December 31

Not Anymore

Well, the last day of the year has arrived and it's time to hang up the bow for another season. I look forward to this time with the same dread as a tetanus shot. But this too will pass and I don't even have a sore arm.

I know there are still two legal weeks of bow season left. But I figure if the big boy has made it to the new year he gets to have it. At least until around the first of November. I'll see him, hopefully, in the fall when he's bigger and I'm smart. Though, one out of two ain't bad.

I didn't get my big buck this year. I didn't even see one. But one of my neighbors got two trail photos of a big one that will keep me interested all year. It was huge, at least 250 pounds, with tall, thick, wide antlers including nice long brow tines. Then he showed me a photo of the same buck the very next night. I was shocked, those nice, tall brow tines had been broken off. Both of them. This big, dominate buck obviously met another large dominate buck. They fought and he lost. "I got dibbs on the winner." Though I've never seen him it's nice to know he's out there.

Anyway, that's hunting, some years you get the buck and some years the buck gets you. Even a big buck you didn't see. I can live with the fact there are days I make mistakes and spook the buck away. I know there are days when the wind shifts 20 minutes before dusk and I'm busted. Like I said, that's hunting.

What I don't like is when someone else screws things up. Like the City Slickers who have a cabin across the swamp from us. They've screwed up more hunts for me, my brothers and neighbors than a Greenhorn hunter wearing aftershave.

They are hunters in name only and I think, in general, there are more of them across the board than in years gone by. Less hunters and more of what one colleague refers to as, Slob Hunters. (Note the capital S)  They don't think about the noise they make, or the smells, or smoke, or their presence in places they're not suppose to be.

I seems like in the old days, 25 years ago or more, you learned about hunting courtesy right along with how to handle a gun or bow safely. You were taught to think about other hunters even if you can't see them. Not anymore.