Seal dubbing

[Buddy Sanders]

Uncle Jesse,

Are you REALLY suggesting that taking up hunting will get you your deer hair for FREE???

Rifle and scope: $300 to $1,000.

Ammunition to practice with or you won't get no deer: About a buck a shot now days (pun intended). Ammo's getting expensive.

Licenses and permits: $30 to $300 depending on where you live and where you hunt (could be more some places, I don't hunt so I'm not up on the rising costs of deer tags).

Huntin' clothes: $200 (got to have that no smell camo stuff, plus the undies that keep you warm, that funny bright orange cap so other hunters don't mistake you for a deer and shoot you,etc.....)

TIME spent scouting around looking for the deer before you can go and shoot it: hard to value, but it could keep you from fishing for a few days...about $1,000/day if that happens .

Of course, then you have to be where you can shoot a deer during the hunting season...good luck.

Then, you got to see a deer you are capable of shooting...good luck.

Then, you got to actually hit it...Good luck...even good shots get buck fever the first time out..And if you only wound it, you got to track it down and shoot it again.....First time hunter success in the US is well below 50%

If you actually shoot it and manage to kill it, then you got to cut it open, take out the guts, skin it, then take the hide and clean it and then dry or tan it...lots of really messy work that even enthusiastic hunters wouldn't call 'fun'. And if you don't do it correctly, and most don't the first time, the stuff is useless and you got to start over. Depending on where you live/hunt, that may mean 'next year'...

$500 for a whole hide sounds like a bargain to me...and if you really want a full sized deer skin, you can get one already tanned for lots less than that.....but if you want it in various colors buying it already cut up and dyed from the fly shop is still WAY cheaper, both in time and treasure, than hunting it yourself.

Besides, if you find the piece of deer skin you want at the fly shop, they won't make you do anything but pay for it...no shooting, no walking around in the woods, no carrying a seeping, bloody carcass too far too late in the day...

Hunting ain't cheap. Success isn't assured.

I'll buy my deer hair, or get it from my friends who already hunt and know how.



Buddy




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