A friend approaches excitedly with a handful of photographs. “Here we go again,” you think. “He can’t wait to show off snapshots of the giant buck he got down on Somewhere Creek.” And the story that goes along with the pictures calls for obligatory smiles and nods and intermittent exclamations.

You congratulate him and salute his success, but there is a hint of despondency here. You haven’t so much as seen a legal buck and yet your friend’s grubby hands and the newspapers are full of pictures of wide-beamed trophies with antler points sticking up all over the place. And the season is getting well into the January rut.

This happens. You have prepared well and hunted hard but the big one has eluded you. It happens to most of us. How well I know because it has happened to me plenty of my many seasons. And it will happen again if I have very many seasons left to hunt deer. So I am about to give myself some advice. Anyone going through the “antler drought” is welcome to eavesdrop.

The essence

The vital element of my strategy for breaking one of these dry spells in the deer woods can be condensed into one red-letter word; patience. A deer hunter can attain success if he or she does the right things and just keeps on doing them. This lesson was one of the first I learned as a deer hunter and one learned with the highest legitimacy – experience.

The experience of hunting deer 11 years before bagging my first one taught me patience and taught it well. In those days when deer were almost as scarce as sunshine in January, hunters who lacked patience shunned deer hunting. Some excellent outdoors enthusiasts left the ranks of deer hunters after only a few unsuccessful hunts, presumably to pursue more action oriented pastimes.

Patience will make up for numerous hunter shortcomings. And patience will bring success if it is applied long enough. The big buck may not come along this week or the next or even this season or the next. But to the hunter who waits will come the buck with the keen nose and the heavy antlers and the swollen neck.

Hurry not

Most of life’s endeavors these days are rushed. We are surrounded by fast food, fast modems, fast banking, fast everything. Time in the woods waiting for deer which have no reason to speed up their lives can be a return to the realities of nature. I once heard a Native American comment on our characteristic running about. “The white man is being chased by an unseen wolf,” was his wise observation. The admonition to the hunter here is to go forth with a sound plan and be patient.

I spent five and a half hours watching for a buck one morning log ago and saw not a hair. But on one morning I was out there less than three hours when a buck pranced into the oat patch and sniffed all around looking for doe scent. I bagged the young eight pointer in short order. He was well fleshed but with only a neat little basket rack. But if I put in enough hours, the rut-crazed monarch will eventually appear, the one deep of body and heavy of antler.

So, heeding my own advice, I plan to return to the woods and do some more waiting. Anticipation will sustain me; anticipation of that high moment when my patience will at last bear fruit. And I will remind myself that our most cherished rewards often are the ones for which we wait the longest.