I'm sure we all have run in to them at one time or another or if you haven't you will. Mostly I have bumped into them at cocktail parties, formal dinner's and other social obligations that I had to endure as a young man. I remember once at a blacktie State Department function an elderly lady asking me "And what do you do for a living young man?" My reply "I'm in the gun and ammo business." See looked terrified and asked in all honesty "Would you not feel guilty if a person you sold a gun to went out and killed someone?" I replied that I would feel about as guilty as the automobile excutive who sells a car that ran over and killed someone. I knew full well that her husband was the number two man at GM at the time. She avoided me like the plague for the rest of the night. On another occassion a friend and I had a deer hunt planned in a rather remote area. The local Game Warden, who was also a good friend had warned us that a group of anti hunters would be out in force and we may want to change our plans. My friend and I discussed it at length and decided no, we would not let these folks deter us, keep in mind that this was years before any hunter harassment laws had been enacted. The morning of the hunt I had my wife drive us to the base of the mountain we intended to hunt. Sure enough there they were, 3 rather pale looking men and one rather attractive young lady. They came over, introduced themselves and promptly informed us of their intentions - which was to tag along with us and make noise so that no game animal would be seen. Since I and my friend are perfect gentlemen we also introduced ourself and told them we would be more than happy for them to accompany us. At that point I gave my wife a kiss and a wink, donned our packs and took off up the mountain. To our suprise they stayed with us up hills, down hills, across creeks, and other unsavory places you can only find in the mountains. As a matter of fact they were rather pleasant and although loud we did get a bit of enjoyment out of them and all rather well educated. Did I mention that the young lady was rather attractive? Along about dusk one of them asked when we had planned on going back down the mountain. At that point my buddy looked at me and gave me that sly little grin. I then took off my pack and he did likewise, got out our shelter halves, "C" Rations and without laughing to much told them we had no intention of leaving the mountain for the next 3 days. For all I know they are still trying their best to get off that mountain and that was about 40 years ago.
Chief, I enjoyed that story, I would ahve loved to see them try to get down that mountain in the dark......hopefully they were stalked by a kitty. I have had conversations with anti's, at Game and Fish meetings and in social gatherings, but mostly with my sister. She and my neice have both asked me how could I possibly get enjoyment out of killing defenseless animals. These 2 have told me they get together and "wish" that I not see anything on my hunting trips. I finally gave up and dont even tell them I am going hunting, and they ahve never commented on me guiding now.
I always ask those kinds of folks if they walk everywhere they go. Invariably they say "No". I then ask how they manage to drive their vehicles without killing hundreds or thousands of insects each trip, splattered on the windshield. Well, of course they have no real answer for that, usually. I then ask how it is that they are in a position to assign more value to one animal's life, than another....
Now that's funny! Oh if we could all come up with plans like that to put it right back on them! Bet they learned a little lesson there!
Chief, that story's too good. I just finished cleaning up the mess on my screen but I still thinks that's one of the best stories, "innocently" told about antis. Thanks