I hope everyone is having a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend -- preferably in the woods! I'm up in Maine with some great weather but ancient dial-up internet access. I've spent mucho time trying to choose and announce a gear winner, but it turns out I can't even view the blog itself! I finally ended up being able to do a post, so here's a quick note to say the gear is ready, but I think we'll have to wait til next Friday for our weekly announcement. Some of you have also sent field reports and photos, which I'm excited to see, but I can't view all of them!

     So, here's hoping everyone enjoyed the holiday and is making the most of the weekend, and I'll see you Monday! -K.H.

Wishing you a Happy Turkey Day, FSHuntress style! Those of you who have been reading the blog from the beginning may remember this photo from the F&S archives. If you squint, you can read the caption, "Draggy skirts are an abomination." Remember that and you'll go far. Happy Thanksgiving! -K.H.

     I'm no wildlife biologist, but here's a curious tidbit.

     Last weekend, my boyfriend and I were talking to a neighbor about jogging in our area of the Lower Hudson Valley, just above New York City. We all run the same trail in a wooded historic park. The two of them are more committed runners than I am, doing 3-plus miles four to six times a week. I only do about a mile two or three times a week. They've also been using the trail for a number of years -- longer than I have.

    During the course of the conversation, we got on the topic of deer encounters on the trail. I'll run into whitetails every so often, but before I get close, they spook, crash through the trees like the legions of hell are at their heels and disappear. I rarely actually see them, I'll just catch a flash of white tail disappearing over a hill.

     However, my boyfriend and our neighbor have the exact opposite experience. They'll routinely run up on deer standing right in the trail and refusing to move. They'll try to shoo them away, and the animals still don't leave. One morning, my boyfriend came up on a doe and a fawn. He slowed, stopped and tried to spook them off the trail, but Mamma just looked at him -- he couldn't get her to go.

     So, my boyfriend and our neighbor are now entertaining the theory that because they run this area so often the local deer are used to their scent and therefore not threatened by their approach. I, on the other hand, as the less frequent runner am not as familiar to the local wildlife, so I'm still perceived as a danger.

     I guess that makes sense, but as previously stated, I'm no wildlife biologist. Sound theory? Or something else? Maybe the deer just instinctively sense I work for F&S and figure they should clear out. -K.H. 

     Lou Alexander! We all know Lou as a longtime blog reader and frequent comment-or, whose recent story about a sobering experience with a doe kicked off a meaningful discussion.

     Lou, who says she just spent the weekend in the woods, will be receiving the one-two-punch combo prize of scents from Tink's and broadheads from Muzzy (four-blade, per her preference)! I'm sure she'll make great use of them.

    So congrats to Lou and a big thank you to Muzzy and Tink's -- and happy almost-Thanksiving (I hope everyone's pre-holiday stress is holding steady so far)! -K.H.

    Well, I was planning on doing a news post today, but unless we want to talk about a potential handgun ban in Ireland, a buck breaking into a St. Louis mall or the increase in German boar hunting, I'm changing my mind and  putting up a mini-essay that blog reader Judy Black emailed me to share with you. I thought her comments were pretty interesting, so I'm sure you'll join me in thanking Judy for saving us from a "thrilling" discussion about another of today's breaking headlines, like the Associated Press' "Angler numbers drop as hunting season opens" -- shocking! 
     So, here's Judy's dispatch from whitetail season in Michigan, wherein she mulls the differences between archery and rifle hunting. I realize not all of us are bowhunters, but it's still interesting to think about.  -K.H.

    Yesterday, while sitting in my blind I got to thinking. While I love to archery hunt, rifle season is all I knew up until 2003 when I got my bow. Even though they are the same sport, they are different in so many ways.
    My thought yesterday morning was, when sitting in your tree stand, all of your senses are so much alive. You hear the birds, you hear the young turkeys approaching and you hear the snap of a twig from an approaching whitetail. You smell fall in the air and see every thing that is going on around you, right down to the little chickadee that sits on the branch only inches from your face. It all seems so up close and personal from your front row seat in a tree.
    But when you sit in a 6x6 shack with a heater running and windows on three sides, it all changes.  There were no birds chirping and the turkeys were directly in front of me before I even knew they were there. The six or eight deer on the south end of my field just seemed to suddenly appear and there was no sound, and no smell. All I could hear was the hum of my propane heater that was keeping me warm, whereas in my tree, it is only the extra layer of clothes that keeps me warm.
    My other comparison between the archery whitetail hunt and the rifle was the fact that from my tree it was all about patience…  waiting for that deer to come within your shooting range to make the harvest. Whether it is 20 yards or 50 yards, you know your capabilities and you must wait for that animal to enter your “comfort” zone.
    Rifle hunting offers you a much bigger “comfort” zone.  Last year I shot a buck at 150 yards and I could not have been more excited. That was the first time I had ever shot that far and when people used to talk about a 200-250 yard shot I'd just think no way. But with the guns today, that is not a long distance at all.   
    But, just as I was having all these thoughts, watching the deer in my field, a blue jay came and sat in the tree outside the window of my blind. I watched as he pecked at the tree and jumped from limb to limb. Pretty soon he started his cawing and soon jays from other trees in the area joined in. I realized that the wildlife is still there, the sounds are still there but from the inside of a blind with the heater running, you just have to wait until they get close enough to experience them. At the same time, two deer ran up behind me and I thought they were going to climb in the blind with me. Something had scared them and they were running so fast and came so close to the blind that I couldn’t even see their bodies under my window, I had to wait until they were past me to see them.
    So, same sport but totally different experiences. And with that said, I am going to push in my chair at work and head for the woods. -J.B.

     Holly Heyser, known to us as NorCal Cazadora! Holly, who has a great hunting blog of her own, has been a long time FSHuntress reader, and just posted what I thought were some worthwhile thoughts on the post-election gun sales spike.
    Holly will be getting this fantastic Cargo Bag from BigFoot, a massive duffel that also unzips into a tarp -- perfect for some serious hauling (decoys come to mind!).
     Holly mentioned she's doing some turkey hunting this weekend, so good luck with the birds, congrats on the Cargo Bag, and a big thank you to BigFoot for contributing such a great prize to the blog! -K.H.

    Not to fan any flames, but when you see headlines such as CNN's recent "Gun sales surge after Obama's election," it seems a discussion is in order. I know a few of you voiced gun concerns last week following our post on the new president elect, and headlines like these certainly echo those worries.
    According to the CNN story, a Virgina gun shop owner said that last Saturday, he did as much business in one day as he normally does in a week. Even Y2K, September 11 and Hurricane Katrina failed to produce the spike in sales that he's seen since the election.
    And he's not alone. The story goes on to cite FBI figures for the week of Nov. 3 - 9, during which the bureau got over 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers, which is an almost 49 percent increase over the same period last year.
    "Every election year, you have to worry about your rights being eroded a little bit at a time," the story quotes a Va., gun buyer as saying. "I also knew, because of the Democrat majority and because of the election, everybody would have the same reaction I did."
    On the other side of the issue, the story quotes John Podesta, co-chairman of the Obama transition team as saying, "What people do is their own business, and if they decide to go out and buy guns, they'll go out and buy guns. But I think that President-elect Obama has been clear in his campaign that what he wants to focus on is the economy, trying to get jobs growing again, dealing with the health care crisis, and dealing with our dependence on foreign oil."
    And at the middle of the issue, here are then-Senator Obama's comments to Field & Stream's Anthony Licata in an October Q&A:

    LICATA: You mentioned common-sense gun legislation. Would you consider  the assault weapons ban and registration of guns to fall into that category of common-sense gun control? 
    SENATOR OBAMA: I think those are two separate issues. I think that when  it comes to the assault weapons ban, the answer is yes. I think AK-47s  generally are not used for hunting. AK-47s or vest-piercing bullets are generally used to hurt people. And I think that it's legitimate for us to say military-style weapons that aren't traditionally used for purposes other than killing people, we've got to be careful about.  But I'll be honest with you. I'm more interested in enforcing the laws that we do have-for example, tracing guns that are used in crimes back to people who have been using them. I don't anticipate that there's going to be a whole slew of efforts at the federal level when it comes to gun control. But I think that strong background checks; making sure that we're dealing with the gun-show loophole, which I think has been a  problem; allowing us to trace guns that are used in crimes back to where  they were purchased--those are the kinds of initiatives that I think pose no threat whatsoever to law-abiding gun owners.

    So, where do you fall on the panic to moderate-concern spectrum? I'm personally hoping that the incoming administration has other fish to fry as it takes office during an economic crisis, but I certainly realize a lot of people aren't feeling all that "optimistic." -K.H.

   Another congrats to Jan Favors for winning last week's Gear Giveaway! Just a quick post today to share this great photo Jan sent of her first ever bow kill from last February. As a relatively new bowhunter, Jan is sure to make good use of those Muzzy broadeads (they sure seem popular on the blog -- good thing we've got more)! -K.H.