The driving of deer by large groups has always been popular and successful, but numerous objections to this method of hunting have caused the Maine Legislature to pass laws limiting the number of hunters participating in such a hunt. The object of the drive is for one group of hunters to drive the deer out of a particular piece of woods, or section of country, into the range of another group waiting to shoot them. In order to be successful, there should be enough drivers so that the area to be hunted, will be covered from side to side by men who are near enough together so that there will be little chance of failure to move the deer and prevent their cutting back. The watchers should be posted so as to cover all probable escape routes, which the deer might be expected to use while fleeing from the drivers. It is obvious that it would require a small army of hunters in order to make a perfect drive in any sizeable piece of woods. Since these large groups are illegal, those hunters who care to hunt in this manner must substitute knowledge for numbers.
Three men can drive quite a large piece of woods if they do not attempt to drive the deer in a direction other than they wish to travel, but try to nudge them along their natural course. Two men on watch can usually cover the most probable escape routes if the deer are not too much alarmed by their pursuers. Two more men may be added to the drivers, if they are available, and they will add to the ground that may be covered. Driving by a group of this size is legal in Maine at the present time.
Excessive noise made by these large groups was responsible for a part of the public objection to this type of hunting. The object of this noise was to panic the deer so that they would run blindly instead of using strategy to avoid the drivers. This system might be successful in driving the true wilderness deer, but deer which have lived for years in constant contact with humans are not as easily panicked and the noise of the drivers gives them ample warning of the hunters' intentions and an accurate picture of their location. These deer might be panicked momentarily, but this initial fright would not cause them to leave any large piece of woods before they have recovered and evaluated the situation. Their accurate knowledge of the drivers' positions will enable them to circle the outside drivers or permit them to run between these men. Sometimes they are able to pick the probable course of these drivers so that they may remain perfectly motionless in some small thicket and permit the noisy drivers to pass on each side of them.
The only real need for noise by these drivers is to keep them in line, also to keep them in touch with each other in the event a deer should try to pass between them, reducing the chance of hitting a companion while shooting at the deer. The center man on a drive should announce his position periodically so that others may adjust their position in relation to his location. In case one of the men jumps a deer, the entire line should shift so that the center of the line is on the deer's course while the others are in a position to shoot or turn the deer if it should attempt to pass between them. These outside men should be quiet because nothing will turn a deer any quicker than for it to encounter an unexpected danger while it is trying to avoid a known one.
The success or failure of this type of hunting depends on the participant's knowledge of the wood and of the probable course which the deer will take when startled. The best way to obtain this knowledge is for the hunters to drive deer in an area until they are able to discern a definite pattern of action which may be a guide to future drives. This holds true in any type of hunting. The man that does not correct the mistakes which are learned from experience will never become a very successful hunter.
I came to a neighbor's house when I was turned around, recognized the place, talked to the owner, but had to use my will power to keep from asking him when he had moved his house across the road. I knew that he had done nothing of the sort, but my mental compass was so far off that I had difficulty in believing that the house was in its proper place.
A neighbor of mine lived about two hundred yards south of my home. He became turned around in the woods and failed to return home before dark. I drove around the piece of woods which he had been hunting in an effort to locate him. In the meantime he found his way out of the woods, came to the back of my house, failed to recognize it and, instead of going south towards his own home, started off in a westerly direction and walked for about a half-mile before he came to a familiar place and was able to return to his home. These things are often amusing, but can very easily become tragic if a man becomes panicky and terrified at the thought of not knowing just where he is. Getting lost is a state of mind. It is not at all necessary. The true woodsman is never lost, even if he is unable to tell just where the home camp is located. I have been turned around in the woods until I hardly knew what way was up, but I have never been lost because I was at home in the woods and never felt the unnecessary compulsion to be at a house or camp when night came.
Fear is the cause of most cases of persons becoming lost. Any one will feel a little uneasy when he finds that he has no idea where the camp is or how to get there, but unless he submits to this fear, there is nothing to worry about. A night spent in the woods is nothing to the man who is in fairly good physical shape. No man who is not in good condition should venture into the woods without a competent companion.
"There is nothing to fear but fear itself." I have slept out in nearly every state in the country and there is nothing anywhere that will bother a man, with the exception of poisonous snakes in some sections, and the danger from these is so slight that it can be disregarded in most regions. There is something about a man's mental make-up which makes him uneasy in unfamiliar surroundings. The casual hunter braves the imaginary dangers of the woods in search of game with the often unconscious object of proving that he is a skilled and successful woodsman. This is only natural and is an ancestral heritage handed down from the time when men lived on what the hunter brought home from the chase.
When things go wrong and the hunter finds that he is not quite as good as he thought he was, he doesn't know just what to do and, unless he keeps a steady head, he may become hopelessly lost and, unless found in a short time, may find himself in serious danger. This danger is not in the woods, but is in the man's reaction to being lost.
It is truly said that "There is nothing to fear but fear itself ?when it's about getting lost in the woods. It's all about your mental make-up which can either make you easy or uneasy in unfamiliar surroundings. Do not overreact when you get lost because you may be making more troubles then finding the solutions.
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