'I didn't get a deer, darling'

A friend of mine goes deer hunting every year. Opening day of the hunting season is marked on his calendar even before the New Year's Champagne has lost its fizz. He hasn't killed a deer for more than 10 years, to my knowledge, but the fascination with the hunt has nonetheless remained unabated.

I finally figured out why.

As oxymoronic as it may seem, deer season has nothing to do with the pursuit of deer for many so-called hunters. The event itself is totally anticlimactic. What it's all about is the night before!

This point was driven home to me recently when I saw my friend shortly before the start of the official deer hunting season. I asked if he was ready for the hunt, as one does in these circumstances. His answer: "Oh, sure! We're having steak and lobster Friday night, jambalaya on Saturday and turkey and dressing Sunday." He was in a liquor store at the time (obviously enough, so was I).

Nothing was mentioned about weather conditions, or the deer herd's current population status, or the condition of food sources at my friend's farm. Just what he and the other hunters were having to eat.

Ironically enough, I saw a TV spot later that emphasized the wonderful status of this year's deer herd. A local conservation officer discussed record numbers, great conditions, etc. The clear implication was that any idiot could go into the woods, however briefly, and harvest a deer pretty much at will.

But this was not to be the case at my friend's farm. For one thing, one would assume they were all "moving kind of slow at the junction" after all that rich food. Additionally, some aftereffects of certain "neutral spirits" might have affected the enthusiasm level for the hunt before dawn on a Saturday morning. Them spirits ain't so neutral when you try to get up early the next morning!

So at my friend's farm, the would-be hunters wake up around 10 or 11 a.m., the sound of gunfire all around them. This tends to cut into the success of their deer hunting, at least if one looks at success as equivalent to getting an actual deer.

No, they kill a lot of things -- Crock-Pots of food, entire pies, several bottles of various liquid refreshment and a lot of time. But no deer, generally speaking.

Not that it's entirely a bad thing. If you don't get a deer, then you also don't have to clean and dress a deer. And there's no worry about what to do with all that meat, which is inferior to good beef (for example) in any case. If I'm hunting, take me to the Angus beef pastures, not the deer woods.

But my friend will still continue to look forward to deer hunting season every year. Who knows, he might actually get one again someday. And in the meantime, steak and lobster sounds pretty darned good.

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About R.W. Weeks

Rob is a retired Southern Illinois University instructor who lives on his family's farm in Union County, Illinois. His mother, Joan, who is a nice person, lives in Cape Girardeau.