As many of you might have noticed I haven’t been posting a whole lot lately. I’d love to say it’s because I’ve been traveling all over the world having amazing adventures, meeting interesting and exotic people and making tons of money but that’s not the case. You see the problem is that, boy this is hard to admit, I’m an addict.
Hi, my name is Kerry and I’m a deer hunter.
It’s again the time of year where millions of semi-drunk men head into the woods with lethal weapons in search of the elusive, some say fictitious, Whitetail Deer and I’m one of them. Starting in September I become completely obsessed with hunting and run into the woods every chance I get. I’ve never added up the amount of time I spend deer hunting from September to January, mostly because if my wife found out she would kill me (she thinks I’m having an affair), but it is safe to say that if I spent that many hours working at Burger King I could retire. Of course then I’d just spend my time hunting so I’d be back where I started I guess.
Spending a lot of time in the woods doesn’t necessarily mean I’m always very successful. Hours upon hours spent sitting in a tree stand or sneaking around on the ground rarely result in seeing, let alone getting a shot at a big buck. After hunting for forty years I’ve shot many decent bucks and does with both rifle and bow but only managed managed to bag 3 what I would call “Trophy” bucks. That doesn’t mean I’ve only seen that many monsters in the woods, it means only didn’t screw up the opportunity three times. More times than I care to remember everything fell into place and I managed to get close to a big buck only to have something happen. The wind shifts and he smells me, I move and snap a twig, or the buck just senses that something isn’t right. Either way the result is the same. The buck snorts (the alarm sound they make when they sense danger) turns on a dime and is gone in a flash leaving me shaking with adrenalin and cursing the hunting gods, my poor performance, and overall bad luck.
But the ninety five percent of the time I spend hunting alone isn’t the only thing I love about deer hunting. Once rifle season starts my father, son, and a gaggle of drunk old Army buddies descend on my hunting cabin for two weeks of poker, scotch, and cigars. Oh, some of us do manage to get up in the morning and head out to the woods but that’s optional. This year we were pretty successful. My dad shot an eight point buck, number one son got a doe and passed up a number of small bucks and I managed to drop two nice big does and a beautiful eight point buck. All in all it was a great hunting season but with the temperature dropping to eighteen below zero Fahrenheit today I guess it’s time to hang up the bow for the year and spend some time with the wife, that and the fact that hunting season’s over.
