Why I Keep Deer Hunting

I was thinking again yesterday about what keeps me in deer hunting. Part of it is certainly just habit, but then you would have to have a serious habit to go through all the trouble I go through every year. Part of it is now probably that worship us old farts have for ourselves as we were in our youthful prime. However, I don't think either would get me off the couch.

I think I got a peek into what really keeps me going in this thing last weekend. Angus and I were going out to Newstand to place the camo skirt around the shooting rail. The way to Newstand is a somewhat convoluted march down the side of the ridge. It overlooks a grove of white and pin oaks that sit on a shelf just above Willow Creek. From Newstand, you can just barely make out the creek bottom. As we made our way over the barbed wire, I became genuinely irked and I had a hard time figuring out why. I found myself grousing over the sameness of it all. Here we were taking the same trek down the same hill we'd been making for years. Here I was with yet another son, getting a stand ready for season. Why had deer hunting become such a stinking rut?

I then realized I had become at the same time become irked over everything being changed from last year and the year before. Hurricane Ike had brought down a bunch of cedars, and it was now harder to get to the stand. In fact it was hardly recognizeable from last year . It was. . .

Hey, wait a minute shaman! What the. . . How can you be irked about it all being the same and all being different at the same time? How can. . . oh, drat! Now it's starting to rain.

All this was rolling around in my head. All this was making me thoroughly miserable. I was also hot and sweaty from the humidity, but I was starting to get chilled from the rain. I was stuck in all this turmoil and frankly I don't remember climbing the ladder or belting in. What I do remember was the single deer snort that woke me up as I was taking electrical ties and fixing the camo skirt over the foam pipe insulation over the shooting rail of the buddy stand. All of a sudden I got yanked back to reality. All of a sudden, I knew exactly why I was there and what I was doing.

I think that is what deer hunting is all about for me. I often say that a day in the field leaves me knowing myself better than a month of doing any other thing. I sat back and took a little bit of time to find the neighboring tree where Moose and I had first left my climbing stand 8 seasons ago, the week before the Rifle Opener. It was hard to find the tree, but it was still there, now grown too big to be to be suitable for the API Grand Slam Super Magnum. My eye then traced the path I had followed over from Heartbreak Ridge, looking for a new stand location after my first stand at Heartbreak had gone stale from overuse. I then looked down and saw a kid not unlike Moose had been, staring up at me, wondering when his inscruitable Dad was going to come down.

So much the same, so much different. I unbelted and came down the ladder. Eight seasons ago, a doe had busted us on the way out. Now we just had drizzle. We started our march back up the hill.