Be the Wolf, Part 2

I took November 1st through the 9th off for my annual deer camp. Most years, I’m counting down the days, prepping gear, and memorizing topo lines. But this year felt off. Maybe it was the burnout bleeding in from work. For the first time, I actually thought about skipping deer season. Just stay home and turn my brain off for a while.

I went hunting not because I wanted to hunt, but because I didn't want to regret not hunting.

So I loaded the truck on Halloween and drove north to Ohio. The plan was to hunt Saturday through Thursday, then make it home for a long weekend with my wife. In reality, I left a day late and came home a day early. My heart wasn’t in it, and being home mattered more.

Conditions were excellent. Cold mornings, good deer movement, plenty of opportunities. I just didn’t capitalize on any of them. I let each deer walk out of range because I was waiting for the right one. That meant I wasn’t after meat, I was chasing validation in antler form. Most of us tell ourselves the lie that we’re holding out for a mature deer. It’s about respect. It's about discipline. But it’s not. It’s trophy hunting dressed up in a moral ghillie suit.

By day three, I realized I was full of it after a 3-point buck stood within range for almost 15-minutes perfectly broadside while scent checking a thicket. I will say hunting is about the meat, but if that were true, I’d have shot the first adult deer that gave me a clean angle and I would have been home after a couple days in time for dinner. And that 3-point at the end of day three probably would have tasted just fine. The truth is I was passing on deer because I wanted to feel the euphoria that comes with killing a giant buck. Because somewhere along the way, killing any old deer stopped being enough.

This isn't the first time I’ve caught myself in this kind of hypocrisy. Years ago, back when I was waist-deep in trout streams and ethical posturing, I used to sing the praises of catch and release. Squeezing fish is bad. Keep them wet. Whisper gratitude before you let them go and all that nonsense. Then one day around 2007 it hit me. If I cared that much about these fish, I wouldn’t be stabbing them in the face and fighting them to their exhaustion for my fun and a few photographs I might sell to some fly fishing magazine. That was when I started keeping more fish.

Almost a decade later, when I was president of my local Trout Unlimited chapter, I encouraged fellow conservationists to keep more fish. This was during the height of the #keepemwet era, when everyone was worshipping their own virtue online. You should’ve seen the looks I got. You’d think I’d told people to start eating babies. But eating wild fish honors them in ways keeping them wet never can.

And here I was, hunkered down in a CRP field wearing a ghillie suit with a bow, doing the same dang thing. Letting deer walk because their antlers didn’t meet a quota. Calling it patience. Calling it personal challenge. Calling it about the meat. Calling it everything but what it was, vanity.

Tuesday night, lying in bed and checking the weather, I started adding up the cost. The tags. The gas. The food. The gear. All that money just to pretend I’m living some ancient code of ethics. For what I’d spent, I could’ve bought a quarter cow of grass-fed beef, slept in, and got my adventure fix hiking some trail or stressing fish out for my own amusement. But that’s not what the wolf would do. It hunts. It kills. It eats. It howls, and it sleeps like a puppy without a single drop of regret for killing a 3-point.

I once read somewhere that that’s essentially what separates us from the wolves. Not opposable thumbs or the ability to make fire, but the endless need to explain ourselves for doing what every other animal does without apology. We crave purpose where instinct is enough and we make up stories about stewardship and sustainability to make it sound civilized.

The wolf doesn’t justify the blood on its teeth. It just eats. And honestly, that feels cleaner than all our rationalizations combined.

I wonder what a wolf would do if it had the option to walk into a grocery store and buy meat? Would it trade being a predator for convenience? Maybe that depends on how successful a hunter it is. My dog’s got a full bowl of food but she still crouches in the shadow of the front porch and waits for squirrels like it’s her whole world. The first time I took her squirrel hunting, she grabbed one by the back and shook it violently before dropping it. I shot it seconds later. She sniffed it, eventually lost interest, and went looking for the next interesting smell. But that full bowl of food didn’t stop her instinct. Perhaps that’s what the comfort of civilization does to all of us, it turns what was once instinct into recreation.

These were the thoughts that rattled around in my head as I drove home with an empty cooler. (Probably would have had different ones if I shot a giant…)

The truth is, I’m not hunting anymore, I’m performing in front of a mirror. I’ve turned something primal into something self-conscious. I’m not listening to the hunger, my fridge and freezer are doing just fine. And in the process, I’ve forgotten the thing that made me fall in love with all of this in the first place. If there is a deer camp next year, I’ll hopefully do it differently and be the wolf.