Posted on 09/17/2005 9:08:12 PM PDT by neverdem
GREEN MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST, Vt. - Chomping wad after wad of Bubblicious Strawberry Splash gum and giggling as she tickled people's necks with a piece of grass she pretended was a spider, Samantha Marley could have been any 9-year-old girl.
A couple of things set her apart, though. She was cloaked in camouflage from boots to baseball cap. And propped next to her on the seat of a truck was her very own 20-gauge shotgun.
Samantha, a freckle-faced, pony-tailed fourth grader, was on a bear hunt. Not the pretend kind memorialized in picture books and summer-camp chants, but a real one for black bears that live in the woods of southwestern Vermont and can weigh 150 pounds or more.
She had won a "dream hunt" given away by a Vermont man whose goal is to get more children to hunt, and she had traveled about 200 miles from her home in Bellingham, Mass., and was missing three days of school to take him up on his offer.
"Almost everything you hunt is pretty fun," said Samantha, grinning and perfectly at home with a group of five men, the youngest of whom was nearly three times her age.
At one point, as the group crossed a wooden bridge, Samantha's father, Scott, who had accompanied her - and had filled out her application for the hunting contest - teased her that trolls lived under the bridge.
"Dad," Samantha said with bravado, "I got a gun."
The dream hunt - all expenses paid, including taxidermy - was the brainchild of Kevin Hoyt, a 35-year-old hunting instructor who quit a job as a structural steel draftsman a few years ago and decided to dedicate himself to getting children across the country interested in hunting.
His efforts reflect...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Martial arts is a good sport and can build the body and mind and if a kid wants to do it find ,better then being a couch rat.
I am not talking about a 12 and older child by that time they are getting some size and muscle to be able to do something. But smaller children just do not have the size or power to make it work. Learning to throw a good kick and punch well help them later when they get big enough to have some power behind it.
Fighting back is a good idea screaming biting, kicking ect anything to make someone else take notice that the child isn't going along freely. But to think a child is going to out fight some one that is 2,3,4 times their size who is determined to do them harm, it just isn't going to work.
My grandmother told me once that until she was a teenager she never ate any meat that she did not see slaughtered and dressed.
I got my first bb gun for Christmas when I was six...and I didn't shoot my eye out! I always could outshoot my boy cousins, and I am still very good with a pistol.
Texas girls and boys still hunt, so this type of story wouldn't even make the news, much less front page. I hope we never have occasion to have to rely on getting our own food in this country, because most of our citizens would starve to death if there wasn't a supermarket available.
She well know more about hunting and life after this hunt then a lot of adults.
(I have some OLD cookbooks that go into detail about that.)
My problem is, most people don't eat bear. I've never liked trophy hunting; I've always believed if you killed it you should eat it. Otherwise, it seems like a waste.
A 20ga with a slug is just find. It'll kill any bear they put up a tree, ranges are short and most of the time they have lots of time to get ready aim and fire.
Avid shoppers probably fail to realize that the reason they love their hobby so much is because of that basic hunting instinct. Just my humble opinion.
Excellent, all our children and grandchildren learned to hunt and enjoy the outdoors. I am sure the great grandchilden will also learn but they are just a little to young right now.
What you talkin' 'bout?
He comes to my house every December 25th!
What personal principles does hunting violate? I ask that seriously.
I have a few but I won't list them. I don't have the time for a protracted discussion as I now work all day and won't be able to answer people. I don't like to be flamed and I most surely will be.
I had it once. IIRC, it tasted like pork. Most of the bear hunters I know, however, just do it for the trophy. Deer hunters, on the other hand, most often do it for the meat.
Where I'm from (rural South Louisiana) it is absolutely typical. In fact, the local weekly paper regularly publishes pictures of "young'uns" who have bagged their first deer during hunting season. Both boys and girls, ages around 9-12.
Where are you from, so I can avoid it if people think like that?
Hey, I just remembered that my sister got a recipe for homemade skunk shampoo after her dog got nailed once. She used it and the vet she went to a couple days later couldn't believe it. Here it is:
1 quart hydrogen peroxide
1/4 cup baking soda
1T Dawn dishwashing detergent
Stir SLOWLY. DO NOT CAP.
You have to make it as needed as I doubt it keeps well but she said it works wonders. And she didn't have a pink dog.
There's only one problem with your logic. WE ALREADY DID IT. The "force disparity" between the colonists and "Mother England" was just as great.
But that isn't the REAL deterrent. The REAL deterrent is that our scheming politicians know, deep down in their reptile brains, that if they piss off their constituents badly enough, that they can end up dead. When our pols lose that fear, THEN we will have tyranny.
Pinching works well, too. Ever have your toddler run up to you and grab your leg. Those grabs on the inside of my thigh ALWAYS put me through the ceiling.
That is so true. Who's to say that some day we may not have to throw off the yoke of THIS government and start all over again?
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