Name Of The Game

Musing, in memoriam alas, as the season winds down, I find myself somewhat cheered by the windfall produced by being a charter member of the Equal Opportunity Whitetail Whackers organization.

Don’t be saddened if you’ve never been asked to join, or alarmed upon never even having heard of this lowbrow consortium.

From all accounts, I may be the only member! It’s like this…

Some years ago, one of my sons was hot on the trail of a certain rather hirsute buck. A conflagration of factors made this whole shebang a very iffy proposition. Chief among them was the fact that this heavy-horned goober loved to flirt with the property line: a creek.

He knows he can dance the cancan, do back flips and march with the high school band while waving a flag—as long as he’s on the OTHER side of that creek.

So…

“Remember this,” I told the youngster as he headed to the woods and I drove a hundred miles in the opposite direction to watch his brother pitch. “The object of the exercise is to kill the deer.”

Along about the seventh inning, I got the call. Sorting through his wheezes, I came up with: “He came in from my right just like we thought, headed to the creek. I didn’t have a shot until what you told me popped into my head. So I spined him and he dropped—2 feet on our side of the creek…”

Any EOWW member would get it in a flash: no spine, no creek jumping! But before joining, you must ask: what’s the point of my exercise when I go to the woods?

Am I communing with Nature? (If so, somebody’s got to ‘splain that to me sometime…)

Have I spent several grand on preparing the perfect place to make a buck leave HIS perfect place and step out into MY wide open spaces?

Have my multitudinous cameras showed me Doc, Sleepy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sneezy and Dopey? (Who names these stupid deer anyway? And why?) If you’re gonna watch him grow up from spots to the infamous “five-and-a-half year-old,” name him Skeeter, then head him off at the trough… why not go shoot a cow?

(If you’re feeling a mite offended,  you’re likely reading the Back Page column for the first time. Take a couple Tylenol and go snore in your recliner. Not, I’ll get around to you in the next couple of years; we all laugh at ourselves sooner or later…)

Hey, dudes, when I’m camo’ed up,  armed, hungry and get that sudden urge to see something fall, I’ll take out Snow White if she’s decked in deer hair!

If you’re looking for a sho-nuff, whoop-de-doo trophy hunter, don’t bark up my tree! Have I locked in on, hunted down and taken several wallhangers—one at a time, exclusively—over the past five decades?

Certainly. Mostly before sons came along and brought with them the greatest joys I’ve ever had afield. Locating a buck, helping them work him out, watching their knowledge and passion grow, and then taking photos? That’s the top of the fun chain.

But there are also times when white space bothers me no end!

Like that white space inside my freezer. About 3 inches or so from the top is no problem, as long as the remainder is covered with 2-lb. packs of camo-colored wrapping that says Wild Game, Not For Sale.

Take last week…

I’ve been hunched in an off-and-on drizzle for three hours. Nothing stirring. One of the boys texts me checking in, and I reply: I’m looking for one idiot to get on his feet and step out.

Thirty seconds later, one idiot…

So much for white space.

Which presents another problem: NO white space. Now what?

Well, this is along about the time I swing back over toward the TV-type crowd and go all googly-eyed over a single Silvertip recipient.

Time to do what I’ve done as far back as I can remember: hunt.

Rather, HUNT! My way. For ME.

Oh yeah, I know where he is. Pretty much, anyways; there are no guarantees—or cameras—but when you’ve done this all your life, you can figure things out.

Which, after all is said and done, is the pinnacle of what we do. There is little gratification in easy.

Four weeks of season… freezer full, one buck tag left. From here, “simple” sums it up…

As gray mists swirl and finally fade to reveal individual tree trunks, I’ll be standing beside one of them: loaded rifle in hand, four more 165-grain rounds in my right shirt pocket, binoculars in the left. Earlier, stepping off the field road, my boot soles were squirted with Tink’s 69—which is why they reside under the carport…

No stands now; just the two of us, on the ground, hopefully face to face soon. “Stumphunter” is an appropriate term I’ve been called many times over the years. It’s mesmerizing. Addictive. And, many times, not for the faint of heart. As when he suddenly takes a step—from 20 feet away and you never knew he was in the world.

He’s sniffing boots while looking for her…

If that doesn’t happen, then over the next two, three, four—who knows—hours, I may cover up to three hundred yards. Or not.

All I want is to beat him at his own game on his own ground. May happen, may not. I might win. Or, always, learn. But never lose.

Not this season? Then next. And I don’t even know his name…