HAUNTED

Hunting season, A Pussy Riot Christmas Party and Christmas are over. This only leaves New Year's Eve to bother with, before the long cold, dark winter sets in. Between all the booze and rich food I'm waking up drenched in sweat, visions of wounded deer dancing in my head. I missed or wounded more animals this past season than ever before. The reasons for this are as numerous as they are varied. Here's the short list: Bad eyesight, shooting too fast, deflected bullets, old equipment, pulling shots, force fields, tree branches, and the worst of all, a nagging suspicion that I may not want to kill anything any more. This one scares me the most. I once stopped hunting for roughly 20 years, between 20 and 40. I don't have another 20 to spare. I don't think I'll stop....just yet.
   The fact is, hunting now sustains my physical, mental and artistic health for a good part of the year. For almost 4 months out of the year (without traveling to different states) I can hunt deer and turkey. Add coyote and you pick up January and February. But I don't think I have that in me anymore. Those months are just too hardcore. As I write this I start to look for the .243 and itch to get back out. That's how complicated this is. I'm torn.
     The one thing I know I must do is go to the range. I sight in all my guns at 50 yards on a rickety table, with a pillow amongst garden hose and paint cans in my back yard. I need the Lynch treatment with both the bow and the gun. And I need to practice shooting the bow from the stand. I've just been too fucking lazy when it comes to these things, and the deer population is paying for it. If I had been able to capitalize on the opportunities i had at killing deer this year I wouldn't be so haunted by the "what ifs?" or "I should've or shouldn't have".
   I know my readership is torn also. I know you want to see me succeed. You root for me to put one on the ground. But I also realize there's a perverse pleasure you take in seeing me fail. What fun is it reading about constant success? If I went out and shot a deer every week and hit all the Victoria Secret runway shows and made friends with all the supermodel angels and had them over to the shack and took them hunting....I bet you'd get bored and stop reading immediately. I know for me it's all about the struggle. Luckily I succeed once and a while just to keep life interesting. The wounded deer nightmares will end and soon the holidays will be over. In the meantime I do have to take down some blinds and tree umbrellas before heavy snow hits. Maybe I'll take along the .243.......just in case.