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Deer opener opens up mystery of hunting
By Cynthya Porter
I used to think deer hunting was about killing, and that the people who enjoyed it had a mean streak. Unspent aggression. A complex.
Then again, I never really knew any deer hunters while growing up, I only knew them through the stories that would roll through the small farming community I lived in. A prized cow or horse found shot in the field, or a dead deer in the woods with only the rack cut off. It was enough to generate disdain, if not outright contempt.
And I should mention that I was the one on my grandfather’s farm who sat in the house and cried while the others butchered sheep.
So it was with great amusement to those who know me that the gentlemen from the Minnesota Office of Tourism invited me to the Governor’s Deer Hunting Opener. What was even funnier was that I accepted.
But what I found at deer camp laid waste to the notions of my youth. Even though I couldn’t have been more out of my element among these orange-clad hunters, I also couldn’t have been more wrong about them.
I cut my deer camp teeth last year in the bitter, deerless cold with a woman named Nicole who made me look like a sissy. I bumbled, I fumbled, I nearly froze to death, and I liked it so much I decided to do it again.
But this year I wanted to start at the beginning, to shadow a young hunter trying for his first deer. In doing so I hoped to learn how the seed for this sport grows, and frankly I figured I wouldn’t feel quite as stupid next to an inexperienced kid. It turns out I was wrong about the feeling stupid part, but I think I found the seed.
If the love for hunting is something that sprouts over time, Dan Treb is the Miracle Grow that makes it so in his family. The hunting patriarch of an extended clan, Treb has taken it upon himself to see that the children in the family are offered the opportunity to hunt. After they complete gun safety, he buys each child a gun and sponsors a trip to anyplace in the country. One time, Treb said at the Big Buck dinner that kicked off Deer Camp 2004, he made the mistake of not specifying a “hunting” trip to anywhere and two nieces got a wonderful trip to a Broadway play instead. Usually, though, the big trip is out west or up north or down south, where Treb and his companions have hunted everything from elk to bears to wild pigs.
For Treb, who has hunted all over the world and has over 80 mounted animals in his home, deer hunting in the northwoods these days is more for the benefit of the youth in his family, one of whom would be my host in the woods near Grand Rapids on the coming Saturday.
But first was a day full of outdoorish activities to get us media-types in the mood, and Lord knows nothing gets me in the mood for writing a story like shooting a gun.
I kid.
I’ve only fired a shotgun twice, both times at other Governor’s events, and that was nothing compared to what we were going to try our hands at thanks to the Minnesota Shooting Sports Education Center in Grand Rapids. In addition to a clay pigeon course, the facility boasted indoor archery and rifle ranges and, much to my dismay, they had set up a contest for the Governor’s Deer Hunting Opener participants.
I couldn’t have been more out of place in this group than a clown in church, but as we moved from station to station I learned a few things.
I learned that you’re supposed to shoot at clay pigeons with both your eyes open. Who knew.
I learned that a high school junior named Ashley Lane can just about put 10 bullets through a single hole at 50 yards, which makes her one of the best in the nation and a strong prospect for the Olympics. And she’s from Grand Rapids, which is kind of cool.
I learned that I hate archery because I’m such a milly I could hardly draw a kid’s bow.
And I learned something else, something that was an even greater surprise for me than for the people around me: I’m a deadeye when it comes to shooting a gun.
After a false start with a gun that was too big and a minor adjustment that included telling me to open both my eyes, I broke five out of five clay pigeons.
I shot 94 points out of 100 in my practice round on the rifle range and 84 points on the competition sheet (nerves, I guess).
But the archery killed me in the points race, although I strenuously objected that an arrow in the fake bear’s head didn’t get any points, because I know it would sure slow him down in the woods. I whined about the small kill-zone on the deer too, arguing that it is very hard to run with an arrow sticking out of your kneecap.
In fact, I whined so much they gave me an award at the reception that evening, calling it the Most Improved Shooter award or something. They could have just as well called it the Who Knew She Could Shoot A Gun award, but they probably wanted to call it the Biggest Whiner Who Didn’t Win award.
Even so, puffed up on my new-found status as a person who officially wasn’t too bad with a gun, I set off into the woods with Treb’s nephew the next morning to see if we could get this kid a deer.
When I say “we” what I really mean is “he,” because I didn’t have a gun. I was really just there for moral support, unless he actually shot a deer, in which case I figured the carnage would send me running into the woods.
At 16, Jonathan Podgornik had yet to bag a deer, although he didn’t seem overly anxious about it. He’d get one when he got one. In fact, others at the deer camp teased him about sleeping in his stand last year, something he only half denied.
But frankly, who can blame the guy?
Out in the woods, Jonathan settled into a platform about 15 feet off the ground and I settled into my very own stand, right underneath him. When I refer to my “stand,” what I really mean is 12-foot ladder thing with a seat at the top.
Perched atop the portable stand, which I began to think of as the “death seat” after a while, I listened as a hush fell over the woods before the first rays of morning light.
The woods smelled good, and there was something peaceful about watching the gray light slowly illuminate the spindly trees around us. So peaceful and quiet and still…
I jerked awake to the realization that I was falling asleep 12 feet off the ground on a tiny seat with no safety strap on.
I had passed anything over one cup of coffee that morning because I heard a rumor that there are no bathrooms in the woods, and now my uncaffinated state was catching up with me. Genuinely fearing for my life, I did what any self-respecting hunter would do in that situation; I climbed down, propped myself up against the tree and went to sleep.
It was an uneventful morning in the woods, or so I hear. Jonathan had seen a couple of deer picking their way through the trees some distance away, but without a reasonable shot he let them pass. That, Treb explained later, is an important part of learning to be a deer hunter too, a quality he is glad his nephew possesses. Part of hunting is hunting responsibly, he said, with ethics equal to passion and a healthy dose of common sense.
The unseasonably warm weather had probably contributed to the quiet morning, Treb said, but there would be other days, other deer. Even if Jonathan has not bagged a deer, he is every bit a hunter, and he will be back.
Things weren’t so quiet back at the Sawmill Resort, our home-base for deer camp.
The governor had bagged a deer and media people milled around oogling it. I oogled it for a minute too, noticing its decent size despite its smallish rack. I also noticed its tawny coat and soft-looking muzzle, the kind of things I would have noticed about the sheep on my grandfather’s farm. But the site of this slain animal had an unexpected effect on me.
As I stood there, for the briefest moment I wondered if I would have been a good enough shot to get that deer.
And suddenly I got it.
This was a deer. Its meat would feed people. It had taken skill, determination and patience to hunt it. Killing this deer was not done with a mean spirit, it was done because it is what we have done for all of our existence. Sport combined with practicality and conscience has a nobility that a few poachers or hack hunters can’t begin to represent.
So with my new-found epiphany could I go out tomorrow and shoot a deer? Probably not. Could I ever? Hard to say, but I know I found the seed. We’ll have to see if it grows.
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