Whitetail Wizard

I’m a major believer in getting kids and women into hunting, and to hunt with a bow is the perfect way to get started. Many get too cold during November and December hunts, but October bow hunting is the best time of all.

Me, and friends who hunt with me, all hunt for different reasons but we all share a common goal. To enjoy our hunt, and there is always the fond hope of seeing and getting a killing shot on a large antlered buck. The odds of doing so, as we all know, are pretty slim but that is just one of the many challenges to this sport.

Those who never shoot a nice buck are willing to shoot any buck. If it has antlers, it is fair game. Our deer herd would be far better if a hunter took a doe rather than a young buck, but the laws provide for that choice with a bow, and most hunters will put their tag on a buck of any size.

Many things go into the successful shooting of a deer, but killing a buck or doe shouldn’t be the only reason people hunt. Success for many sportsmen means seeing a buck, and although it may be too far away for a shot, seeing game is a big part of why we hunt.

After a number of years, and the taking of some bucks with bow or firearm, it slowly comes to many of us that countless other things make up the mosaic of deer hunting. The materials that make up the tapestry of a quality hunt often are more important to sportsman than killing a small buck.

The mere shooting of a buck or doe would soon lose all of its meaning if we consistently shot deer after deer. Soon the blood lust leaves a hunter, and what is left is the basic fabric of why we hunt.

The more we think about hunting, the more some of the other facets of this pastime come into play. Who among us doesn’t love the smell of wood smoke at hunting camp or the sizzling and popping of bacon being friend.

Waking in camp to the heady odor of freshly brewed coffee is something that makes my taste buds tingle. It’s hunting in a bracing cold wind, the early hunting amid gold, red and purple autumn leaves, and it’s spending time to help a fellow hunter blood-trail a deer to recovery.

It means taking out a young hunter, a wife or a minority hunter, and helping them take their first deer. It means teaching youngsters how to pattern a deer, and watch their eyes light up when the deer shows up just as if the entire hunt was choreographed around the hunter and the deer.

Some of hunting means remembering the bucks that we’ve hunted and never got, and remembering some of the bucks that we have taken. We often remember the bucks we see and never get long after we’ve forgotten some of the bucks that we have killed.

Whitetails come in all shapes and sizes, and many have that uncanny ability found in many old does to steer clear of possible danger areas. Also keenly remembered are those bucks that slip up once, allow themselves to be seen, but are never seen again.

One wonders where they’ve gone and what has happened to them, and in many cases, they haven’t gone anywhere. They just learned from that one experience to keep their head down and they will stay alive.

Hunting means remembering old friends, some of whom have passed on, and others who are still going strong. It means a shared friendship with some fine people, and it means a healthy dose of respect for the deer we hunt.

A long measure of hunting maturity brings fond memories, and behind our hunting thoughts, are the mental images of grand old bucks. It’s a dream all hunters want to experience, and even though some of us never capture that ultimate end of a big-buck dream, we can and must learn to experience all the emotions of a successful hunt ... with or without a deer.

Frankly, a dead deer is seldom at the end of those deer-hunting dreams.—The Whitetail Wizard