mesh lining helps keep him cool.

The apartment was toasty. Too much so. "First we didn't have heat, now it's too hot," said Carlos Cesar. The modern furnishings have his mother's taste: a black leather sofa and matching recliner. "Even when I lay on it (the recliner), my feet still dangle over the end," said Cesar, who is 6 feet, 7 inches - or about a foot taller than the couch is long. There is a 60-inch Panasonic console that dominates a corner of the room. Instead of spending his winter days on the Morrisville basketball court, Carlos Cesar is spending them propped on the couch watching TV. Out of necessity, not choice.

The Rendell administration will review whether there is a better time to shut down the state's criminal-background check system to avoid conflict with the start of hunting season. At a news conference yesterday, Gov. Rendell said the four-day period between Sept. 2 and Sept. 6 was chosen to take the system off-line - which will prevent people from buying guns - because research showed it has been a slack time for firearms purchases, which require the mandated computerized background check.

DISKO ISLAND, Greenland - The old hunter was troubled by the foreigners encroaching on his Inuit people's frozen lands. "The Inuit say that they are going to heat the siku [the sea ice] to make it melt. There will be almost no more winter," the elder said of the southerners in Jean Malaurie's The Last Kings of Thule, the French explorer's classic account of a year in the Arctic. That was 1951. Years later, another Inuit hunter looked out at Disko Bay from this island's rocky fringe and remembered driving his dogsled team over the solid glitter of the siku all the way to Ilulissat, a town 55 miles across the water.

PITTSBURGH - Phillip Hunt was the all-time sack leader at the University of Houston. NFL teams were so impressed by that that they didn't even bother to extend one of the 330 invitations to the 2009 predraft scouting combine to him or select him in any of the seven rounds of the draft that year. He ended up getting signed as an undrafted free agent by the Cleveland Browns, but quickly got cut and wasn't even considered worthy of a spot on their practice squad. The biggest strike against Hunt was his size - he's just 6-foot and maybe tops out at 245 if he jumps on the scale right after a trip to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania hunters may now set their sights on porcupines - but only between September and the end of March. The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Tuesday amended its plan to approve a wide-open, shoot-'em-anytime season on the nation's second-largest rodent. But the commission, over objections of wildlife biologists, lifted the 30-year-old protections that had made it illegal to hunt the porcupine, a shy, nocturnal forest-dweller whose only protection is its spiky suit of 30,000 quills, and which is rarely seen in many parts of the state.

HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania hunters may now set their sights on porcupines - but only between September and the end of March. The Pennsylvania Game Commission on Tuesday amended its plan to approve a wide-open, shoot-'em-anytime season on the nation's second largest rodent. But the commission, over objections of wildlife biologists, lifted the 30-year-old protections that had made it illegal to hunt the porcupine, a shy, nocturnal forest-dweller whose only protection is its spiky suit of 30,000 quills, and who is rarely seen in many parts of the state.

NEAR CROSS FORK, Pa. - A half-century after that first youthful kill, the deer hunter trudged once more up a familiar old trail. The lonely, wooded slopes above Beech Bottom Run lay dusted with snow Saturday afternoon as the hunter, rifle over his shoulder, scanned them for wild turkey and a defining piece of his past. At the top of the mile-long climb rose a stand of soaring, old-growth hemlocks, their trunks up to three feet wide, somehow spared from the ravenous loggers of the 1890s.

If your canine companion is the light of your life, you will welcome RuffWear's Track Jacket, which can make him more visible - and safer - when he's out and about. The bright orange nylon vest with 3M Scotchlite reflective piping rests lightly on the dog's back, held on by adjustable straps at the neck and ribs. A beam from any light source, such as car headlights or a flashlight, will make the reflective trim glow - a welcome safety measure at night and during hunting season. The water-resistant material helps protect the dog from the elements, and a polyester mesh lining helps keep him cool.

Welcome to Week 5. The official start of hunting season. Hunter? You. (And Jared Allen, evidently.) Hunted? The unsuspecting mooks in your league. Weapon of choice? The Trade. (But bring Contra Spray Gun for backup.) Urine to mask the scent? I'm thinking something from the Marion Butts collection. Hunting season could not come fast enough for me this year. I couldn't win a head-to-head with bye week right now. If stink were a color, I'd be the rainbow. My team somehow has a going problem and a growing problem.

The guys who get up at 7 a.m. on summer weekends to play basketball near 96th Street and First Avenue are a hearty sort. Tossing elbows and hacking at shooting arms as the sun rises after Shore party nights takes stamina - or a little insanity. . One morning a few years ago, though, a tall, well-hewn guy of about 40 came on the court dressed in a crisp white polo, seemingly ironed white shorts, and almost-washed white sneakers. This guy couldn't possibly have game, the looks around the court said.

A few weeks ago, I was driving home with my family from a Thanksgiving vacation, crossing one of the longer Northeastern states. Let's just call it, for the sake of this story, "Pennsylvania. " Interstate 80 between Cleveland and New York City stimulates a level of nonlinear thinking achievable on few other highways. While meditating on a string of important questions in the passenger seat (Does my 5-year-old son have a future as a major-league pitcher? Was a guy named Barack Obama really elected president?

The latest round in the fight between humans and deer starts this week at Anson B. Nixon Park in the Kennett area, when a handful of archers will start a bow hunt in an attempt to reduce the park's deer population. The 106-acre park straddles the border between Kennett Square and Kennett Township, and the hunt there will take place sometime after 5 p.m. on weekdays, said Jerry McCarron of the Kennett Area Park Authority, which runs the park. McCarron said the hunting season would start tomorrow and run until Jan. 26. It was not known what days the hunters would be in the park because there were "only two or three of them," he said, and it depended on their availability.