My first kill was at 12 years old. I shot a mourning dove off a telephone wire (back in the 60’s our phones were tied to wires that hung on “telephone poles” strung around a neighborhood.) I did that with a slingshot and BBs. When the bird dropped, I picked it up and cradled its lifeless body in my palms. My first feeling was one of pride, which quickly turned to confusion and remorse. Why did I shoot this bird? This primal instinct still remains in most young boys’ undeveloped cerebral cortex. I raised the bird to my nose and inhaled the strange smell of feathers and dusty gravel from its crop. To this day, certain upland birds have that same fragrance and they bring me back to that same place of pride. But as I matured the remorse has evolved into reverence.

In my teens, I struggled with wanting to belong. Team sports were a cruel joke. But when I got my first gun, a Glenfield Marlin .22, and passed my hunter’s education course, my parents turned me loose in the back forty. I shot squirrels and brought them home to show my family. My Grandmother, who was living with us at the time was from “the Old Country” what was then called Yugoslavia. She asked me what I thought I should do with the squirrel. When I replied, she admonished me. “If you take a life, you should use it. You should eat what you kill.” Hmm. That meant dressing my first trophy. And so, we did. Upon opening the chest cavity, the acrid smell of organ meat rose upward to my young and impressionable nasal passages. I choked and maybe threw up a little in my mouth. She took the animal and finished dressing it then scouring the inside with cold water. She told me to think about this the next time I chose to kill something. These words became my guard rails for making choices of what to harvest.

The following year I was hunting rabbits behind the house with a childhood friend, Craig. This time I was armed with a Harrington & Richardson single shot 20 gauge. We stopped beside a hollowed out fallen tree and I said, “I’ll bet there’s a rabbit in there!” He watched as I stepped up on the log and started to roll it from side to side. Out of the far end of the log, a bunny rocketed out and took a sharp left. Not thinking about this being an unsafe shot, I only got my gun up to my right hip and pulled the trigger. The rabbit rolled over, got up and ran. We lost sight of it through the brambles and mountain laurel so prevalent in Pennsylvania. We looked for what seemed like an eternity to a 13-year-old boy. It was really only about 45 minutes. We crisscrossed the path where we last saw the critter. Each time as we passed across the top edge of a sand pit, I would ask “Do you smell that?” Craig did not. It was a metallic-like smell mixed with the iron-y nuance of blood. After passing by three times, I told Craig, “I’m going to follow this smell and see where it leads.” His adolescent eyes rolled up into his forehead with the skepticism reserved for a jaded adult. I peered over the edge of the pit. There he was 20 feet below us. The wind currents were sweeping up the embankment. We slid down on our behinds with him repeating over and over, “I can’t believe this, Brad! You are really weird.” I took that as a compliment and from that day forward my sense of smell continued to develop throughout the following 54 years. I embraced it but told no one.

As I continued to develop as a hunter, I adopted this sensory blessing as a gift. It has led me through an entire hunting career when I would associate certain smells with different pleasures that I’d experienced.

Most of the sense memories were wonderful. Some even developed the ability to raise my consciousness to something near a mortal version of the promised land. My first deer was a buck taken with my father when I was 18 years old. We were living in the mountainous resort town of Stowe, VT. It remains one of my most cherished memories. We had field-dressed the four-pointer in the woods and as the stomach cavity was opened a powerful waft of blood, grass, and organs punched at my nose. At first, I almost vomited again. But this time, I inhaled slowly through my mouth and breathed out through my nose as we plunged our hands into the thorax to carve out the diaphragm, lungs and heart. All the fragrances that non-hunters find disdainful, to me became a private treasure. The smell of cow manure from the farm became a powerful and poignant memory. As we dragged our prize past the barn, John Denver’s song “Back Home Again” was playing inside as the farmer did his evening milking. It smelled a lot like the farm where we lived in Ohio. I mentally labeled it “agricultural.” And to this day, dressing and butchering my own deer, I associate it with farms, fresh cut hay, manure, and all the joys of farm life.

At 21 years old, I took up duck hunting with a buddy I’d met while attending Vermont Academy. We had moved again, this time to New Canaan, CT. It was clear to me that I did not belong in this over-privileged suburb. As my boarding school buddy and I immersed ourselves in the sport, new fragrances grew on me. I discovered the sweet odor of an outboard engine’s exhaust. The bouquet of spent gunpowder mixed with Hoppe’s gun cleaning solution and Remington gun oil took me to new heights of fragrance heaven. Within the first season, I discovered the heady smell of swamp gas and low tide when we hunted Long Island Sound. I cataloged these new scents as my favorites. That is until I received and trained my first English Springer Spaniel. After an exhausting hunt in the tidal marshes, my pup, Winston, would climb in the back cargo area of Chris’s truck when I discovered the pinnacle of my sensorial paradise. Wet dog. When mixed with cigar smoke, bourbon, and woodsmoke, it was clear to me that I had ascended.

Many other fragrances have continued to bless me. Honeysuckle and irises hold a special place in my heart reminding me of the candy we ate as kids – Sweet Tarts. As a young teenager, back when the legal drinking age was 18 (yep, that really did happen until too many of us crashed the family car) I had popped open a Molson Canadian Ale in a glass bottle and inhaled deeply. Skunk! So now when passengers in my truck pinch their noses and squinch up their faces at a dead skunk on the road, I breathe in deeply and ask, “Have you ever noticed how skunks smell just like Molson beer?” And I love both.

Further down the path and into my senior years, all these temporal aromas have brought me so much joy, that I will stop whatever conversation I am engaged in, and ask “Do you smell that?” From the onion-y smell of ramps to the subtle fresh tarty snap of a wild asparagus, from the smell of the lake turning over at the end of summer, to my favorite smoky tea, Lapsang Souchong. At one point in my early marriage my wife and I attended a wine tasting with a local sommelier with a very open-minded and accepting way of letting everyone describe their own bouquet. He passed out a high-end merlot he described as “a beefy and well-rounded red with low tannins that excite the palate without overpowering it” When it was my turn to share my observations, I spoke up saying “The bouquet smells to me very agricultural.” He asked what I associated it with. “Like the smell of the cow barn during milking hour when we dragged home my first deer. A little manure and fresh cut hay.” As a brilliant conversationalist, who suspended all judgment, he replied “Why yes! I can acknowledge that. Are you a hunter?” Such is my life’s experience of blessings living forward with my nose in the air.

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Even as the sun has warmed the earth and brought joy to me by reconnecting to the soil and plants, my spirit has been decidedly melancholy. Surrounded by life springing from its buds and lifting skyward, this spring has brought me new ways of thinking about its duration. As the fragrance of the rich soil of the Champlain Valley swirls around the foothills, I am reminded that in a few short months, this too, will decay and die. I apologize for being morose at a time of the year when joy and beauty abound, but even as all that lives, so must all die. I have witnessed the passing of a few good friends in the last two months and I see others aging, walking toward their own demise. It is as nature intends. And yet, how can we embrace the present and all its blessings and at the same time accept the autumn of our own lives? How can we accept death as a natural part of the cycle of life with calm hearts when we harvest a turkey, deer, or goose? Why do we as humans, struggle to find peace in our own deaths?

Earlier this month, I was blessed to call in a beautiful gobbler from 200 yards across an open field. I had never done this before. My birds were always brought to hand in the woods as they marched toward an invisible hen. We would communicate in their cadence of a gentle cluck or purr. The staccato rhythm of their proclamation of their intent to mate. On this particular morning the first round of gobbles was distant yet responsive. After our first repartee, I had to pause and wait for the big bird to inquire about my location. I dare not call if I can see him, for with his extraordinary eyesight he would be able to see me blink.

When a dark round object appeared at the edge of the wood line 200 yards away, the only call that would entice him closer was the one that made no sound at all. They call it “patience.” And so, with shotgun raised up and rested on my bent knee, I slipped the safety off at 100 yards. I had learned the error of my ways on a previous day when the mere “click” sent a big tom launching into the pines.

As he continued to march toward me, my breath became calculated. In through the nose and out in the same still manner. My heart rate rose and the pulsing of my blood made my eardrums thrum. At 50 yards he began the dance. Full fan flaring. Wings dropped down and outward, flanking his broad bearded chest. Bright red caruncles and a blue and white bulbous head. At 30 yards I could make out the snood drooping off his beak and flopping around his face. He was aroused by my decoys. One jake and one hen. He paraded around the decoys in a regal manner. Part puffery and part threat. He was asserting his dominant status over the younger plastic mockery of a male. The young jake’s place in the flock’s hierarchy was well beneath his royalty.

I enjoyed challenging myself to revere this moment of connection. Letting him come closer and dance around the imitations. I wanted to bear witness to this ritual that, as in all animal life, is necessary to maintain balance in nature. Having cut several small twigs of buckbrush and honeysuckle and planting their sheared ends into the soft earth in front of me, I was invisible. As he moved closer to the deceivers, the slot between two of my planted branches allowed for the perfect placement of the bead on his radiant head. I pulled the trigger and he collapsed entirely with barely a beating wing.

I rushed to his side and laid one hand on his head and one on his chest. As he took his last breath, I prayed the native prayer I’d learned from a Wabanaki woman who helped me to find my own spirit path long ago. A solitary tear rolled down my right cheek. A gentle north wind cooled it as I tracked it down from my cheek to my jaw. It’s very difficult to explain the feelings of gratitude and remorse that tug at the heartstrings of an empathetic hunter. But I believe that all of us will one day recognize that our effort to hunt brings us closer to an understanding of life and the importance of connection.

Just as we see our loved ones pass from our existence into the next realm, those feelings are familiar if not welcome.

I have been an outdoor journalist and guide for more than 28 years and I believe in the science of Vermont’s Fish & Wildlife’s (F&W) Wildlife Management Plan established in 2001. After rigorously analyzing harvest and habitat data from as far back as 1920, the F&W administration forged a plan designed to guide decisions made by the F&W Board in setting seasons, bag limits, and rules governing big game – in Vermont known as deer, bear, moose, and turkey. The plan, updated every ten years, identifies the primary issues that these species face, establishes sustainable population and management goals and then prescribes the strategies needed to achieve these goals. Combining wild turkey with moose may seem strange on the face of it, but a multi-species approach is appropriate because all four species face overlapping challenges and, as a group, they represent the backbone of Vermont’s hunting and wildlife-viewing opportunities.

“In the end,” the Commissioner at the time, Louis Porter, said, “the plan’s primary goal is to safeguard healthy and sustainable big game populations and all the benefits they confer to Vermonters, our economy, other wildlife and our landscape.”

I believe in the science of this process. I also recognize that there are others, mostly non-hunters, who relish a reason to attack the department’s regulations. And so, last night, after I had written a polite but firm opinion of the need for humans to participate in the predator/prey cycle, a woman who runs a non-profit in Stowe called “Protect Our Wildlife” felt it was her prerogative to “educate” me on the reproductive process of black bears and how the F&W was using non-science to allow bear hunting as a means of reducing the human/bear interactions.

Her position was that when bears are harvested according to F&W population data, they are not considering the natural mortality rate and reproductive success ratio, and simply promoting to the public that they need to be hunted to control their population. She claimed their “science” was unsupported. Truth be told, it is not the hunting that is causing more unpleasant human/bear interactions. Its development. It seems that many gentrified folks move to Vermont and carve out another chunk of habitat, often in areas that bears have been using for millennia.

When I hear non-hunters using emotional rationale as a baseline for their opinions, claiming that our biologists, who have some of the highest degrees of education in their field, lack efficacy, I am bewildered that they feel that their perceptions have more actual value than science.

As I lay in my bed, tossing and turning, I recognized that there is no amount of reason or scientific fact that can sway someone who chooses to carry an opinion that doesn’t align with mine. And, although I use the pseudonym “Sacred Hunter,” I am just a silly old white man who has chosen to pursue my spirituality through outdoor connections from an adopted indigenous value model.

Maybe now I can fall asleep?

The day is more about commemorating the end of winter, the beginning of sunny days and warm southerly breezes, even if sometimes a short round of flurries should blow through the valley. Standing on the shore of our favorite stream, perhaps beside a classic wooden bri

dge, all I can hear is the rush of water as it gurgles around rocks, forming eddys and emptying into deeper pools, where lies the prince of piscatorial delight, the evanescent rainbow trout.

This early in the game, the purist will try to coax this wise old salmonid out of his lair by bouncing a nymph along the bottom, perhaps a bead-headed prince with some peacock hurl wrapped with rust chenille, tied over the winter, in anticipation of this glorious day. Or for the spincaster, maybe it’s a simple Panther Martin steelhead-patterned spoon, or a straightforward salmon egg on a circle hook. Whatever the lure, it is our first offering to the aquatic world that so captivates our imaginations with the hope of hooking into one of Vermont’s most beautiful assets, the majestic trout.

Rainbows, browns, or brookies, it matters not. These are, in most fisher-people’s opinion, the essence of the Green Mountain state’s wild allure.

I have not been able to discern the origins of the quote, but my friend, Chris, loves to repeat it at nearly every opportunity: “If you want proof that there is a Higher Power, just consider the beauty of brook trout and orange juice.” Even a pagan can appreciate that whatever it was that created or caused evolution to unfold, the genetics of the brook trout is nothing short of miraculous.

As we stand on the shores, dappled sunlight waving through the shadows of the still-barren maples and willows, we are lost in the reflection of our faith that somewhere beneath the surface lurks a monster rainbow, hungry after a long winter of hibernation and ready to strike with a voracious lunge. The line tightens and then runs slack. Is he running toward us? I lift the rod above my head and lean back to take up the belly of the 4-pound test.

Suddenly, the rod throbs hard downward, and the fight has begun. He sprints into the rapid current and rips out line, the drag whining in my hands. Across the riffles, he horses himself toward the far shore where the rock wall plummets into the depths of the hole. He throws his shoulders into the line and flexes them until I think it’s going to snap, then releases the pressure. Is he still there?

I reel in some line and say out loud, “Dang it! I lost him!” Then, as I begin to accept that I have been beaten and reel in the line for another cast, a sudden wild thrashing echoes over the water.

He is airborne and headed back across the current. The sunlight flashes over his powerful rainbow-lit flanks, and to my surprise, I can see that the hook is still set in the corner of his jaw. I reel quickly to take up the slack as he makes another run toward me and then downstream, being careful not to create a snapping line when I get to the end of the slack belly.

I step into the stream and am now immersed in his world. The same earthly element that protects him unnerves me. I must navigate the underwater environment of moss-laden rocks and small pock-holes. My goal is to meet him halfway to the center of the stream, working him into the current to tire him out.

Slowly, I reel in a little line, keeping the line taught but not stressed. Finally, as we both grow weary, he of the fight, and I of standing waist deep in rushing water, balancing my body by leaning into the current and staying off of slippery rocks. As he nears me, he finally relaxes and rolls up on his side, rainbow colors dancing in the sunlight and reflecting off the surface. I tenderly draw him into the ash net with the rubber mesh.

I cradle him softly in my left hand and gently remove the hook from the corner of his jaw. I support his belly with my left hand, while with my right hand, my thumb and my forefinger come together in front of his tail. I tenderly swish him back and forth in the slack water, allowing the oxygen to pour over his fiery red gills. He is regaining his strength.

Suddenly, he thrashes his powerful tail and pulls free. I utter a heartfelt “Thank you, my friend,” and let him swim back into the rushing stream.

It is my practice always to release the first fish of the year. It’s a sacred ritual that I feel brings me good luck for the rest of the season.

Now, many years later, I understand. Even then, when we hit the sporting clays course, shooting two hundred rounds a week all year long, I still was not fully confident that I would kill a bird further than fifty yards out. So, my season counts were always lower than his. And I was tortured by the belief that, even as proficient as I was, I did not want to cripple or lose a bird. I’m not saying it didn’t happen, but it formed a deep neurological pathway in my brain that wrestled with guilt and remorse for not having found my bird.

Over the years that followed, I continued to make the same choice. What had happened to my youthful confidence? It slipped away into the many shades of gray that define the black-to-white spectrum of legal versus ethical. I remember a quote – I don’t know who coined it – “Legal is what you do when you’re being watched. Ethical is what you do when you know no one is watching.” The moral hierarchy that defines maturity is not inculcated in our prefrontal cortex unless, and until, one suffers from some form of shame or discipline for their actions.

I’d like to ask you, my dear reader, have you ever been encumbered by a conscience when you have a chance to take a shot that might be just a bit beyond your comfort zone?

If I can put five arrows in the ten ring at forty yards with my crossbow, but only two at fifty yards, do I take the shot at the buck of a lifetime at fifty-two yards? What if he’s standing quartering away? What if you’ve been in your treestand for thirty sits and seen nothing the whole season, and now it’s one minute left of legal shooting hour? Can you be satisfied with having watched this majestic animal walk away into the shadows of the forest and still enjoyed the thrill as the cloak of darkness folds everything into a darker shade of gray? Was it enough?

Thirty years ago, I witnessed a defining moment that altered my own conscience from the youthful arrogance of a young hunter to a decidedly different level of intention. I don’t want to judge others who do not follow my values, which means accepting that their path is not running parallel to mine.

It was one of those epic days when a group of four of us were able to call in a large flock of early-season Canada geese. Having talked them in from a distance over the broad lake, they circled us repeatedly, carefully inspecting every decoy, every pile of grass that could conceal a predator. We flagged them on the edges of their turn. We ran feeding grunts and simple her-onks when they were out front of the spread. We were working hard to bring these wary birds in – feet down. As the lead bird acknowledged our setup met his standards, that he’d experienced without guns barking at his flock, he dropped his feet and gave the “OK” final honk. As their mighty pinions whooshed in the air and their feet back peddled into the “X” we had set out to create a landing zone, they committed. Fully. As it had been the field for which I had managed to get permission, I had the honor of calling the shot. Layout blind doors popped open. The barrage of twelve-gauge guns echoed over the bay. Birds were dropping, and we each took responsibility for our own shots, marking the birds where they fell.

What happened next was the most poignant moment of my goose guiding career. I watched the man who had shot so many ducks at seventy yards walk out to one of his birds. It suddenly jumped up and started running to get enough lift under its wings to fly away. I watched him as he let the bird get further and further away, and at the last possible moment, he took the shot, anchoring the bird to the cold earth. He retrieved it, marching back to the setup with a look of pride that told me he was someone who loved killing. More than the hunt. I watched him swagger back to the blinds, and as he stood in front of all of us, he held the bird’s head and in a mocking fashion, pretended to vocalize in his own words, punctuated with derogatory expletives, that this “dirty sky carp” should never have tried to escape, or “Daddy would whack him.”

It made me sick. This painful episode began my journey toward learning respect and love for all my prey. And now, at the ripe age of sixty-seven years old, I choose my hunting partners not for their legendary skills, but for how they show respect and appreciation for the hunt. He hasn’t been invited back for the last thirty years.

The partners that still hunt with me have taken our share of birds and enjoyed being connected to their migratory patterns as if the same northern fronts stirred our own souls. But for him, our paths diverged, and we marched in different directions to the sound of our own drum.

Once on the slushy surface, we begin the trek to the feeding grounds about 300 yards off the point. We are looking for 18-24 feet of water using our Navionics apps to determine where the shelf is at the bottom. It is a Monday, and most of the weekend fishermen have returned to their desks and work sites. We begin the ritual of drilling eight-inch holes in the surface and are shocked to find that the ice is still two feet thick, sinking the K-Drill auger to its neck.

We pop a dozen holes about 10 yards apart in just minutes. Next, with practiced precision, we set up our buckets, some allocated to store the multitude of whiteys we expect to put on the ice. Rods are fixed with spring bobbers and ultra-lite tips, four-pound mono line with our favorite lures (here in the Green Mountain State, we call them bibbits – tear-drop shaped painted pieces of tungsten), and on the hook we pinch either spikes (maggots) or chunks of nightcrawlers. Side by side, we sit ready to begin the day. The sun crests the mountains to the east, and a smattering of clouds filters the light into pillars out on the broad lake.

“Ready? I ask my fishing partner. “Fire in the hole,” is his reply. We both drop our lines at the same time. The Vexilar flasher reads two red objects dropping through the water column toward the bottom. The line goes limp at 22 feet. “I’m on the bottom now.” My partner turns to me and exclaims, “Holy Moses! Do you see the flasher? It’s lit up top to bottom with fish. Reel up about four or five feet off.”

Following his observation, we immediately got bites. Gentle nibbles. The kind that big fish make. Up and down the water column, we raise and lower our bait to trigger a reflex that responds to sight and movement. Bite. Quick raise of the line. Nothing. Again, Nibble. Raise. Nothing. This is repeated for several minutes before we decide that, just maybe, they want a different color or shape. I switch my Simcoe bug to a Clam Dropkick, and tip it with some freshly butchered night crawler. My partner laughs at me when I reach for my “secret weapon,” fermented crawfish spray in a can. “Oh no! Not that stink again!” “Don’t worry, we’re not in your shanty, and you’re upwind of me.” We laugh. Jig, Raise rods. Jig again. No more bites.

We move ourselves another 50 yards out into the bay toward the green can buoy. The flasher lights up like a Christmas tree. Reds, greens, yellows. Up and down the column. And then it happens. That moment we’ve waited for all season.

One bite after another. The bait doesn’t even return to the bottom before another fish grabs it and fights like a caged boxer. We reel in one fish after another. And laugh, “Dang it! These are the smallest yellow perch I’ve ever seen!” “Yep! My friend Rudy, whose favorite seafood dish is fish and chips, claims that these yellows are so small “they’re not even fish! They’re more like chips!” The other name for these miniature perch is “dinks.” And Lord, we are in school of them! It’s like getting invited to a party where everyone wants to meet you.

We raise them, one after another, for a few hours, releasing them all to grow into jumbos someday. But for now, we are the schoolteachers and our students are getting their first lesson in discerning good-looking food from the real thing – without hooks.

As the sun rises and separates the clouds, sending them to faraway horizons, the ice begins to degrade further. We both realize that this is the last day. We agree to make the best of it, and rather than complain about the size of the hundreds of “dinks,” and the lack of our target species, we are going to relish every fight, leaving nothing on the ice. So, for four hours, we catch one after another, laughing hysterically at our good fortune. After calling out “Dink!” over a hundred times, I stand up and proclaim that this last day was one well spent.

Truly, it was a memorable “Day Trip to Dinkville.”

As an avid ice fisherman for 38 years, I have witnessed some remarkable events and some incredibly sad endings among my peers in my area. Following is a true story about one such memorable outing that shook me to my core, and yet, in some fortuitous brush with fate, we all survived, never to lose respect for the awesome power of nature. We call it “The Icequake,” which occurred in February just before the turn of the millennium.

It was a gorgeous Sunday with a warm winter sun painted in the bluest sky I can remember. A group of us met at the Shelburne Bay access of Lake Champlain in Shelburne, Vermont. From the access, it was clear by the number of full-size trucks on the ice, having carved out a plowed “road,” that the ice was thick enough to carry our trucks. Typically, my rule is that the ice must be a minimum of 24 inches thick, and there must be at least one dozen other full-size vehicles already out in the bay. Monitoring the thickness of the ice earlier in the week, we felt safe driving our trucks out as well.

There was a cluster of big Chevys, Fords, and Dodge Rams about one mile out from the access in the northeast corner near Queen City Park. We drove out without hesitation, crawled out of our vehicles, and quickly popped a few holes through 28 inches of good, solid black ice. We stood in a circle with our chariots nearby. My partner for the day was a waterfowler who loved adventure and never shied away from danger. John was a 747 pilot who flew the big jets around the world every week. His hyperattentive nature to weather and equipment made him a reliable pilot and a dependable soul if something were to go off the rails.

There were about eight of us all told, standing in a circle ten yards apart, and jigging the depths of a drop off from 18 to 24 feet of water. We were after big February yellowbellies that come into the shallows to spawn. Maybe a lake trout or two to make things interesting. As we stood in a circle, laughing, sharing a cold beer in the welcoming warmth of the February sun, we were more focused on the jocular conversation than on catching fish. It was one of those days in the middle of winter that you can’t take for granted. Filling our buckets was of secondary importance. Somewhere between the second and third can of Labatts Blue, it happened.

At first, it was just a distant groan. We figured it was “just the lake making ice again.” But no, it was too warm for that. 45 degrees. No one said a word. Seconds passed, and the rumble continued. Too long for the bay to “burp” up air bubbles from its depths. About half a minute passed, and the sound became louder. Finally, John spoke up. “Are you guys hearing that, or have I had one too many beers?” Eyes darted from one to another until all eight of us had non-verbally acknowledged that we were experiencing the same thing.

I turned my head to look south since that seemed to be where the deep grumbling was emanating from. I squinted my eyes to see across the bay as far as I could. What I saw was something which I had never seen or heard before. It seemed impossible, but when I asked the crew, “Do you guys see what I see?” The replies came back quickly and were laced with repeating expletives in a linguistic format not recognized by gentrified folk. All acknowledged that we were seeing a two-foot-high “wave” of ice coming directly at us. It was growing louder, and the vibrations on the surface around us could be felt throughout our bodies.

I looked at John and said, “Dammit, buddy! I really don’t want to leave this earth with you being the last thing I see.” The off-color comment did not go unnoticed and seemed to “break the proverbial ice” of complete and utter fear toward a “what the hell” attitude of accepting our fate, whatever that was to be today.

As the wave got closer, we all instinctively squatted as if we were on a runaway elevator, believing that if we could jump up before it hit bottom, we might survive. In this position of complete and vulnerable surrender, we each experienced the same bone-chilling effect.

We all watched as John’s truck was picked up two feet on top of the ice wave and set down as if it hadn’t moved. I turned to John on my right and watched the wave sweep under his feet, lift him two feet upwards, and set him down as if he’d never been moved. Now it was my turn. I swallowed hard and lifted my arms in a synchronous motion matching the momentum and direction of the ice wave. I took a deep breath and surrendered. This time, she lifted me up and set me down solidly where I stood. This caused the ice to crack a couple of times. Loudly. But as the entire lake and bay were frozen from shore to shore, there was no place for the ice to go but back to its original position.

I’d like to say we all laughed when it was over, but the jovial nature of the day had been shaken out of us. There was a strong consensus that we’d had enough excitement for the day.

On the coldest Vermont days, when the temperature drops well below zero, making the hair in your nostrils clang against each other, an exhaled breath evaporates into a white cloud before you can say “goodbye.” The Earth seems to stand still. Everything is standing at attention, enraptured by the sheer beauty of the chilling quiet. Snow crystals radiate the colors of the rainbow like a diamond as the sun caresses each one. All of them are individual expressions of the light reflected from the wintry white orb above. To wander outdoors and leave the comfort of the wicker rocking chair by the woodstove is to invite adventure. Walking across the driveway to the barn, the snow crunches like small pieces of styrofoam underfoot. As I approach the barn where the horse will be stabled for the night, the thought “how did these animals ever manage to remain on this planet for all this time under such extreme conditions?” Sitting in the upper paddock with this mystical being invites me to ponder their spirit. This fourteen-hand Polish Arabian pony enjoys his solitude. Quiet, Unassuming. Always alert, but calm with the knowledge that he is protected, fed, and loved every day. Sitting in the pasture with him, saying nothing, and fully present, we have no expectations but to enjoy each other’s company and practice just “being.”

Many times, I wrestle with the idea that I should “be more,” that I am not “enough.” But to sit with this majestic animal, it is clear that the lesson I need to learn is to recognize that, at this moment, I am enough. It is enough to be here. Now. To share this cold winter’s day in the paddock with him. To smell the woodsmoke rising and falling from the chimney. To feel the warmth of his muzzle as he rests his head on mine. He likes to place his teeth on the top of my skull. Not as a threat, but as a sign that I can trust him. Perhaps in an effort to quiet my mind with his unique sense of humor. He knows it’s not necessary to “think” all the time. His kind has been roaming this planet for fifty million years, in comparison to ancestral humans, who have been around for only about two million years.

His head raises, and his muscular neck stretches upward to catch movement across the snow-laden field. I track his sightline toward a ditch in the distance. A red fox pops out of the swale, jumping in a carefully planned trajectory, his head following the sharp nose into the deep snow. The leap is almost comical, but when he bursts back up through the surface, there is a rodent in his mouth. I can’t tell at this distance whether it is a field mouse, a mole, or a vole. But to the fox, it doesn’t matter. It’s a meal.

As the sun begins to slide slowly downward toward the distant Adirondacks, turning a dark purple on the western horizon, this meal could be the difference between surviving the night of -20 below temperatures. Or not. The fox knows the importance of the hunt. I sit in a folding chair next to my pony. He nudges my red-and-black plaid hunting hat to let me know he depends on me to keep him warm and fed. I amble into the barn, holding out a handful of senior feed. He doesn’t resist even though his instinct is to stay outside. Walking softly into the barn, I reward him with a full bowl of horse feed and three flakes of the high-quality hay grown on the farm.

The hours-long silence is broken when I place my face on his withers and inhale deeply the sweet fragrance of friendship. With a gentle pat on his rump under the thick blanket covering him, I break our bond of silence. “Goodnight, my brother. Sleep well.”

John and I had planned this trip out carefully. We had learned many of the lessons over our 28 years of friendship based on our mutual passion for duck hunting. John has been the kind of partner that is required to undertake a pursuit that commands the full attention to detail that, if not thoroughly planned, can end in the ultimate disaster. A partnership whereby every detail and every variable has been considered, discussed, and put into place to reduce the odds of a mishap. Over the 38 years of my own experience, I have known no less than ten duck hunters who have perished on our lake. And so, with great forethought and discussion, it was decided that we would hunt the Missisquoi refuge in Swanton, Vermont, on this day, late in November, after a strong cold front bullied its way south from Canada.

The plan would be to depart the access at Mac’s Bend on the river and head downstream to the west branch, run into the bay about two hundred yards, clearing any obstacles, and curl back west, then south into Charcoal Creek. This would allow us to push into Long Marsh, a favorite feeding and loafing spot for birds that had to depart from the shallow cranberry pools on the east side of the refuge. which would be locked up with ice. We had seen this in the past. When late migrating red-legged black ducks and mallards jumped out of the ice forming around them, they often headed for Long Marsh. The plan was to push the Barnegat-style sneakboat into the thin ice and bust it up by spinning around in circles to create open water for them to land. This strategy can be highly effective but is wrought with potential danger, which made it all the more attractive.

A word on homemade boats is warranted here. First off, to make one’s own craft is the penultimate expression of love for the sport. It involves close to one hundred hours of building. From framing to hull shaping, fiberglassing, filleting, sanding, to epoxy coating, priming, painting, and adding hardware, it is one of the most challenging labors of love known to boat owners. The result of adding layer after layer of material is one of life’s finest experiences that bolsters pride and appreciation for the builder. And so, with all the hours and arduous work, one must still consider that this craft has its limits. It must be maintained and cared for throughout the season and the remaining months. After all, it is but wood, glass, and epoxy resin.

As we motored down the river in the depths of early winter darkness and a waning quarter moon, the spotlight swung from side to side to locate the riverbanks and search for the ubiquitous submerged trees. The Yamaha motor hummed its one-note song. The air was crisp with anticipation. Each exhalation into the dark whispered white clouds in the flash of the spotlight. I rubbed my hands, thinking about how important our preparation had been. All seemed well.

Weaving through the west branch, rife with partially submerged branches and a sandbar at the mouth, John navigated the boat masterfully. It comforted me to know that my hunting partner was reliable and steady-handed. Out into the bay in a light north wind, the lights of the camps along the Canadian border twinkled with the night stars. Around the bend and into Charcoal Creek, the first sign of challenge was what we had expected. Skim ice. No problem. Pushing through the paper-thin surface, we turned east again to enter the marsh. The ice being pushed by the hull sang a high-pitched sound like crystal shattering on a wooden floor. “Keep the keel headed straight to bust it up,” I said. “Yep,” came the reply. As the ice became thicker, we set a goal of busting through to the blind post where we were required to be within one hundred feet of its position. As we approached the post, John began spinning the boat in concentric circles, pivoting around the port side. Round and round we went, pushing ½” thick plates of ice under the outside surface ice. “I think that they’ll want to pump right into our little watery opening as soon as they get their feet out of the ice in the cranberry pools.” “Yep” was the reply.

Two minutes into our ice-breaking routine, I looked to the stern. John was intently focused on the shelves of ice, pushing over and under the remaining surfaces. I glanced downward and noticed that water was coming over the floor of the stern where he sat on the edge of the cockpit. I pointed it out and, at first, we dismissed it as water slipping over the transom. A minute later, there was enough that the gas tank began to float. “John,” I said, “We’ve got a problem. That’s not just water slipping over the transom. It’s coming in somewhere.” “Yep,” he replied. “John, we have to get the hell out of here. This is getting worse, and we are a long way from the access.”

He handed me a bucket that had been cut in half to save space but still represented thoughts of emergency preparation. I started bailing water as rapidly as I could while he concentrated on motoring us out of the marsh, into the open bay, and around the point to the mouth of the river. The water was coming in as quickly as I was bailing it. Turning into the mouth of the river, we were still at least one mile from the access, and it was pitch dark. My fingers were on fire from the ice-cold water. I began to scream in a quiet voice if that could even be done. As we headed upstream, my fingers went from burning and painful to completely numb. They could no longer hold the bucket, and with one more toss of the water, the bucket followed, arcing into the darkness of the river. Cursing and apologizing in the same breath, the thought of perishing mid-river was straining as I fought off the beginnings of panic.

“John, head toward shore, and I will jump in when it’s shallow enough, then I’ll tow you in with the bowline.” “He replied, “Please take Finbar,” his white lab. As we got within eight feet of the bank, I could feel the bottom with the push pole and jumped overboard, calling Finbar to join me. Reaching terra firma, I felt a guilty sigh of relief. The eastern sky began to lighten. The pastel sage and helio colors comforted me. But was I going to lose my partner at this moment of self-preservation? The current pulled the boat away from the shore and took John ten yards away. Suddenly, in a moment reminiscent of the movie “The Titanic,” the bow of the 14-foot wood and fiberglass boat began to lift skyward. The motor started to slip below the surface. If I survived this, would I ever hunt again if I lost my partner?

I shouted to John, “Climb up to the bow, grab the push pole, and try to touch bottom, then push yourself close enough to me that you can toss me the bowline.” Ten yards was all that was needed to reach my shaking arms. The frostbitten fingers had long been forgotten. Adrenalin surged through my body. Catching the rope, I was able to pull the water-filled boat to the bank even as it was three-quarters underwater. John stepped off the bow, joining Finbar and me with a huge sigh. “Oh my God! We made it!” The ice had ripped a fourteen-inch-long, two-inch-high gash in the starboard hull just above the waterline. The ride home was filled with moments of retrospection and constant discourse of gratitude for living through our 28^th season as partners. I proposed that we no longer use our wooden boats as Arctic icebreakers. The reply came back as an understated tone of relief. “Yep.”

Stepping onto the ice for the first time each winter, my thoughts turn to the predecessors of our modern-day ice fishermen. I was a latecomer. My first ice fishing expedition was 35 years ago, when my restaurant buddy, Ozzy, told me that it was possible to drive out on the ice in my Jeep by four-wheeling through an easement between summer camps.

At the time, my youthful zeal for adventure would override any logic or concern for potential disaster. But I was raised that way. No fear. This year, when I set my first creeper-clad boot onto the solid surface, the spirits of hundreds of years of hopeful fishermen rushed over me, spilling into my heart and filling me with hope. Why was I so drawn to a sport that seemed so unreasonable to most land dwellers? Walking out on the ice, having tested it for thickness and finding ten solid inches of clear black “hard water,” the fear faded away and was replaced with an unquenchable curiosity for what lay beneath the surface. Even the thunderous sonic “BoooWhump!” and subsequent vibration were no longer frightening. Many years ago, when I was still learning that “there’s no such thing as ‘safe ice” from locals who had made a living as commercial fishermen. They taught me how to read the various sounds. The “BoooWhump” that sounded like it resonated from the belly of the earth was a good sign. It is the lake “making ice.” Cracks ripping down the center were simply the ice expanding against the shores that surrounded it. But not on a sunny or warm day. Those were warnings.

As our merry band of “hardwater fanatics” dragged sleds and shanties full of gear half a mile out to where the bottom drops off from 12 to 20 feet, the collective wisdom of decades on the ice buoyed our confidence. My new fishing partner, Christian, a Canadian hardcore ice fisherman, drills three holes through ten inches of ice in less than sixty seconds and manages to leave no slush in the hole. We climb into our pop-up shanties and light the propane heaters. Picking out our favorite good luck rod, we place a “bibbit” (a small, usually tear-drop shaped lure with a single hook) and take a “spike” (for those with a low gross-out tolerance – these are actually maggots cultivated for bait) on the hook and lower the line. Most of us use an ultra-light ice rod like a “Tickle Stick” with its super sensitive tip, with which we can monitor even the slightest nibble.

We have a small community of fisher-people who will set up around us so that we can talk and tease each other from inside our shanties. We sit in comfortably padded seats and hold our rods over the icy cylinder, “jigging” the rod so that the tip bounces up and down, giving action to the bibbit and spike dangling in front of the fish. Most of the time it’s yellow perch (or yellowbellies as we call them), but occasionally we will jig up a walleye or pickerel.

As with most traditional outdoor sports, there are stories, theories, and plain ridiculous hypotheses that we conjure to explain why the fish don’t bite on any given day. For instance, when no one has gotten a bite for half an hour or more, we will try the “coffee pouring theory.” This idea is predicated on the natural phenomenon that when our attention is focused on something other than jigging, like trying to pour a cup of coffee from a thermos into a small cup, that exact moment will elicit a strong response from the fish. And it usually causes us to miss the hook set. Another theory is that fish will not bite if “you’re holding your nose wrong.” When staring down at the tip of the rod waiting for it to wiggle, even a little, your dominant eye will be stronger, and the rod tip is not really where it appears. If you close your dominant eye and look down your nose with your non-dominant eye, the fish will bite. I have tested this one for the last ten years, and it works for me, but I am ridiculed mercilessly for believing this paranormal theory. Another theory was formulated by my dear friend Rudy Castro. And let me say this, that he can outfish anyone I’ve ever known. We have tried desperately to explain his ability to attract fish. His theory is this: when the barometric pressure drops below 29.9 millibars and continues to drop, the air bladder contracts in size due to the pressure, allowing the adjacent stomach to expand, causing the fish to “feel hungry.” Of course, if the pressure is rising, the opposite occurs; the air bladder expands, pressing against the stomach, and the fish no longer feels hungry. Lastly is the theory that humans are bio-electrically charged, possessing a balance of negative and positive electrical charges. If you have ever listened to the non-scientific community, try to explain why, they claim that when a rare positively charged person holds a glass of champagne, the bubbles will stop rising to the surface. These poor souls are sometimes relegated to the same class of people as “witches” or aliens, and because their “charge” is the opposite of the earth and water, they “attract” fish. I think that this may be the origin of the term “fish magnet” when trying to explain why the person next to you in the shanty, whose hole is only two feet away and using the same rod and lure, will be catching fish while you are not. Switching holes with this individual will only serve to embarrass the struggling angler further.

As the conversation dies down and eyes begin to cross from staring at the rod tip for hours, someone will inevitably say, “That’s it. I’m done with this.” This subtle but emphatic statement is the most powerful tool we have. The minute we begin to reel up our lines…the next dialogue is altered by that same person saying, “Let’s just give it another half hour.”

The list of reasons why we can’t catch anything is endless. There are as many unsupported claims as there are fishermen, and as the saying goes, “If he fishes, he lies.”

But on a Good Day?!

Yesterday was our first day on the ice for the season. It was a 5 am start with an hour-and-a-half drive north, and the first real cold spell dipped the mercury below zero. Stopped for breakfast sandwiches at a truck stop. I was prepared for the worst. The double bacon, egg, cheddar, and tomato with mayo and pepper sauce did not disappoint. Two thermoses of French roast coffee. The first one needed a refill, as the night before had been mostly sleepless.

Arriving at the boat launch on the south side of the lake, we discovered that six inches of mostly powdery snow lay blanketing seven inches of solid black ice. Snowmobiles and four-wheelers were already out in the middle about ¼ mile from the access. With about thirty parties already on the ice (what the heck time did THEY arrive?), we felt safe enough. I am more than a bit cautious about ice safety. I know men heavier than me who don’t hesitate to fish on as little as two inches of clear black surface. I have also known more than six people who have died from breaking through, thus my personal rule of “never less than four inches of the clear black stuff,” and always let a bigger person take the lead. First ice, they say, is one of the most productive periods. That may be true, but I’ll impatiently wait for six or eight before taking anyone else.

Yesterday, we felt confident dragging our shanties and sleds out to a drop off where the sonar app read from twenty-three feet to thirty. My partner, Christian, is a true Canadian. When these guys are delivered in the hospital, they must be issued a permanent fishing license on their birth certificate, and instead of reaching out for their mother’s breast, I think that they reach for the nearest thing that looks like a fishing rod. They are Born to Fish.

We ventured forth and set up his fancy Jason Mitchell shanty. I watched him drill three holes in less than a minute. He offered me the first. I declined. I wanted to watch his expertise in action. It was a slow start, but his Vexilar fish finder was displaying multiple color bands, indicating that a draught of fish was waiting for their breakfast to be delivered. We had to find out what they wanted as their first course.

Notably, he was the first on the board with a nice ten-inch yellowbelly. But the rest of them were as finicky as an insolent toddler. We switched bibbits a few times. Christian tried a Maki plastic on a Clam Drop Kick and hooked another nice “fatty.” I put a couple of spikes (maggots for the uninitiated) on my favorite Simcoe bibbit and dropped it down the icy cylinder. It “bounced” off the silty bottom and stirred up a small rainbow cloud on the screen. Seconds after the cloud appeared, the ultra-sensitive tip of my Tickle Stick ice rod bowed down in a dramatic tug toward the hole. The vibration of the fish on the hook made the whole rod thrum. Reeling it up from the bottom, the fish fought hard and twice ran, taking the line from the spool as if the drag didn’t even exist. “Let ‘em run!” Christian said. “Of course!” I replied. “I just don’t want to snap the line. It’s only a three-pounder.” Christian replied, “Let the rod do the work.”

A minute later, I was holding up my first yellow perch of the season. Not a trophy size-wise, but that first fish through the ice gets my blood pumping hard. First ice. First fish, Third to the last day of the year.

We fished hard for the rest of the day. My buddy Trevor joined us and managed to outfish Christian and I combined. We slogged back to the access at 3:30, totally worn out. Smiles and congratulations were passed among all parties. Together we managed to take home thirty nice, fat yellow perch.

As the sun began to set in the Adirondacks as I drove home, a warm feeling of connection and gratitude flushed over me. Alone in the cab of my vehicle, I uttered “Thank you” to no one there. The early winter sun slid behind the mountains with a gracious wink of crimson exhalation as it settled between the peaks.

Today I will walk into these woods once more and seek another connection like this one. It will be a test of tenacity and grit as true winter temperatures strain to climb above freezing. The aluminum stand, rails, and seat will punish any flesh that comes into contact with its surface. A light snow begins to fall as the sun claws its way over the mountains to the east.

Beneath the stand, the trail of cloven hooves reveals the midnight wanderings of a pair of does. Having taken the one buck bag limit already, it is my duty to make the best effort to harvest a doe according to the property owner’s rules. This will be my sixteenth sit for the archery season. Could I have attended more? I will reluctantly admit, “yes.” But domestic life and its inherent demands can require that my values hierarchy be adjusted to maintain a modicum of normality. Many of us think that we would hunt every single day if we could, but even then, we still need to provide shelter and heat for our loved ones.

Before I got married to my remarkably tolerant spouse, I did my best to explain the depth of my passion and that for four months of the year, I would have to be laser-focused on my drive to hunt, and that many of the domestic chores might be sublimated to my overarching need to follow my primitive need to provide. Oddly enough, she agreed, and because of her acceptance, we will be celebrating our thirtieth anniversary next Wednesday. Marrying a woman who, as an artist, does not conform to most of society’s conventions allows us to celebrate our choice to live differently than most.

The day progresses without my approval. And soon, sitting in my stand eighteen feet up in the air, the early winter sun begins to descend over the big lake. Its fiery surface is reflected on the broad lake. It exhales its last breath as it dies between two Adirondack peaks to the west.

Almost to the minute, a ferocious rush of air spills down from the upper atmosphere. The sound sounds exactly like Niagara Falls from the walkway beneath. Looking up into the fading purple light, the pale pink clouds roil as the frigid Arctic air spills down mercilessly to the earth below. The temperature drops ten degrees in just two minutes. It continues dropping as the stark woods succumb to the bitter, dark winter evening.

Even with my gloves on, I can feel the tips of my fingers losing their tactile skills which will be rapidly diminishing. The need to be conscious and careful is branded into my mind from years of painful lessons. Reaching for my headlamp inside the backpack, my motion is suddenly arrested by the sound of a loud blow of a deer I cannot see. Taking a deep breath, I speak aloud, “Okay, buddy. You got me.” An old friend’s words come into focus. “Remember, we are in their living room in their house, and we’re hoping that they don’t notice.” I chuckle to myself and again speak aloud to remind myself that even as I lower my backpack and bow on the rope, I am still attached to the comforting stability of the tree trunk. I talk myself down the ladder, repeating with every step, “Maintain three points of contact at all times.” The last step onto the ground brings a sigh of relief.

As I walk down the trail back to the truck, thoughts of disappointment creep in. The season yielded only one deer. “That’s foolish,” I say aloud. Not only did I survive another season without incident, but my freezer has about sixty pounds of healthy venison that will be shared with those who understand and honor the passion and energy it takes to harvest a whitetail and cook it with the deepest reverence for its spirit.

At the bottom of the trail before the turn onto the main logging road, I stop to harvest one last batch of shagbark hickory bark to make syrup. After taking about half a pound, I wrap my arms around the trunk and press my cheek into the rough, scaly outer bark. “Thank you, my friend. I will honor your gift at our dining room table on Sunday mornings as your marshmallow flavor saturates our pancakes.”

I guess that this makes me a genuine “tree hugger.” So be it. A tree hugger will I be!

Sitting under an old pine on top of the ridge, flakes of snow land on my face and light on my eyelashes like butterflies. The wind is slight and fluttering. It brings a whistling whisp over my partially exposed ears. The sensation of slightly prickly wool ear flaps from the old Johnson Woolen hat causes my cheeks to bend gently into a smile. The woods are quiet. Quiet like a large down-filled duvet cover draped over the shoulders, bringing comfort and a sense of profound serenity. From a distance, the percussive sound of a pileated woodpecker is muffled by the dense flakes falling from the dark grey sky. Breathing through my nose, I catch the fragrance of the lake turning over its cool surface to the decaying vegetation from beneath. The aroma is intoxicating. I breathe in deeply, and the inhalation mixes with the acrid but welcoming aroma of wood smoke from a hunting cabin below the ridge.

There are no roads here. Only the blessed inhabitants of this 2700-acre state forest. And me. Why do I feel as though this is where my spirit lives freely without the encumbrances of the village in the valley? It is not just the absence of technology and interaction. My spirit cries for belonging, and here it sings. Singing songs of the joyful chirping of chickadees perched on the branch above my head. Across the hollow, on the next ridgeline, a raven calls out in a raucous, boasting manner that, although I am only a visitor today, I am welcome. But only if I sit in silence and remain present.

It is Thanksgiving Day. And as is my prerogative, my choice is to spend at least part of the daylight in seclusion with the only witnesses to my existence being the birds and animals of these woods. I am hundreds of years and multiple generations of gentrified evolution, and yet my drive to celebrate the fleeting time that I walk this earth is bound by my love for knowing that it is here that I truly belong. Luther Standing Bear, an Oglala Sioux chief, once said, “The American Indian is of the soil, whether it be the region of forests, plains, pueblos, or mesas. He fits into the landscape, for the hand that fashioned the continent also fashioned the man for his surroundings. He once grew as naturally as the wild sunflowers; he belongs just as the buffalo belonged.”

On this day, I reflect solemnly, alone in the woods, and feel the remorse of my Caucasian heritage and the despair for the damage my people have perpetrated on Indigenous Cultures. Sitting under this mystical conifer, I pray for the forgiveness of my ancestors and ask the Great Spirit for absolution, for on this day, many years ago, it is told that our ancestors exchanged food with the Natives and, for one brief moment, shared an appreciation for the interdependence of two cultures. On this day, I pray that we might one day be forgiven and learn again how to embrace their values and be grateful for their wisdom. May we all give thanks for the way Mother Earth has allowed us to exist for so long. Honor her. Honor them. Honor our need for one another.

Willie has a way of singing from the deepest caverns of the heart, and his song, “Hands On The Wheel,” hit me in a way that brought me a deep sense of relief that I had found true North on my heart’s compass. As the song played, I watched my father’s hands firmly but gently grasping the steering wheel. Every time the station wagon began to slip sideways, his grip stayed relaxed but firm as he counter-corrected the rear wheel drive. As long as he had his hands on the wheel, we were going to be alright. My father sang along with Willie. He left the driver’s side window cracked so he could reach out every few minutes to slap the windshield wiper when it clumped up with the sticky white flakes. Eight hours later, we arrived at a deer camp where his childhood friends holed up like a bunch of old Western renegades. He slammed the Vista Cruiser through a three-foot drift and came to an abrupt stop in front of the old wooden door leading to the last bastion of the “Good Old Boys” clubhouse.

In the morning, we woke to the smell of coffee, bacon, and woodsmoke. After breakfast, plans were made where each of the men would hunt. The snow was now two feet deep. My Dad said, “I know just where to go. We’ll head down into the ravine under the pines, where the deer will want to bed down. I was excited that I might see my first buck, but as we plowed our way down onto the side of the ravine, pushing through the mountain laurel, it hit me. This was really the first time I had my father all to myself. Together, we were plodding through the snow left from an epic storm. As we stood leaning against an old pine, watching the groaning branches bending from the weight of the heavy snow, we could hear it dropping its burden in irregular patterns. Our eyes were straining to see down to the bottom of the ravine that the deer would use as a funnel to track toward their bedding area. That moment was the first time that I had experienced true joy and a feeling of belonging. The snow brought me the greatest gift of all – a true connection to my father and the recognition that I belonged right where I stood.

The moment stayed with me, and I began dreaming about living in a place like this. The following summer, I was given the opportunity to attend Vermont Academy, in the southern part of the state. I jumped at the chance. I had been reading deer hunting articles in Field & Stream and Outdoor Life about the legendary Benoits, who had been named as “possibly the best deer hunters in the country.” I bought the same rifle they used, a Remington 760 Gamemaster in 30.06, and put a Redfield Widefield scope on the barrel. I held the dream close to my heart and the following year, convinced my family to move to the Green Mountain State. My siblings did not appreciate it much. But now my father and I could walk out the front door, and trudge through the legendary Vermont woods to a tree stand we built on the side of Roundtop. It was to be the year I would get my first buck. With my father present, after harvesting the healthy four-pointer, we began the drag home, about a half mile. As we passed the dairy barn, the radio inside was playing John Denver’s “Back Home Again.” As twilight faded over the mountains, it began to snow. Every hundred yards the snow came down harder. The last pull was up the steep driveway. Without the snow, it would not have been possible. Arriving at the back door, we were met with a mixed reaction. No one understood this bond we’d formed.

Many years later, as my father was aging toward his golden years, he was still able to make it to a camp that I had managed to acquire, having made friends with several real Vermonters. I invited him to join my new friends at “our camp.” The night we headed up the mountain, a few errant flakes floated down and landed on the window of my truck. By the time we pulled onto the fourth-class logging road, we were plowing through a heavy foot of the “white gold” that Vermonters with snowplows know as “supplemental income.” Much like my memories of hunting in PA, we spent the weekend walking through the hallways of pines, branches draped in heavy white pillows hanging over the road.

Tonight, I was taking a venison neck roast dinner to a friend of mine. As I left my house, it began to snow. Gently at first. More like a mixture of snow and rain. Headed north down the back road to his house, it turned. Big, Fat. Flakes. The kind that clings to the wiper blades. I delivered the stew and told him that I needed to get going because the snow was piling up. As I turned out of his driveway, I realized that this was our first significant storm of the year. I aimed the car down the tire tracks of the back road. I turned on my favorite radio station. Willie was singing “Hands On The Wheel.” I felt my father beside me. The snow was pounding the windshield. I rolled down the window, grabbed the wiper, and slapped it down to shake off the sticky flakes. With my hands on the wheel, I was sure that I would make it home. Where I belong.

The north wind encircles the base of the tree. The old pine stands alone at the top of the ridge. A monument to the resilience of Vermont’s fierce mountain winters. The camp lies at the foot of the hill, smoke rising from the chimney. Snow is falling gently, one flake at a time. Each flake flutters down on the Johnson Woolens coat, clinging defiantly. Traditions die hard. But, unless a new generation of hunters chooses to embrace Vermont’s revered traditions, they too will melt like the snowflake on my coat. Look around, my friends. With society’s emphasis on team sports and video games, what will happen to the future of woodsmanship? Inundated by livestream “celebrity hunters” with their own shows and product lines, how will the stories of our own generation be passed down? As I wonder this, a raven calls out from the hill behind the camp. Its raucous call sounds like an alarm. Is he warning us to remember to pass down our heritage lest it be lost in the noise of society? A chickadee lands on the naked branch beside me and chirps a gentle “chip-chip-cheerio.” From up here, the solitude feels so powerful. My heart thumps once in my chest, and a tear rolls down my cold cheek. If I were to die right here, right now, would I feel grateful for having learned that the whitetail deer has taught me the most valuable lesson of all? The wisdom of 56 years of hunting has taught me that it is not the killing of the deer that I desire. It is simply to be a part of all of this. The pine tree. The raven and the chickadee. The fresh frigid air and the snowflakes on my jacket. To feel like I belong on this ridge as much as the big ridge-runners that live here year-round. A twig snaps to my left and, from behind an old beech a rack of antlers rises from the ground. We are both here. Now. And that is all that matters.

Many hunt for many reasons. Some seek recognition from their society as the most skilled and selective, choosing to harvest only the largest of their prey. Some seek antlers. Some seek the heaviest weight, providing the most meat. But all, whether they know it or not, when they first learn to hunt, seek a connection to their prey. Young hunters, eager to prove themselves to the elders, seek to “kill” something to gain recognition and feel proud of their ability. Much later in life, they will discover that what they are really seeking to “kill” is the feeling that we are disconnected from the animal kingdom. We were, at one time, no different. We were one. Relying on each other for our own lives. Beginner’s luck and simple good fortune aside, it is necessary for the successful hunter to learn about the animal with which they seek to connect. They must learn where and how they travel under every variable condition. Wind direction, temperature, amount of daylight, and where the food, water, and shelter can be found. They need to learn their language. When a deer snorts, wheezes, grunts, or blows. The sound of a hoof stomping. What it means when the tail is down, straight out behind, or straight up. The hunter must learn where and when the “rut” (females being ready to breed) occurs and when each of the three stages of that period occurs. Once a hunter has studied their prey to such a degree, it is impossible not to respect the animal, if not find a deep abiding love for it. It may be many years before a young hunter learns that the instinct to hunt is born of love and honor as much as it is to be a proud provider for their tribe.

It was with this profound love and respect that I ventured into the local woods a little over a week ago to seek out a deer that might put some healthy meat into our freezer, not tainted by the practices of mass-produced beef. Donning my 3D leafy camouflage suit and mask after showering in scent removal soap, I sleuthed my way into the woods, being careful to walk upwind. I chose a trail to my tree stand that had not been trampled by human footprints and carefully wound my body through the maze of overhanging shrubbery and branches. In the stand, twenty feet above the opening where a large oak tree had dropped its nutritious acorns, I sat. Hours went by. I watched two cardinals’ flitter through the brush opposite the opening. I was in deep reverie, aware of the incredible beauty of the foliage, when a small, hard object hit my head. I thought, “This is good! The acorns are dropping food for the deer.” When a second acorn hit my head, I wondered if something above me might be causing this. Several more fell around me, and a few bounced off the aluminum safety bar around me. I looked up, and as if it had been planned, a nut fell square on my forehead. “Ouch!” I muttered to myself. It was then that I spotted the culprit. A large gray squirrel was shaking the branches, knocking down acorns it would pick up off the ground for winter storage. I laughed and thought, “We’re really doing the same thing,” so when he looked down at me, I smiled back at him. I am fairly sure I saw his eyes widen in shock. He then catapulted himself to the branches of a neighboring maple.

As I looked downward, toward the ground to the right, I saw him. Just twenty yards away. His head was down, sniffing the earth where I had walked to get to the stand. Very slowly, I turned back to reach for my crossbow (I will not make any excuses for using a crossbow at 66 years of age, my body having paid the price for many foolish adolescent activities). As I raised the bow to turn toward him, he saw movement and jumped. He began to trot away when I rendered my best vocal grunt call from my mouth. He stopped. Broadside. In Indigenous philosophy, our prey will “present” itself to the hunter, meaning the animal is willing to sacrifice its life so that another can live. The shot was quick and clean. Death came expeditiously. As I watched him pass, I spoke out loud a prayer that a Wabanaki woman shared with me decades ago, and which I still practice frequently. Just as one day, our bodies will nourish the earth and allow new life to be born, to once again walk, crawl, fly, or flower. From dust to dust, we all sustain each other. Let us then learn to love all those in our global tribe with the same honor and respect we show all of us who inhabit Mother Earth.

And now, I will step into my quiet midnight kitchen to prepare tomorrow’s venison stew for those in my own small tribe. In the words of many Native languages, “Aho.”

Like I was a part of all that surrounded me. The soft jade-green moss on the rocks brought me comfort. The canopy of trees filtering pillars of golden light on the forest floor felt like I was present in the hallowed hall of some magnificent and powerful entity. The chipmunks and squirrels brought me laughter. The birds brought me songs that made my heart feel as though it was overflowing with love. The rocks along the trail weren’t just rocks. They were solid and offered my eyes glimpses of past millennia. Some sparkled. Others bore beautiful markings. The trickle of a stream brought me a sense of serenity and peace. A doe and her fawn guided my thoughts toward accepting my own innocence and gentleness. Leaning against an old white oak, I closed my eyes and focused on the sensations of my back against the trunk. I pondered what it was to be sturdy yet flexible enough to weather high winds. I felt something I can only describe as a low-frequency vibration that felt like a gentle electrical massage of currents. When rain fell, I cried. My tears mingled with the raindrops that ran down my cheeks in rivulets. It felt cleansing. The fragrance of the earth beneath me beckoned me to lie down with my nose to the ground, hands scooping up the soil and inhaling deeply. The thought that this soil was composed of the multitudes of previous lives of trees, flowers, animals, and rocks that had broken down over time. I spoke aloud the words “dust to dust,” and the thought crossed my mind that the spirit of all these elements included even the bones and bodies of our ancestors.

Slowly, I began to explore the possibility that my own salvation might be found with these beings – the trees, the birds, the animals, the wind, the sun, and the rain. I was able to cobble together a foundation for my own belief system that resonated with my rebellious spirit. A therapist that I was working with handed me a book on shamanic journeys. I began to study and question everything I read, as I had to do my due diligence if I were to find a faith that I could embrace. Soon, I was meeting Native Americans from the tribe of Wabanaki, here in Vermont. One woman, particularly, named Lorraine, taught me the prayers of her people. She wrote one prayer down for me on a piece of paper and had it laminated with a four-leaf clover bound inside the plastic. I carried that prayer with me for the last thirty-six years and recite it regularly. Years later, my sister, Callie, discovered the same path and pursued her studies of shamanic wisdom, eventually growing apart from her husband after raising two lovely daughters, and moved to Ollantaytambo, Peru, renouncing her US citizenship. She now lives in the mountains and practices a type of Reiki, runs rainforest dietas, and drum journeys channeling ancient spirits through song. I will admit that she is much farther along in her practice than my own fledging attempts.

As a writer and outdoorsman, I seek to share my own spiritual observations through my passion for hunting, fishing, and foraging so that those with an open mind can ask questions themselves. I am not a leader, but a fellow journeyman. My motto is adopted from Ram Dass: “We are all just walking each other home.” If you enjoyed this little digression from my normal writing, please feel free to comment, share, and, if you find anything that resonates with you, join me by subscribing to my Substack page.

To stroll down a dirt road with walls of gold, orange, and red feels like walking in the hallway of an ancient castle. Evenings start to get downright chilly, and hunters of all types can be seen quickening their pace to get those last summer chores finished. Autumn is a hunter’s greatest blessing. There are puffball mushrooms, hen of the woods, and chicken of the woods to be discovered in the shaded lowlands. Maybe even a chaga.

I like to walk through the hardwoods with the first gun I got as a Christmas present 49 years ago, a Marlin Glenfield .22 rifle with a scope, and find a majestic old oak to sit under. I slow my breathing and begin observing the world around me. The fragrance of the forest floor is musty and pungent. I breathe in deeply, the smell of fresh earth tickling my nostrils. When the wind blows in from the west, I can smell the lake turning over its cold water, exchanging it for the warmer surface. The fragrance of hickory and beechnuts is a welcome harbinger of autumn. In the distance, I can smell woodsmoke from someone’s fire pit the night before, as they celebrated the last rites of summer. With a cerulean sky above me, I begin to drift into a transcendental state.

Suddenly, above me, I hear a chip-chip-chipping sound and see the large, still-green leaves rustle at the top of the tree across the path. My eyes strain to seek the source of this movement. Small pieces of brown dust float down to the ground from on high. I know what it is that makes these movements. Squinting, I can make out a flicker of a gray tail between the crotch of a branch and the trunk of the old tree. I raise my .22 and peer through the 4x power scope. Searching through the leaves, I cannot see my target. Out of the silence that binds the two of us, a loud trilling sound emerges from the highest branches. I can hear him. I can see his movements shaking the leaves and branches to knock the epicurean delights from their stems and sending them plummeting to the ground. Plunk. Plunk. One of the acorns lands right in my lap, and I laugh to myself. What if this old bushytail scurries down the tree and tries to take this morsel right off my leg?

These little clowns of the hardwoods are so gregarious when fear is absent. My big guy lights up the woods with a loud chattering, telling all the other gray squirrels that this is his territory and he’s got dibs on all these luscious acorns. Soon, the woods around me begin to echo with squirrel chatter, each bushytail claiming its own boundary. It feels as though I am surrounded. I hear scampering and scratching behind me, then to my left, then to my right. The feed is on!

I begin to practice my breathing. Slowing it down. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Quietly. Steadily. As my blood pressure builds, my breathing keeps me calm and prepared. On the tree in front of me, I get a glance of a gray head peering around the side of the oak about thirty feet up on the trunk. He stares right at me, but I do not move. I am covered head to toe in 3D camouflage. Only my eyes move, and then I try not to blink. The head disappears and spirals around the back side of the trunk. I raise my rifle and wait. Breathe in. Breathe out. Steady hands. Right eye just ½” behind the eyepiece of the scope. I scan the tree trunk and wait.

Suddenly, ten feet higher, he walks out on a limb and sits, flicking his big tail side to side, chewing on a nut. He has presented himself to me, and it is time to bind his spirit with my own. As I squeeze the trigger, I say aloud, “Thank you, brother.” Tonight, we will have a Brunswick stew with sautéed puffball mushrooms and sumac tea.