Let’s Stop Claiming Deer

Alright. We’re belly button deep in hunting seasons across North America. How many of us have been watching deer on trail cams all year? How many of us have spotted a buck we’d love to harvest? Maybe we’ve watched him for a few years… Maybe he’s elusive… Appearing in the dead of night, seemingly without a pattern…. I’ll just go ahead and assume most of us can relate.

Now, how many of us have watched a family or friend harvest that buck you’d been dreaming of? The one you’d been talking about. The one you were after. Maybe it was even out of your stand.

You know which one. ‘Your’ deer.

Uffda. It stings doesn’t it? The jealousy. The disappointment. We say, “Why couldn’t they let him walk. They KNOW I wanted him. I CLAIMED him.” Anger flairs and we end up fracturing what should be a memory to cherish into millions of sharp little knives.

So why do I bring this up? We have communities of hunters on social media and far too often this time of year, I see the same post. I’m not going to copy and paste a post, but I am going to share a paraphrased version of what I see.

“My Dad/Brother/Husband/Friend/Sister shot MY buck. How could they? They should have let him go. Everyone, be angry with me that this isn’t fair.”

And the comments…

“Divorce him.”

“What an a$$. S/he deserves x, y, z.”

“How sh*tty of a person does s/he have to be to do that?”

“UGH. I hope you shoot his target buck next year.”

“I’d probably hit him if that was my husband/brother/dad/etc.”

“That’s so selfish.”

 “This is the kind of stuff my crappy ex would have done to me.”

And the seemingly opposite…

“My husband respects me too much to do this. He would never take this opportunity away from me.”

“How selfish. Glad my family member would NEVER!”

Take a sec. Read these again. Really. READ THEM AGAIN. Calling for divorce? Name calling? Shoving your ‘perfect’ relationship in someone else’s face? If these are said in jest, it’s not coming through the computer screen very well (and not to mention, not at all funny). Imagine a new hunter of any age reading these. What sort of impression would you get from the hunting community? I’ve hunted my entire life and this doesn’t seem like a welcoming, inviting, non-judgmental community, does it?

We all have a right to feel how we feel—there is no argument here. However, I think we need to take a step back and consider the effects of sharing this negative and hurtful rhetoric on social media. All it’s doing is pushing groups of hunters apart from each other. At the end of the day, we aren’t ‘women hunters’ and ‘men hunters, just as we aren’t ‘compound archery hunters’ and ‘crossbow archery hunters’. We are all hunters. We’re all out there to harvest meat for our families. We’re all out there to do our part in conservation.

So here’s what I am calling for the hunting community to do and why:

First, stop calling your deer. Stop claiming one deer as ‘yours’. Stop putting your name on a deer before he’s in your freezer. Stop being angry because someone else shot the big one this year and you didn’t. Stop putting you and your family through unneeded emotional angst.

Deer are wild animals. Sometimes, we can nail down their activity to the minute. Sometimes, they seem to operate with no discernable pattern. We can hunt hard all season and not see a single deer. We can walk out to our stand on day one and shoot the big one in 15 minutes. There is a certain amount of this that’s out of our control. That’s why it’s hunting. That’s why it’s not grocery shopping. That’s why it’s not antler shopping.

If someone passes on a buck because it’s ‘your’ buck, who’s to say you’ll even see him again? Now you robbed that hunter of an incredible memory—the very thing you’re upset about now. Who’s to say some stranger from three states away that leases some ground in the neighborhood won’t get him—someone you don’t even know. Who’s to say he won’t meet an untimely end on the road?

And second—and perhaps the most important part, celebrate our family and friends for their successes. We can be jealous. We certainly can be disappointed we didn’t have the same luck this year. We can even vent a little because hunting is frustrating. We shouldn’t hold this against them—because hunting is hunting and that’s the way it goes.

If shooting a specific deer is at the top of your priority list, have a frank conversation before the season starts with anyone who might be out there and see if some common terms can be established. Is there a stand you each prefer? Do you all have a unique hitlist for the early season and the rut becomes the equalizer? Does the deer get a free pass their first time, but if a second opportunity presents itself, it’s fair game?

Really dig into the expectations you have for each other and what you, collectively, all deem as fair. Remember, asking anyone to pass on a specific deer is taking an experience and memories from them. If you wouldn’t pass on a deer on their list, don’t ask them to pass a deer on yours.

As a hunting community, we are regularly under attack from outside groups—antihunting organizations, antigun organization, etc. We need to stop attacking each other from the inside—and especially those we know and love—for being successful. Life isn’t always fair. Hunting isn’t always fair.

Kendal Quandahl

@horse_hound_hunt