Sunday, September 27, 2009

Hunting on the roads

I have a new pastime. It’s hunting season over here in France. And the other day while I was riding along past some flat and open fields, I saw 3 hunting dogs cross the road in front of me and head into a field. I couldn’t see the hunters anywhere. For some reason I find hunters amusing. The way they dress up in full camo, only to throw a fluorescent vest or hat on over the top just makes me giggle. Why dress up and play solider like a little boy when you are only going to throw on a fluorescent vest over the top afterwards. Just dress normally and get on with it! So as I rode past the dogs I decided to whistle at them. At first I merely got their attention and they all stopped and looked at me for a while. On my second whistle they seemed to look at each other and started to follow me. I led them out of the field and down the road a little. I find the idea quite appealing that I was leading the dogs away from the hunt, probably while 3 or 4 hunters were hiding in a bush in full army camo with big guns trying to kill one tiny little rabbit. So this has become my new thing… during hunting season I’ll whistle to the hunting dogs as I ride past and steer them off the kill. 1) I find it amusing, and 2) I think it makes things a little more fair! One dog against one rabbit is fairish, 1 hunter (even with a gun) against one rabbit is hmm.. fairish, but 4 dogs and 3 guys with guns against 1 little rabbit… time to man up chaps! It’s a bit too much like being in a solo break with 5km to go and having 5 full teams of 9 guys chasing you down. It’s just not fair… so by whistling to and distracting the dogs, I’m hoping the universe might repay me and somehow distract the 184 guys chasing me next time I’m in a solo move in a bike race…

"Yeah, good luck with that!" I hear you cry. :-)

It's no fun being the hunted!

But being the hunter is sometimes just too easy!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

ahem, the fluorescent orange is so the dumb asses don't shoot each other. the animals are color blind.

but i'm not sure a bunch of grown men in candy-striper lycra have much room to talk about fashion....

simjetlag said...

Ahah, so if they want to be seen by each other and the animals are clor-blind anyway, why do they wear camo?

crispy said...

Camo obscures the shape of a man, even to a colorblind animal.

Unknown said...

thank you crispy.

the french can't even hunt animals.

no wonder we had to bail them out in WWII.

(oh, by the way, they LOVE that one!)

come on sim, smile, just having a little fun...

simjetlag said...

Yeah. At least during WW2 you guys actually made the most of vacation time. Now the US is all work and no play. At least back then "y'all" came over for a nice vacation... y'all were too late for the fighting.

simjetlag said...

I never wear camo and I get every animal I want. I do my hunting at the super-market or the local butcher's. No need for camo there, or platic walkie-talkies and cap-guns.

Unknown said...

explain to me again how THIS is better than a little fluorescent orange and camo....and the hunter's are crazy?

http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7567&status=True&catname=Latest News

simjetlag said...

You love to push buttons don't you Chris. Last-Word-Hayes! :-)

I wondered what the Pez link was... OH GREAT! How embarasing is THAT! Do you someone should tell Greg S or should we just leave it and hope he never notices???