----- Original Message ----- > Do you hunt at night I'm not a hunter, but can answer for hunters where I live. Coon hunting is always done at night. Hunters wear headlamps, like what miners use, to better sight their targets. A lot of these guys have dogs that cost thousands of dollars. Many hunters ride small, fast, specially-bred mules trained to jump fences in order to keep up with the dogs. For many hunters, this is mostly sport, though some do eat the coons. There's a market for coon pelts. Price fluctuates, so some hunters store pelts in freezers until the price is right. Others don't mess with them at all. Gillette (have never been there) is a town that's famous for its annual coon-supper. Coyote hunting is also a night-time event. When we moved here in '80, there were lots of them. We could hear their yips from all different directions and would try to count them by their different voices. Then the farmer-hunters nearly wiped them out in the mid-80's. I was always saddened to see their bodies hung along the sides of roads on fenceposts. That they were lined up successively (sometimes numbering in the teens) showed what pride the hunter-farmers took in their kills. Young coyote babies were sometimes kept as pets for awhile until they would prove unsuitable because of their wildness and would be destroyed. Following that near-extinction, the deer population grew larger every year, even though deer hunting is almost--ahem, if I may use the word--a religious rite around here. Hood ornaments became very common. In '96, we had 3 on 2 different vehicles in one 2-month period. Had one car out of the shop less than a week before the hood and fender were ruined again. Just in the last few years has a limited doe season been opened up to deal with this problem. The coyotes have very, very slowly been making a comeback. More often than not, when I hear one yip, there's not another one to answer him. Once in a great while I'll see a lone coyote out in the daytime, but night is when they're most active. Frankly, I hate deer season (though I like venison) because "buck fever" drives men crazy. It's illegal to hunt from the road, yet it's commonly done. It's illegal to hunt within a certain distance of a dwelling, but that doesn't deter anyone. It's illegal to spotlight/headlight deer, but it's done. Those cartridges travel a mile or more if they miss their deer target, but they're gonna finally hit something. When I walk outside and hear reports from this, that, and the other direction, I always hope there's not one headed for me or my house. And I really hate it when we find poachers or evidence of them on our place. Theola