The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

There’s so much to know about deer hunting.

One big one is don’t pee where you shoot. How do I know this? Well, the first year a long time ago when some local hunters took me hunting, they caught me doing so from 15 feet up a tree. I gathered from the looks on their face that this was not so good.

I extrapolated from that the fact you shouldn’t poop anywhere around there, either. That I’d have gotten away with, except for the fact that my full roll of toilet paper fell off my stand when they came to get me. Bad luck. One end stuck up there in the stand and the whole roll fell like a white new year’s eve streamer, and bounced off into the woods.

I’ve also learned that the best hunter is the guy who tells the best story about hunting, and that it doesn’t matter whether or not you get a deer. Sure, shooting a big buck seems to mean something to all these folks, but telling some fat lies about the one that got away because Winchester sold you crooked bullets can turn this all into a winner.

You have to take lots of candy and chocolate hunting, and if you really want a big one (deer), you have to go to the local café, eat three servings of fried potatoes, two servings of eggs, bacon, sausage, and float the whole works in a pot of coffee. And then you’re the most esteemed of hunters if you can take that stomach, bladder, and colon up a tree stand and sit for four hours. I don’t understand why you don’t hear some hunter bragging that he didn’t have to go for 10 hours. Now, that’s an accomplishment.

I disqualified myself from any serious contender status for hunter glory when I put a stove in my deer stand, but I don’t think you should have to be cold to be a great hunter. The stove is kind of a rudimentary device, at best, and on a good day of hunting, it doesn’t set my leg on fire or blow the windows out of my stand. Most of the time it refuses to stay lit. Once in a great while, about as often as most hunters shoot a ten-pointer, it coughs a gob of soot out and turns one brown boot black. That’s why when you see me, it looks like I’m setting some new hunting style. Nope. The one black footprint I leave behind me when I go pee should be a clue.

This year, I’ve added something new to my deer hunting lies. I had a new trigger put in my rifle. The advantage to this is obvious: The new trigger is faulty. Blame it. This new-fangled stuff! Should’a known better, don’t you know? I had that 10-pointer dead to rights, but when I pulled the trigger, a bunch of screws and bolts and gears popped out and fell through the hole in the floor of my deer stand where the stove set it on fire last year. 

To make matters worse, when I was practicing sitting in my stand last week, I tipped my recliner back too far and busted out a double-hung window. Now there’s cardboard on that side, so I hope a deer doesn’t walk up on me from that side. 

There’s just so much to know about deer hunting, I find it all confusing.