How freaking cool is this?! And by the way, in case you didn't already know, there are spots in Minnesota that are heavily old fashioned ethnic, especially in northern Minnesota, like Finland. The greater majority of people that live there are finnish, a.k.a. finlanders, We've also got plenty of swedes of norweggers. It's really kind of cool. I like the way they talk and how they live life. I really don't care for some of their food though. They'll eat any damn thing, like fishhead soup and raw smelt full of spawn. If I was younger though, I could definitely see myself going out to hunt bears with a spear. An axe is kind of ridiculous. That's for hewing flesh after they're dead. You can't hit a bear hard enough with an axe to kill it quickly before it mauls you to death. Hunting any animal with a handheld weapon is much more sporting, I feel. Any tard can shoot something dead. It takes some real skill and power to chase down and fell a big animal with a hand weapon. Spearing big game in Minnesota? We'll see Spearing deer? I got word early today that an amendment had been made to the House Omnibus Game and Fish Bill in the Minnesota Legislature that would allow hunters to use a spear or an axe to take big game. Word was that Rep. Tom Huntley (DFL-Duluth) had offered the amendment. Well, sort of. I spoke to Rep. Huntley moments ago. "Sometimes we like to have fun," Rep. Huntley said with a chuckle. It turns out that Wednesday afternoon Rep. Cy Thao (DFL-St. Paul) offered an amendment that would allow hunters to spear big game. Rep. Huntley apparently found that amendment a bit off-the-wall, so he amended it to allow hunters to use axes as well, he said. "Later, I dropped that from the amendment," Huntley said. "But the spearing part is still there." Staff at Rep. Thao's office in St. Paul have not yet returned my call about the amendment. About 25 years ago, I did a story on a gentleman from Finland (the Minnesota Finland) who had taken bears with a spear. He had checked it out with his local Department of Natural Resources conservation officer, who had OK'd the practice. He had photos of bears he had speared. I went out with him to his bear stand one night when he went bear-spearing, but no bears came in, so I didn't get to witness the spearing firsthand. Shortly after that story appeared in the Duluth News Tribune, DNR enforcement officials changed their minds and decided that spearing bears would no longer be allowed. The hunter made an effort to get spearing allowed under the state's game laws, but he didn't get very far. Perhaps Thao will. The House Omnibus Game and Fish Bill may be heard by the full House this afternoon.
The first time my English girlfriend visited my hometown in Canada, I promised her she would see a bear in the wild. We looked and looked but couldn't find one anywhere, and it's not uncommon for them to turn up in my mother's backyard raiding her apple trees. Then we were told as it was approaching hunting season the Indians were luring them with honey and food to a few select spots in the woods so they could guide hunters to an easy kill. To my mind for that kind of hunting you might as well go down to a slaughter house and shoot a few cattle. I'm all for evening the odds and saying for anything bigger than a duck or rabbit no fire arms allowed.
Well traditionally you hunted boar with a spear, on foot, no armour: the boar charged, you presented your spear, and if you kept your nerve the boar impaled itself. If you panicked, it ripped you open with its tusks.
Kinda explains why plain old pork was once considered a delicacy. I wonder if it tastes better than the domesticated stuff.
I would think everything tastes better when it's killed the way it was meant to be killed, by a hard drinking, hard burping, hard farting man using a boar spear. And then field dress it right there, eat the heart and wear the skin over your back as you carry it out of the woods over your shoulder, singing viking victory hymns.
