Deer Season

 

Each year, when Minnesota’s deer season rolls ‘round, I’m painfully reminded of my blunder years ago, when I applied for a special permit to hunt deer in St. Croix State Park–about 10 miles west of where Jim Jordan bagged his legendary world record white tail on the morning of November 20, 1914. Jim was a wiry 22-year-old when he brought down the massive buck– using his Winchester Model 1892– along the south bank of the Yellow River that winds through Danbury, Wisconsin.

Jordan and his wife Lena were neighbors of ours back in the seventies, when we lived across from the park. Jim owned the only bar in the area, which doubled as a hunting shack during the deer season.

A gray stubble bearded outdoorsman in his eighties, you could always rely on Jim recounting his truly compelling tale of the giant buck he pulled from the icy river that overcast Friday morning.

But this isn’t about Jim’s story, it’s about mine.

Some eleven years after Jim passed away at the age of 86, I was filling out my application for a Special Area Permit to hunt in the St. Croix State park during the upcoming firearms deer season.

As I carefully inserted the application in an envelope and licked the flap, I couldn’t help but envision myself duplicating Jordan’s hunting feat that had taken place some seventy-five years earlier. With giddish anticipation, I slapped a woodsy looking stamp in the upper righthand corner of the envelope and dropped it in the mailbox.

A week or so passed and I began hearing from others who had applied. They had already received their permits and, in fact, everyone who had mailed in an application had received a permit because there had been more permits than applicants.

Surely my permit had simply been used to flag an article in the latest issue of Field & Stream and would appear in a day or two.

The day or two passed, however, and no permit. I decided to inquire at my local Department of Natural Resources as to the problem.

I was told the problem was me . . . I had failed to follow instructions.

I hustled home–faster than a buck on the trail of a doe in estrus–and frantically fumbled for my 48-panel-origami-folded Deer Hunting Regulations to see where I could have possibly overlooked the explicit instructions.

On panel 21–where I had highlighted in hunter’s blaze orange: “State Parks Open Only With Special Permit”–I painstakingly examined each word, hunting for some hidden clue that I, in my mighty Nimrod exuberance, had missed.

Had I indicated the correct zone, recorded the special area number in the proper box? Yep! I continued to interrogate myself. Did I know where the park was, how many permits were being issued, the deadline for mailing? Yep! Had I inverted my octavo-fold brochure and referred to panel 10 for application mailing instructions? Nope . . . Nope!!

My chest sank. I had missed this critical clue to eligibility. The waves of self-incrimination were excruciating.

How was this possible? Me, the backwoods outdoorsman who wears buck scent for cologne and prides himself on being able to track the wiliest of old swamp bucks through entangled coniferous swamps–composed entirely of muck–and vaporous quagmire bogs. How could I be so obviously duped?

There, under “Application Instructions” were the words: “cross out the address on the back of the application” and “mail in an envelope to the address given where the special area is described.”

I sat motionless in my antler-armed deerskin-chair, my bloodshot eyes fixated on the microscopic type that now loomed in billboard proportions. They’ve got me. I had failed to pass the test, to solve the riddle, negotiate the labyrinth that would have counted me among the worthy. This was worse than trying to decipher instructions to Ed McMahon’s Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes.

Desperate, I loaded my family into our camouflage minivan with dual high-pitched deer whistles and headed to the park. Maybe these folks, who are overrun by antlered beasts would have a better grasp of the word “pity.”

No such luck. My torment continued even though I faithfully purchased a park sticker, shelled out for some high-margin goodies from the park store, and deposited all litter–including some that wasn’t even mine–into the proper receptacles.

I was distraught, certain this was punishment for not donating to the Nongame Wildlife Fund on my last tax return. I began to wonder, contrary to public health assurances, if I had fallen victim to the characteristic spongy degeneration of the brain, symptomatic of chronic wasting disease (CWD)? Had I spent too much time in the forest with cervids who are highly susceptible to this neurological affliction?

Like the brush wolves in the park, that howled and stalked the woods at night, this seasoned deerstalker began making strangely similar lamenting sounds as I curled up on my bearskin rug and ruminated on what might have been, if only . . .

After the season was over, I received a letter from the DNR’s Chief, Section of Wildlife Division informing me that the 1989 St. Croix State Park hunt was history and had proved very successful at that.

He diplomatically suggested, as a postscript, that I consider donating to the Non-game Wildlife Fund the next time I file my taxes.

Former Cook County Commissioner Garry Gamble is writing this ongoing column about the various ways government works, as well as other topics.