To Deer Or Not To Deer

Theater of the Mind

“To shoot or not to shoot, that is the question.” Shakespearean paraphrasing aside, I was painfully confronted by my choice. Two strong opposing internal forces reached an impasse at the moment over the sights of my shotgun barrel — simple want of deer meat versus a well-intentioned and publicly made vow.

I have often admitted a love of meat is a primary motivation for my deer hunting. I enjoy the woods, the camaraderie of the hunt, and the challenge of stalking and shooting, but I also dearly love those packages of toothsome venison nestled in the freezer. So does my family.

However, I certainly wanted to help improve the trophy potential of our deer wood, both for my hunting buddies and myself. While I have a couple of deer on the walls of my home, there is certainly room for more and bigger.

On the other hand, selfishly, there is also the tug of bragging rights, those, “Yep, I got my deer this year” statements. You always think you’re long past such things, but they always seem to come out in a moment of humble-brag with the guys.

What to do? Shakespeare didn’t really offer any help at this point.

Greed and desire won as I fired. At this near point-blank range, missing was almost impossible, barring a sudden infarction. The deer ran a few yards and collapsed — a clean single-shot kill pleasing to both my conscience and the red gods.

As I stood over the downed animal, the buck didn’t exactly feel like a major victory, but it certainly wasn’t a defeat. Instead, I realized I had bagged an elusive trophy, something rare in our day-to-day living — satisfaction.

It was enough.

For now.

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