The Deer Hunters...

I thought about posting a preview to this before we left, something like, "Hey, my colleague P. has invited us along to go deer hunting with her family on Friday!" But I knew I'd get impassioned e-mails, calls, and, perhaps, visits from my kids' outraged grandmothers, any of whom would be more than happy to shake me around by the throat, yelling, "You're thinking of doing what??? with my precious grandchildren, little man?"

So instead I decided to write about the whole thing after we got back safely, which we did last night. For the record, Jen was fully informed of this plan, and approved it. I was particularly proud of Katie on this outing. She wasn't wild about the idea of aiding and abetting the murder of Bambi, so I pitched it this way: "We're here in North Dakota to see and do things we wouldn't see or do in Maryland. This is one of those things." This convinced her, which is one of the reasons she's such a good kid – she's game for just about any new experience.

Deer season lasts about two weeks in North Dakota, and started Friday at noon. It's difficult to express fully how deep-seated deer hunting is around here. Let's put it this way – as we bounced around the countryside yesterday in trucks, a great number of the radio commercials we heard were for taxidermists.

We took off Thursday evening for Edgeley, N.D., home town of P.'s husband T., which is about 130 miles southwest of Fargo, population about 600. T.'s folks raised 11 children in a previous home, and still have beds scattered all over the place. There was plenty of room for us, and for T. & P.'s two sons (J. and E., for the record).

I woke up early the next morning to go scouting with T. This involves driving around the area, drinking coffee, checking out which land is posted "No hunting" and which is available, and finding out where the deer are running. I think it might just be an excuse to get out early and enjoy the countryside, which was fine by me. We saw a few deer flitting around, clearly not aware of how bad their day was about to get. A bunch of pheasant roosters also sprang up alongside us; T. moaned about how he had his deer rifle, not his pheasant shotgun, in the truck with us. We returned to the house, and T. swapped his rifle and me for his shotgun and a newly awake son, and they went out and shot a bird. They sent Joey inside with it (above).

Apparently, no day of hunting in the area is complete without a preparatory shot of "Red Eye," a concoction of 4 parts water to one part grain alcohol, with some cherry juice for color and flavor, and a little burnt sugar added. T.'s father said laughingly that a 4:1 ratio works just fine, but that when you go 3:1 or 2:1, people get messed up in a hurry. I was relieved to find out that those shooting that day don't get any Red Eye – it's for the rest of us.* It was indeed warming.

Deer hunting is also very big in Minnesota, but the sport is completely different. Minnesota has those, whaddya call 'em, trees, and they provide enough cover for hunters to sit in tree stands and pick off deer that wander by, which hardly seems sporting. In North Dakota, because the terrain is much more open, hunters "walk the fields," scaring deer from their resting spots, then taking shots at them as they run away.

The task of those of us without weapons is to walk along with the guys with guns across fields and along tree lines (thin lines of spindly trees that separate one field from the next and combat erosion), helping rouse the deer. The first thing we had to do was orange up, to avoid getting shot:

I went to a store Thursday afternoon to buy Katie's sweatshirt; there was so much bright orange in that section of the store that I thought I was going to burn my retinas.

It was a beautiful day, crisp and clear, and cold, somewhere in the low 20s. Standing around was tolerable; walking the fields was actually quite pleasant – you warm up in a hurry.

Because the terrain is so open, there's no firing blindly into brush; you have a good idea of where everyone is before a shot is taken, and it tends to be taken into an open field.

I told Joey he'd score extra points if he tackled a deer by hand. He was gravely assured by one of the guys hunting he'd be "a legend" if he managed to do that.

The glaciers that wiped North Dakota clean didn't do a perfect job, and here and there in unexpected places there are small dips in the land that hold moisture -- sometimes standing water, sometimes dampness that allows patches of cattails and tall grass to grow:

They're usually good places to find deer. The cattails themselves were dry, and when we walked through them, they exploded into a cloud of tiny seeds that filled the eyes and mouth of the person unfortunate enough to walk behind you.

I'm told this isn't unusual on the first day of the season, but we did not see a whole lot of deer. Most of those we did see, we did not manage to shoot. I told J. he didn't need to miss on purpose to spare my children the sight of a deer being killed. He laughed. A. Little. Bit.

Toward the end of the day, T. did shoot a doe I was told was "nice-sized." Newly dead deer have to be "field dressed," that is, gutted, pretty much where they drop. Field dressing a deer preserves the meat, which otherwise gets spoiled by the deer's organs. It's a ritualized process that leaves a big pile of guts on the ground (not buried, as I thought, but left on the surface to be feasted on by coyotes soon afterward). I shall spare you the details, both verbally and visually (well, except for the strip off to the left).

Katie decided she had had her limit, and declined to watch. Joey, on the other hand, stood to one side and took it all in:

I had no idea Ellie was so bloodthirsty. Katie and Joey were willing to just watch events unfold, but Ellie was a murderous chatterbox all day long. "Why didn't we shoot that deer?" "We really should have shot that deer." And: "When we run out of bullets, is it time for lunch?" When the time came, she was forbidden to leave the truck while the deer was being gutted. I wasn't sure which would happen: Would she be really upset, or would she really upset me by enjoying it?

* Edit: It is now my understanding that this is more of a guideline than a rule.**
** Edit of the Edit: It is now my further understanding that everybody gets one warm-up drink, but that's it.