The Greater Part of Hunting

The greater part of hunting is still and silent, waiting, looking, and hoping, living inside your own head and your field of view. Most of hunting is waiting in anticipation of action.  This is the way for deer hunters.  Some hunters have their minds made up before they leave the house.  They have always used the same blind, or the same tree, because it always works. Until I found myself immersed in thinking about deer and their habitat well after the hunting season ended, I hadnt yet realized what hunting was all about.  I always knew it was about pursuing and killing an animal for food, but only recently have I realized the depth of experience I would find through hunting.  It is quite unlike the images of enormous bucks printed in the magazines, or the seemingly constant action portrayed on the latest trophy hunting shows.  These deer do exist. Even here in Michigan where most believe that if it’s brown, it’s down.  I have seen only a few that gave me involuntary convulsions.  Too often, though, these types of encounters happen while also engaged in heated battle with hope, distraction, and cold air stacking the odds even higher. In the moment of truth it is the battle inside your own head that counts the most.