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Hunting for hunting inventions
By Steve Lange
Please release me, let me go
The idea: In 2006, a Michigan sporting group announced a catch-and-release tournament that it hoped would become a regular, televised event drawing the best outsdoorspeople in the world.
Why it’s insane: Imagine that feeling that you get when, in the middle of a big televised catch-and-release tournament, you land a 20-ounce bass and hold it up for the cameras. Now imagine that bass weighs 200 pounds. Now imagine that bass has four hooves and horns. Now imagine that bass is a deer.
What the? In 2006, the World Hunting Association announced a “catch-and-release deer hunting tournament” in which hunters, using rifles loaded with tranquilizer darts, would hunt a 1,000-acre fenced-in field stocked with trophy-sized bucks. The tournament, according to the press release, would determine “the world’s best hunter,” especially if you define “world’s best hunter” as “someone who tranquilizes a giant deer trapped inside a fenced-in area.”
Where it stands now: After public outrage, the WHA retooled its tournament into a “traditional harvest format.” So instead of tranquilizing deer planted inside a fenced-in area, the world’s best hunters would have to actually kill trophy-sized deer planted in a fenced-in area. That one was cancelled as well.
I just killed a deer. Now, without moving from my couch, I’m going to Google “questionable photos of Paris Hilton.”
The idea: John Underwood set up a remote-controlled camera and remote-controlled rifle on his 330-acre Texas ranch. For a price, he figured, hunter-wannabes anywhere in the world, by accessing the camera and rifle from the Internet, could shoot a deer from the comfort of their own home. Or, if you had wireless access, you could kill a buck in Texas while sitting at a Panera in Seattle.
Why it’s insane: It’s just be a matter of time before hackers find that the code “X-A-X-up arrow-circle-right arrow-X-A-X” unlocks the secret game cheat to turn the rifle into a flamethrower. And we’re guessing even the most liberal Panera managers frown on customers dressed in hunter’s orange and doused in doe urine who scam free wireless Internet access all day.
Why we’re not all hunting online as we speak: In 2006, Underwood said that he would offer animal hunting as soon as he got “a fast Internet connection.” His website, at last check, was still offline.
I just killed a deer hunter. Now, without moving from my bed of leaves, I’m going to Google “Does [female deer] gone wild.”
The idea: A video game in which you pretend to be a deer who is hunting people.
What the? In “Deer’s Revenge,” a video game, players take the role of—and this is from the brochure—“a deer with an attitude.” The deer, after dousing itself with beer scent, tracks “hicks” (by following the trail of pork rinds) through trailer parks while trying to hit them with a gun that launches full beer cans.
Why this is dangerous: It’s just a matter of time before a deer with a found laptop sets up a camera and a hidden gun inside an office building. Luckily, deer have thus far been thwarted by their lack of opposable thumbs and inability to get “a fast Internet connection.”
All dolled up
The idea: In 1997, Terry Gammon was issued U.S. Patent number 5,682,701 for “An inflatable hunting decoy resembling a human hunter” to get deer accustomed to a person in your deer blind or tree stand.
What this means: You put a blow-up doll in your deer blind so the deer get used to people sitting there.
Why this is wrong on many different levels: It’s not. And anyone who questions the innocence of a grown man, alone, carrying a blow-up doll deep into a remote wooded area just can’t understand how my love of hunting has finally coincided with my purely platonic interest in inflatable mannequins.
One last warning: Do NOT Google this! My wife, while clearing out our cache of Internet searches, asked me, in an accusatory tone, why my history showed a search for “hunting AND blow-up doll.”