Whitetail Wizard

It doesn’t make me all bad. I could care less about ball ports, Nascar races, or tournament golf. Whitetails excite me; almost everything else is far less interesting.

People question how I can only think about these two items most of the time. It must be easy because both passions have consumed my thoughts for many years.

Both thoughts are of equal importance, and without the study, there would be less success at hunting. A number of years ago, Dave Richey, the outdoor writer with Michigan’s largest blog < [url=http://www.daverichey.com]http://www.daverichey.com[/url] > was asked a question while waiting to get a new string put on his bow.

Another customer recognized him and asked if the only thing he thought about was writing. He gave the man a straight answer.

“Writing is what I do,” he said. “It’s what I do for a living, and to do my job properly, I’m always thinking about the next story. It has to be what I think about on a daily basis. I’d be dead in the water without the next story idea.”

I could easily steal his answer, but why? My answer is based on the same reasons he gives people. For me, hunting whitetails with a bow, and studying the animals at every opportunity, is what I do. To stop studying deer is to stop learning about whitetail deer. To stop learning means less success.

When I hunt, I become totally focused on my surroundings, and what the deer are doing. I never lose my concentration on the deer, but I continue to focus and watch other deer. I can solve all kinds of deer hunting problems while sitting in my ground blind or elevated coop.

When working, my thoughts are always on deer hunting or trying to figure out why a particular deer did what it did the night before.

Some people find it hard to think about two things at once or have trouble chewing gum and walking. That often happens when deer hunting: I’ll be trying to solve a knotty little deer travel pattern problem, and a nice buck walks out. My reflexes take over, and I can shoot the buck while shifting gears, and then I will shift back to the mental problem.

Solving any problem with either the machine shop or the archery business is always easier while bow hunting. Any hunting area always has some natural noises, but out there, the phone doesn’t ring unless I take the cell phone with me. I often manage to leave the silly thing home.

Years ago Richey told me that many of his award-winning articles and columns came to him while he was asleep. One part of his brain kicked in, he would wake up, slip out of bed, head for his office and write it while the idea was fresh in his mind.

The same thing happens to me. A problem may bother me for weeks, and then one night while sound asleep, the answer to the problem wakes me up. I suspect that being asleep allows the subconscious to kick in, provide the needed answer, and usually the answer is so simple I wonder why it didn’t come to me much sooner.

I’m able to study deer, think about various deer patterning problems, and be ready and able to shift gears automatically, and shoot the buck. It’s what I’ve trained my body and mind to do, and anyone else can do it providing they’ve learned the basic fundamentals of drawing and properly aiming a bow and making a smooth release. Do those things long enough, and do them properly, it becomes simple.