I am looking outside at the ice-covered morning watching my husband pull out of the driveway in his Chevy Silverado, heading towards Lancaster to our bow hunting property. I can imagine what the woods feel like, walking upon the path we have taken for years, crunching the leaves and twigs that fell through the night, listening for any unusual sound that might trigger a response from my memory that a deer might be traveling close by, the aroma of the old trees and the feeling of the wind on my face determining what direction it is blowing this morning. I am envious that he is on this hunt alone. The reason I am sitting here writing this story is because I have already harvested my Ohio Big Buck on November 4, 2005. While I have already harvested my buck, I have enjoyed the admiration that I have received from my family and friends. I relish the time in the limelight because I know that I have worked hard at perfecting my archery skills, finally I can say I did this on my own. Really, seriously though there is so much more to hunting than just tagging the deer that you have been dreaming of all your lifeffffs

Does anyone really talk about how they feel after the hunt is over? Most of us have worked hard preparing for the hunt whether it is for an hour or for an agonizing bow season, gun season, muzzle loading season and finally bow season again without seeing and hunting for their trophy but for some of us lucky ones we are just sitting on the side lines waiting for the next hunter to bring over their deer whether its a button buck, doe or buck, they are all trophies to the person who has hunted them .We know that the passion is the same for all of us and it is a wonderful accomplishment. As a woman hunter, my needs on the side line while waiting are complicated. I want to be with the other hunters but since I am not I have experienced a different aspect of the hunting companion.

This is the first year I have taken off the week of gun season and as the sun rises I am still in bed thinking I should get up but instead I throw another blanket over my head wondering if it is arctic cold outside, with the wind blowing 20 miles an hour and wondering how many hand warmers it would take to keep me partially warm. Feeling guilty I rise up, shower, and start the day with coffee and a cookbook. I am overwhelmed by the distant feeling of loneliness, I want to be hunting, but instead I busily worked on a menu for the day starting with venison sausage and gravy, venison hamburger bake and venison tacos for the kids. Therefore since I have everything organized, I grabbed the binoculars, guiding my eyes to the field and ended up glassing the area for a good 30 minutes. I think I hear a shot so I open the door, letting the cold air in and listen. This goes on all day and I couldn’t take it anymore so I ended up driving around in my Tahoe looking for hunting pressure on the surrounding properties and any deer movement that I might see. I honestly believe that any information I can gather would be beneficial to the other hunters for the next days hunt. As the evening wears down and the sun has set, slowly the hunters walk out of the fields to their trucks and head home. The door opens and in walks my husband exhausted, wind burnt and hungry. We enjoy the venison bake, I asked a hundred questions about the day, starting with how many shots did he hear, did he see any deer, coyotes or any other hunters on the property, which he politely answers and then heads for his chair and falls asleep. After an hour, the phone starts ringing and the plans for the next day begin.

I cannot take the anxiety of sitting on the sidelines anymore so the next couple of evenings I head to our bow stand with my son Nathan to hunt doe. I enjoyed just being with him in the woods, watching the movement of the deer and squirrels. We didn’t have the success that we planned on but we sure identified with the animals, they seemed to pick out every little movement we made. We have limited our small area for archery only, being located next to city limits but the surrounding farms use any legal weapon of choice. This makes bow hunting during gun season very skillful, you need to outwit the deer population and this is hard especially when you are wearing hunter orange. You cannot count on the deer continuing their normal habits while being shot at with a gun. They spook at the tiniest sound and just magically disappear. The quantity of deer we saw in those two evenings though doubled the amount the shotgun hunters had the opportunity to see even though we never shot a single arrow.

The weather has turned nasty. The winds are hurricane proportion and the temperature has dropped steadily all week long. I am no longer feeling the isolation that was overwhelming me in the beginning of the week and I am learning to enjoy the prospects of being behind the scene, helping feed the hungry hunter, listening to their stories of how the day unfolded and realizing that all my knowledge I have learned over the years has taken place right at home, with my family of hunters that I consider some of my best friends. I am proud of the fact that I have had the opportunity to harvest the first deer among our friends this year but I would not be honest if I didn’t continue feeling the need to be out in the woods, sitting in the tree stand waiting to see another big buck travel along the ridge, dreaming of the adventure of harvesting him next year.