Impossibly stupid questions I'm glad I didn't ask
Yes, there is such a thing.
The vast majority of deer hunters learn the sport from their fathers. I did not. My dad “hunted,” which I put in quotes because my brothers and I suspect he spent most of his time in his trailer relaxing and would wander out into the woods only occasionally. Maybe some years he remembered to bring his rifle.
His life with a wife and four boys separated by just six years was pure chaos, and if his way of escaping was to flee the suburbs of Detroit for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for two weeks every November, I do not judge.
In preparing for a story I’m writing about my first time deer hunting, I learned he took all three of my brothers with him at least once, but he never took me. My guess is that’s because he knew I wouldn’t shut up. He’s right! I would have asked him 10 billion questions.
Anyway I never hunted until this week. I learned from my friends, Aaron and Nate Blough, identical twins. The way I tell them apart is that Aaron is the good-looking one and Nate is the handsome one … or shoot, maybe it’s the other way around … I can never remember. Anyway, they let me join them for a few days of hunting on property their family owns in rural Missouri.
It was the ideal location for a newbie—private, abundant deer, nobody else around to tell me to shut up when I ask 10 billion and one questions, etc.
One morning, Nate (the good-looking one … or is he the handsome one) offered to walk me out to “Old Faithful.” Old Faithful is a tree stand so named because abundant deer have been harvested from it. Their property is a labyrinth of hiking and ATV trails, and I did not know how to get to Old Faithful. Knowing that, Nate volunteered to be a helpful guide to show me where to go.
As we walked along a trail, he mumbled something about looking for tracks in the snow. We turned a corner, and he pointed to a pile of scat. “That looks fresh,” he said.
He bent over and picked up a couple pieces.
As he held the deer poop, I had the incongruous thought of wondering if his hands were clean. I almost asked him and I’m glad I didn't because even if they were before, they weren’t anymore.
He rubbed the pieces between his fingers, as if inspecting them for some unseen quality. Was he looking for acorns or some other nut buried in the gooiness? And if he found whatever he was looking for, what would that tell him?
These seemed like good questions. Again I was tempted to ask, but again I didn’t.
Then he popped the scat in his mouth and ate it.
I fell for it for roughly .5 seconds.
Because it wasn’t scat, it was Raisinettes, and he had planted them there an hour earlier.
