Ruminations Deer Hunting

In the aftermath of the election

I have been deer hunting seven and a half days. I have seen 22 deer, but I have not taken one. I have seen four big bucks, but I have taken two shots and missed both clean, and missed an opportunity for a shot at a third. The first, I had him in the sites at about 160yrds but hesitated, as he was heading in my direction, then he turned and started moving faster, running broadside at about 120yds and I took a shot. I wasn't leading him properly, and I think I subconsciously decided not to shoot it, the way I remember the site trailing back and me really pulling the trigger. It was not an easy shot and I do not mean to wound a big buck. I lost a doe last year and I have not forgotten. She was only the second deer I have ever lost, and I intend the last.

I looked for an hour at least for blood. I missed clean.

I had a second opportunity for a half-second at about 130yds in a fog, but I hesitated again, and there is no hesitating with big bucks. If you have a shot, take it.

The third was a decent six pointer, only 25yds away just inside the woods. He was on the move fast, sniffing the ground like a dog or a squirrel rooting through fallen leaves. He was following the scent of a small doe that had passed by 15 minutes earlier. Straight out, facing away I was sure I shot him in the back of the neck; but running away he did not appear like a deer shot, more like he was confused, he wanted to get out of there fast but he was not quite sure where that big sound came from.

I sometimes aim for the neck (in this case he was facing away and I had to), because that is where they store a lot of their fat, neck meat is dog food mostly, and if you miss you miss mostly or entirely clean, and if you hit them they usually drop right there rather than a hundred yards or more deeper in the woods or some tall grass wetland. Most deer hunters shoot for the heart and lungs, but if you miss you are likely to wound the deer, and even if it is eventually fatal, a wounded buck can run for miles before he lays down. He might stop bleeding before then, and then good luck finding him. I’ve seen a buck without a functioning heart or lungs run another 150yds.

They are big bucks because they don’t stop moving. This time of year they are always looking for does, you only typically see a big buck when he is chasing a doe.

She doesn't make it easy for him to catch her. All the bucks I’ve seen were chasing does.

I do not find it easy to kill a deer in any case. I love to be out here, but a true hunter knows, death will take us all. Killing a deer will feed my family, I will shoot a deer, I will dress it and process it myself. But there is joy and sadness in every kill.

I built this stand with a used pallet, some scrap plywood and ironwood I cut from the woods, about three weeks ago.

East. The woods. Not a lot of visibility because the midstory up to 15ft is ironwood, and they are some of the last to drop their leaves.

South. The stand and camera are wonky, not the pond.

West. Pine and tamarack, almost no visibility.

North. I should have built this stand just east of this pine, the pine obscures my angle on the field.

It’s a beautiful spot, but I realized eventually, everything is a lot tighter, a lot denser here, than the old growth in these woods where I have typically hunted. There are few natural shooting lanes. Coming from the east and the woods or the tamarack and pine behind me, the deer are well within shooting range before I am able to see them, I don’t have a lot of time to set up, and they can disappear fast. There is a lot more plant material in the way here. It is a harder hunt than I am used to.

I have spent time on substack while I am in the deer stand. I have always been a regular reader of the news since I was a young kid, there was just an historic election. I have never paid this much attention to politics.

I have not yet missed any opportunity to shoot a deer because I am looking at my phone. I read a paragraph or two, scan the woods and field. I have several times looked up spontaneously to see a deer in the distance. The more I am in the woods and walk the fields the more I come to feel the land, to become part of it. I’m here and present, even when I’m on substack. I spend just as much time with the phone in my pocket.

It is a bright moon these last few days of deer hunting. The beaver moon, a supermoon closer to the earth than normal. Deer can feed in such moonlight. That can mean they move less during the day. I have one more day to hunt with a rifle.

The moon reflects the light of the sun, so the moon is feminine. That might be a positive way to order society, in part, being more thoughtful about the rhythms of the moon and honoring the feminine in that way. By contrast we have been experiencing a society ruled in part by the feminine in shadow, thinking it does not need the sun, or should rule the sun, femininity disconnected from the rhythms of the sun, earth and the moon, which feminism the American people just rejected. Life in the modern “long house” is suffocating, it demands ideological compliance, it can be vicious and ruthless, quite unpleasant.

It has been clarifying, like I suspected, in the aftermath of this election. Many Democrats remain in denial, leaning into anger. Few of them seem to have learned anything, repeating all the same pre-election tropes, but with a greater bitterness. They are being fed with new tropes all the time, which they are imbibing like hard alcohol.

I’m not sure why Rosie H would think it healthy or productive to tell me that women could only be disgusted by me, because I’m cautiously optimistic the Trump administration will begin dismantling the deep state and smash the censorship complex? One liberal restacks my note and it turns into a lesson in delusional, projection liberal fury. But then America has been enduring normalized, female emotional abuse for four years especially but longer than that; all in all it has felt like relief from all that lately, like it has lost it’s power.

It has been a little sad too, seeing so many on the right dissident circuit here on substack, refuse to see anything positive in this recent turn of events, like everything is a psyop including Trump, or there can be nothing but doom. It is amazing to me, how the American people, a broadly diverse American majority, rejected the democrat/liberal party, their woke ideology and their takeover of American institutions. That is the most positive political development I have ever seen in my gen X lifetime, nothing comes even close. And yet some of the intellectual right, the dissident conscience of the right, is acting like the only possible outcome is a shitty one, betrayal, or just the same despotic technocratic future we anticipate from Democrats. I suppose dissident was never synonymous necessarily with agreeableness. Whatever, you cannot shake my faith in America and the American people, and the message we sent with this election.

For instance, Marco Rubio. The lazy, worst take is he’s a vaguely effeminate neocon zionist. I prefer Walter Kirn’s take, a powerful man who speaks Spanish better than he speaks English, who just got a promotion, is feeling good about his place in American history, who could be very effective helping to deport the worst and also the bulk of illegal migrants, back to Mexico, central and south America.

Matt Gaetz? Who do you think could better clean out the DoJ and FBI, and use anti-trust laws to cut Google, Facebook, etc down to size if they persist with woke censorship and DEI? How else is woke globalist ideology going to be rooted out, without the threat of breaking up institutions public and private? How many do you know who have the stones and the smarts for that fight?

RFKjr. Bless Trump’s heart. Who better in America to take on America’s Heath Care and food cartels? No one. I hope he is Director of HHS for the next 8-12 years. I hope he gets clarity on what really happened to his Uncle and Dad. For his and America’s sake.

Trump is the right man for the right time. His has been on the Hero’s Journey of late, he prevailed, it is a win for the ages.

±++++

Missing two shots and not taking a third. For 35 years I have hunted these woods, always on stands in the woods, and I only saw one big buck all that time, which I did shoot. I have never hunted the field, but I saw three bucks as big as I have ever seen here, this year, in the field. Next year I will build a stand at the woodland edge with a better view of much of the field, 150yrds north of where I am now.

It has been fun too though, just watching the ducks on the pond, buffleheads and a lot of wood ducks.

Three missed opportunities at big bucks. I think I cannot call myself some great hunter. I feel like I was a better shot at 15 with a 30x30 without a scope. I can hit a quarter dollar at 100yds with this .270. Hitting a big buck that is on the run in real time? I have shot dozens of deer, maybe 50. If I were a true hunter I would have shot that first buck dead in the field.

++++++

The first deer I saw this hunting season was a small buck, the first morning, three points on his right antler, his left hanging down deformed. He was smaller than I would expect of a six-pointer. He walked from inside the woods to just inside the birch edge, and sat down 25yds out, right in front of me. In 35 years I have never seen a deer just sit down. That is strange behavior. I’m not sure I want to feed this deer to my family, I thought. He sat there for twenty minutes, staring at me sometimes, before he stood up and walked slowly in the direction he had been heading before he sat down for a short rest.

I didn't know until later that he probably had a lame leg, either the back right leg or the front left. For some reason The Science can't figure out, a back right leg injury results in the left antler deforming, but if the left front leg is injured, the left antler is deformed, and vice versa criss cross.

There is also a syndrome that can result in a lack of testosterone, leading to small balls and weak or malformed antlers. Trans seems not just a human thing maybe. Maybe it’s something in the water? Or the GMO corn and soybeans these deer are stuffed full with every late summer and fall?

I wonder now, was that deer a gift? That did occur to me at the time. This woods knows me, this land where I have spent so much time since I was a boy, this land and field and waters I speak to with gratitude. Was this a gift and a blessing, I declined, and maybe why in part this hunt has been so unsuccessful?

He did not look sickly. He did not have the brain-rot that effects deer in the southern part of the state, chronic wasting. He just had an accident, it has slowed him down. He’s smaller because of it. Which is just the sort of animal a pack of wolves would take down. There are no wolves, or rarely, but there are coyotes, if it’s a hard winter on him. If wolves or coyotes would take him, why didn't I? My parents eat a lot worse sometimes, than the quality of that meat. It would be better than most beef for certain.

*******

Two nights in a row with a big bright moon, last day of the rifle hunting season, this morning the air was moving, but not any deer. I heard a few people shooting. The wind dissipated, the afternoon was calm, sunny, mild at 50F, very beautiful, but I did not see a deer all day.

I haven't ended the rifle season here, without a deer I think the last 30 years.

That I think is a call too, these missed shots, the shots not taken, nothing taken in the end, this failed hunt, to question this substack, for myself and the reader. Have I been missing my target? What is my target? Am I not shooting straight, am I not aiming right, are my words not landing? Relative to some of my favorite writers here who started at much the same time, my numbers have not grown anything like, two and a half years in. They are deserving, they would not be my favorite if they were not great writers and thinkers worth following and emulating. My lack of growth is on me, something I am doing or not doing. What does Born on the Four of July even mean? This substack started on this land, which I had great plans for, much of which has not come to fruition. If it is indeed a new era in America, what can I write about here that is not the ongoing rant about a woke Trans globalist cabal leading us unto dystopia, this substack has largely devolved into?

I think I need to make some changes, like America.

I love my readers, and I love America. I am deeply grateful. Thank you for reading.