Postmortem

The last, larger, organized deer camp wrapped-up yesterday and by the time you are reading this my former business partner and her ten-year-old son will have left to return home.

I don't normally wax-philosophical about deer camp but indulge me.  This is the postmortem.

This year the plan was to host a normal camp.  With all of the eating, drinking, socializing, yuks and close-quarters living arrangement upstairs on the second floor. 

With COVID variants cropping-up and case counts climbing as everyone at our latitude began to move indoors on the advice of three medical doctors I figured it prudent to ask everyone wishing to stay here to be vaccinated.  All of the docs agreed that vaxxing is never a sure thing, but considering the lodging arrangements and abundant co-morbidities among my circle of hunting pals and their families being vaccinated reduced probabilities of bad outcomes like community spread.

The hunting part had few, if any, risks as hunting from an outdoor deer stand is about as socially-distanced as you can get.

Sleeping multiple individuals to a room and shared bathrooms - not so much.

Small group bow hunting basically fell off the cliff altogether.  A consequence of the vaccine request, scheduling conflicts and me.  The only weekend I had to pull it-off had to be cancelled due to a last minute conflict for a small non-profit I head.  I was the asshole on that and will not allow it to repeat.  There will be more small group bow hunting in 2022. 

The gun opener had some difficulties too.  As a consequence of the vax request one hunter socially distanced for drinks and meals and lodged off-site.  One hunter was pissed about the unvaxxed individual breathing HIS air, gave me a lecture on the subject and went home early.  Two of our group stayed home altogether.

I'm not making a political display over any of this - I'm just following the best medical guidance I have at my disposal and follow best practices under difficult conditions.  Moreover, I cannot please everyone.  

Does that make me an asshole? 

On balance, it was a successful camp - seven deer on the old meat pole.  And everyone that attended and stayed to the end had a terrific time.  Perhaps the future will bring less vaccine hesitancy and less spread of disease and a real return to normal.

This past weekend was actually a resounding success.  A small group of vaccinated adults, good food, adult beverages, plenty of yuks, five dead deer on the old meat pole AND a ten-year-old hunter got his first deer!  

No drama.  No assholery.

And things seemed a wee bit less rushed with fewer hunters traipsing all over the landscape.  It just doesn't get much better that that.  I think next year I'll invite my pal Smokey Joe and his kid to join us for the December antlerless hunt.  That would be fun. 

In conclusion that amounts to twelve deer this year with some additional hunting for me and anyone that wants to show and follow the guidelines.

I should also point out that if the hieroglyphic tally on the old meat pole is to be believed (and I have no reason not to believe it) in the past five years we've witnessed a total of 69 dead deer hung from its pullies.  That is impressive.

I'd like to raise a toast to Wisconsin's top big game species - Odocoileus virginianus - the whitetail deer.  And my hunting friends too.