Rifle season just opened in Southern Humboldt, where my family lives. It’s a busy time of year with its own set of rituals, including taking advantage of our seasonal visitors by putting them to work helping mark calves. I was up until 11:30 last night skinning a buck, then up again at 5 because the dogs were sure something was creeping and crawling around the barnyard. Today I let the mama cows chase me around because we all need more exercise, and let Dad process my buck into smaller pieces because he’s better at it than I am. I’m tired. I’m sore. I got home at 3 p.m. with an aching back and blood caked under my fingernails, smelling like a combination of an abattoir and wet leather. The thing is, I’m usually so good at NOT getting a buck during hunting season. What happened? If you’re hoping to avoid a scenario which involves blood, ticks and figuring out 90 new recipes for venison, I have some tips for you.
1. Go alone. I’ve never had a successful hunt when going out alone. Unfortunately, last night I had my experienced older cousin and family friend with me, who I’m not going to name because he didn’t consent to being written about. Also, I’m worried that he’s going to be bombarded with requests from other people because he is really good at spotting deer and for whatever reason loves to take people hunting.
2. Take a dog. The Old Dog was not invited on this hunt, for reasons that should be clear to anyone who’s met him.
3. Try to look cool. In the steep ridgelands where I’m from, a successful hunt often depends on one’s ability to do the “creep and peep,” which means hunching down so a deer won’t see your head pop up over the horizon, waddling from a squat position to almost the top of the ridge then army crawling so you can ‘peep’ down at the treeline. If you don’t want to get a deer, I suggest walking normally and not finding out how out of shape you are.
4. Don’t look down. As I said, much of the time you’re going to see deer near the treeline, often under the oaks that climb the grassy golden hills in the late summer. I cannot overstate how steep most of these hills are. In recent years I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon with our hunting camp friends. The older they get, the less their eyeballs seem to be able to look downhill to where the likely bucks might be, bedded down at the bottom of gullies full of poison oak. I might be struggling with the onset of whatever eyeball arthritis this is myself, because when we had crept and peeped our way to the lip of a rocky ledge, I told my cousin, “I am not shooting anything down there.” He seemed a little nonplussed, but we duly made our way across the ridgeline, where it was equally steep but at least not rocky. If you want to avoid shooting a deer, I recommend looking up for ones that will roll themselves into the back of your truck only.
5. Share your thoughts. As you might imagine, you’re supposed to be on the quiet side when you’re trying to sneak up on a fleet forest creature with ears like satellite dishes. Experienced hunters frown on their companions sharing the contents of their hearts and minds during a hunt. Good hunters find that their minds are delightfully blank at times like these, as they creep their way through the tall grass, trying not to make every single leaf and twig crackle under their boots. Hunting is very meditative, very awe-inspiring. It was about an hour before dusk and a half-moon had hung itself on the horizon. I was feeling very happy about the whole experience, spending time with my family, breathing in the clean air, knowing that soon it would be too late to hunt and we’d go back to the house where I could drink some cold water and release the Old Dog from confinement. I knew my cousin did not want to hear me talk about it, which is a shame, because I was filled with that same kind of sweet buzzing joy and contentment you sometimes get on a long distance run or a particularly good karaoke night. Thinking, “I could do this forever. God I love this. I hope I get to do this every weekend for the rest of the season.” But then he spotted a buck, which was the beginning of the end.
6. Be prepared. I’ve heard that fortune both favors the bold, and the prepared, which leads me to believe nobody actually knows what fortune, aka luck, favors at all. What I will tell you is that hunting generally favors Murphy’s law, and therefore the less prepared you are the more likely you are to suffer the misfortune of shooting a deer. So I recommend bringing a sharp knife, more than one flashlight and some water. It’s a good idea to be hydrated when you’re not trying to gut out a deer at the bottom of a ridge in near dark. One of many the flashlights you should bring is a headlamp, because you want to be able to see the bottom of the ridge where you’re not going to be cursing at your dull knife around a tiny flashlight held between your teeth. Also I recommend staying in good physical shape throughout the year. Can you imagine army crawling to the edge of a rocky point to take aim at a perfectly nice buck, only to find out that holding yourself up to take a good shot requires core strength that you apparently do not have? I can!
So I managed to shoot a nice three by three, a fat fellow who was sitting with two others about halfway down the ridge. My very kind cousin helped me locate him and then went to get the side by side. I would add a few more tips about how having a vehicle with a winch will almost certainly guarantee not getting a deer, but I feel like I’m stealing the glory from my companion a little bit, who helped me stagger up the slippery grass in the dark with my kill, each of us holding an antler, huffing and puffing and occasionally falling down. The spit-covered flashlight died about halfway up the hill. My cousin also, with righteous but not disdainful impatience, did most of the skinning once we got back to the house, alongside my father. And I’m grateful. To him, to the deer that gave his young life to my bullet so I can bring meat to my family and my neighbors, and help me get through the oncoming winter. But most of all, I’m grateful that I only got one tag this year. Maybe I’ll still go out next weekend, not to hunt for myself, but to help out. I am really not that good at creeping, peeping, shooting or skinning, but I still feel I have a lot to offer by way of advice.