A few weeks ago, I offered my annual safety warning, given that it is deer season and some people tend to shoot first and define the species later. I think a few people got the idea that I wasn’t really serious, especially when I said that when hunting season opens, I don’t even want my wife to call me “dear.”

Well, for those who thought I was stretching some worst-case scenarios, a fellow in Kentucky rode around town this past week with an enormous “deer” in his pickup, showing it off and bursting with pride over his trophy. Somewhere along the way, someone told Randolph Scott Stidham that he had not killed a deer, but he had killed an elk.

Oops!

While elk is said to be quite tasty, it also is quite protected in Kentucky. Elk are much larger than deer. They can weigh up to 800 pounds and their antlers alone can weigh 50 pounds with a width of six feet.

Stidham can face fines of up to $8,000 and a year in jail.

I renew my position that some people just don’t need to have loaded guns. And yes, I’m fully aware of the Second Amendment, which obviously stopped short of explaining that one should be able to tell the difference between an elk and a deer, or a moose and a deer, or a cow and a deer — and we would be remiss not to mention, a person and a deer.

Kentucky conservation officer Jamon Halvaksz said comparing a deer and an elk is like comparing a tractor-trailer rig to a pickup. I agree, some things you should just know about. What I mean is, there is the Mona Lisa and there is the velvet Elvis. There is Jack Daniels and there is homebrew. There is souse meat and there is SPAM. There are deer and there is everything else.

Stidham has pleaded innocent. His defense is all about intent. Obviously he intended to kill a deer. He just didn’t have his Foxfire Guide to Identifying Kentucky Creatures with him that day.

Hunting season 2001 is just in its beginnings and already we have heard of a couple of those field and stream faux pas.

Last week, a man going on a hunting trip was trying to convince security officers at the Dallas airport that his gun was unloaded. To illustrate his point, he held it up and pulled the trigger, blowing out a window.

Early on, young hunters are cautioned to open the firing chamber to see if there is a shell inside, preferably before you go into an airport terminal. Certainly pulling the trigger will prove the same, but that’s kind of like using both feet to check the depth of the water. There is an incredible cause and effect factor in the midst of these issues.

Now a person who claims to be a hunter and doesn’t know the difference between an elk and a deer and a person who would pull the trigger of his gun in an airport to prove whether it was loaded or not are two people you don’t want walking behind you, lest you should walk under a tree branch and appear to have antlers.

The fellow at the airport, according to news accounts, was allowed to catch his plane. I suppose airport officials figured that since he didn’t mistake the plane for a goose and shoot it, the safety issues mostly had been resolved, particularly since they were certain now that the gun was unloaded.

Now do you still think I’m being facetious?

Y’all be careful out there, you hear.



Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer. You can call him at 985-4545, ext. 214. E-mail: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com