Buck Hunting

A veteran deer hunter's introduction to 'trophy' hunting

Okay, okay, I won’t shoot him.

I rarely say this when hunting deer. In fact the number of times I have consciously passed up on what I consider a good buck can be counted on less than one hand. Oh who am I kidding? I’ve never passed up what I consider a good buck.

Until this season in Oklahoma. The story is my first journey into North American “trophy” hunting, and what it really means to probably 98 percent of hunters in the US and Canada.

Let’s start with Hank’s buck history. For almost the first decade of my deer hunting life, I shot only does. I remember vividly seeing what to me was the biggest deer on earth saunter by us at close range near Miles City, Montana, one day while my friend Tim and I held only doe tags. It was the first time I’d seen a really serious buck in real life. I was 32.

The first buck I ever shot was Spork the Deer, an ancient Columbia blacktail deer the ranch owner wanted dead because his antlers had, over the years, degenerated into a fork, and a spike… really a spear. I cleaned the skull for a European-style mount and then Katrina, sister to Holly, painted it beautifully in red and gold. He guards my collection of Mexican cookbooks now.

I shot a few forked horns here and there subsequently, but the first truly nice deer I killed was a Coues deer, a sort of tiny desert white-tailed deer that lives in the Sonoran Desert. This deer I shot with the aid of my friend John Stallone, who lent me his rifle, tricked out for long-range shooting. I killed that deer across a canyon at 525 yards. He guards my collection of British, German and Scandinavian cookbooks.

That was 2017. I still haven’t killed anything more than a forked horn mule deer, but when we started hosting white-tailed deer hunts in western Oklahoma with Larry Robinson’s Coastal Wings Outfitters, I started seeing a lot of nice bucks. One year Larry said I could shoot one. We sat in the blind together, and sure enough, on that first day a decent deer walked out. “You want him?” Larry asked. You bet! Blam! Dead deer.

A couple years later, Larry had a mission for me: To kill a geriatric buck that had nice antlers, but was so old he might not survive even Oklahoma’s mild winters. How will I know which deer he is? “You’ll know,” Larry said.

The next morning, as daylight gathered across a huge wheat field, I saw deer. Lots of does, a couple little bucks… and one really big one. He was lumbering along, eating a bit. He looked tired. And he had great big antlers. Had to be him, so exactly 7 minutes into that year’s deer season, I killed him. He scored 150, which in whitetail deer terms is pretty good.

This deer was interesting. Old. Tougher, a bit rutty, which is to say the meat was dark, without fat, and while not stinky, certainly more… deery than the little does I’d spent my adulthood slaying.

Last year I skipped buck hunting and basically grocery shopped for the first three deer I saw, two does and a spike buck. They were all delicious.

That brings us to this year. I wanted to try for another decent buck. Larry likes me to kill the really old ones because their antlers are on the decline. It’s a bit like our own strength and vigor as humans: The older we get, the less robust we are. Declining antler growth is a visible sign of this. Paying customers get a shot at the true giants. I am perfectly OK with this, especially because now I own a dry aging contraption, which, over the course of a month or more, can render even old animals tender and wondrous. (Read more about dry aging venison here.)

First day, all I saw was a funny little six point, which in Oklahoma terms is a tall forked horn with prominent eye guard antlers. But he was a legal buck… No, I told myself. I wanted to shoot a mature deer, or another grandpa, regardless of headgear. I let him pass and killed a little doe instead.

Second day I sat with Jake, one of the guides, and it turned out to be a good thing. Before dawn, he spotted a gigantic deer with all sorts of antlers sticking out all over — definitely something well north of 14 points. We named him Megatron. But he never gave me a shot, gone before legal shooting light. A few more young bucks wandered around.

And then a very nice buck started walking right at us! He was big, healthy and his antlers were, at least to me, very, very impressive. This was the guy. But Jake said no. This deer was too healthy, too vigorous… too young. He was maybe four years old, tops. Deer can live to seven or more in this part of Oklahoma. Gah.

That evening we hunted the same spot. Again, this deer showed up, right at sunset. No go. But a nearby blind had a number of huge deer milling around, and the hunter was only doe hunting. Right at the end of legal shooting time (30 minutes after sundown), they wandered our way. So we ended the night hopeful.

Next morning Jake and I were pumped. It just felt right. And it was the penultimate day of the rifle season, so time was running short. Funny thing about white-tailed deer: They’re creatures of habit. Unlike blacktail deer, which are the mafia dons of the deer world, never taking the same route twice (and speaking in hushed tones into their hooves), whitetails give zero effs. They’ll pound a trail in the prairie like cattle. We figured those big deer would be around.

I love that moment before the morning begins, when all is still night. (To be fair, I hate getting up for it unless there’s a good reason.) We watched shooting stars flash and satellites blink across the night sky. Orion the Hunter watched over us, as did Venus, the morning star.

Slowly, like water seeping over parched ground, the light oozed into the world. At first, nothing. Then a sound, a scuffle, a hoof step. Another few minutes, and dark shapes milled about. Another few minutes, and we could tell the bucks from the does. Again, lots of teeny bucks in the field. No Megatron. No big bucks at all.

Sunrise was close, and to the east we heard Crack! Crack-a-tack-a-crack! Antlers! Two bucks fighting! We carefully swung toward the sun and soon saw three big bucks, including my no-shoot-em nemesis. He had just finished wrestling with a much larger deer, but he appeared to win.

The larger deer was massive, but looked tired. His face lacked the sharp black-and-white definition around the nose that marks a younger whitetail. This was him. This was the grandpa I’d been looking for.

Just then the sun broke the horizon. Crap! It immediately became almost impossible to look through my scope. Jake had eyes on the old man, but the three bucks were milling around. I was under orders not to shoot my nemesis, and I’ll be perfectly honest: I had no real idea what any of their antlers looked like, just that there were lots of them. (I know, I know…) I really didn’t want to mess up and shoot the “wrong” deer.

Finally, Jake and I were both on Grandpa. “Ready?” he asked. By way of answer, I shot the buck through the neck at 220 yards. He fell dead on the spot. I suppose I should have waited until Jake could have videoed the kill, but I am not a huge fan of that anyway.

Here lies Grandpa.

My nemesis stood off, then walked away with the other younger buck. He would survive this deer season. In the end, I passed on that deer three times. Three times I had a dandy buck in my crosshairs, but held off. I’ve never done that before. As we walked back to get the truck, I told Jake that at the very least I get to name him: Big Bank Hank.

Maybe I’ll see you next year, Hank. Maybe not.

This whole process opened up in a personal way a world I’d only known through reflective light: American trophy hunting. Several of the guides knew exactly which buck they wanted to kill, or wanted a client to kill. Most notable is The General, who had reached Turdy Point Buck status in camp. He survived hunting season.

One thing to remember: In the overwhelming majority of cases, the hunter who waits and ultimately kills an older buck, one with large antlers, is also eating that deer — it’s no different from me killing does or forked horns. We’re all eating what we kill.

This is not well understood by many non-hunters. The fiction is that the hunter takes only the trophy, the antlers, and leaves the meat to rot. Not only is this a crime, but it happens so rarely that it becomes a topic of conversation among hunters. “Yeah, hear about that guy last year who ‘ditch cleaned’ a 180-class buck. He got pinched.”

I have long lost count of the conversations I’ve had with hunters about the intricacies of cooking and prepping big bucks since I started writing about wild game publicly in 2007. Yes, older deer are different. Yes, a buck in rut will not be as good eating as the same buck before the rut. But that’s all detail.

The larger point is that the deer is getting eaten. I frankly don’t care if someone grinds it all into burger or snack sticks — I mean yeah, there are waaaay better things to do with an animal like that — but if that’s how the hunter will feed the ones he or she loves, so be it.

I wonder how many people would oppose something called “culling,” which is what I do with Larry by targeting the oldest bucks. Or even “selective harvest,” which sounds weird to my ears, but hey, it’s better than “trophy hunting.” That phrase evokes feelings of waste, of toxic testosterone. And make no mistake: Both exist.

But they are not the norm. The fact that I have gleaned so much knowledge from so many hunters over so many years about how to go about making these older animals better at the table is heartwarming. It means that the majority of hunters are viewing both the antlers and the meat as their trophy. One just lasts longer.

As for Grandpa? I am putting him through his paces, dry aging the hindquarter and a huge saddle of backstrap — the latter coated in deer tallow to protect it from too much moisture loss. I’ll report back on my findings. But win, lose or draw, he’s gettin’ et. Nose to tail. Because that’s what we do around here.