A Beginner's Guide to Deer Hunting

Image Gallery ALAN & SANDY CAREY

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THERE'S SOMETHING ADDICTIVE about deer hunting. The sport may not appeal to everyone, but those of us who are susceptible to its lure can feel the hooks pulling from deep within. Perhaps no other form of outdoor activity is as inextricably entangled in our history, myth, and language. Consider that the term venison, for the meat of the deer, is derived from the name of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Other English terms sharing the same derivation are venerate ("to regard with reverential respect or with admiring deference"), venery (which means both "the art of hunting" and "the pursuit of sexual pleasure"), and venial ("meriting no particular censure"). Not to mention good old venereal, which, I suppose, needs no introduction. (Sounds like the stuff of a graduate-school thesis, "Buck Fever; Venereal Disease?")

At any rate, many men and women, after some degree or another of exposure to rural life, decide that the time has come for them to take a crack at deer hunting. Perhaps the motivating factor is a dinner of venison chops at a neighbor's house; maybe it has a more negative genesis that follows watching Bambi and family mow their way through the vegetable garden. Regardless of the reason for the urge, the novice nimrod is likely to find that game-meat gurus are hard to come by. Thus the reasoning behind our presenting this article.

I can't teach you everything you'll need to know when hunting deer, though a few read ers will most likely absorb the following pages and go out to score a good buck on opening day (those doing so will earn my envy and, probably, that of their closest friends, but drop me a line anyway should you be the one to strike it rich). Most, though, will go on to look for an experienced friend, relative, neighbor, or coworker to augment (and undoubtedly at times contradict) the information presented here. What I hope to do is cover enough essentials to keep you from sounding like a bozo when you ask for that advice, to spell out enough parameters to allow you to judge whether the advisor in question is someone you really want to hunt with, and maybe even to ask you to look at your own motivation for deer hunting, and decide whether you really should be out in the woods.

In fact, let's start right there.

Cheap Meat?

I wonder just how many would-be deerstalkers actually believe that the sport is a shortcut to a ready supply of low-cost protein. I suspect that the rationale is more commonly used to justify the purchase of a new rifle, a bow, or any one of the innumerable pieces of paraphernalia that every nimrod "must have" at one time or another. At the risk of ruining a perfectly good rationalization, let me set the record straight. If your only reason to take up hunting really is to obtain a supply of lowcost, chemical-free, lowfat meat, don't buy a rifle. Instead, buy a beef calf, feed him for a season or three, and butcher him yourself. I mean, it is possible to find a low-cost, used rifle or bow, throw on your gardening clothes, and bag a hundred pounds or so of venison, but it doesn't happen often. More common is the deer hunter who, after decades of pursuing his game—sometimes successfully, sometimes not—may reach the point of amortization at which his venison nears the cost of beef—but only beef as served in the better restaurants of New York, Chicago, Kansas City, or L.A.

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