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Home > Archive > Oct 5, 2006

Fall Brings Hunting Memories
By D. Gary Webb
Sports Editor
The fall season is closing in on us quickly, bringing with it the smells and sights of colored leaves, campfires and – hopefully, for those who hunt – the harvesting of a large mule deer.
When I was little, the deer season was as important as Christmas, and definitely bigger than Thanksgiving or Easter.

The deer hunt was a sort of passage to adulthood in those days, and probably still is in many area households. Missing the hunt was something unthinkable, and skipping school to hunt wasn’t considered sluffing; it was considered normal and expected. Anyone still at school the Friday before the hunt or most any time the week of the hunt was very alone, because for most of that time, we were expected to be on the mountain.

All those years ago, women and girls weren’t allowed in camp the first weekend of the season, and for the most part, little boys weren’t, either.

We had to earn our way, either through showing we were tough enough or old enough to be there, and we were expected to carry our own weight so far as camp chores and duties were considered.

In back of my grandpa’s house was a big cottonwood tree, and each fall, the largest limb on the “deer tree” served as a place to let the deer age as well as being a sort of trophy case from which the deer hung, upside-down, looking a little like cocoons housing butterflies – their bodies covered in white “deer bags” so the deer could age but the flies couldn’t get in.
Once in a while, one of the adults would let the kids carry a rifle, and I remember wondering what I would do if a deer actually jumped out of the bushes while I was holding the gun. When I did actually shoot a deer, I learned why hunters on cold mountains don’t mind cleaning the deer. The warmest place for cold hands in October is inside a warm deer. I know it sounds yucky, but back then, it just seemed manly.

Then came the day when the deer wasn’t dead from my first shot. As I walked up to the deer it looked at me with those huge brown eyes, as if to say, “What did I ever do to you?” I didn’t have much of an answer; and being guilty of nothing more than being a critter humans like to eat didn’t seem like a crime big enough to get killed over.

Don’t misunderstand – I like backstraps and the smell of venison frying as much as the next guy, and whenever possible I take what someone will give me – but the day that deer looked at me, I felt something change in my heart.

Suddenly, for some reason, it wasn’t right for me to blast the little creature that had been blissfully munching on acorns just minutes before.

It’s fine for other folks, and I admit to feeling like I’m letting my ancestors down by not continuing the tradition, but for me it just doesn’t work anymore.

For some reason, just watching the deer seems to give me as much pleasure as eating them, and it’s a whole bunch cheaper.

Have fun this season, and be careful.

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