Ever wonder how we became deer hunters? Were we born with it? Is there some magical gene in our body that makes us do those outrageous things that deer hunters do? Most of you know what I’m referring to. Things like waking up in the pre-dawn hours, leaving a perfectly warm bed just to climb twenty feet up in a tree and sit for hours on end—in below freezing temperatures! All this is done in the hope of getting at least a glimpse of that mythical animal. Some might call us insane, and at times I’d have to agree. My madness, like most of us, started when I was very young and it gradually evolved into what it is today; it was a slow progression that happened over a long period of time. I’ve compiled a few memories to show how my illness got started:
 

1969-1978: Gestation Period

As a boy growing up along the banks of Bayou Teche, I spent most of my free time chasing small game with my brothers. Armed with only a Benjamin pellet gun, we were very limited on what we could shoot, but that didn’t hold us back. A few little birds here and there and maybe, on a lucky day, at the time what I considered “big game,” a squirrel or a rabbit. Little did I know that those after school excursions were going to change my life forever.
 

1982-1986: Development Period

During the author's adolescence, putting meat on the ground often meant more than the total outdoor experience.

It wasn’t until I was a young teenager that I actually experienced my first deer hunt. I had a friend whose father decided to bring him and me on a dog hunt down in the Atchafalaya Basin. I ended up shooting my first deer on that trip; it was that moment that I got that bad taste in my mouth, and every weekend I would bug my pal to get his dad to bring us. It was a twenty minute boat ride down the Whiskey Bay Pilot Channel, but it didn’t stop me. There were times when I actually went with his dad by myself because my buddy really didn’t like that boat ride. It was these trips that I really got to see what it meant to go to “da camp,” and when I first heard the phrase, “What happens at the camp, stays at the camp.”

Being so young and naive, all I could think about was shooting a deer every time I set foot in the woods. It didn’t matter what it was: a big buck, little buck, or doe—I really didn’t care. I was there to put something on the ground and mainly just wanted to shoot. I was trigger happy I guess. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but I did have a burning desire to bring home some meat. The sad part about it was that I was totally missing the whole picture. I didn’t stop and take the time to enjoy everything out there. All I wanted was for that four legged animal to walk out, me shoot it, and then go back to the camp and revel in my accomplishment. Man was I blind back then; I wish I could get those years back.