Deer Hunters of Old

The sun rose early over the North woods, casting a shimmering gold over all that its fingers could reach. I shuffled tighter against the tree I had chosen to use as a backrest and removed my hands from the pockets of my orange coat. I took hold of the rifle that laid across my lap and slid the bolt to the rear position, placing four rounds into the internal magazine before sliding the bolt closed.

On this crisp November morning, I would join the shrinking masses of hunters partaking in the opening day of Wisconsin's nine-day gun deer hunting season. Since I began hunting nearly forty years ago, I went about the process in the same way I had since childhood. Around me, I watched the sport change, but I had always remained static, an anonymous eye watching the great sport change around me.

I remembered my younger days of growing up a deer hunter. I remember the dinner and the parties on the eve of opening day—the good food and laughs to be had by any deer hunter who wanted to be part of the festivities. I remember the midday sessions of standing around the registration stations, listening to the stories of hunters who had successfully harvested a deer.

In the bed of the lucky hunter's truck could be a deer of any size or sex. More often than not, it would be a doe or young buck. Now and again, however, a proud hunter would pull into the station with a massive buck that would draw the eyes of everyone who was there and would amass a crowd to listen to the tale of the slain beast.

Those were the days where men would process down their own deer, butchering the animal into usable cuts that could be used to feed themselves and their families for the months to come. These were skills that had been seemingly lost within the years of the past.

Those were the days of taking your pictures in the back of your old pickup truck or of the lucky hunter stood next to his harvest as it hung inelegantly from the gambrel in the old garage or shed.

I thought about how the days of this type of hunting were long gone. For better or worse, this sport that we had all loved was changing; its soul and spirit had forever been modified with the changing of generations in the great state of Wisconsin.

The everyday deer hunter was no longer a man that wore his orange for nine days out of the year, hoping to bag some meat for his family was long gone. The everyday deer hunter of this time was a beast unlike the deer hunter of generations past for thousands of years. It was him who would choose the fate of the hunt throughout the future.

The deer hunter today made the pursuit of the whitetail deer into an obsession. He worried himself not with the rejoicing before opening day but instead with the quiet checking of high-tech stealth cameras he would place strategically across his property, hoping to take remote pictures of a monster buck. He worried himself not with the bragging over the monster buck he would see every day on his commute to work, the one that he would hope to shoot that season. In fact, he often told nobody of the animals that he pursued. This was done in selfish fear of another hunter taking the public resource that he had claimed as his own.

The deer hunter today often did not bear an orange coat over his shoulders on opening morning, instead preferring to hunt only with a bow and arrow, claiming that those who used a rifle were lazy and unskilled.

The deer hunter today would not dare to drink his coffee or smoke his cigarettes before or during a deer hunt, claiming that these outside scents would put the deer on high alert and cause them to avoid the hunter.

The deer hunter today was a creature of massive secrecy, for he was scared. He would not share his knowledge of the deer on his property with others, as he was a selfish creature that cared only for his own success. He would not allow those who share a passion for his sport any access to his own property, for fear that he would kill the public resource that he owned.

The deer hunter today did not sit quietly against a tree or in the brush to wait for a deer to cross his path. The deer hunter today relied on luxurious tree stands, box blinds, and ground blinds in order to provide a comfortable area to harvest his quarry from.

Lastly, the deer hunter today hunted a quarry quite different from the hunters of generations past. Today's deer hunter pursued only the oldest, largest-antlered bucks. He would not dare to harvest a young deer, for fear of ridicule from his peers.

Yes, the deer hunter of today was a much different man than he had been just a few decades ago. He had turned from a hopeful and prideful working man who took his well deserved vacation from backbreaking work in hopes of shooting a deer to use to supply his family with fresh, organic meat into a man that was a social recluse when it came to his sport. He would tell nobody of his deer until he had killed him or perhaps until the season had gone. He was a man who was greedily protective of his treasures. He hunted not for himself but for the bragging rights that killing the beasts would bring him.

Being from another time, I knew that I would never understand the thinking that went through the mind of the next generation of hunters. I snapped out of my ranting haze when I saw the brown body slipping silently along the hill, and I raised my rifle and set the cross hairs of the scope just behind the front shoulder of the young spike buck that stood before me, sliding the safety off with a click. I slowly allowed my finger to rest on the trigger and provide a gentle, steady pressure. Soon, I felt the old rifle recoil, and all thoughts of the new generation of hunters faded from my mind for the time being.