A Bittersweet Reflection

I've been meaning for the last 3 months to write about my deer hunting experiences this past season.  It was a magical one.  Part of being caught up in that magic meant that I didn't get around to posting about it like I wanted to.  Luckily, it's still quite fresh in my mind, and I'm free at home today, and it's snowing. 

I'm a hunter.  I truly feel like a hunter, but this wasn't necessarily true in previous seasons.  For the first time, everything clicked.  The first season, 2011, I had no idea what I was doing.  I'm the type of person that becomes interested in something, and devours any and all information I can get my hands on in order to digest and understand what it means to me.  Naturally I did this with hunting, too.  The difference was that there are no words to describe some of the feelings that I experience when in the woods.  I wasn't prepared for that.  I tried hard to move quietly, observe my surroundings carefully, and I tried my best to analyze what signs of deer activity I saw, or more likely thought I saw in the area I was hunting.  With the right eyes, there is always plenty to observe.  I became aware of things in the natural world that I had never even dreamt of.  With what was mostly dumb luck, and a little courage, I shot my first deer that season.  It was the first time I had ever intentionally killed an animal.  It was a button buck that weighed no more than about 40 lbs.  The story went something like this:

On a sunny and breezy early October afternoon, I sat in the property owner's treestand battling with bouts of fidgeting, boredom, and drowsiness.  I was not paying attention, but rather daydreaming, when I heard the definite sound of a deer carelessly jumping through the underbrush.  It's easy to mistake the sound of squirrels rummaging around on the ground for the footsteps of deer, but once contrasted with the actual sound of deer, it's unmistakeable.  I peeked over the edge of the camo skirt that surrounds the property owner's extra wide ladder stand to see this little deer standing not ten yards away from me.  I thought it was a young doe.  I told myself "let me just see if I can stand up unnoticed," and then I did.  With increasing caution I said next "let me just see if I can raise my bow," and then "just see if I can draw it" with increasing success to match the level of caution.  In those moments,  I was unsure of what I was going to do.  Even now, it's not easy to take the life of an animal despite having much more experience with dealing death.  At each step, I mindfully instructed myself what to do, and that was what brought me success.  I didn't know what to expect as the arrow escaped my bow and hurtled it toward the life not far below.  The arrow struck true, and that little deer gave it all he had.  I shook, I cried, I shouted, and I went through emotions I never knew existed.  Eventually, I managed to walk over and face my actions.

We loved the venison.  It lasted us until August of the next year at the pace that we consumed it.  It also started a new tradition in our family- Harvest Night.  That night, we stir-fried the heart with vegetables from our garden.  I insisted that only food that we grew ourselves could accompany that meal.  It was indeed special and solidified the path in life that we had already started to meander down. 

Eventually, the 2012 season came.  I was very excited.  I had learned a lot that first year, and I was ready to apply my lessons.  But I didn't yet understand some other crucial things.  The biggest, and most tragic mistake was the mental state with which I entered the woods with each time that season-  I got this.  Having tasted success the previous year, despite my lack of experience, I had a false sense of confidence.  I frequently hurried to my stand, spooking deer along the way, overstayed my welcome in various sites, and generally got in my own way.  All of that culminated in the most tragic event of the 2012 season- a memory that still sticks with me.  I shot and lost a buck.  You see, I had taken time off from work to focus on hunting during the rut.  The particular afternoon in question was either one of the last days of October or the first 3 or so of November. I had seen fewer deer than the first year.  Every time I did manage to see one, it sent my nerves out of control.  My heart beat so strongly I thought the deer could hear it and my whole body shook with nervousness.  Then this buck came around.  I had run into him earlier in the day when I went to check a trail camera.  Remember, I had thrown caution to the wind, literally, because of my general attitude.  I hadn't spooked that deer on the south end of the property, but it was a close call.  Later that afternoon, as I again sat in the property owner's stand, here he came.  I was a total wreck.  I had forgotten my experience with the button buck.  I felt confident- after all, I had done this before and it was textbook perfect that time.  As this fully adult big-bodied buck approached, I had zero focus.  I managed to take a shot, one that was well within my range, but it was a crummy shot.  I didn't focus on the placement.  I had let panic take over during the execution.  I hit that deer not through the heart like with the button buck, but a little too far back, most likely in the liver.  He walked away slowly.   I even tried to take a second shot, but I was such a wreck by that point that it wasn't even close.  As the buck was nearing the thicket on the edge of the field, he keeled over, just like they do in the hunting videos.  I waited.  It got dark.  I called my neighbor for advice.  He decided to come out and meet me.  As we approached where I thought my deer had dropped, I found nothing but a puddle of blood.  We took up the trail too soon.  I pushed that deer.  All of this was due to inexperience.  I searched for two days. It wasn't until late December that I found what was left of that deer in the river on a gravel bar.  I basically gave up for that season.  I thought about giving up hunting.  I felt like a failure.  I couldn't believe that something like this had happened by my hands. 

I later found the arrow from that buck.  It had managed to pass though, and was covered with the telltale signs of a liver hit.  I kept that arrow.  I put a field point on it, and I used it all summer to practice.  It was a reminder of what happened, even though there was no way I could have forgotten.  In the summer of 2013, I increased my accuracy to a degree that I had previously never experienced.  I increased my shooting range considerably.  With the rabbit explosion we were experiencing, I took the opportunity to practice stalking in those hot, dry afternoons of late summer in the tall grass.  I'd see how close I could get crawling on my stomach, or crouched as low as I could.  I waded through large puddles that formed at the edge of the pasture in pursuit of barehanding the frogs that were croaking away in the fading sunlight. 

Finally, the 2013 deer archery season came, and I was apprehensive.  The previous two years had also taken another toll- on my stress level.  I hadn't, and maybe still haven't figured out how to juggle finishing up our garden duties, going back to my full work load, and Naomi starting up another semester of grad school and find enough time for hunting.  So I vowed to hunt less, but not any less hard than in previous years.  I'd use the experience that I had gained to help me to hunt at the right times rather than whatever free time I had.  I wanted it to be as stress-free as possible.  I also couldn't forget about my lost deer from the year before.  I had a strategy for the season, too.  On the first day that I entered the woods, I encountered deer.  A doe and a fawn to be exact.  It was a closer encounter than I had ever had, too.  They even passed perfectly through my shooting lane at the perfect distance, quartering away, and paused to graze the still-green grass.  I didn't move a muscle.  All I did was watch.  I knew I needed to learn more, and I definitely knew that I didn't want to repeat my mistakes.  Those two never even bat an eye in my direction, despite being only ten yards away and not very well covered.  Of course, I was in full camo with nothing but my eyes showing.  Even then, my hat brim would have disguised my eyes enough if need be.  It was totally amazing!  I watched them for the better part on an hour before they continued their grazing out into the overgrown former pasture 50 yards beyond.  The feeling that I went home with that day was also a new one.  It felt good.  The next days and weeks continued this way.  I saw deer almost every time I went out.  Sometimes, they came within range, and other times not.  All of this was OK with me.  I never lost my optimism or enthusiasm for the season.  I was holding out, but I can't say exactly what I was holding out for.  I thought that when the right opportunity presented itself, I would know.  I thought that somehow my patience and judgement would be rewarded.  By whom or what it would be rewarded, I did not know.  I have the inconvenience of being superstitious about hunting.  My interactions with the natural world, especially on such a visceral level as hunting, are the closest I feel to any sort of spirituality.  I didn't, and don't ever want to take a life just to do it.  I wanted to feel right about it.  So I waited, watched, and learned.  It's only after these last few months that I can honestly say that yes, I am a hunter, because that means something to me.  It's not just a guy with an orange vest that shoots things.  Those types are hunting, but they're not necessarily hunters in my eyes. 

Finally, the weather started to turn, and I realized that more of the season was behind me than in front of me.  My deer sightings became less frequent, but still not like they had been the previous years.  There was still a chance.  The deer weren't acting pressured, and I had not spooked any of them, not even once.  I don't think I had given up my location, and I hadn't moved my stand.  This past Monday was my last excursion of the 2013 deer archery hunting season.  I never took a shot at a deer this year, and I can say with certainty that it's OK with me.  I'm already looking forward to next year, and I will be consciously aware of my mistakes of the past.  I hope that 2014 will be successful, and if it's anything like 2013 was, I probably will be.