Perform A Little Magic In The Woods

Have you ever been to Vegas? It’s one of my favorite destinations where I like to travel to at least once or twice each year. I’m not so much the big gambler type, but hey…I do like just walking around the city that is full of non-stop excitement just about everywhere you look. And I’ll be the first one to admit it…sometimes I can be a big sucker when it comes to cute little tricks and people trying to scam your money.

A few years back I was walking in one of the malls when I walked by a Houdini Magic Shop and a trick being performed caught my attention. This particular slick salesperson was throwing an ordinary playing card away from his body and levitating it so it would come back to him. It was a great slight of hand trick that left me wondering how in the world did he do that. Of course, I knew there had to be a logical explanation…but my curiosity got the best of me.

I walked up and told the sales person I needed to know how he did that little trick. No problem…I dropped a $20 bill at the cash register and I was whisked off to the back room for my magic kit and free lesson.

Once the two of us were in the back room it was almost anti-climatic to learn how the trick was actually performed. Much to my chagrin, I was shown that the card levitated with the use of some magician’s thread that was ultra fine and practically invisible…at least it sure isn’t able to be seen when the magician’s hands are fast moving. I thanked the guy for my lesson…tucked my new magic trick into my shopping bag…and left the store.

Later when I returned back home my stepson and I were determined we were going to perfect our slight of hand technique by performing the trick and impressing all our friends and neighbors when the stopped by. Sadly enough, we discovered that even with practice we were both lousy magicians. Had we blown $20 on a trick that consisted of a “magic” playing card and a 10’ length of magician’s thread? No way.

Just about the time we were ready to toss the magic trick in the trash I had a revelation. This nearly invisible thread had some properties about it I really liked. First, it consisted of many filaments that could be pulled apart so you could make it as fine as you wanted. In fact, to do the trick only one filament of thread is used which makes it so tough to see. But the lightweight magician’s thread (much lighter than common sewing thread) could be used to do another trick I’d bet few other sportsmen have ever tried. That’s right, I routinely now carry magician’s thread with me in the woods for multiple purposes.

First, I use the thread in all of my deer stands. I’ll peel apart some of the filaments so I have the finest thread possible, then I will tie several of these on nearby branches around my deer stand. Even when the wind can hardly be detected…I will guarantee you that the ultra fine magician’s thread will be waving in the wind serving a purpose much like a poor man’s directional wind sock. Hunters need to stay constantly aware of the wind direction and thermal current activity if they strive to be successful. This special thread will do the job better than any other method I know. Plus, you can tie it in the tree and leave it there all season.

The other main use I have for the ultra fine magician’s thread is to check deer trails. Do you have several deer trails in your hunting area and you want to find out which ones are active? No problem. Take some magician’s thread and carefully tie one end to a branch or shrub and let the other end remain untied. Lay this thread across the deer trail so it is about 2 1/2 feet above the ground. Now when a deer walks past on the trail they will walk into the thread as if it was a cobweb totally unsuspecting of anything. Best of all…you not only know if a trail has been used…but by keeping one end untied you can see which direction the animal was walking by the way the string was rearranged on the trail.

The key is to keep the thread off the ground sufficiently so raccoons or other shorter critters can walk underneath it. If you place the string about 3 1/2 feet off the ground this is also a decent way to determine if any bucks are passing through the area. At this height most does will walk underneath the thread while a mature buck will surely get his rack caught in it and pull the thread.

So, are you willing to give magician’s thread a try but not willing to go out to Vegas to make the purchase? Understood. Fortunately, by doing a search on eBay for magician’s thread you will generally yield quite a number of auction items. By spending just a few dollars you can get enough thread to last you several seasons for both trail and wind detection functions. No doubt magician’s thread is best…but yes, you can also use regular sewing thread to accomplish these same tricks in the woods when you’re in a pinch.

Besides, magician’s thread is an inexpensive and effective aid to enhance your outdoor experience by forcing you to pay attention to the minor details that effect your hunting success. When I was in Vegas I may not have become much of a Houdini when it comes to performing magic tricks…but certainly one of the tools that magicians use to amaze and fool their audiences can be used by the savvy sportsman to increase his or her hunting prowess. Like me, maybe you should consider adding some magician’s thread to your bag of tricks.

Landowners Take A Hit Thanks To Careless Hunters

September 25, 2006
Current Outdoor Issues Hunting Law Enforcement
1 Comment

Unfortunately, we read about it happening most every fall. You know what I mean…the news story that hits the wire describing a hunter’s errant bullet harming or perhaps killing some innocent person quite some distance away from the woods. Those type of incidents are truly horrendous, and certainly not something any of us like to hear about—whether hunter or non-hunter alike. Yet, to some extent, in life there’s no getting away from the fact that accidents will occur. To believe otherwise is simply foolhardy given the number of hunters that take to the woods each fall.

Case in point happened last fall out in Pennsylvania. Craig Wetzel was deer hunting on a farm when he shot at a deer. The projectile apparently missed the deer and instead found an 18–year old pregnant woman sitting in a car in her driveway 1/2 mile away from where the shot took place. The bullet grazed the young woman’s head fracturing her skull…but fortunately not killing her. Today, the young victim is physically on the mend.

But this story doesn’t quite end there. Nope, the victim sued the shooter and just a few weeks ago was awarded what will likely end up being a substantial negligence award. You might say…well, that seems fair. And thus far I would tend to agree. But in that Pennsylvania courtroom the jury went a step further and found that the landowner who allowed the hunting to take place to be partly at fault. In this case of contributory negligence the hunter was found to be 90% liable and the landowner, who was not involved in the hunting act, was found to be the final 10% at fault.

Oh, but it grows much worse than that. In Pennsylvania the next phase of the trial will be another jury who will determine what type of damages the victim should receive. Experts who have followed this case closely have speculated something that is almost unimaginable that might eventually happen. Allegedly Mr. Wetzel is mostly judgment proof meaning that even if money was awarded you can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip. If Wetzel doesn’t have the money to cover the potential jury award…then the landowner who is likely more flush with assets could possibly bear 100% of this final jury award. Under Pennsylvania law—which does not necessarily mean the facts of this case could be construed in this very same manner in your particular state—there is a real possibility the landowner who innocently opened his land to allow hunting could pay a huge penalty for granting that permission.

One doesn’t have to use much imagination to speculate how this news is reverberating throughout regions in Pennsylvania.

“We’re watching it very closely,” said game commission press secretary Jerry Feaser. “But, it’s not just hunting that is at risk here. It is all forms of outdoor recreation. You have the potential for landowners overreacting and closing land to all forms of outdoor recreation.”

Hunters across the country have reason to take notice of this particular court case. Even though the legal precedent it sets will probably not have a real impact in the areas where you likely hunt (unless you live in Pennsylvania), it’s news like this that makes landowners across the country quite nervous. And rightly so. The argument used to even convince the jury that the landowner was culpable could scare even a sensible, realistic-thinking landowner into a mode of acting overly cautious.

The Plaintiffs’ Attorney argued that the landowner “disregarded his neighbors’ safety by letting people hunt on his property.”

Apparently the landowner’s neighbors had posted their land and not allowed hunting. Yet when the “negligent” landowner did not follow suit he helped to create the unfortunate situation by virtue of letting someone go hunting on his land.

I believe that what this shows is yet another form of attack on our sportsman’s rights. Granted, the victim is probably due her compensation in this case…but let’s be realistic, the real culprit who caused the accident was not the landowner. The only real reason the landowner was even brought into the case as a defendant was because when you sue someone you must go where the money is. I find it damn hard to believe that the plaintiffs’ attorneys were not fully aware of the shooter’s lack of financial wherewithall before filing the lawsuit. Yet they proceeded with the case because they knew the landowner, if found even the slightest bit negligent, could end up being the biggest loser.

As sportsmen we have every incentive to fight for stronger laws that protect and limit the type of liability a landowner could sustain. On the surface this case just doesn’t seem quite right—albeit I only have just a few of the facts. Still, when landowners become wary of who is on their land and refuse access just to minimize their risk…well then, we all lose.

As a landowner myself, I know I have a duty to carefully screen who I allow access to my land for hunting and fishing. Yet, once that threshold of comfort is reached, is it right that I or any other landowner for that matter, be held liable for some hunter’s actions? If the hunter was prone to act risky does the landowner have an absolute duty to determine that prior to granting permission?

Even worse yet…if the lands surrounding my farm restrict hunting should my farm be held to a higher standard because I opened it up to a bunch of recreationalists who happened to make a terrible mistake in judgment on some given day? Maybe there’s not a legal precedent being established here for most of us…but there certainly could be a landowner access precedent that takes root from these kind of news reports and fosters a backlash even beyond Pennsylvania against allowing hunting on one’s land.

Let’s face it, about a dozen years ago I stood outside my garage talking to another hunter during deer season and had a slug travel only 10 feet or so above our heads. We were lucky…but we were also quite mad about the incident. For the next hour I chased down the hunter in an adjacent woods and read them the “riot act” pertaining to their carelessness. Even had that slug caused property damage or some kind of injury to either of us…I don’t think the thought would have entered my mind to blame the landowner and try to hold him financially responsible. It was the hunter who was the actor in the event that occurred.

When the day finally comes that landowners are worried to allow hunting on their land it will be the death-grip to end our beloved sport. Sportsmen have a vested interest in seeing landowners in general treated respectfully and responsibly. Even if one landowner loses, as might be the case someday soon out in Pennsylvania, the impact might be felt far beyond that state’s borders as landowners grow more cautious and less permissive to the types of activities that take place on their lands. We simply cannot allow that to happen.

Eau de Toilette For Your Next Venture In The Woods

Okay, I have to confess I have this little habit I routinely do when I walk out in the woods. It started way back when I was trapping and it continues to this day. The secret is I like to squirt red fox urine on the soles of my boots before hiking in the woods. Not only do I believe it aids in masking my scent, but to some extent I also feel it is a confidence builder for all the critters that call the woodlands where I walk home.

So much of our success or failure in the woods depends on our attention to the little things. Problem is, fooling most mammals that possess an acute sense of smell is not generally a little thing. In fact, I firmly believe far more hunters are detected by smell than by either sight or sound. Sometimes it’s hard for us to fully understand just how dependent wildlife is on their olfactory senses, because to us smell is usually a secondary sense…but not to wildlife. A foreign odor raises suspicion to a level that can take days, sometimes even weeks to overcome by the suddenly wary animal.

RedFoxUrine No doubt about it trappers are the masters of scent. Let’s face it, their success generally relies totally, for most sets anyway, on enticing a critter to walk into a trap. It’s common for a land trapper to liberally use fox urine both at the set…but also while walking from the car out to the trap location. Remember, fox are canines and if you’ve ever taken a walk with a male dog you know exactly what canines like to do. And most canines like to do it often for a very specific reason.

Hunters can make use of this marking trait by mimicking it to help cover our own scent. You can buy those little felt pads that strap to the bottom of your boots…I know a guy who even used to tie a urine soaked rag on his leg and drag it behind him. Truth is, you can just spray the darned stuff on the bottom of your rubber soled boot and it seems to work just fine that way, too.

To us urine might be a body’s by-product, but in the wildlife world it is also a communication tool that if used effectively can get you closer to most game. In fact, over the years I have been amazed at how many fox and coyotes have actually walked right up to the tree stand where I was perched. On those days when the deer sightings have been slow…I’ve even been known to take a few cracks at the inquisitive, and very unsuspecting furballs.

Each fall I purchase and use about a pint of fox urine for the masking and confidence building qualities I have described. If you hunt in an area that predominantly has coyotes and few fox…then substitute coyote urine for that of fox. It really doesn’t matter…except I tend to favor fox urine because I think deer are less shy around red fox than they are around coyotes. Still, either one of them should work just fine.

Over the years I have always favored using Hawbaker’s Reddy Red Fox Urine because it was specially formulated for serious trapline use. Keep in mind this is just a personal preference, I’m sure that many other scent manufacturers also have suitable urine products. I just like a urine that has been fortified and condensed through evaporation with quality anti-freeze and preservative agents added. Even if I have to pay a bit more I know that the few extra pennies I am squirting on the bottom of my boots are likely worth it in the long run. I’m told that some suspect urine collectors will include rain water in their product which obviously only dilutes the quality and the effectiveness of urine. If you stick with a urine product that is sold by a trapping supply company odds are good that you will be buying a product that meets or exceeds your needs for hunting.

Each fall I purchase the urine in bulk (16 oz.) but place it into clean, smaller squirt bottles that I carry in my pack. As I’m walking if I cross a river or find myself walking in lots of marshy terrain…I will occasionally freshen up my soles. On the days when I forget my squirt bottle or fail to refill it…taking a walk in the woods is like walking across my mother’s kitchen floor with muddy feet when I was a kid. That’s the best way I can equate it. Mom always seemed to know when I didn’t take my shoes off and walked in her kitchen…and you can bet the animals all know out in the woods, too, when we don’t take necessary steps to avoid being detected.

To some, it might seem rather odd to spray animal urine on your hunting gear. Other hunters I know who hunt in pastured land will even purposefully step in a fresh cow pie to use this animal’s scent masking properties. Truth is, you need to be doing something when you walk out in the woods to help mitigate your human scent. Sure, you can always try to hunt downwind from the animal’s nose…but fall winds can be fickle and can change rather quickly. By no means is using fox urine the fix-all to the problem of disguising human odor, but it’s certainly worth your effort in most cases.

Oh, and one last bit of advice. If you’ve recently freshened your hunting boots you might want to leave them in an airy place when you get back home. It’s funny how your nose will quickly acclimate to the pungent smell of the fox urine, but chances are your spouse won’t find the odor even the slightest bit tolerable once inside the house.