Otha Barham
Shuffling leaves on the hillside above your ladder stand; movement in the brush at the far end of your green patch; melodious cries from the hounds approaching from the swamp. These are sounds of the hunt for whitetail deer.
There are others. A white oak acorn splatting into the leaves just ten feet away, shattering the charged silence and scaring you silly; a pair of wood ducks swimming by in the creek that runs just three steps from your shoot house; crows screaming nearby at some unseen creature that you imagine to be a trophy buck.
At camp one might hear the crackling of hickory logs in a big iron heater; rounds of boisterous laughter following good natured ribbing; the call of a barred owl celebrating the emergence of a full moon.
Esteemed Quarry
The sounds of hunting the whitetail deer are just one part of this universally practiced and revered sport. No other big game animal in the country attracts more to its haunts than the plentiful whitetail. The outdoor magazines feature color closeups of majestic bucks on their fall and winter covers. Catalogs loaded with deer hunting gear fill the mailboxes of the nation as deer season approaches.
Manufacturers of cover scents and attractants refine their products with science akin to human medical research. Likewise bullet designers and rain wear companies and knife makers and producers of calling devices. All are parts of a throng that supports the burgeoning industry which in turn serves whitetail deer hunting.
What does deer hunting do for us? Why do we spend our recreational budget, and sometimes more, for hunting leases and fine rifle scopes and premium ammunition and tractors to plow our oat patches?
An anthropologist might suggest, I think rightly, that deer hunting serves our role as descendants of hunter/gatherers who still carry the genes and thus the inclinations of our ancestors. A less analytical look reveals a sport that is less competitive than other sports and most other human endeavors that make up our daily lives. Of course some view it as competitive because of their personalities.
But typically we compete only against ourselves and the survival instincts of the deer. The competitive reality is that we lose far more times than we win. We wait on stand for hours, days and yes even years as I did for “success” in bagging a deer. But those who feel no need to compete spend their deer hunts watching nature work and feeling a part of a timeless creation while delighting in abundant anticipation.
A woodcock flitters past our stand and we wonder how it made the flight from New England with it’s butterfly-like wing beats. How does the woodpecker making rows of holes in a tree know that insects will lodge there for its later dining convenience? We marvel at the great Vs of geese that point south, each goose except the leader laboring in the slipstream of another, and we wonder how they choose the point goose.
Many Rewards
Yes, there is more to deer hunting than killing a deer. Most hunters I know don’t shoot very many of the deer they observe in the woods. Planting green patches and sighting in the rifle and building shoot houses and just being in the woods is a larger part of the fun than bagging a deer.
The major attraction for many is the fact that the entire family can hunt together, facilitating bonding that could be missing from other pursuits. The value of a parent taking a youngster into the woods and teaching the rewards of patience, persistence, appreciation for nature, preparation and the other character building pursuits is difficult to discern.
The whitetail deer is the big game animal of the South. It is our elk, our moose, our caribou. It is cunning, beautiful, widely admired and it is here; right here in our forests and fields. It is the season of this grand wild beast. Let the hunt continue.
