For the Love of It

The 2024 deer hunting seasons have come and gone. Several states, lots of miles, and my freezer has no new venison in it by my hand. Frustrating is one word I could use. On the flip side, I had a lot of encounters, passed some bucks early, missed some shots and maybe figured a few (more?) things out.

The knob and saddle where I missed a buck in 2024

I love to track deer. Maybe I live for it, because I rarely feel so alive as when I'm on a deer track. Doesn't even need to be a buck. With a doe tag in hand, I'm happy to chase any legal deer. I've described the feeling of pursuit as one of being completely present, or the truth of existence; it is the runner's high drawn out over a day; it is life and death playing out. I hunt on the move. Sure, I enjoy the social aspect of hunting with others, and love it when there is action, but the real deal for me is being on the track, with a buck in front of me, and a chance in the making by what I, and that deer, do or don't do.

As the reality of my lack of success settles in around me, I know, rationally, that I had a good season. Yet there is a gnawing in the back of my mind. In trying to elevate my efforts and chase bigger bucks, I passed on bucks and didn't take tracks I would have followed in the past. I tracked one small buck just to see where he would take me, jumped him up twice and left him without trying to put a bullet in him. After the second time I jumped him, he finally crossed the tracks of a bigger buck that had passed through in the night and I immediately switched, despite being on the lee side of noon.

So now I stare at 2025 with a hunger, mental and physical, that I hope pays off. Part of what appeals to me about tracking deer is that effort is often rewarded. Not always, and not in equal measure, but over time there is a yield to repeatedly doing something, learning, changing, and growing. Different than sitting in a single spot, where sometimes the yield is exceptionally high and at other times low. If you come out on the high side of that equation, keep sitting there! I just can't stomach the thought of that.

I'll take the learning and effort of the last few challenging deer hunting years (really, what choice do I have?) and apply it moving forward; switch a few things up, dig a little deeper. It can be disconcerting when it feels like the balance of things is thrown off, when things don't pan out, but, after some pondering, I've come to a new way of thinking. Out there in the larger world, I often hear that finding balance (work-life, etc) is the secret sauce to a good life. That might be true for some folks. In my day job as a physical therapist, balance is a much-trained attribute. However, if we're balanced, we don't move - we're just standing there. So, when an uncontrolled fall is too risky an endeavor, balance is good. That static position becomes a point to reset and make a plan for a next step. Eventually we do need to take that next step, we can't, or shouldn't, stay in one place for too long. The other option then is to tip forward and lose that balance and hopefully keep our feet under us. For most of us, being unbalanced ultimately means movement and change, and if we can harness the momentum just a little, that is where progress happens.

Here's to upsetting the balance in life just a little this year.