After drying out from a rain-soaked, unfruitful deer hunt last Saturday, I checked a Delaware bowhunting page on Facebook to see if anyone had better luck than I did. I was elated to read a post from a young hunter who harvested his first deer with a bow.
“Just got my first bowkill!! Not much but it’s mine,” he posted. A photo (the deer appeared to be average size and antlerless) accompanied the post.
Since the high-school-aged hunter posted his accomplishment on the page, I can only assume he was proud of his deer harvest. It was disheartening, however, that he tempered his post by including the “not much but it’s mine” statement.
I was the first to respond to his post. I commented, “Every deer is a trophy. Nice job!” He soon received more comments congratulating him on his harvest with several commenters reassuring him of his deer’s trophy qualities.
Any bowhunter knows how difficult it is to harvest a deer. First there’s configuration of the bow and arrows. Then there’s hours of practice. Then there’s adjusting and fine-tuning. And then there’s more practice.
Additionally, unlike hunting with a gun, hunting with a bow requires hunters to take relatively close shots (typically no more than 40 yards, with many archers choosing to shoot nothing beyond 25 yards). Selection of hunting location, use of camouflage and scent suppression, and careful consideration of shot angles are additional factors that contribute to the challenges of close-range bowhunting.
However, thanks to a steady diet of adrenaline-filled, fast-paced hunting shows fed through various outdoors-related television networks, average Joe (or average Jane) hunters are questioning their harvests. After all, it’s commonplace to see internationally known (and relatively unknown) hunting personalities shooting giant bucks week after week and unappreciatively hooting, hollering, and high-fiving after doing so. It’s only natural that hunters – especially beginning hunters – expect the same success ratios, the same size deer, and the same quick pace at which the televised hunts seem to occur.
Everything is not as it seems, however.
Editors and production specialists know what audiences want to see. I think most hunters will agree that it would be difficult to watch a TV program showing a hunter sitting in a deer stand for eleven hours and shooting nothing. However, many hunts – whether conducted by Saturday hobbyists or compensated personalities – end with no shots or harvests whatsoever. Rather than reflecting unsuccessful hunts on TV shows, many editors condense hours or days of hunting footage into 24-minute shows (with the other six minutes reserved for commercials and and/or sponsored product placements) that culminate with harvests of the biggest deer on their respective blocks.
In many cases (though certainly not all), televised hunts are conducted on private properties that are meticulously managed for deer. The management practices and limited hunting pressure lead to bigger deer and greater numbers of deer, which increase the chances of show hosts consistently harvesting television-worthy deer.
For the average hunter who only hunts highly pressured public hunting lands, things may be quite different. Deer are less abundant. Few bucks live long enough to reach record-book potential. And regulations may dictate that only antlerless deer be harvested. Furthermore, an average hunter who is focused on harvesting venison for the freezer may have limited time to hunt, so his shots may be dictated strictly by opportunity.
Trophy hunting means different things to different people, and I readily admit the definition of a trophy is subjective. I contend that all deer (and all other game for that matter) – regardless of size, antler mass, or gender – are trophies because of the work required to successfully harvest them and because of a hunter’s devotion to conservation and putting food on the table.
Regardless of the physical characteristics of a harvested deer, hunters should be proud of their accomplishments. And, on a more spiritual level, hunters should be thankful for the harvest and respectful of the circle of life. I think injecting some reality into reality TV hunts and toning down the hooting, hollering, and high-fiving would make more of us respect and appreciate our harvests.