Postponing the hunt
As I sit here in my blaze orange Deer Camp 2011 tee-shirt from Cabela’s and write this blog entry on my couch, I think about how I should be out in the woods sitting on a stump glassing a clearcut for movement. I should be creeping through the timber areas north of Brady, Washington, stalking deer and elk. Maybe even a cougar or a bear. I should be shoulder to shoulder with my guide who has been doing this for nearly 30 years, as we delve into the most primal instinct within man, that is to hunt. Instead, I’m getting ready to paint the guest bathroom and put up a Finding Nemo wallpaper border.
I had been looking forward to this hunt for over a month. I’m not sure what got into me, but for at least half a year now I’ve been wanting to learn how to hunt. I never hunted when I was a kid, and neither did my dad. And my guess is his dad didn’t either, so it’s not like it’s in my blood or anything. In fact, my mother has made it perfectly clear that she doesn’t agree with hunting and will “think differently” about me if I become a hunter. That is an entirely seperate issue, one more suited for a psychiatrist than a blog entry.
As I considered more and more whether I really wanted to become a hunter, I had to weigh my convictions and reevaluate my opinion of myself. Would I be able to kill a defenseless animal? Could I look through the scope of a .30-06 rifle at its sweet doe eyes and make the decision to pull the trigger? Well technically, I’d be looking through the scope at its broad buck chest since it’s illegal to shoot does and you certainly don’t want to shoot a deer in the eyes. But still…could I do that?
I’d begun asking questions of other hunters earlier in the year, trying to pick their brains about how to go about becoming a hunter. Since most hunters are raised that way by their fathers, I had a bit of a hard time getting the complete story from them. Also, it was a little difficult trying to explain to someone who had been hunting their entire lives why I wanted to start in my mid-30’s. Finally, one of my coworkers generously took me under his wing – so to speak – and submitted to my extensive line of questioning. Do you have to wear an orange vest and hat? How do you process the meat after a kill? Are there really weird hunting traditions like taking a bite of the animal’s heart after you kill it? What do you do if you encounter another hunter while stalking an animal? These are just a small fraction of the questions I had about the sport.
Another hugely beneficial resource my wife discovered was http://www.hunter-ed.com, a great resource that answered a great deal of the questions I had. After thoroughly reviewing the site, taking the practice exam on nearly a daily basis and committing to memory what a textbook hunt should be like, I compared that to the knowledge I gleaned from my friend to see what differences there were in the field. That’s when he offered to take me hunting. We were supposed to go today, but he called me two days ago and told me about his experience since hunting season opened on Saturday.
In short – like fishing – hunting is better in the rain. In fact, hunting in sunny, dry conditions is downright miserable. The deer stay hidden, and since the timber is dry every footstep sounds like a fireworks show. He’d been hunting from dawn until dusk on Saturday and Sunday, and by Monday he decided to postpone it until the weather turned sour. Since I’m looking right now at the sun streaming through my blinds, I had to agree with him that it would be best to wait until the rain came back. Just my luck that our short summer would be mostly cloudy and our usually rainy fall would be unseasonably warm and bright.
So I’m putting a couple coats of light blue paint on our guest bathroom walls instead of tracking a six-point buck through the evergreens in a downpour. Ah, such is life. But the good news is that the weather is supposed to turn by Wednesday night, and I’ll hopefully be treated to my first hunt on Friday. I’ll keep you posted, dear readers, and I’ll be sure to have lots of pics.