RG_Adult_Onset_Hunter
Well-known member
I have a blurry picture of a man in camouflage kneeling in the dark, his left hand reverently holding the antler of a downed deer. The man had no regard for the camera, or the dark, or even much the blood that recently soaked the earth in front of him. He only had eyes for the animal that lay at his feet, and he only had room for gratitude in his heart. This is the story of how I came to be the man kneeling in that picture.
Perhaps starting a hunting story in front of a laptop seems odd, but our stories often start in odd or mundane places. To say otherwise would be revisionist in an unfortunate way. Thus, my hunting story starts in the early summer sipping my coffee in front of my computer. I did not know it when I pulled the tiny SD card from my camera, but it held a secret. As I patrolled through the pictures and videos of the bucks using my north 40 (this expression is rather generous to the 2 acre woodlot that this all took place in) I mused as to which of these deer might give me my “first time”. I wanted a mature animal for conservation reasons and the herd looked like it might be able to supply that.
One video held pictures of most of the group at various distances from the camera. One Spike, perhaps a 3 by 3, Is that a 4 by 4? Then out of the corner of the frame a massive set of antlers came into the frame. “Holy Crap” came out of my mouth before I could even really register what I saw; at least I didn’t have coffee in my mouth at the time, I’d have needed a new laptop. I will do my best to describe this deer.
You see pictures of gorgeous 5 x 5 bucks on the covers of hunting magazines. They have these perfectly symmetrical antlers, and facial features that all scream out “look at me, if I were a person, I’d be on the cover of GQ”. This deer does not look like that. He’s got a tangled mess of crap on his head that looks as though he had a choice in the matter and said “I don’t care what it looks like, just give me a lot of points to scare the crap out of the other guys with”. He has a big set of shoulders, drop dead gorgeous eyelashes, and a darker pelt than most of the other deer. Because of his odd looks and dark pelt, I decided to call this deer Donnie Darko, and man, I spent an unhealthy amount of time looking at this deer, thinking about this deer, and studying this deer and his group. I wanted this animal badly and bored my close friends to tears talking about his behavior.
My plan to kill this animal had a few hitches in it. The first being that I intended to take him with a bow (the tight shooting lanes on my small property making rifle hunting less than ideal). I did not own a bow, and only had so much time to learn how to do this thing called deer hunting. I'd done some quite a bit of turkey hunting, and hit whatever small game I could, but deer seemed like a whole new ball game. To further complicate things I chose to pursue this animal from a tree saddle (I had rock climbing experience but tree hunting is new to me).
Little did I know where all this would lead me. As you might imagine, this is a long story, with some real ups and downs. I made some serious mistakes along the way. It's too much for one post, but I will leave you with with this.
Donnie Darko made it through all the hunting seasons, and I could not be more pleased with that fact.
Perhaps starting a hunting story in front of a laptop seems odd, but our stories often start in odd or mundane places. To say otherwise would be revisionist in an unfortunate way. Thus, my hunting story starts in the early summer sipping my coffee in front of my computer. I did not know it when I pulled the tiny SD card from my camera, but it held a secret. As I patrolled through the pictures and videos of the bucks using my north 40 (this expression is rather generous to the 2 acre woodlot that this all took place in) I mused as to which of these deer might give me my “first time”. I wanted a mature animal for conservation reasons and the herd looked like it might be able to supply that.
One video held pictures of most of the group at various distances from the camera. One Spike, perhaps a 3 by 3, Is that a 4 by 4? Then out of the corner of the frame a massive set of antlers came into the frame. “Holy Crap” came out of my mouth before I could even really register what I saw; at least I didn’t have coffee in my mouth at the time, I’d have needed a new laptop. I will do my best to describe this deer.
You see pictures of gorgeous 5 x 5 bucks on the covers of hunting magazines. They have these perfectly symmetrical antlers, and facial features that all scream out “look at me, if I were a person, I’d be on the cover of GQ”. This deer does not look like that. He’s got a tangled mess of crap on his head that looks as though he had a choice in the matter and said “I don’t care what it looks like, just give me a lot of points to scare the crap out of the other guys with”. He has a big set of shoulders, drop dead gorgeous eyelashes, and a darker pelt than most of the other deer. Because of his odd looks and dark pelt, I decided to call this deer Donnie Darko, and man, I spent an unhealthy amount of time looking at this deer, thinking about this deer, and studying this deer and his group. I wanted this animal badly and bored my close friends to tears talking about his behavior.
My plan to kill this animal had a few hitches in it. The first being that I intended to take him with a bow (the tight shooting lanes on my small property making rifle hunting less than ideal). I did not own a bow, and only had so much time to learn how to do this thing called deer hunting. I'd done some quite a bit of turkey hunting, and hit whatever small game I could, but deer seemed like a whole new ball game. To further complicate things I chose to pursue this animal from a tree saddle (I had rock climbing experience but tree hunting is new to me).
Little did I know where all this would lead me. As you might imagine, this is a long story, with some real ups and downs. I made some serious mistakes along the way. It's too much for one post, but I will leave you with with this.
Donnie Darko made it through all the hunting seasons, and I could not be more pleased with that fact.
