Kneeling beside my first deer, I had no words. I just sat there stunned, my hand on his shoulder, uncertain whether I would ever hunt again. Finally, I whispered something clumsy: half gratitude, half apology. The next year, when my second deer dropped in his tracks, I was shaken but less shocked. I spoke my … Read more
Despite the title of my blog, I’m not a carnivore. I’m an omnivore. Or am I? According to my Random House Webster’s Dictionary, an “omnivore” is “someone or something that is omnivorous.” Duh. Next reference, please. Omnivorous (om niv’ər əs), adj. feeding on both animals and plants – Check. eating all kinds of foods indiscriminately … Read more
Reaching my spot in the woods that morning, I had no illusions about my chances of seeing a legal buck. My first three years, I had come up empty-handed. My fourth year, I had gotten lucky. This was my fifth year. Given that only one in eight Vermont hunters tags a whitetail each autumn, I … Read more
The first thing I ever heard about my great-uncle Al was that he never gave up. When I started hunting, my mentor—my mother’s brother, Uncle Mark—wanted to impress upon me the vital importance of persistence. So he told me stories about hunting with his uncles in Pennsylvania’s Moshannon State Forest back in the 1960s and … Read more
Smeared with blood and deer hair, the rubber gloves had been tossed by the roadside. Next to them lay a chunk of guts. The trash couldn’t be missed by anyone who parked at the hiking trail access the hunters had used. By then I’d stopped being surprised. In only my second year as a hunter, … Read more