You Won’t Believe It!

Mythical creatures and legends abound in outdoor lore, especially among hunters, fishermen and other assorted lunatics. When you stop and think about it, it’s fairly amazing what we’ll allow ourselves to believe.

Or almost believe. Or refuse to admit that we really do believe.

There’s big money in myths; entire industries have been built around them. Take Bigfoot, for example. Assuming you can find him. (And if you do, I’ll be glad to represent you as business agent for the ridiculously low figure of only 60 percent of any proceeds allegedly coming your way…)

Bigfoot is big business. Flip on the tube, and you can find a series or documentary on him/her/it at any time of the day or night. Strangely enough, thay all seem to end the same way: “ALMOST had him!” 

For the 39,417th time. Dude’s sneaky, all right.

My favorite part is when the search teams get all ultra-technological. Some guy will stand in the dark holding the top end of a 1957 television antenna and pick up hoots, howls and hollers from deep in the wastelands: “That’s HIM, that’s HIM!”

The one and only time I ever witnessed Jake The Hermit attempt to chop wood, the ax head flew off at the top of his swing, and before his 90-year-old reflexes kicked in, the handle continued whirling downward and whacked his spindly left shinbone.

What the would-be scientist in the gloom heard was HIM! His squalls echo still…

When it comes to mythological creatures, few entities, no matter how esteemed, seem to be able to resist at least a dabble into the mix. Why, I remember when even the finest outdoor magazine in publication—you’re reading it—offered up $1,000 for trail-camera proof of a critter called a Georgia panther.

Well I didn’t get a picture of one, but I SAW one. And I wasn’t holding no antenna. Nor red liquor neither. It might not have been Bigfoot, but it will do me until one comes along.

But it’s not panther perpetuation that plagues me. Here and now, I’m asserting my strongly held belief in an overwhelming disbelief of what I postulate is a wham-bam of a sham being played on us poor, old deer hunters.

What is it, you ask in total confusion? It’s called The Rut!

Balderdash! Bah, humbug! Poppycock! Flummery! OK. I’m done. Let’s get right down to it.

You’d have me swaller that a whitetail buck is gonna go off his nut far enough to be skedaddling around in broad open daylight like third-grade recess?

Your gourd’s leaky!

But, you argue, it’s an instinctive thing… he simply is unable to overcome it… females emit this tantalizing odor that short-circuits his senses…

Twaddle! (I thought I was done…) Me thinks thou doth protest too much. Lissen Lester, I happen to have a couple single, early 20s sons. Chasing females is not something completely unfamiliar around the homestead.

Further, I’ve heard of perfume. Believe it or not, I even remember the scent of it, as well as various and sundry impulses it produces, and I have written about the entire process in one of my books.

Not to beat a dead horse—’cause you shore ain’t gonna have no dead  deer to beat if you wait on one to sashay out into the sunshine—but, like that panther, I really did see a buck, or two, chasing wimmins.

And here, at last, is my take on it…

For 40 years, I have deer hunted The South. What that means, sample-size-wise, is that we don’t have 10,000-acre Iowa cornfields dotted with 13 trees. You can’t sit in a south Georgia branch and blithely observe 147 bucks like you could in that cornfield. So, let’s just concern ourselves with one.

In the 15-minute period I first observed him, he must have zig-zagged 22 miles on the high-heeled-hooves of a doe. When he finally made his way past me—at less than 15 feet—he resembled Chris Christie near marathon’s end.

I didn’t have the heart to shoot him. The buck.

Crystal-clear example of The Rut, you assert. Malarkey!

A large part of hunting is the tracking aspect; looking close, and knowing what’s going on around you. That’s how I noticed that the tops of those mushrooms had been bitten off!

If you know The Allman Brothers, you know mushrooms; if not, look this up: hallucinogens.

That buck was ’shroomed up! Drunk as a coot! Merrily sloshed!

I saw him again the next year, in almost exactly the same place, and his headgear was nearly good enough to override my sympathies.

But he was inebriated again, coasting along behind some floozy, so I used him as an avoid-this-at-all-costs example to the boys. 

Alas, while my oldest is as close as humanly possible to being my clone, he does not always share my tenderheartedness.

 Not when it comes to bucks, at least. So when he saw that deer, sporting 11 points in his final season and chasing three females, he did the right thing and put him out of his misery, so to speak.

I’m looking at that deer—on the wall—now, and while it’s too late for him, please allow me to impart a little advice:

1. The Rut is a myth, nothing more.

2. Wooing is a questionable pasttime at best, but chasing three women at once will get you shot.

3. Stay away from them ’shrooms!