Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Gunshots. Loud. And all around.

Give a listen, click here.

After we returned from surveying the other areas in our zone, I settled in on the deck to watch which birds might visit the yard. And which might fly over.

I had considered wandering out to the back woods behind our house, a bit of state forest. Or maybe venture across the street to Budd's Bogs.

But bang after bang after bang kept me in the yard. Shots were literally being fired to the north, south, and west of our place. It went on all day. Click here to listen to what I heard while grilling dinner (yummy steaks and baked potatoes). Spoiler alert, it's more gunshots.

Now, it is not clear what all the shooting is about. Here is the relevant point in the NJ hunting regulations for our area (Zone 19):

Legal hunting hours: 1/2 hour before sunrise to 1//2 hour after sunset. No firearm deer hunting on Sunday. Limited Sunday bowhunting allowed. [Emphasis added.]

Recall this survey was being done on a Sunday, to avoid hunters.

You can read all the regulations here. Our place falls under Regulation Set #6. This is for White-tailed Deer. I perused the NJ Hunting and Trapping Digest and confirmed that there is no firearm hunting on Sunday for any game.

I also learned this:

There is no hunting or trapping season for bobcat, fisher, mourning dove, ruffed grouse, sandhill crane and king rail in New Jersey. [Again, emphasis added.]

Really, Mourning Dove?

🦌  🏹  🦃  🔫  🦌

I wandered out into the backwoods a week later. No banging today.

There were deer stands.

Several. And the remnants of more.

I found multiple game cameras.

A feeding station the perhaps hasn't been used in a while?

At least, there wasn't enough food to save this one ...

... or maybe ...

🦌  🦌  🦌  🦌  🦌

If you listened to the gunshot links at the start of this post, you heard repeated shots. The bang, bang, bang of the post title. Now, deer may not be the smartest of creatures, but I have to think that after the second shot, and surely by the third, any deer hightailed it outta there. Now there are quite a few deer around here. You may have read about our War on Deer and the fence I put up. So maybe each shot was at a different deer. But I think it was just wasted ammo. Or bad shots. With perhaps a bit alcohol mixed in.

Because, if they were actually any good at hunting, we wouldn't need a deer fence now would we?