Although my first deer hunt was a few years off, I became enamored with the hunt in the late 1970s. The best day of the year was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. That’s when my dad and brothers returned from deer camp. Dad would always pull into the driveway with his truck loaded with hunting clothes, a freshly cut Christmas tree, and one, or sometimes two, frozen deer carcasses.
The defining moment of my early deer hunting education came one year when they returned with an 8-point buck. Well, we called it an 8-pointer, but it was something more like a 51/2-pointer because it had several tines broken from fighting.
The Beauty of the Hunt
That was the beauty of deer hunting back then. Nobody ever thought about putting a tape measure to the antlers of a buck. Antlers captured as much attention then as they do today, but the translations were vastly different. A 6-pointer was an ordinary buck, while an 8-pointer was a “good” buck. The 10-pointers were really special. Anything more than that was usually killed by someone else at some other distant camp.
A 12-, 14- or 16-pointer? That was like Snuffleupagus of Sesame Street — you heard a lot about them, but you never saw one for yourself.
The best part was that antler size was inconsequential. An 8-pointer was an 8-pointer; it didn’t matter if it had an 8-inch spread or an 18-inch spread. After gun season, the guys returned to their dart and bowling leagues and swapped reports with their buddies. I remember one guy who could sum up his camp’s season in one sentence: “Yep, we got nine deer, two 10-poin’ers, tree 8-poin’ers, a little 6 and tree big does.” That was it. No lengthy discussions on mass measurements or net scores. No mentions of brow tines or sticker points. No typical this or nontypical that. People simply didn’t care. Antlers were cool to look at, but they weren’t worshipped like they are today. To them, hunting was about meat acquisition and camp camaraderie.
It’s hard for me to stand on my soap box and spout off on the evils of antler worship because I appreciate big bucks as much as the next guy. My point in all of this is to emphasize how important it is for all hunters to understand the motives of the guy or gal on the other side of the fence. Their motives might be different from yours, and that’s OK. We are all in this together.
A Story of Innocence
The best example of innocent appreciation happened in my camp many years ago. Bear with me if you’ve already heard this one because I’ve repeated it a thousand times!
It was gun season, and my brother Ken killed a huge 10-pointer. This one was one to remember because it laid claim to being the biggest deer ever killed by anyone in our family.
The best moment came when our gang was gathered in my backyard, and everyone was taking photos. Everyone stood alert and wide-eyed, and it was cold enough to see puffs of air exiting their excited mouths.
“Gosh, this rack is huge,” someone said while closely admiring the buck. “What does it score?”
It didn’t take but a moment for someone else to reply.
“Who cares?”
Hunting Traditions: A Hunter’s Prayer
