Oh, I cannot believe it. A huge, long entry lost. And I can't blame it on Dland or anything else. Just my stupidity.

And I really, really don't feel like writing it all down again. Sorry.

Suffice to say our first day in April started a little later than it should have, so we were only a few miles west of town when I looked back to see a blood-red sky.

But it was only seven minutes after sunrise when we pulled up to count the first strutting ground, so we weren't doing too bad.

Found 28 cocks out showing off their stuff on the dry flat, with at least 24 hens wandering around, checking them out.

Checked six more leks that morning, one from over four miles away. But with the sun shining on them, I could see the white breasts of at least six roosters trutting down there.

Got home a little after nine o'clock. Caught up on the war news and diaries for a little while, and then started printing updated harvest reports for the evening's meeting.

Our outfit holds open houses in most of the local communities to allow folks to stop by, discuss our proposed hunting seasons for this fall, and let us know what we think.

Not proposing any really big changes this year, so there wasn't a lot of interest. Did get interviewed by the editor of a local newspaper, but spent most of the time discussing feral horses. And yes, I told him what I really think of them. Fortunately my opinion hasn't been in the paper.

Yet.

But we also have to have at least one public hearing on the seasons. Where each proposed hunting season is read aloud, the justifications given, and public comment received and recorded. This year we were in River Town, in their public library.

A comfortable and pleasant place to meet. And for once, the number of people attending actually outnumbered the number of people there from our outfit.

Eleven to ten.

My neighbors knew most of the attendees by name, which was cool.

A few things I learned from the hearing:

Some of my neighbors are hoping to change the boundary between two of their deer hunt areas.

One is open to anyone with a state-wide deer license, the other is a limited draw area. Which usually means fewer hunters (du-uh!), a higher ratio of deer to hunters, a more relaxed, enjoyable hunt, and, most important of all to some (apparently), a higher ratio of big bucks to hunters.

The boundary between the two areas is a rather prominent, well-defined rocky rim.

The limited area is on this side of that rim, and most of the deer, and large bucks, are in the badlands and trees along the rim itself.

So more and more "hunters" have been sneaking down from the open area on the other side to hunt the rim itself. When caught by the local warden, they have been claiming they thought the boundary was the bottom of the rim, not the top.

Which is kinda incredible when you think about it, because the bottom of that rim is probably down by the river, twenty-some miles away. As the warden says, when you ask to have your coffee cup filled "to the rim", you'd probably be a little upset if the waitress only covered the bottom of the cup with coffee.

But knowing the poachers are lying about their confusion on the boundary isn't the same as proving their deceit in court. Hence the recommendation to move the boundary to the road that kinda follows the top of the rim.

Now, when the warden finds hunters on the wrong side of the line, it will no longer lead into a long argument about semantics.

It will be "Press hard, you're signing five copies."

It is incredible how complicated waterfowl seasons are getting.

With the continued drought, they're anticipating poor production from the prairies again this year. And recommending conservative seasons.

Yes, the obvious things, like shortening the number of days in the season. But for one goose season, they're also recommending hunters only be allowed to hunt half of each day.

Except Saturday and Wednesday, when you can hunt all day.

Except the Saturday and Wednesday of the last week, when you can again only hunt half a day.

And maybe all day on Sundays. too.

Except the last Sunday, which would only be a half-day again.

Got that?

I have never hunted ducks or geese, although I have enjoyed going along and watching other folks' dogs work. But with seasons like this, I am fairly certain I will never start.

I think maybe I have been going to these public hearings for too many years.

Guess who remembered a laser pointer, so he didn't have to jump up on stage and point out areas on the map with the shadow of his finger?

And when the warden on the left needed a calculator, guess who had one?

And when the warden on the right started having a coughing fit (no, nobody threw on a mask for SARS), guess who had the hard candies in his bag?

And learned a few new things about chronic wasting disease from the boss's boss's boss's presentation.

Still no human cases.

Still no cases in either cattle, pronghorn or moose, even after being confined in pens with infected deer for up to six years.

Still no infection in chimpanzees, despite having the prion injected directly into their brains.

So it looks like we're safe.

Wisconsin has killed more than 40,000 deer in their efforts to control the disease around the game farm that brought it in. Took all the resources and people of their department for a full six months to get it done.

Cases now found in Illinois and Minnesota. More and more folks are starting to suspect this is a spontaneous defect, like the human counterpart, that has been around and with us forever. We just never looked for it until artificial crowding in game farms allowed the disease to spread.

Looks like I'm going to spend at least five days next fall, and maybe ten, doing not much else but cutting lymph gland samples out of hunters' deer.

Oh, joy.

Had several great conversations about habitat conditions, treatments, mineral deficiencies and soil moisture. The incredible part was, the topics came up from people in the audience! Real intelligent questions, rather than the usual prattle about how we need to kill off all the predators.

A real pleasant surprise. Conservation education does work.

It just takes a generation or two.

Hearing lasted until almost ten-thirty. Which is earlier than some, later than others. Lot of folks stayed to visit, but I boogied. Had at least three ask me if I was doing my usual.

Sleeping overnight on a strutting ground?

You betcha.