This was around the time of the dot-com bust, the first tech bubble collapse I would experience (but not the last).
I was interested in hunting for practical reasons. I had tasted venison when I was young but didn’t really remember it much. Early on after I first met my father-in-law he offered me venison “hot sticks” as compensation for driving a Saturn back from Ohio (that’s a whole other story). I got hooked on them, and as the lean times of the tech industry bore down on me I was looking for ways to make lunches cheaper. 10’s of pounds of protein for sitting in the trees for a couple days was the best deal going at the time.
The second year I had my own stand and another loaner rifle. This was a 7mm mag with iron sights and would turn out to be my favorite hunting rifle. Later I would receive a 300 Winchester magnum with a nice German scope, but I always found it easier to acquire and hit the target with regular open sights.
The second year I had a lot of time to myself and spent that time thinking about my relationship to hunting. I had complex feelings after taking my first deer and it took awhile to reconcile them. Where I landed was that I was in the woods asking nature to provide me with food. I would sit quietly and wait for this gift, without tricks or lures or anything other than patience, and if she sent a deer across my path I would harvest it thankfully.
A deer did cross my path that year on the second day. It was a very cold morning, just after first light when the medium buck leapt into the lane about 200 yards out. This deer was large enough to share, and even after passing some around it lasted us through the winter.
I went hunting a few more times with my father-in-law but nature saw fit to keep the deer to herself. During these hunts I had a lot of time to think (I even came up with a very weird idea for a hunting film…) Coincidentally, these years the industry had picked-up and I was less strapped for cash to feed my young family. As the years passed I slowly stopped hunting, not deliberately, just replacing the activity with other things. Eventually my father-in-law left the state and sold his land and that was that.
I don’t have any plans to return to the woods to hunt, but I’m thankful for the times that I did. It provided me with practical knowledge and experience and a renewed reverence for the power and wisdom of nature. I know that when I need it again she will be there waiting for me.