People always tell you to fix all the details of the most important days of your life in your mind, to focus intently on every moment because in a blink they will pass, leaving you with the papery husk of the memory devoid of the juicy details, like a food truck tamale during a hurried lunch break. Graduations, marriages, and births are the traditional joyous milestones we strive to cement in our brains and hearts, photographing events with a fervor that devours data and storage space – but the moments are captured, savored, and shared for years to come.
            What no one tells you, dear hunter, is to do the same for your firsts, each and every one.
         As an adult, I’m often somewhat shameful of the firsts I have left to experience. A relative newcomer to bowhunting, I’ve been pursuing that magical first for three seasons now, growing more and more impatient with each passing year. My first season was more of a training exercise really, rarely venturing out unaccompanied, clutching my $50 used youth bow and taking terrible shots left and right. Shooting and recovering a deer at that stage would have been a downright miracle, as my “experienced” hindsight tells me now. Season two was far more serious, hunting alone on every free day with upgraded equipment and hundreds of hours of practice under my belt, but this too produced no results other than more money down the drain in lost arrows and a downright comical theme that dogged me all fall and winter of 2016.  The day I fled my blind with ground bees in my pants was a particular high point. Thank goodness I was raised to laugh at my misfortunes, or season three might have ended before it even began.
            I started counting down the days to October 1 the first day of shed hunting. I had access to a new property rife with bucks the likes of which I had never seen. My family farm has more deer than you can shake a stick at, but decades of “if it’s brown, it’s down” mentality has left us with a distinct lack of mature bucks – it’s a doe haven with a sprinkling of bucks so adolescent I can practically smell the BO and zit cream as they pass by. Each shed at the new place seemed unreal, like a prop from a movie set deposited in the timber in some sort of highly constructed adult Easter egg hunt. I was enthralled, if unbelieving.
            Spring led to summer, and summer meant trail camera season. My disbelief at the promise the new farm held was resoundingly shot down as Mother Nature showed off what solid deer genetics can really produce. I watched those velvet nubs grow every week, from good to great and finally to wowza, identifying each big boy by name, learning to distinguish between deer by the angle of the eye guards, the number of kickers, the height of the tines. I have never had so much fun looking at a computer screen in my life, smashing the arrow keys faster and faster so the deer practically moved on the screen. The day I saw the first one shed its velvet on camera, I almost cried.
            The off season really has no off button, and between practicing with yet another new bow, sweltering in the summer sun to put in food plots, hanging stands, and traveling to the Heartland Bowhunter Film School, fall was upon me before I knew it. September days grew thin, and flipping the calendar brought such a rush of emotion because this had to be The Year, the one where I finally brought in my first bow kill. It took twenty-three days for my first to fall.
            October was hot, sticky and hot, dry and hot, just plain hot. The days I had free to hunt weren’t ideal, but I took what I could get, literally sweating through clothes in a blind that felt more like a tiny sweat lodge rather than a scent-free dome of concealment. Another morning found me in a rickety stand in the rain, fighting motion sickness as the wind blew my tree first this way, then that, and finally in a delightful circular motion that prompted me to send a text to a friend disclosing the location of my secret money stash for his children in the likelihood of my impending doom. I did have one shot on a meaty doe, but from the wrong location as the early evening sun blinded me and left me with a busted broadhead from a shot placed square in the shoulder socket of the poor doe unlucky enough to be in range. Others stayed at 65+ yards, or presented only when it was dark enough that I couldn’t see my pin for the shadows. Maddening would be the word I would use to describe my early season, plain and simple. And I loved every second of it.
            I climbed into the stand for one more debacle on a cool and misty Sunday evening, a night I shouldn’t have been out, for I worked the next day and should have been home preparing for a busy week. Carefully, I ascended to my throne for the evening, a site called Charlie’s Stand overlooking a fresh rye food plot complete with some of the biggest scrapes and rubs I had seen all season. Thankful for my decision to invest in new rain gear, I hunkered down and watched vapor turn to drips and then drops, pooling on the leaves of my white oak and beading up on my bow.
            Through the light rain, I watched first one doe and then a second leisurely stroll up the trail to my left, entering the field with the “well, what’s for dinner tonight” attitude of a pair of gals out for date night. I stood and raised my bow smoothly, setting the distance on my sight from memory, as I had ranged every blade of grass with all the free time on my hands. My heart gave a solid thump in my ears, and then resumed its normal pace – this part of the show, I had seen before. The story changed as a buck stepped out on the trail, young but definitely male, his antlers at a clear contrast to the decidedly damp landscape. He wasn’t chasing the ladies, and they paid him no attention, grazing and having silent girl talk between them in that telepathic way I assume all animals communicate. In a moment, my decision changed – I knew he was a deer I should not harvest, that I should let grow, but I couldn’t pass the chance for my first bow kill to be on a buck. I shifted my focus and waited.
            He took his sweet damn time entering the field, practically sauntering over to a downed branch I knew to be at 33 yards. Presenting me with a beautiful Texas heart shot that I distained to take, I watched his rump as he grazed and groomed, licking first one leg and then another. I stood at attention, release clipped on, ready to pull the second he came even the slightest bit broadside.
            I don’t recall drawing my bow back, and I vaguely remember aiming and letting go. I suppose this is what all archers work for, to get to the automatic stage of the draw-aim-shoot cycle. In my case, it was certainly more of an adrenaline black-out, but I clearly saw the arrow smack his side, watching him crouch and then run, my arrow ricocheting from his flank, snapped in half (as I discovered later) by his shoulder blade as he bolted from the spot. It was the best shot I had ever taken on a deer, but I wouldn’t let myself get too worked up until I had recovered my trophy. I’ve been disappointed before, and have learned to not get my hopes up too quickly. To my astonishment, his steps grew unsteady after just a few bounds, and I watched him drop 15 yards from the point of impact. He never moved again, and yet from my stand, I wouldn’t let myself believe.
            I had a few more opportunities that evening to harvest another deer, but I let them all pass, first a fawn, then two more does. My eyes alternated between watching the sliver of white rump I could make out in the grass for movement and texting my buddy that, at long last, I thought I had one down. Despite my excitement, I stayed in the stand until dark to give the deer time, climbing down only when I thought I had just enough light to look for blood. I recovered my arrow immediately, and the need to search for a trail was erased when I saw my deer was absolutely, definitely, down. I marched directly over to claim my prize, and it was the sweetest I have ever known.
            The rest of the story will be told in future snippets, for I want this one, this first, to be savored, relished, and stand alone as the shining moment that three years worth of work finally paid off. I double-lunged my buck, making a helluva shot that I will always be proud of. I didn’t cry, I didn’t vomit, I didn’t shout from the rooftops. I knelt by my deer, examined the entry wound, and agreed with my friend who, when I started this journey, told me there was nothing else in the world like bowhunting, and I would get hooked on it for life. As much as I hate admitting it, he was so, so right.

     Call it reconnaissance, call it an educational field trip, call it a vacation; whatever you want to consider a three-day trip to Wisconsin built around the Deer and Turkey Expo, that's what my dad and I agreed to do as winter shifted into spring in the Midwest.
     To provide some backstory, this is not the first family road trip my dad and I have taken together; late last summer, we took an impromptu journey north, loaded with fishing poles and distinctly lacking in any sort of travel agenda or organized plans (catch that story in full here). The older I get, the more I appreciate time spent with my dad, and I am singularly luck that I live close enough to revel in spending quality adult time with someone who truly is the the Abbott to my Costello. So naturally, when an advertisement for the Expo came across on social media, my first two thoughts were "wouldn't miss it," and "better call dad." 
     If you have never attended a Deer and Turkey Expo, I thoroughly encourage you to find the next one in your state and immediately clear your social calendar. You'll thank me, I promise. The one in Wisconsin, supposedly the best around, is sponsored by Field & Stream magazine, and every attendee receives a free 1-year subscription to either Field & Stream or Outdoor Life, as your mood suits you. Spending a few hours learning about deer and turkey in the land of beer and cheese seemed like the perfect spring getaway; I reserved tickets online immediately.
     Six weeks we waited, looking at the calendar and counting off days until our trip. When March 31st finally rolled around, we were beyond ready to hit the road, grabbing a sack of car snacks as we sped down the driveway, leaving Illinois in the rearview mirror as quickly as we (legally) could. The goal was to arrive in Madison just as the doors to the Alliant Energy Center opened at 2:00 pm, and the crowds were fairly thin as we started touring. 
     Now, dad and I have trained for years on the art of navigating crowds. We have a standing date every December for a marathon Christmas shopping trip, and we love visiting with every Tom, Dick, and Harry at farm shows and fairs. All this training was about to pay off, because we had hit The Motherload of people to talk to, and I had a checklist of must-see vendors to visit.
     The purpose of the Expo really is twofold: to connect businesses to consumers ready for the newest gadget and strategy to improve the success/quality/comfort of a hunt, and to educate the hunter(ella) about best practices in habitat and game management. We travelled up and down each aisle, trying out new bows in the shooting range, discussing methods of preserving new tree plantings from hungry deer herds, testing blinds and stands that are well outside our price range but are within our DIY skill level, and debating potential legislation in Illinois to allow for supplemental deer feeding. We even spent an hour at the Bowfishing Association of America booth, learning all about a new activity that combines dad's love of fishing with my passion for bowhunting. I even went three for three in the 3D bowfishing tank...we won't mention the half dozen children that were able to do the same thing.  What I had originally expected to be a three-hour tour turned into us closing the show down on Friday, shuffling out after the 9:00 pm "last call" with the custodians and cashiers.  On the short walk to the hotel, dad and I both agreed that we would pop for another round of tickets for the next morning, and then stayed up until 2:00 am decompressing and talking about everything we had seen. I think we planned the 2017 hunting season at least one thousand times that night.
     The next morning was more of the same, and when I say more, I truly mean MORE. The crowd was at least triple what it had been the night before, making it distinctly more difficult to get around, but we are hardly afraid of a challenge. That day, we scored free mineral from the Ani-Logics booth, a new set of six broadheads from All-Blade Archery (www.all-blade.com) in exchange for a photo of my first kill with them, and a handy camera mount for my bow from Bow Mount (www.bowmountvideo.com), a company from just outside my hometown that I had to discover 350 miles away. Every single stop allowed us the chance to learn something new, validating some of my existing plans and getting my dad (the landowner) 100% on board.
     I would be completely remiss if I did not share the best part of the story, and perhaps my secret ulterior motive for making the trip. I live for Bowhunt or Die, a web hunting show hosted by Todd Graff and Justin Zarr. New episodes are posted on Fridays, and my favorite way to unwind from a week is to reward myself with the latest show. I did my Twitter research in advance to see if any of the featured pro staff would be attending the Expo, and noted which booths I should look for to get a glimpse of the guys in real life. My persistence paid off, for at the Big Horn Outfitters booth, I found not one, but TWO of the show regulars, John Hermann and Dustin DeCroo. Yes, I was embarrassingly excited to meet the guys, and yes, I asked for both a photo and for them to sign my favorite Bowhunt or Die hat. Roll your eyes if you must, but I allowed myself this one groupie moment with no shame. However, what I didn't anticipate was that both guys were so down to earth and happily chatted about episodes and upcoming hunts just as if I was a Big Time Hunter rather than just Little Ol' Nobody me.
     Maybe that is the moral of the story in the hunting community; it doesn't matter who you are, or where you're from, we all have one passion and interest that binds us together in the pursuit of getting better and creating something special from our corner of the wild. The gadgets and gizmos at expos and hunting shows are just the excuse to gather en masse; take them all away, and you will have the same stories and pieces of advice shared around the world as hunters help each other in the pursuit of that next fin, feather, or fur.

"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper." -T.S. Eliot

     A bit melodramatic, yes, but with the good also comes the bad; for every boat, there is a buck. I was hoping I wouldn't have to share this story as the main illustration of my deer season, but when January 16th came and I found myself empty handed (yet again), the tale of the one that got away was bound to come up.
     Saturday, November 13th was a great day to hunt in West Central Illinois. The night before, I had laid out my gear and planned the morning down to the last detail: leave the house by 5:30 am, lucky apple in hand as I head for the farm. I had picked The Southie as the stand for the morning--the rut was in, and I had steered clear of it for the most part since putting it up a few weeks earlier because, as they say, if you think it's a good place, then don't hunt it often.
     The silent walk to the stand is my favorite part of a morning hunt. The excitement builds with every step, and treading silently in the dark is a race against the sun as stars dim and color begins seeping onto the horizon. I trailed estrous scent behind me for the last 100 yards, soaking the spent seed head of a wild carrot weed for good measure. Waving at my trail cam, I ducked my head and carefully wove my way through honeysuckle bushes to my stand, strapped myself in place, and settled in to wait.
    I had a good feeling about this day. Clear and crisp, but not brutally cold, the blacks and greys of early morning slowly gave way to violet, green, and gold as the sun rose over the eastern tree line. I watched my frosty footprints fade, erasing all visible evidence of my early morning disturbance. I was so distracted by watching the world awaken that I almost missed him.
     Nose to the ground, he came in quick along the field edge below me, tracing my scent trail like it was going out of style. I didn't even have enough time to get the jitters; I drew as he hit the clearing, called to get him stopped as I looked down my sight, and released just as he quartered slightly away, directly in front of my trail cam. In disbelief, I watched my arrow strike home halfway between back and belly, lodging itself deeply in his hide as he turned and bounded away, stopping once to look back in my direction before he drifted into the ravine to my west. I listened to him crash around through the brush, and with every clumsy sound he made, my heart finally remembered how to beat until the thudding in my ears drowned out any noise he could have possibly made.
     I knew well enough to wait before I went after him, but after an hour, I couldn't take it anymore. I climbed down and immediately picked up a blood trail, strong enough that I didn't need to leave any markers to find it later, for even in my excitement I remembered that I should wait a few more hours before going to retrieve my deer. Happily, I pulled my trail cam card and headed to the house for breakfast and farm chores.
     Later in the afternoon, I returned with a friend to track my buck. I had already sent the poor guy on several goose chases that turned up nothing, so I tried to contain my excitement, keeping the horse in front of the cart as best as I could. Bright red blood, foamy and plentiful, brought a smile to his face and boosted my spirits. I learned more about tracking that morning than I had before under the benefit of full sunlight: how to tell that I had hit both lung and liver, where to anticipate the buck's movements, how to look far in advance for a trail, when to look high instead of low for the next blood sign. My arrow was still in the deer, and we could see where his movements became more erratic as he crossed first one way over the fence line, and then back again. Large pools of blood and streaks of tissue were scattered amidst the leaf litter. That deer was mine.
     Until suddenly, he wasn't. We emerged into a field and immediately, abruptly, lost the blood trail. We looked for a full hour in one small area, combing the ground for any stray drop. After three hours and 400 yards of tracking, my deer was lost on a neighbor's property. We called it quits for the day, but I just couldn't leave and sat for a good long while, alone with bow in hand, hoping the clouds would part and a shine a spotlight from above on my buck. My first archery deer.
     I called the neighbor and got permission to search more extensively the next day after the morning hunt. I worked my way through draws and ravines, snaked my way under thorny thickets and around overgrown trees. I searched for water, hoping my deer worked his way to the bank of an abandoned farm pond to lie down and die. Nothing, nada, zero. I politely called the landowner back when I gave up the ghost, asking her to keep her eyes peeled for a carcass with an arrow still stuck deep, two pink and one white fletching marking my kill so I could at least recover my skull.
     As January marches on, I still hold out hope that one day, that rack will be mine. Maybe spring shed hunts will uncover the nice symmetrical rack that I would have given my left ear to find about eight weeks ago. The time is coming to trade in my bow, and I do it reluctantly, thinking about the fact that I will part ways with it without an official kill and recovery, almost like waving the white flag of defeat. But then again, I know I hit my deer. I know I can track him. I know he is out there, somewhere. And as I checked my trail cam card later that night, licking my wounds, I found an image that both soothes the burn and fuels the fire for next year: a beautiful broadside photo of the one that got away, seconds before I released my arrow on an (almost) perfect morning.

     I'm not quite certain how something that can bring me so much joy can make me furious, dejected, impatient, and poor, all at the same time. I have thrown shameful temper tantrums, complete with gear being pitched across the room, after a botched evening hunt. I have woken up at 4:30 am on one of my infrequent days off, intending to go to the woods, only to be beaten back by weather that, quite literally, rained on my parade. However, these lows have been offset by some pretty fantastic experiences, and when I measure my hunting memories on the scale of life, the needle most definitely tips in favor of the positive. 
     And then, we have these past two weeks.
     If you asked me "how's your bow season going," I could sum it up with "I'm riding the struggle bus, but thanks for asking." For those of you unfamiliar with the expression, I'm not doing so well; in fact, this may have been the worst window of my hunting experiences to date. I've been having terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad hunts. And the worst part about it is that, with just a little tweak here, better timing there, things wouldn't be so bad and I wouldn't find myself broken and busted at the end of week #2.
                                                           Broken
     I am a very careful person. I still have college t-shirts in mint condition, I have yet to don a cast or require stitches (yes, I just knocked on wood), and I take all my morning multivitamins as a good grown up should. This careful nature is directly at odds with the streak of bad luck in which I am currently swimming. During the past fortnight, I have managed to break or lose more equipment than I have in the previous eleven and a half months combined. Five, count them, five arrows are MIA, wedged in thickets, grass tufts, passing zeppelins, or space-time continuums for all I know because they certainly aren't in my quiver, in a deer, or neatly on the ground where I thought they would be. To help me better locate my errant arrows, I bought some new Nockturnal luminocks--one of which I promptly snapped in half trying to insert it into my arrow shaft, eliciting a string of expletives that would make a sailor proud. During a practice session, I managed to crack an arrow shaft on an wild shot while trying to figure out why my bow was suddenly shooting one and a half feet to the left. Even more infuriating was the shot that was just a tad high, skimming the top of a target and somehow shearing the fletching from the shaft, cleanly snapping the arrow in half, flipping the sections in the air like some kind of bad cartoon segment as I watched in disbelief. By my rough calculations, I am currently $160 in the hole, not counting the cost of replacements or the new blinds and gear I picked up in late September. Oh, have I mentioned I am also cheap, so this is a particularly painful figure. I am one lost arrow away from developing a permanent eye twitch from incredulity at my bad luck.
                                                              Busted
     I pride myself in my scent concealment, although I am a novice compared to my hunting friends. I have a scent-free bag, but it is a DIY version and is more scent-free due to location (outside) than technology. I don't own any Ozonics, but have a wide range of Scent Killer Gold products for every possible application. I developed a habit of eating an apple before every hunt to cover the smell of my breath. Last fall, I had a coyote track prey within five feet of my ground location before he noticed my presence. I have years of experience telling me that I am able to go undetected, which infuriates me even more with the number of times I have been busted this fall. To date, I have hunted 21 hours, seen 22 deer, and have been busted all but two times, which accounts for all the missing arrows. Have I mentioned that there are FIVE of them? The worst part is, I am getting busted in ridiculous ways. One doe walked up behind my friend and I through dense woods, stopping five yards away before either of us noticed each other, my eyes turned toward the field rather than the brush at my back. Another doe was lying directly in my hunting spot as I walked in one afternoon at 3:30, the soonest I could get there after school. Trapped in the open, I stalked up to her within 20 yards before she finally noticed and bolted. Three other does paraded through the field that evening, just to bust me one at a time, much to my chagrin. One doe and her fawns busted me as I tried a new spot, seated just a little too near the trail for the amount of cover I had to work with, a rookie mistake. The final, and most embarrassing, happened as I left my blind at the end of the hunt, gear packed away, only to emerge to face a doe at what I figured to be fifty yards--I couldn't tell for sure, because like an idiot, I had packed away my rangefinder. I shot anyway, and hit her, but never recovered my deer. I believe "crestfallen" best described my mood that evening, and to some degree, still does.
     Yes, I know season has just begun. Yes, I know the Rutting Moon has yet to come. Yes, I am aware that even the hunters I watch on YouTube have bad outings and their own fair share of misses. To be honest, the laughter and consolation of my friends has eased the sting, but hasn't healed the burn. I'm ready for a win, a shot I'm proud of, a deer that is humanely harvested and recovered. That day will come, I'm sure, but until it does, I will keep plugging along, flinging arrows and writing checks to support a hobby that has become a life that I can't do without.

     Anyone who is passionate about a thing, regardless of what that thing actually is, has a countdown. Baseball fans, deeply engrossed in playoff fervor, are already thinking about April. Christmas fanatics have customized calendars on cell phones, ticking off every Friday from now to December 25th. Movie buffs anxiously await the next blockbuster release and search for spoilers online, and tech geeks camp out in long lines for days for the release of the next iPhone. We all have that one thing that brings us to to our knees in anticipation, filling our days and nights with daydreams of when we can get our hands on "our precious."  This urge is in our DNA; resisting the call is a fool's game.
     My day is October 1.
     I have been waiting for my thing since 5:02 pm on January 17th, the precise time when the sun slipped below the horizon and closed the door on whitetail archery season in Illinois. The day was brutal cold, eeking out only 13 measly degrees, and yet I dragged my gear out to the woods, hoping and praying for one final shot, one last chance to fill an archery tag during my first season. Sadly, I walked away empty handed, replaying every mistake from the previous three and a half months. Had I checked my level on that first doe, I would be able to feel my fingers right now. Had I used my rangefinder on that second doe, my feet wouldn't feel like lead blocks, tingling with every step back to the house. Had I waited just a bit longer on that last buck, tempted him in closer with a bleat or call, I wouldn't have ice crystals at the corners of my nose. I left that season with scales balanced between great experiences and heavy regrets, two sides of my hunting coin that I slipped into my pocket to revisit throughout the upcoming weeks, flipping it between my fingers to pass the time.
     In my off season, I trained like I had a paycheck riding on it. Weekly league nights. New equipment. 3D targets. Weight training. Competitive shooting. Research. Distance shooting. Bigger. Faster. Stronger. I watched does and fawns from the tractor as I mowed field edges, enamored with their quiet movements and mentally estimating how far they were away. Seven an a half months passed in the blink of an eye, and as the weather warmed and I added fishing as a distraction, I almost lost sight of the calendar as my thing quietly approached. 
     What snapped me back to reality was a smell, all too familiar, and gone for all too long. As I drove through town one sweltering September evening, windows down despite temperatures still in the 80s at 9 pm, the smell of fall was suddenly, briefly, in the air. We all know that smell--something sharp, with a hint of woodsmoke, and the promise of cold winds under stars snapping bright and clear. The smell of endings and beginnings as summer's heat gives way to winter's chill. The smell of hunting season.
     That smell pushed me to action. No longer was my countdown an arbitrary thing marking a day too far away to be real; I was past the month mark, rounding the corner on two weeks, reading the signal to head for home on a day count that could almost be done on two hands. The past few days have been spent on final details--the broadheads that needed sharpened, the field pack that required reorganizing, the quiver that didn't fit quite right on my bow. The scent-free chemicals came out of storage, and every piece of camo fabric in the house was appropriately removed of traces of my human stench. I spent an embarrassing amount of money in a moment of weakness on an array of equipment to improve my chances this year (or at the very least, improve my comfort). It was time.
     As the calendar flipped from September to October, I drove to my family farm, ready to start a new season. The weather really was too warm for good hunting, and 2016 is predicted to have a later-than-usual rut. None of this mattered. I headed to the woods with a friend, mentally flipping my 2015 season coin in my mind. I'm sure this year will bring its own bevy of successes and failures, some I can expect (my lack of food plots and trail cameras are weighing heavily on my mind at the moment) and others that will come as a surprise. But I take it as a good omen that we had a doe appear behind us at five yards, practically in our laps, and settle by us for 45 minutes until she and her fawn bounded across open ground, heading for the only corn field in the area. On day one, I picked the right field, the right time, and the right direction. Although my Opening Day didn't lead to a kill, I'm still fairly certain the coin has landed heads up.