Reconciling The Wild Life

I hate not hunting. Truly despise the thought. Work or weddings, enmity seeps from otherwise bloodless and paralyzed veins when collared to another facet of the Real World. Every hunt I make is an event I’ve looked forward to my whole life. And each time the sun sets, a creeping feeling whispers that this may be the last time I get to hunt. Silly, but certainly palpable. There are no pills for this fear. I suppose this is one of the reasons I write - to maintain a written history of the fun and remember the Good Old Days.

This is the second anniversary of The Wild Life, in its current form. Also, the 250th post. And, oh, there’s been no lack of hunting. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve gone back and visited with the past. What a strange chapter to a long-ish, fairly productive hunting career.

When I got this site cranked up, I was fading out of the trophy deer hunting. The previous five years, I dedicated myself to leases and the pursuit of nice bucks. I was successful meeting my expectations some years and exceeding them in a couple others. But with the money I wrapped into this, I realized I was missing out on a lot of the rest.

If you’re a far gone antler crank, good for you. But living in Florida, whitetail expectations are little tempered compared to the Holy Land of the Midwest. I wanted to snoop around more, spread myself thinner in the hunting world. And in this, too, I’ve been mostly successful.

Over the course of this blog, I’ve really come to enjoy gator and duck hunting. Not just the actual hunts but learning about these pursuits. The gear has been fun to collect. After a dozen years of deer and turkey, one kinda maxes out on what he or she wants to buy. I think, also, the factors that make these hunts so much fun is what is lacking in today’s deer and turkey hunting world.

One is opportunity. Deer have gotten expensive. When I started out on my Antler Quest, a Georgia lease was a reasonable number – as was gasoline. Quality deer management took hold, and all of a sudden, bragging about big bucks became taboo because no leaseholder wanted to lose their spot to someone with big bucks of the green variety if word leaked out about local monsters. Leases in Florida are even worse since the demand for land is so high. Osceola’s are part of this equation, too.

Duck hunting, in particular, is on the rise in these parts because of the lack of deer opportunity. Public lakes are accessible, as are most coastal waters, and there’s plenty of game at which to shoot. They may not all be Duck Commander-style hunts, but if you can’t find a place to splash waterfowl in Florida, you simply aren’t trying that hard.

The other thing that I enjoy about ducks is the camaraderie. Now, I love a treestand. It gets me right in ways years of therapy would be unable to accomplish. I feel recharged after a cool evening in the stand. And I love venison a whole lot more than duck breast. But I have quota tags for a duck hunt and a deer hunt for the same weekend in January. When I study my chances of catching up to a six-point or better on public land with a bow, or BS-ing with buddies in a duck blind, blasting away at teal – well, it may take more than a flip of a coin to get me to ride that climber up a pine. Heck, I even flew to Montana, Land of Mulies and Pronghorn, to shoot ducks last fall. Would do it again in a heartbeat.

So, yes, I’ve chronicled a change in my Fall Routine, and it’s been fun. Luckily, gator hunting doesn’t interfere with deer. It sure is exciting, and I wouldn’t have bothered paying for those tags if I’d had feeders to fill and food plots to plant in another state. Two years ago, I took a December weekend off of deer to hunt bobwhite at a Georgia plantation. I’ve done more predator hunting since this blog’s inception than ever before. Done more small game hunting, in general. Yikes, I’ve even gotten married and had twins since two Decembers ago.

The other thing that has changed in this transition has been my utilization of public land. Besides a missed opportunity on a gobbler a couple springs ago, I’ve not really tapped into much luck on these properties. But, I will say, I’ve learned a lot. Mostly, how gorgeous and well-kept most places I’ve been are. I’m impressed. The game is there, and it’s not necessarily the land’s fault I’m not tagging out – I’m not really left with as much time to scout as in the past. That’s a critical component to success. A public land buck and gobbler is high on my list of priorities at the moment. I need to work harder at it, which I should probably do soon.

For despite the embarrassment of riches I’ve lightly detailed above, I want more! I’m toying with the notion of another Georgia lease. It’s not exactly the most financially sound decision in the world, but I feel the itch to chase that Antler High once more. The way I figure, friends have to stop getting married in October and November eventually. I’m not that popular. That should open up a few weekends a year. Ducks can be done on the weekdays if all is planned correctly and after the rut in November. I’m not sure how this will fit with potential invites to other states next season, but I’m sure it can work. I feel like a running back carrying multiple defenders on his back just trying to cross a goal line that never gets closer.

That’s my bag of issues, though. Want to thank everyone who has taken the time to read, comment, or otherwise visit my site. I try to keep it entertaining for those who want to burn some time; informative for those looking for answers. I’m a Jack-of-all-Trades and legitimate Expert-on-Nothing.

Looking ahead, it should be a productive next couple of years. Duck season has only just begun. Hog hunts a-plenty coming. I just signed on to a new lease in Central Florida with a few deer, hogs, and it's going to have an awesome dove field. There's also a terrific number of predators. You can guess what I’ll be doing come February after the other seasons fizzle. Then gobblers, hogs, gators, early deer, early duck, blackpowder..it keeps coming...hopefully.

(If you have any suggestions to improve the site, please share. Content, design, whatever. Also, feel free to read back through the archives. Enjoy and Thank You!)

TWL Classics - To the Hunt

Two years ago I started my volunteer outdoor writing service through a local newspaper's public blogging site. Unfortunately, through powers beyond my control, my archives from that source are gone and lost forever. Luckily, I saved rough drafts of my work on my computer, and once or twice a week I'll re-introduce a past column back into the wild of the World Wide Web. Enjoy!

Originally Published January 2008

My truck is four thousand miles past its last oil change. My knees and back are shot from miles of traipsing through palmetto flats and swamp bottoms. Worse still, my dog barely recognizes me, and I am all but broke from traveling so often.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

For me, hunting season is not just an opportunity to escape the house or work for a weekend - it is a passion, a way of life born from being raised in the outdoors of Polk County and Central Florida. I am one of the lucky ones. From September to April, I actively hunt throughout the Southeast for just about anything that has a sanctioned season. When not actually hunting, I’m actively researching new ways to spend more time in the woods.

Already this year I’ve hunted deer in three different states, and ducks in two. Chased hogs in South Florida with rifles and dogs. I’m catching gobbler fever and close to donning the vest, laying out the decoys in the front yard, and calling to the neighbor’s cat. I dream of Africa and constantly check prices for hunts on the Dark Continent as if I could afford it right now. If an outfitter offered hunts for a giant slug on some tropical Pacific island that runs hunters a merry chase and tastes good wrapped in bacon and grilled, I’d be scheming on how to get there and what rifle I should bring.

As I said, I am one of the lucky ones; however, writing about hunting – or fishing for that matter – is a unique task. One can write about football or baseball without ever taking a snap or swinging a bat in a meaningful way. Come to think about it, there are numerous major television networks, publications, and radio stations geared around this very model. To write about the outdoor life, an author must actively engage in these activities or the reader will color them a fraud.

This, of course, leads to some challenges when dispensing advice. Let’s suppose I write an article about how to harvest a deer in a particular place during a specific time of the year with a certain firearm I feel is the most adequate for the situation. Some will take it as the suggestion it was made to be, and others will read it as gospel and go out of their way to tell me I’m wrong. If you need proof of this, read the “Letters” section of any outdoor magazine. Or check online blogs and forums.

Another trouble with writing about hunting or fishing is within the game itself. Hunters and anglers go to great pains to try and predict what their quarry will do under certain conditions. Much ink has been spilled trying to explain the many wrinkles in deciphering game activity. I use this example all the time – I once read that a gobbler will never cross water to come to your calls, and that was true until one old boss tom did.

My point, if I am forced to make one, is that the best way to become a better hunter is to be in the woods and learn for your self. The ultimate goal of this blog is to help discover ways you can enjoy your pastime – to be active and enjoy the tradition and adventure of sport hunting. At the very least, hopefully I can help you slack off a few minutes of work discussing what you love to do.

Living in Polk County, this should not be too difficult of a task. We are fortunate to be surrounded by plentiful public land, and opportunities for private land access for a wide spectrum of game animals. The central Florida hunter is also blessed to be within a tank of gas or so away from some excellent hunting prospects to the north in states such as Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolina's.

Of course, there will be some advice-related topics as this is the nature of the outdoor writing business. Certainly, some people enjoy discussing different hunting strategies and equipment, and I hope to keep readers updated on dates of applications, special hunting opportunities, and any legislation involving our sport. But most of all, I want to use this forum to broaden the scope and bring into focus the multitude of hunting possibilities available to the Polk County outdoors person at a time when the sport seems to be at its least accessible point.

As we prepare to put another fall hunting season - hopefully a successful one - in the books and ready ourselves for the doldrums of February and the blissful return of spring gobbler, I’d like to propose a toast to our fortune in the woods and on the water. This naturally would be better around an oak campfire and with an actual drink in hand, but still - to the hunt, the memories of years past and the promise of the future!