Becoming a Hunting Curmudgeon

So I was showing KYHillChick the latest on Scent Lok, and letting her read the piece on building an outhouse next to my tree stand. She screwed up her face a little and said, "Why do you do that?"

"What?"

"You're such a. . . you're always such a . . ." We finally agreed that curmudgeon was probably the closest fit, although we tried a few more epithets on for size during the process.

I don't know. Honestly, I don't. I would like to think it is a gift. A lot of folks are not that pleasant about it. I believe in the premise that a life well spent is done so in service to others. Since this is one of the few gifts God gave me, I have to do what I can with it.

I wasn't a cantankerous, contrary, old coot from the start. Although I was a little eccentric early on. I do remember that I was wide-eyed and amazed when I first started shooting with my buddies, and even more so when I started hunting with them. One thing that did separate me from others was that I had deliberate goals in my life, and I was saving money. Deer hunting was not high on the list of priorities in those days, so I tried to get by as best I could with what was at hand. I bought a used bow. I bought my hunting clothes from the Army/Navy store. When I saw some of my friends dumping gobs of money on the best of the best, I could not figure out their problem. They made fun of me when I showed up at the archery range with a quiver made out of an old pant leg. They called me cheap, but I figured I could go out in the woods and get tag soup my way just as easy as theirs.

Being a cheap bastard was probably the genesis of it all. Don't get me wrong. I too went through that phase where everything in the store started looking like a good idea. I still have shelves stuffed with all that gunk. The demands of my job, and the hunting regulations of the State of Ohio came together next to push me along my way to curmudgeonhood. In those days I worked a full 8-5 job. Ohio did not allow Sunday hunting. If I was going to hunt, I had to fight my way out of town in Friday rush hour and drive 3 hours. I was lucky to have the tent pitched by 11. I had about 4 hours sleep, got up and hunted a full day and then drove back Sunday. I wanted every advantage. I tried calls, scents-- the works.

I was also bound and determined to shoot a nice buck, because that was the magazines all talked about in those days. I passed on shots on doe nearly every time I went out, but I did not want to waste my one tag on a doe and screw things up for the whole season. Again, Ohio's game laws were slowly working on my brain, tempering it into a curmudgeon's. The doe seemed far too easy. All I needed was to make a little bit more of an effort.

Then I started to lose access to the places I hunted. I got married and agreed that I would just hunt 1 half-day a week while we were building our family. I started getting squeezed harder and harder. Then my wife decided I should give up hunting entirely. Then I went through the divorce, and I had my two small sons to deal with and getting out to bow hunt now became a half-day once every other weekend sort of thing. When I got to about twenty years as a deer hunter, I had nearly had enough. Before my epiphany, I was trying to cart a big climber on my back along with my all my gimmicks and a full-sized deer decoy into the woods. Then my buddy died that owned the land I was hunting, and I knew that was probably it.

When we fell into the farm, I was forced to very quickly jettison all the unnecessary deer hunting garbage in one swell foop. We took possession well into Kentucky's bow season. I had to scramble. Not only did I have to leave behind all but the essential gear, but I also had to throw out treasured ideas.

1) Scent: I suppose I could have gone out with my scent bombs, scent drags, etc. that first season at the farm. The thing of it was that I had promised myself to do just the bare essentials. The other side of the problem was inescapeable. The first season we had no running water. My pre-hunt preening was down to sponging down with cold water. All I had was baking soda-- I never did believe in that Scent- Lok stuff.
2) Climbers: This was my first hunting land all to myself, so the first thing I did was go out and buy some cheap stands and see if I could leave a stand up and not have it stolen. I had been a climber guy for 20 years, but I have to tell you that climbing stands are a sport unto themselves. To some extent deer hunting takes a back seat to getting up the tree. It was positively luxurious to hunt out of a stand that did not need to be moved.
3) Other gimmicks: The decoy went into the shed and stayed there. I left all my calls behind. I did not have time for salt blocks. I tried to put out a feeder, but the mechanism failed.

. . .and I got deer! In fact, I got two deer! The next season as well! The more I started to look at it, the more I started to see that I had spent over twenty years acquiring and reinforcing superstitions. No, I did not have to be 25 feet in the air. No, I did not need to pull a scent drag behind me. I did not need five different calls with me at all times. The list became longer and longer. Eventually, I took my lessons and started to expand on it. The point became that if I truly believed something about deer hunting was true, I ought to test the contrary position. If I HAD to have rubber boots on to be an effective deer hunter, I ought to try a pair of leather work boots and just see if it made any difference. If I HAD to keep my urine away from deer, I ought to try whizzing off the stand. If I thought camo worked, I ought to go back and try no camo just to see if there was an effect on my hunting success.

So far, the one thing I can tell you that does not work is going short on personal hygiene. Deer hate pit stink. I have found that you can get away with leaving your underwear on from morning to night, but you better change them. I have also found that a little bit of baking soda here and there goes a long way. I am probably using a third of the stuff I was when I was at the height of my scent regimen.

The rest of it? Deer are curious animals. They are fairly intelligent. They are also creatures of habit. Yes, you may screw up a stand hunting it too much. However, you can kill a deer out of a stand on Saturday and come back Sunday and see deer. You can also bump a deer out of its bed at 0600 and have that same deer come visit your stand at 0800. Go figure. Last season, I whizzed off my stand every time I went out, and had three good shooters come by. I did get busted once, but it was because the deer saw me stand up and she caught me unzipping. I bagged my two deer wearing duck brown Carhart bibs.

So there you have it. Being a curmudgeon does not buy me all that much. I certainly do not sell a lot of magazine articles when I write about it. It does not make me more handsome, more handy or closer to my God. It just ends up being one cantankerous old coot telling things as he sees it. If it saves another man from stepping in the same dog piles, then I have done some good.

___________________________