"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.

     "People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election."  Well, after today, I'd like to add "and at 3D archery shoots" to this quote. It's a good thing we were wearing boots on the archery course today, not for the 1.5" of rain that came down at 8 am, but for the tall tales and smack talk that were piling up in the woods just east of Bushnell.
     I thought it was going to be just my friend/archery coach with me on the course at Seven Hills, which was fine since he had been "too busy" to shoot since March and I was looking forward to putting him in his place with all my practicing. I was pleasantly surprised when we pulled up and noticed two slightly damp guys from the bow shop waiting out the rainstorm in their cars. With our duo expanded to a quartet, we started slip-sliding our way on the trail to target #1, starting out just as polite and serious as you please on a soggy Sunday morning.
     It didn't take long for the day to unravel. Without our serious archery friend, who was at a competitive shoot in Alabama, our game faces dissolved into teenage hijinks and the shoot took a sharp left-hand turn in the maturity department. Not only did you need to be wary of the slick footing and mindful of your ranged targets, but you had to watch your back for the repeated tree shakings that would send a cascade of rain down your neck if you weren't paying attention. Target #2 brought the first miss of the morning (not mine, thank goodness), which we harped on for at least the next five stations. There was mocking, rain shaming, finger pointing, gear bashing...you name it, we flung it. And we all loved every minute of it.
     By station #14, we started upping the ante with trick shots, tossing out the traditional 12-10-8-5 ring scoring and opting for the all-or-nothing approach of "hit the bear's tail" and other minuscule parts of the target that would make serious archers frown. By station #25, we invented a new sport, Hot Yoga Archery, which had us sweating and doing 180 degree turns while standing on one foot to take shots from 30, 40, and 50 yards. Station #30 had us taking blind shots through the weeds, balancing on elevated platform railings, and shooting between stairs that were never meant for arrows to pass through. Top that off with running through mud puddles like salamanders and repeated "do overs" from one of our group members (again, not me), and we had the collective maturity of a group of 7th grade boys. And I couldn't have had more fun.
     After the shoot, we sat around, sharing hunting stories and photos, making plans for a private shoot with our pooled 3D target resources. One guy has fishing kayaks on Spring Lake, another has a pool, pond, and puppies. The third hunts in Arizona and offered to take us all scouting for Mulies that would put our Illinois whitetails to shame. I offered my pastry expertise in exchange for some wild blackberries, which are just now ripe and will be perfect in a cobbler. What can I say, I like to bake (zucchini bread was the treat du jour for the range operators today) and have limited other marketable skills. As we parted ways, two for home and two of us back to the course,  we exchanged phone numbers and promised to meet up again this summer, and I couldn't help but think it was the best day of group shooting so far, hands down.
     I should have quit while I was ahead. Trip #2 on the course gave me a whiff on a target and a glorious slip in the mud that left me facedown on the trail, bow in hand but unharmed. Thank goodness it only happened in front of one guy, because the ribbing from the whole group would have done me in. But I ended the day without any lost or broken arrows (the only one to do so, I might add), and my score was still good enough to beat my buddy.  In the end, that's all that really matters. 

   For my first turkey season, I prepared in true type-A gold personality form. I bought a Knight & Hale mouth diaphragm call and practiced constantly while driving, to the annoyance of my passengers and the entertainment of other drivers. I streamed Cabela's Spring Thunder nonstop, watching how seasoned hunters bagged big birds. I spent hours in the bow shop, learning to identify toms from jakes from just the shape of their fans. My turkey target had field tip holes from 20, 30, 40, 50, and even 60 yards. My blind was set, my camo was ready, my tags were in hand, my decoy was arranged just so. I was going to kill all the turkeys.
     Due to my work schedule and Illinois' restriction on turkey hunting after 1 pm, I was limited to weekend hunting only. That first Saturday, I was up well before dawn with my rangefinder in hand and my hunting buddy at my side. We made it to the blind in a respectable time, and after ten minutes, I tested out my first call. "Yerk yerk yerk yerk." One gobbler answered. Then another, and another. Jackpot! I spotted one big tom as he entered the hayfield where I was hunting, on the far end, about 200 yards away. For an hour and a half, I worked this bird, making sounds I hoped resembled a turkey more than the spit-shooting screeches I was prone to produce from time to time. He must have found my calls acceptable, because he continued to blow up and work his way in closer, dragging his hen with him the entire way. Eventually, she split off and bedded down, but he kept coming in. Eighty yards. Sixty. He was in range, but still moving, so I pulled up my big girl britches and made myself wait. Forty. I clipped on my release and shushed my sister, who was just as excited as me. Twenty. I drew back and fired. 
     That bird flipped in the air just like on all the videos I had watched, feathers blown out the side as proof that yes, I really did make contact. He limped away, but I wasn't worried--didn't that one guy on that one episode have to track his bird an ungodly distance before finding it in a ravine? What I didn't anticipate were the three jakes that came charging in, pushing my wounded bird off into the neighboring field. Crap. I mentally marked the spot where they went, picked up my arrow and feathers, and began looking for my trophy.
     Two hours later, I came up empty handed. In my heart, I realized the shot was low, wounding rather than killing, probably due to the new mechanical broadheads that I had to have but didn't have the time to practice with in advance (I know, I know, rookie mistake). However, it was officially the first time I had hit a live animal with my bow and managed to not lose an arrow in the process, so there's always a silver lining. My luck dwindled each successive weekend, calling in birds but never getting as good of a shot as that first one. However, the experience of working so hard for my shot was thrilling, and you can bet I'll be pulling a tag for the fall season. Until we meet again, gobblers.