just hangin' around

Ok, I'll be the first to admit that sometimes I just don't understand the way things are done here in Texas. Maybe it's the "Yankee" in me the causes me to just go "what the Heck?".
Here is a case in point. Many of the ranches here are hunting preserves where the owners stock everything from exotic animals to the "normal" deer, wild hogs, turkeys etc. These ranches are easy to spot by their 12' high fences surrounding the property. The ranchers make a pretty good living hosting out of towners who pay big money to kill a trophy deer or some exotic African animal.
I used to deer hunt some back in Indiana. We would hunt in State Forests or other government land as well as local private property (with permission of course). Our day consisted of getting up well before sunrise, dress in multiple layers of warm clothes, cover ourselves in deer urine or some other "scent" to mask our own and head into the woods. We would find a nice spot and sit in the freezing cold waiting on a deer to appear so we could fill the freezer. I probably wasn't very good at it because I never bagged a deer. The best opportunity I ever had was at a nice buck that walked out of the woods with in 50 yards of me. I had been sitting for hours and just when I laid my gun down to pour myself a cup of coffee from my thermos he appeared. Needless to say he survived the encounter and I decided to give up deer hunting! I swear I could hear him laughing as he disappeared into the corn field. :-)
Now, hunting here on the ranches are a little different. They have large tool sheds built with really tall legs set up in a clearing. Next to the tool sheds are automatic feeders that spread "deer corn" that can be purchased in 50 lb bags at about every store in every town in Texas. The hunters get up into the tool sheds and when the deer come by to eat the corn they "hunt" them. They pay the rancher based on which deer/animal they shoot. Quite a challenging sport, don't ya think? :-)
Anyway it's big business around here and the ranchers have a lot of money tied up in their "hunting stock". One thing they don't want are coyotes or bobcats attacking and killing the fawns so they trap and kill the predators. Then, this is where it gets a little weird, they hang the dead coyotes on the fence posts surrounding the ranch.

This is on the main road leading into Cotulla and there are about a dozen of the critters hanging in the space of 2 miles! I, being the "Yankee" that I am :-), googled the practice and supposedly this keeps live coyotes from coming onto the property. Not sure if it works or not, seems to me it would just drive them onto your neighbors property and then there would be the smell ...... ewww.

Things are still slow on the gate and this just makes our hitch itch even more pronounced .... 2 more weeks. I'll keep you posted!