Mooching for Deer With the three-hour mooch complete on a recent December morning, our six-pack of deer hunters chewed venison sticks in Doug Duren’s old farmhouse in southwestern Wisconsin and wondered where Duren would send us for the afternoon mooch. Any outsider listening in probably would’ve wondered about something else: “What’s a ‘mooch’ and how does it involve deer hunting?” Good question. No dictionary explains the term the way Duren uses it. Mooching does not mean loitering, which assumes you’re hanging around with no purpose. Nor does it involve begging for food, drink, money or other handouts. Instead, one mooches by moving glacier-like along a precise route, as designated by Duren, through a woodlot or its border with a field of corn or alfalfa. Your individual mooch, when combined with mooches made by fellow moochers, creates one overall mooch, much as individual drivers combine to create a drive. If the mooch succeeds, a moocher gets a shot at a slow-moving deer, or
Post: 3 November 19:12
