To city slickers, this is just another swamp, but to hunters, it's an outpost that evokes illicit revelations of the havoc they'll wreak throughout the Bayou State this coming deer season.
If you’re a bowhunter like me, we all share some of the same feelings and emotions when it comes to the sport we feel so strongly about. Without a doubt, one thing is for sure amongst all of us: we long to escape the norm of everyday life, and we run off to the whitetail woods in pursuit of the peace and tranquility that this place has to offer on a daily basis. It does not matter if it was 1809 or 2009, we as hunters throughout history have all felt the calming feeling of driving away from the hustle and bustle of work, escaping the pavement and shopping malls at town, the ever-nagging bills contingent to modern-day life, and the constant ringing of a cell phone. As we drive to our hunting grounds, we have to put all this aside and prepare for our time afield. We slowly begin to relax and unwind, and our mind starts to drift with the thoughts of the endless possibilities that lay ahead. I go to the woods to be renewed and cleansed; there’s just something special about leaving society behind in the rear view mirror to be greeted by the approaching trees of our favorite hunting grounds through the windshield ahead.
The ability of this clump of shuffled dirt to elevate the heart-rate of a hunter is inexplicable to persons inoculated from "The Sickness Factor."
Before each and every hunt I go on, I’m filled with excitement and wonder. We always feel in the back of our minds that today could be the day we shoot that buck of a lifetime. What is it that makes us feel this way? How can we possibly maintain such a positive attitude when, in the real world of bowhunting, we very seldom score on that big buck. My friends, this is what I like to refer to as “The Sickness Factor.” This is the driving force behind many sports and hobbies. It causes some people to rush to the casino and steadily feed money to the one arm bandits with the hope of striking it big. It causes the bass fisherman to always take one more cast when it’s time to leave and dark is quickly approaching. And it causes us bowhunters to maintain blinding enthusiasm every time we hit the woods. This is how the sickness factor works. A true bowhunter’s heart is thrilled with just the possibility of shooting a monster buck. But if we shot a monarch every time we went to the stand, then hunting would soon lose it’s excitement and lure. Then, we’d simply call it shooting instead of hunting. But as long as the possibility exists to shoot a nice buck, the imaginative thrill continues to bind us deeply, creating a strong and relentless tug on our souls to hit the woods and make it happen.
