Outdoors in Whitehall with Gene Terry

What can you write about concerning hunting and fishing and the outdoors when something that happens like it did in that small town in Connecticut? Several bow hunters from this area go down there every year to hunt deer and have been well received by the people in the village.

What can you say about something like this that the life of so many young children and their teachers? It takes just one nut go on a rampage to make all us gun owners look like criminals and killers.

It gave a lot of fuel for the anti’s to press for all gun control. It gave our political people who have been waiting in the wings to jump for glee at this disaster.

Believe me there’s not a gun owner out there that wouldn’t hesitate to give some of their rights to keep and bear arms if it could bring back those children.

But stop and think about it. If one, just one of those teachers had a handgun in their purse could they have prevented what happened? Who knows.

Instead of disarming everyone, try to educate everyone in firearms. It could have saved many of those children, but what do I know. A person like that or a deranged criminal will stop at nothing to do what he wants to do. If they want to shoot someone they’ll find a way. Just think if he didn’t have a rifle, a home-made bomb with household materials would have been just as or more deadly.

How many of us have seen propane ignite and explode, a gallon of gasoline, natural gas, etc. I’m not finding excuses for this bum for having a rifle but if he didn’t he would have found another way. With a mind like he was set in, his way about doing what he did. It didn’t matter how he was to do it.

Christmas has come and gone for another year and still no ice to fish on. This is the second year in a row that South Bay and Lake Champlain has been free of ice for Christmas. Not that there’s a great amount of fish to be had but its still fun to go. I guess it’s in your blood; you just have to go no matter what. It’s certainly not the same as it was many years ago but you have to try.

Rabbit hunting along with ice fishing use to take the place of deer hunting, but the coy dogs have done a number on them. This is certainly great weather for hunting them. Remember when we went when there was a foot of snow and colder than ____.

Have a happy New Year everyone from Dixie and I.