Letter from Clawy Warren
Mosquito Hunting – March 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine
Opposition to Skeeter Hunt is Really just a Ruse to Get Insect-Right Protesters to Spend Big in Saguache
Dear Editor,
Ah wuz all set to ignore Riff Fenton’s pinko, commie, Insect Rights attack on this year’s Winter Skeeter Shoot in Saguache as just anuther one o’ them trendy New Age things. Then hit occurred to me that this is an example o’ one a them so called false-flag type o’ protests and hit’s probably being organized by the Greater Metro Saguache Council of Governments and by the Greater Metro Sagauche Council of Governments and Outdoor Recreation. (Ah recognize their style.)
In a word, Fenton’s actually a-tryin’ to LURE a bunch of unsuspecting, organized, Insect Rights protesters to come try and stop the Millenium Minus Two Shoot next winter. This is an unsavory, to say the least, attempt to freeze the cojones off a bunch of Front Range do-gooders and cannot be allowed to pass without comments.
Ah’ll admit to being momentarily taken in. And its easy to see that ya’ll were too — what with his “poor skeeter” this and “poor skeeter” that . Obviously there’s been a lot of thought given to this. Ah, for one, personally wasn’t sure that all of Saguache put together could be this devious, but that just goes to show you.
Anyway, the tip off was him tryin’ to place the blame for this year’s event on them so-called “big TV moguls.” Why, the very same edition of Colorado Central in which this attack on sportsmen’s rights accured, informed us that moguls result from tombstones. Ah personally don’t believe even one of them giant screen jobs is strong enough to do the work of a good headstone.
See, what he’s doin’ here is tryin’ to deflect attention from the local boosters who put this event on. And we all know that they bait their skeeters anyway. It’s the motel trade, don’t you see?
This is another method of filling rooms in the shoulder season ‘tween elk and skeeters. Hit’s like Nucla all over again. Remember them prairie dog protests? Well, what we have here is one slick attempt to actually gull them fanatic anti-mink protesters to town — cause they bring a whole lot more dough than a bunch a cheap ole shooters ever would.
And they spend more of it on liquid assets too, cause they don’t have nuthin to do the next day, and don’t have to keep their heads clear for no 400-yard shots at steroidal picket pins neither.
See, it all makes just perfect sense, don’t it. Everybody knows the real money is in the booze, and flying saucers got nuthin’ to do with that neither (‘cepting maybe for the dead easy shot I missed openin’ mornin’).
Regardin’ Fenton’s so-called “concern” for the greater Saguache Skeeter population, well that’s just all hooey. Money, now that’s what talks, and a nice big anti-hunting protest, why that’ll draw ’em in like flies to honey, not to put too fine a point on it.
See the press really don’t care about the obvious benefits of thinnin’ the skeeters out. What them root weevil reporters, especially them national ones, love is a good protest, expecially if there’s guns around.
Why if the noise gets loud enough, Fish and Game will have to send somebody and there goes the presidential suite. Hell, I recken iffen it was to get extreme, maybe even the local NRA Field Rep will whow up.
You want to tell me that a nice big protest event like that won’t fill up all them motels? Why, it’s so dang cold at that time of year that none of them protesters would even think about trying to sleep in the park like they did at Nucla.
Ah mean, iffen Fenton was really concerned about the welfare of them skeeters, why he’d do a whole lot more worryin about the quality of the huntin’. He’d form one o’ them clubs like they got for the goats up on Shavano, and maybe even import some of them big Arctic buggers to liven up the winter flying skills of yer average Saguache skeeter. If they wuz to do that, on the sly, so’s not to violate the Endangered Species Act, ah don’t reckon it would be long for the Feds got in the act and spent 10 or 12 million to bring in some from Canada too. Before you knew it, they’d have all the makings of a big International Shoot and really go somewhere with it.
But hell no! They got to take the short-term, we’re just in this for the money approach, and all we want to do is to fill some restaurants and motel rooms. It just sickens me in the heart to see a nice clean sport get corrupted by monied interests like that. I bet John Lawrence and Otto Mears who started this thing off are just rollin in their graves — if the worms ain’t et ’em yet.
Clay Warren
Pseudonymously in Poncha Springs
P.S.: If any o’ yer readers are interested, copies of my book How to Field-Dress Yer Skeeter are available for $19.95 plus $1.95 postage and handling. There’s separate chapters on winter and summer methods, plus I include patterns for making gloves and baby booties out of skeeter hides. The appendix includes a list of calibers and special loads that don’t tear em up too bad if yer into eatin’ ’em. Me, I save ’em as bait for the San Luis Valley’s big spring Bat Hunt and Bar-B-Q (but don’t spread that around).