Friday, October 4, 2019

DEVOTION OF THE HUNTER


  This is a photo of the biggest buck I ever shot. It was 2013; the best season in the woods I’d ever experienced. I killed two giant bucks that year; one with the bow the other with the muzzleloader. Neither came easy. They rarely do. 
     The first buck, that I shot with the bow, I’d wounded late in the afternoon and was afraid I had gut shot it. Following good bowhunter protocol, I’d backed out of the woods and picked up the blood trail in the morning. Here I enlisted the help of expert tracker and old friend Bill Voegelin and his wired-haired Dachshund, Bonnie. Long story short, we lost the sparse blood trail, and if it wasn’t for blind luck (me stumbling over the dead deer) we never would’ve found him. It was gut shot. After a long and illustrious term of service, Bonnie and Bill retired from deer-search and tracking soon thereafter.
    The second buck I was hunting late in the season in the snow and sub-zero temperatures of mid-December. I’d seen obvious sign, trees torn up with antler rubs and still smoking ground scrapes near one of my tree stands, but hadn’t laid eyes on the buck. By the last week of the season I’d given up on the buck and was concentrating on shooting meat. I resolved to shoot the next adult doe who presented me with a shot. Around 11:00 am, freezing to death, I’d lowered my gun from the stand twice, only to spot movement far out in the woods and continue the hunt. Suddenly there was a deer right below my stand. Carefully I raised the gun…..and then spotted tiny horns. It was an illegal “button buck.” I sighed in frustration. About to lower my gun (again) and go home I made one last scan of the woods. I spotted the ass of a deer 50 yards off to my left. If she turned I had a shot. Focusing the scope and settling the crosshairs, I waited. When the deer finally turned and raised its head I saw the rack. 

     To show a photo of a dead animal on social media can be alienating. One time, after proudly displaying the results of a successful hunt, a woman scolded me on Facebook, instructing me to “NEVER post a dead deer again!” I remind all of you meat eaters that hamburgers do not fall from the hamburger tree. My vegan friends don’t seem to have a problem with my hunting or posting. Anyone who is offended is welcome to unfollow me and enjoy your burger. I’m completely comfortable with my hunting ethos. Many years I’ll shoot smaller bucks and does. Some years I come up empty. But given the opportunity to kill a massive, mature, whitetail buck and thousands of years of wiring can’t be denied. The juices kick in. Plenty will say “Can’t eat horns.” But that wiring does not only come from a millennia of antler envy. This buck had more meat on him than two does. My breath quickened. I waited…..and waited. When he stepped from behind the tree, exposing his vitals, I squeezed the trigger. He ran twenty yards and piled up dead. I had my trophy and a freezer full of venison.

   Tuesday was opening day of bow season for deer here in the Catskills. I can confidently say that I’m the eleventh generation of Osterhouts to attempt to kill deer in these mountains. DNA seems to play a role. I sat in a new stand in John Letourneau’s swamp, next to the old Denniston graveyard, where legend has it there are also Lenape buried, hopefully not killed by Osterhouts. I saw three does. I was home……in church. Trophies are nice, but in the end unnecessary to maintain the enthusiasm it takes to get up before dawn when it’s 10 below zero and get in the stand. For that you need devotion…..and an empty freezer. 

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