Hunting

Every November or early December an article appears in the paper about the scourge of hunting and how the writer can't understand the urge to kill, to hunt. Typically the writer has a friend who hunts or has interviewed a hunter or two and these people are as poor at articulating what they do as the writer is at understanding what they do.
Hunting, obviously, is an ancient necessity and skill. The good hunter bringing food to the tribal village was a hero. And so it is still, in some places. My grandfather was a hunter and fisherman so when I began bringing home fish as a very young boy we cleaned and ate them and I felt important in a way that was good but not common for active little boys who are more likely to be in trouble for one thing or another. My two friends and I got positive feedback from it and found allies among the black cooks and maids who worked in the white houses in the neighborhood where we lived. They still had memories of growing up close to the land- rural poor in Virginia and North Carolina where they ate coons and possums and fish from the creek. So they knew what to do with the squirrels and rabbits we brought back from the woods. And that is where we were all our free time- roaming in the woods or every day after school fishing from the rocks of Long Island Sound waiting for the founders or blackfish to bite and watching the sky and the water and the birds soaring above, calling to each other.
 We did not talk much in those situations because we were absorbed in the experience of nature itself. It was powerful and calming all at the same time. Even now I can smell the low tide smell and see the clear clean days above the rippling waves and the white clouds in blue sky above. As the sun sank and we had to get ready for going home we would clean our fish and throw the rest of the bait away. Then we would whistle and from far away rocks the seagulls would come to us and receive what we had for them. They knew us. One of my two growing up friends who is still my growing up friend after 55 years asked recently, "What were the other kids doing?" What a great question! It never occurred to us at the time, which is also remarkable since most kids want to be doing what the other kids are doing. What we had discovered for ourselves was where we wanted to be. Such is the power of nature. But we weren't just hanging around; we were fishing off the rocks or hunting in the woods and there was skill involved and anticipation and knowledge to be acquired about flounders, blackfish, gray squirrels and cottontail rabbits. We read the outdoor magazines and I kept numerous animals in my basement including a skunk, a raven, and a number of snakes. The involvement with hunting and fishing became a general interest in natural history beyond game for the table.
This last deer season I was out alone in big country for 8 or 9 hours at a time with no candy bars, just a little Red Man chewing tobacco and water from the brooks. I was completely content moving slowly, never taking more than 4 or 5 steps at a time before scanning the entirely new landscape before my eyes and marveling at the variety and intricacy of the country I was in. During the time I hunted I saw 8 deer, a moose, and an otter besides quite a few grouse, hawks and ravens. Mostly I was learning new country and trying to understand its highways and byways, which are as clear and important as the interstate system if you can know and understand them. I learned about the rut and the behavior of the rutting buck in pursuit of does, which resembles human behavior-at least my own- to a remarkable degree. It is the hunter's best chance to kill a big buck since they don't think right when they are in the rutting condition. They act "foolish" when normally they are almost impossible to fool. And I had a great chance when I saw a fresh scrape on fresh snow and followed the tracks of the does and then I saw them coming toward me from a distance, skipping and bobbing up and down and then passing by me over to my left with big doe eyes and looking very feminine and coy. I say this sincerely without projecting anything. It surprised me how human it all was.
 Then I waited, not moving. Half an hour later here he comes striding along, not walking, not trotting but covering the ground on long legs, nose to the ground on the tracks of the does. By the time I could see his antlers he was by me, the up and down of the landscape making it hard to shoot. As he went past he was on the other side of a little rise in the land and I turned, crouched down, and ran over to it, using it as cover. Straightening up, I saw him on the other side, not far away but facing directly away from me, stopped because he had smelled my scent from the path I took into this little part of the woods. I got my rifle up and took a bead on the back of his head- a very small target. It never occurred to me to shoot him in the rear end where the bullet might just break a leg or wind up in the stomach, causing a mess and a slow death. So I missed and then forgot at the same time to lever another shell into the chamber because the first shot just mystified the deer and I had another chance- a decent shot, but no go and by the time another shell was in the chamber he was gone. This was hard to take! I can replay the whole thing in vivid detail any time I like. Every bit of it is etched in my memory and this is true of other times like that in one way or another- particularly the ones that got away.
Those many beautiful hours I was in the woods by myself, hunting and learning the country, I felt I was using my eyes and my ears in ways they were meant to be used. I was really looking, really seeing everything I could take in, and in my ears deciphering the subtle differences in what was coming from the wet-weather brooks, or the big streams or the wind and maybe the footfalls of an animal or the cry of a hawk or raven. People have said, "Why don't you just take your camera and do it that way?" That's a reasonable question. But it's not the same; that's all. And maybe the death part is the ancient part that gives focus to the whole thing, because you are also conscious of your own death, your mortality. In my case I was often in danger of breaking a leg; some of the country is downright treacherous. Recently when a friend broke her leg filling her birdfeeder I had to wonder about my days on slippery rocks in the middle of nowhere. That's part of it too, to meet the force of nature and accept what she provides or takes away.
 If you hunt right and you are not a religious person you will, in some sense, become one. It's guaranteed if you put in the time and go out alone.

Ricker Winsor
PO 802
Bradford, Vt. 05033
802-222-3389

PS This hunt took place in New Hampshire.