In a way, each day's mail is like Christmas. You get to find out what kind of surprise is under the tree, but then you have to take care of the wrappings. On any given day, even after the junk mail has been filtered out, I'm apt to find 10 to a dozen e-mails, and the occasional regular-mail letter.

It's reader feedback that I relish, pro or con, and I reply (eventually) to every single missive.

You'd think that after writing this column for around 35 years, I could pretty much guess what will generate more than the usual mail. But readers are an unpredictable lot, and they keep me on my toes.

Last week, I wrote about jumping a deer and finding a hole in the woods, and trying to put a lot of lead there (i.e., bullets). I'll admit to not thinking about that scenario in terms of safety, but several readers were quick to take me to task, writing that they would never take such shots at a running deer because there's no time to think about what might be beyond the target zone.

They're right. It's an aspect of deer hunting I've never really thought about. That I'm not alone in this is no real excuse. If I had to bet the farm, I'd bet that the lion's share of hunters will take a running shot.

My initial defense would be that I hardly ever see anyone where I hunt. Indeed, I have gone all day without cutting anyone else's track. But you should always be aware of what might be behind the target, and with a running deer you just plain don't know.

Readers?

This kind of topic is always certain to generate lively discussion in camp. Another one is how best to hang a deer.

I was taught to hang it on a sapling run through its rear legs. But for many hunters, the tradition is to hang the animal by the neck.

All of this really comes down to which way the deer is easiest to skin. I'm expecting considerable feedback on this.

Finally, a longtime friend handed me a hefty package of venison a couple of weeks ago, a boon in light of the fact that we're now down to road kill.

I've never met a hunter who was not finicky about how he dresses off a deer, or persnickety about how it's cut, trimmed and wrapped for the freezer.

Now comes the debate over how long to leave the deer hanging, i.e., aging the meat.

It's usually pretty cool during deer season, so there's plenty of wriggle-room there.

My preference is to let a deer hang for two or three days, covered with a sheet or some other shroud if the weather's unseasonably warm, and then get straight to the task of skinning and sawing and de-boning and trimming before packaging.

Again: Readers?

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John Harrigan's outdoors column appears weekly i nthe New Hampshire Sunday News. His address is Box 39, Colebrook, N.H. 03576. E-mail him at hooligan@ncia.net.