Another deer season has ended. I still have no venison in the freezer. What I have is what I went after: a mind full of memories that few modern people can duplicate. Today I had the tedious task of following an hour-old trail through six inches of snow. The woods are cluttered with blowdowns and head-sized rocks, pits where trees have fallen, and old stumps, all now treacherously hidden under that white blanket. I picked my way through this tangle, ducking under branches that the deer had found no obstacle, moving six steps, then pausing six minutes to look, listen, focus on what’s around me.
I know these woods, know them as none but a hunter can. The trees are old friends. Anything out of place is glaringly obvious. Any flicker of movement attracts my attention, although it usually turns out to be a squirrel clinging to a trunk, a woodpecker or chickadee gliding from branch to branch, or an aspen leaf shivering in the wind. About once a season it’s a deer. Usually one I can’t see well enough to determine if it’s a legal animal, or in a position where a shot might not be safe, or moving too fast or at the wrong angle. I won’t take a chancy shot. Quick kill, no suffering, or no shot. And safety, always safety first.
My liberal friends (fellow liberals, except in this regard) would think me a barbarian for owning guns and a monster for hunting with them. Yes, there are what I call ‘slob hunters,’ who take sound shots, hunt animals they refuse to eat, and/or pay big money for ‘trophies’ which are often tame animals raised for the purpose, not wild, fair-chase game. On the whole, these are the same people who commit other conservative atrocities, the one-percent. The 99-percent, the hunters I know, are ethical, caring folks who are out there for totally different reasons. The few among my class and acquaintance that swing that gun muzzle in an unsafe direction for a moment, take an iffy shot, drop litter, or break out the liquor before the guns are cleaned and racked, often end up quitting hunting because no one else will go out with them anymore. My rather extensive circle of hunting friends have a zero-tolerance policy against unethical hunters; and are more typical than the ones the liberal media points fingers at.
As a fishing guide, I admit to a certain amount of contempt for well-to-do clients looking for shortcuts, who just want to catch fish instead of learn about them, their habits, and the aquatic ecology that supports them. I learned fly-fishing through experience and practice, and to me it’s all about the process, not the catch. Hunters like my fishing clients give us all a bad reputation. It’s the process, learning the woods, finding the game trails and learning the ways of the creatures themselves, that lures me out there again and again. It’s the focus, becoming a part of the cycle, using my senses in a natural pursuit. It’s facing the fact, however unpleasant a gentle soul like myself finds it, that life feeds on life; and it’s hypocrisy of the first order to value one class of life above any other.
The deer have the advantage. Oh, boy, do they, as my success record clearly shows. Unlike battery chickens, which are hatched, force-fed, drugged, mutilated, crowded wing-stub to wing-stub, and killed at six weeks old; the deer enjoy freedom, living as their wild ancestors did, often to an old age. Unlike supermarket meat animals, deer are free of steroids and antibiotics, the meat untainted by dyes or preservatives, and lean. Healthy meat, from animals that live an unstressed, natural life, eating natural foods, enjoying their freedom. And, incidentally , learning their territories so well they consistently elude me when I pursue them. Unlike domesticated food animals, they have a darn good chance to survive, thrive, breed, and give me those bland, smug looks the day after hunting season ends.
Hunters know the creatures that live in the woods. Most people who don’t hunt know what children’s stories and the mass media have told them about animals, which is more fantasy than fact. And, it’s true, most effective conservation efforts that really benefit animals (of all kinds, not just game) are motivated and funded by those who love and respect the creatures that share our planet for what they truly are; the people who go out and share their habitats with them on a regular basis; almost exclusively hunters and fishermen. Yes, it’s as self-serving as it sounds. We want to preserve those wild places where we can go out and fill our senses with nature as it is, where we can become one with the cycles of the Earth.
Today I slogged up the north side of a hill, an open meadow, following those deer tracks. The footing was better than in the woods, but snow had drifted deeply there, making it hard going. Pausing for one of my frequent looks around, I had one of those moments. I could see the meadow dropping away on three sides, bordered by forested lowlands. In places evergreens brooded, grouchy under their festive seasonal decoration of snow. In other places, the snowy ground was clearly visible under bare deciduous trees, an open landscape one never sees in summer. Beyond the lowlands the spurs of Broadhead Mountain loomed, misty grey, miles away: Boone Ridge to the west, and beyond it the nameless ridge that holds the old railroad grade that is now Junction Road. Clouds curled over its summit, spitting a few flakes reluctantly at the ground, threatening more. Wind reddened my face, blowing snow in streaming flags across the meadow. I was alone. I was the only human being seeing this sight, on this day. It was like the cold air I breathed had been created just for my enjoyment, and the view just to give me a mental image to treasure. That’s why I go out there. That’s what I’m hunting for.
