It first occurred to me a year ago that there might be a separate sport besides hunting involved in what I was doing. Many have experienced the moment of ultimate letdown one gets when the season ends with unused tags still in your possession. This state is laughingly referred to as Tag Soup. Not-hunting is the opposite of this. Last year my season ended, not in some dreary field at sunset, but rather sitting in front of my freezer. I had just spent the last half hour trying to stuff the last packet of frozen venison onto a shelves. It had been a doe. I still had a tag that I could use on a buck, but all good reason dictated that I would be foolish to attempt to hunt. Therefore, when the next weekend came, I not-hunted.
"I tried to tell myself my one unused tag was burning a hole in my pocket was not the only reason I did not want to be stuck around the house this weekend. The Savage 99 going into the back of the truck as we headed to the farm was just there for . . . for tradition. Yeah, tradition.
Wouldn’t you know, the alarm went off at 0430. How stupid of me? Oh well, I might as well get up. Gee, all those hunting clothes I had brought back down to store for the winter were just sitting there in the bag. In the history of mankind, I’ve never witnessed a man so skillfully backing into going deer hunting. If I still was not in complete denial over the event, I’d be patting myself on the back.
My not-a-plan went perfectly. By first light I was up in my best stand overlooking a major deer highway. We call it Newstand, because it’s . . . well we just put it up this year. We’ll probably have to come up with a new name next year, when I put up another. I’d taken a doe from there on opening weekend, so there was no way another deer was going to be stupid enough to come through. As the light came up, I pulled out a good book and started reading. This was it. This is what I secretly wanted all along: a morning on the stand with all the heat off, all the expectations over. I wanted a morning where I could just enjoy the morning and the hunt one more time without the hassle of the stinking deer bothering me. Yeah, that’s it: a non-hunt. That’s a ticket! Hunting without hunting-- I could just sit and read and enjoy the morning and . . ."
from "The Shaman Backs Into A Buck. . "
To make a long story short, I bagged a nice 6 pointer. This was a successful deer hunt. It was a dismal failure as a non-hunt. Allow me to define a non-hunt.
To be a valid non-hunt one needs the following:
1) A working weapon.
2) A valid license and tags --otherwise how will you explain 1) above to the warden.
3) An open season
4) A viable hunting venue
5) Every necessary precaution taken to insure a successful hunt
6) Absolutely no desire to take the life of yet another animal.
In my case in the previous year, all the other conditions of a non-hunt were met, but I still managed to shoot a deer. Condition #6 was not met. Somewhere, deep inside me, remained the burning ember of the killer instinct. This is what made it a dismal failure of a non-hunt. When that six-pointer started picking his way through the cedars, something in my mind took a break from reason and I shot. Great hunt-- lousy non-hunt. My penalty was that I had to pay for a second freezer.
In years past, I have enjoyed other variations of non-hunting. Usually, the freezer is full by the end of Opening Day. Then comes my favorite part of deer season. I go out on Sunday morning, fully dressed and armed, orange vest and hat, and sit on the back of my house and sip coffee. Legally I am hunting. All six conditions are met, except that I know better than to think that I will actually see a deer while sitting just outside my back window. It's not impossible. In fact, there have been numerous times I have had deer up close enough for a shot. However, in my heart, I am not really hunting.
What I am doing is enjoying the spectacle of the hunt. I watch the headlights of the pickup trucks and ATV's on the neighboring ridges. I count the shots. I watch the sunrise. I spy for glints of orange among the tree lines. To me, this is the payoff for all the hard work-- to sit self-satisfied on my thoughtful spot and watch the hunt unfold. It is my absolute favorite part of the hunt. In the evening, I sit quietly long after the sun has set for that last poignant shot, coming out of the darkness. It may be a coup-de-grace on a wounded deer, or a frustrated hunter unloading his smokepole.
So it was not without precedent that I simply extended the idea a bit, and left with an unfilled buck tag last year, went out to enjoy the morning from my treestand, instead of staying up at the house. I suppose you could pick nits and say that, since I normally do not hunt same stand stand the week after taking a deer, I was failing condition #5 as well. I probably should have gone to another stand. However, I had not fully defined the whole not-hunting thing for myself. Now it is clear.
Last weekend was week #2 of Kentucky's Modern Weapons Season. I had bagged the biggest buck of my career, a 270 lb deer with a monstrous rack and menacing glare that made me glad I was in a tree and armed. I was due to pick up at least 90 pounds of venison from the processor that afternoon. I knew I was stupid if I shot another one. Both freezers would be full again. I just was not ready to clean the rifles and be done with it.
see "The Savage Speaks Again"
I was hunting with my friend, Beryl. Beryl is a local gentleman who is the father of the regional state wildlife biologist. He is a consummate sportsman and deer hunter. The racks that he and his wife, Pat, have put on their walls make we feel very small and insignificant. Beryl had asked to come hunt a particular oak grove, but after hearing my scouting report, decided he wanted to take a post at the way between the cedar thicket on Heartbreak Ridge and the two new food plots he helped plant back in the Spring. Beryl donated a hundred pounds of last-year's govmint wildlife seed and I sprang for wheat, ladino, and yellow sweet clover.
Where all this comes together is a structure we call Knowlton's Corner. For those of you who are familiar with Cincinnati and the 17 bus line, you will understand the name. This is the first big set of intersections as you go further out from town from Fountain Square. We have a Fountain Square at our farm as well, the big crossroads between all the North/South and East/West routes guarded by an ancient box elder. Knowlton's Corner is where the two ways out to the Campground meet the two ways back to the house. The intersection has a lot of deer activity, especially now that Beryl and I have planted the adjoining fields. Beryl was all set for not-hunting. He had bagged a doe early in the week and then a nice seven-point buck on Thursday. His freezer was full, but he was not ready to call it quits quite yet.
My not-hunt was largely uneventful. I finally got to sit and read the Farmers Almanac for 2008 cover to cover, a yearly ritual that my rushed hunting schedule had prevented. I managed to spot four doe. I could have easily shot three of the four. However, I was still thinking about how I had unseated a doe from the steep hillside of Heartbreak Ridge the previous year. My round of 35 Whelen sent her tumbling to the bottom and I spent the next few hours overcoming 200 feet of elevation. I was carrying the Remington 7600 in 35 Whelen again on this non-hunt. Before I Whelenized another doe from this stand, I was going to think seriously.
The fourth doe was another matter entirely. Shortly before 0930 I found that I had an itch. This was not the normal sort of itch one finds on the stand. This was one of those I've-got-something-inside-my-bibs-and-it's-clawing-its-way-out sort of itches. Not-hunting only makes these things worse. It's bad enough to have to stifle a scratch, a sneeze, or a cough when you are trying to bag the big one. Being so afflicted when you are not-hunting only makes you question your resolve all the more. I was not-hunting, the weather had warmed nicely, it was nearly time to start thinking about going back. I decided to go for it. I unzipped five layers and went diving for my thigh. There was a burr, a thorn or something embedded in my thermal underwear and all I managed to do was knock it further down my leg. I am sure that anyone who had seen me would have thought I was not just digging a burr from my kit-- what with all the stretching, grabbing, scratching, and grunting. However, I eventually caught up with the offending bit of detritus and then promptly lost it over the side of my bibs. It fell to the ground. I breathe the sigh of a freed man, and then looked around me. There, less than 10 yards away was a mature doe watching my every move with great interest.
"It was a burr or something." I said, trying to apologize to the deer for my uncharacteristically rude behavior.
She left in disgust.
That was enough of not-hunting for the day. I continued the process I had started and finished removing all my thick outer layers, put them in my pack and then unloaded my not-loaded rifle and headed up. When I finally caught up with Beryl, he far away from his original post. Beryl had been having such good luck at not-hunting that he had moved twice, lest he be motivated to shoot another doe. After his first encounter with a doe early in the morning, He had moved, only to have another doe come up within ten feet of him at his next spot. This one had gotten so close that he had been forced to shoo her. I found him hiding behind some hay bales overlooking the top of Hootin' Holler. He seemed relieved that the day's hunt was ending and he could finally unload his Browning BAR in 308 Win and go home.
You do not need any special equipment for non-hunting, just your normal kit that you would normally take for deer. As much as I enjoy hunting with a lever gun, it is not my favorite not-hunting rifle. A bolt gun works well, as do those with detachable magazines. For my hunts at my thoughtful spot, just on the other side of the dining room window, I use a Winchester Model 70 in 30-06. It gives me the range I need to justify that it is honest hunting, while I maintain an overall not-hunting attitude. What your looking for is an easy way to not-load your rifle. With a bolt action, you need only depress the round in the magazine just enough so that it is not carried into the chamber. The bolt closes and now you are fully not-loaded. You can do the same with my Remington 7600, by leaving the magazine out, locking up the action on an empty chamber, and then inserting the magazine. My absolute favorite not-hunting rifle is my Thompson Center Hawken in .54 caliber. With the Hawken I have a double trigger and a half-cock. When a deer comes out in sight, I can not pull the hammer all the way back and then pull the set trigger and lightly touch the hair trigger. "Click." I have counted coup on the deer I have successfully not-hunted. His soul is mine. Last year I counted coup on well over a dozen deer in one non-hunt sitting.
Much as I love them lever actions are generally hard to not-load. The exception is the BLR and later model Savage 99's with the detachable magazines. I frequently not-hunt Ohio's shotgun season. All my semi-autos and pump shotguns allow the not-hunter to slip the round out of the receiver before it is taken up by the action and placed in the chamber. After the bolt is closed on the empty chamber, the round can be replaced in the magazine.
Locations for successful not-hunting occur wherever there is good hunting. Kentucky's Zone 1 allows two deer, one being a buck, on the standard tag and then an unlimited number of antlerless deer. This is an ideal environment for not-hunting. Zone 1 has more than its share of deer, to the point where the state is trying to reduce the herd. It is great for hunting and not-hunting alike. At some point you just get tired of pulling the trigger and the lure of not-hunting takes over. Not-hunting can be coupled with scouting. Not hunting can be done out of a stand or still-not-hunting. The latter is one of my favorites-- a sharp, frosty morning late in the season with my trusty Remington 1100, never quite at the ready, chasing deer from their beds is a yearly ritual I never miss.
Why does one not-hunt? A prematurely full freezer seems to be the quickest way to get there, however there are a bunch of other good reasons:
1) Injury. Not-hunting can be far less demanding that hunting. I realize now that I not-hunted most of the 1999 season when I was layed up with a painful Muldars neuroma in my left foot. I would drive out with my pickup to the edge of a woodlot, get out and hobble over to a stump and sit for a few hours and try not to think about the truck that was just behind me.
2) Camp or Cabin Feever. If you've gotten your fill early, it sometimes just not enough to sit in camp.
3) Kids. Kids will let you slide on a lot of stuff. They seem to have an intrinsique understanding of not-hunting. My sons have all not-hunted with me, and they enjoy it as much as actual hunting.
4) Friends. I've secretly not-hunted whole seasons just to be with friends one more time. I am certain some of them not-hunted just to be with me.
There are also wide variety of domestic problems and work problems that gets a man out not-hunting. The important thing is to recognize not-hunting as an end unto itself and to enjoy it for what it is. I have laid down the basic criteria for successful not-hunting. I hope the ranks of not-hunters come out and join me in openly embracing it. I wish the states would sell special not-hunting tags that would allow you to hunt all you wanted, just never chamber a round. They could probably sell them at a small premium to the normal tags.
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