The first time that I saw him, he walked casually across a food plot in the middle of the afternoon. He seemed clueless and carefree with an insouciant attitude about the fact that he was less than 50 yards from a hunting blind and, thus, the business end of my rifle. Such is the way with young bucks.

However, even though he was a callow young buck, I could tell that he had the potential to be special. His perfectly symmetrical rack had a rich chocolate hue and, even for a juvenile, it already had character, each tine ending in a small crab claw.

That day as I sat in the blind in “The Big Field,” I began my history with the buck that became known as “Mr. Crabs,” a history that was to last over the next four seasons. I would love to say that it played out in a typical cat and mouse fashion. However, more accurately, each season proved to be more of a student and master situation, with me, most often, playing the role of the student.

To say that Mr. Crabs schooled me would be an understatement. After my initial sighting, I saw him in legal shooting hours only twice until this season (unless you count daylight game camera photos).

In the last light of opening day 2021, he simply appeared in the lane that I had been diligently watching. One minute there was nothing and the next he was standing there. Such is the way with old bucks, as the old saying goes, “They don’t get old by making mistakes.”

When I saw him, I began, ever so slowly, lowering my head to the scope of the rifle I had shouldered, instinctually, when he appeared and just as he had materialized from nowhere, to nowhere he returned. I was deflated.

A few weeks later, I would get another chance at him. The rut was on and the deer had been on the move all morning. At midday, I decided to walk back to the truck to grab lunch. As I made my way down the hill from the Big Field, I rounded the corner to find Crabs walking toward me up the hill.

We both froze in our tracks. Slowly, I dropped to one knee while raising the rifle to my shoulder. My eye found the riflescope and as I moved the rifle to center the crosshairs on the big buck’s vitals, I caught a glimpse of his white tail disappearing into the thicket bordering the road. Once again, the teacher had schooled the pupil.

Crabs was a special buck. The kind of buck that, for many reasons, keeps you up at night. First and foremost, you usually only see a buck like him at night on game camera pictures. For four seasons, those game cam pics kept me entertained and kept me coming back for more.

They also keep you up at night because every picture that you see posted on social media or in print begins to look like “your buck.” You find yourself comparing those pics to your game cam pics to ensure yourself that “your buck” is still out there.

In all honesty, unless you hunt behind a high fence, there is no such thing as “your buck.” That’s the beauty of hunting—there are no guarantees. If the outcome was guaranteed, what would be the challenge?

As hunters, we read the signs, we take all available data, and we try to predict the habits of our quarry. We try to place ourselves in the places they will be at some moment in the future and, when that moment comes, we are faced with a decision, the outcome of which results in a hard finality.

I spent many hours in the pursuit this year with the words of José Ortega y Gasset in my hands. In “Meditations on Hunting” the Spanish philosopher and writer speaks eloquently to the reality of the finality the hunter faces.

“Every good hunter is uneasy in the depths of his conscience when faced with the death he is about to inflict on the enchanting animal,” he writes.

I grappled with this reality as I stood over Mr. Crabs, and as I held his antlers in my hands, I wept. In the words of Ortega y Gasset, “All this leads up to that final scene of the hunt in which the fine skin of the animal appears stained with blood, and that body, once pure agility, lies transformed into the absolute paralysis that is death.”

Crabs had enchanted me for five glorious seasons and, now, he was gone. I was thrilled to have taken the best buck I have ever taken and to have done so on our family farm, a place that means so much to me.

It was bittersweet. It was also a reminder to me that so much of the beauty of the hunt has been tainted today in the world of social media and stripped of the honor that it deserves.

As hunters, we owe it to the game that we pursue to do so honorably. Until next time, here’s to the “enchanting animals” that get us up early and keep us out late, here’s to pursuing them honorably, to mentoring others to do the same, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.