Thinking about hunting season

Time to think about hunting season. Actually, this should have been mentioned in the column a month or two ago. However, there is still time to accomplish a few details or facets concerning the upcoming hunting season. Hunting season doesn’t begin for another month or two.

Who is more likely to receive permission to hunt, a hunter who visits with a landowner in July or a hunter who asks permission to hunt on the first day of the season?

Get a jump on the other hunters and begin talking to landowners during the month of July or August.

My next suggestion may seem a bit far-fetched to some hunters, but let this idea sink in and consider the value it may produce.

Prepare a resume to pass out to landowners. A resume? Yep, a resume. Place your name and address at the top of the page, similar to letterhead. Include information, such as, stating you will not bring anyone else with you without receiving permission first.

This is more important than it seems, as bringing others, who don’t have permission to hunt the land, happens. A disgruntled landowner once told me of giving permission to one hunter to hunt his land.

On opening day, the hunter was seen on the land with two other vehicles. This hunter was contacted and asked to leave this land and not return. As stated above, this statement is more important than it seems.

Back to the resume: The hunter could include the year, make and license plate of his vehicle.

Also, the hunter’s home phone number and cell phone number should be included. Additionally, a phone number should be included for another family member who is not along on the hunt, which will be an emergency contact.

References are also an option. Again, think about a hunter handing a resume to a landowner with other landowners listed inviting this new landowner to contact the other landowners where the hunter had hunted before.

This resume, one-page in length, is sure to add to the new hunter’s appeal as a person to allow to hunt the new landowner’s land.

Sometimes a resume isn’t needed. When I returned home from my nine-year Army career, including a year’s tour of Vietnam as a helicopter pilot and an 18-month tour of Korea as a pilot, I began looking for land to hunt.

One landowner had posted his land “No hunting, do not ask.” Of course, I drove the quarter-mile drive way to find our why.

His answer: “I just wanted to see who had the guts to drive in here and ask.” I hunted this land for 30 years, until he sold his farm.