Deer hunter’s transformation a story in itself

LITTLE ROCK — Funny how a deer hunter’s goals change as he ages.

“Maturity” is the word most people would use, but “ages” is more appropriate. With aging comes seasoning and a perspective that comes only with time spent afield. I’ve come to cherish the sunrises more, and the evenings always seem to throb with the buzz of great potential.

Until fairly recently, my goal was always to put as much meat in the freezer as I could. An unspoken goal was to use all my tags. There was a time I’d use all my tags on does, if necessary. Then, I started reserving at least one tag for a buck, should one present itself.

At some point, I started reserving my shots for a buck, with the false assurance that I can pop a doe anytime. That has proven not to be so sure. Maybe it is, as older guys say, that “I’m just not that mad at ’em anymore.”

I could have killed at least three does by now, but I have yet to pull the trigger. Those opportunities have always come in the evening. I simply didn’t want to devote the night to cleaning, skinning and butchering a doe. The latest incident occurred in a stand that a friend invited me to use. Does were everywhere, but this is one of those places where you just expect a big buck to step out at any minute. Taking out the big, flop-eared nanny that my friend says needs to go might spoil the opportunity for something memorable.

I would love to kill a record-book buck as much as anybody would, but I’ll never be a trophy hunter. At least not if you define that term as someone who only shoots bucks with record-book class antlers. The area I hunt doesn’t have many deer like that, and honestly, we don’t have that kind of investment in our club.

We don’t have the space and resources to plant good food for deer. We don’t have the genetics or the rich minerals in our soil to grow big antlers. We don’t have the right kind of habitat, and we don’t limit hunting pressure. We’re a hunting club, and our members expect to kill deer. There is a lot better hunting elsewhere, but I like this club. It’s fairly close to my home, but mainly I enjoy being around this group of people so much. They’re like family.

Killing game is like buying art. Nobody buys a painting for the painting itself. They buy the story behind the painting. The story is what makes every animal I’ve killed so special to me.

I have written a lot of stories over the years about hunters who have killed monster whitetails. I always ask them if they will ever kill a smaller buck, and almost always the answer is no. They almost always say any deer smaller than a Boone and Crockett buck would be a letdown. That’s so sad to me because bucks like those are so rare that they truly are once-in-a-lifetime trophies.

From 1996-97, when I was an editor for Game and Fish Publications in Atlanta, my office was adjacent to that of Gordon Whittington, the longtime editor of North American Whitetail. With all the great ranches and properties he always hunted, I was surprised when he told me that he’d never killed a Boone and Crockett buck. It’s certainly an apex of a deer hunting career, but it doesn’t have to define a career.

It reminds me of something that Nick Saban, Alabama’s football coach, said recently, that reporters are obsessed with results while he is obsessed with the process.

In our realm, all the little things that go into a successful hunt are the process — the decisions you make, the mistakes you make and work to eliminate, and the little quirks of luck that sometimes mean the difference between winning and losing. The goal is to get better and smarter, to gain the knowledge and preparation necessary to make the right decisions and minimize mistakes.

As my dad once told me: “Luck doesn’t happen by accident. You make your own luck.”

The game you take is the result of a process. The process is the story.

My lifetime collection of stories grows by the day. They are the reason I hunt.