I hate to write these words. They are about hunting accidents.

In terms of all other outdoor pursuits, hunting accidents are almost non-statistical. They have happened much less than the words I write. Yet because they tend to be about big, bad guys in the woods with big, bad guns, they tend to get a ton of publicity. Far more than a big, bad guy with a big, bad gun robbing a convenience store. That one gets a little bit of ink. A hunting accident, rare as it is, gets a lot more.

Hey, it’s a gun, and it’s in the woods, and it’s Bambi.

As the New Hampshire season opened, a hunter in Lisbon killed a man with a shot to the neck. I’m still trying to find out how that happened. Eventually, the facts will come out, as they do with hiking and climbing accidents. This is as it should be. This is how we all learn.

It’s the same situation with a horrible incident in southern Vermont in which a hunter shot one of his partners and, upon realizing it, took his own life.

I’m reminded about a trial I testified in. The hunter looked once, twice, three times before he pulled the trigger, absolutely certain that he was shooting a deer. He was not.

This news spreads like wildfire around camps. There is a desperate need to know. What happened? Why? How?

Here is where I laud and encourage New Hampshire Fish and Game. In an era with a penchant for “privacy,” whatever that means, I hope Fish and Game will continue to make details of every accident public. That’s how we all can learn.

A long time ago, I was hunting with a friend on Gunstock. We had a deer at close hand, and it was ready to jump. Along came a bunch of hunters. “Good morning,” we said in the way shushed hunters do. Along in their track came a man shuffling. They had told us he’d be along. He had shot a man, they said, and would never be over it.

I lost my first kiss, a beautiful and wonderful girl, to a hunter who mistook her arm-brush with a fir tree for the push of a deer.

I almost got shot by my brother, and then, soon after, by my very best friend.

Would that change anything? No.

I will still hunt. There is danger in everything that we do. I think about that when I come down the living room stairs, go out to lug wood, start up the tractor, or cross the street to see if I have any money in my checking account at the bank.

Ah, well, on to other things.

The bird feeders are up and running. For the first time in many years, whiskey jacks — Canada Jays, camp robbers and many other names — are noshing.

Now, if only the bears will stay away, and go to sleep.

John Harrigan’s column appears weekly in the New Hampshire Sunday News. His address is Box 39, Colebrook NH 03576. Email him at hooligan @ ncia.nte.