Camaraderie, big buck dreams fuel opening day

Two days before the start of the firearms deer season, my adrenaline level was so high that concentrating was difficult.  

How could the thought of opening day cause so much excitement?

I’m sure that residual memories of my first deer hunt played a role.

In December 1965 while hunting two miles from the nearest road in the Flint Hills of eastern Kansas,  I shot a smallish buck. I hoisted him across my shoulders and hiked back to my car without laying him down even once.  

Time has erased any memories of aching muscles, but I can remember being happy when I crested the last hill and could see my car in the valley below.

Some, usually more experienced, hunters get pumped up by imagining this will be the year they harvest their first trophy buck.

When I saw that downed buck, that was a big enough thrill to add to the anticipation of a lot of opening days.  

Big bucks continue to increase my craving for opening day years after I’ve lost interest in actually shooting another one — unless it’s bigger than my biggest buck, or if I’m cold, tired, hungry or have a buck-sized empty space in my freezer.

After all these years, why should opening day of my 45th firearms deer season turn my knees to jelly almost as thoroughly as my first season did?

I’ve been hunting deer since Sept. 15, so Nov. 14 involves nothing more than a change of weapons.  

Should that get me so excited that I can’t get a good night’s sleep?

That’s especially true this year because of the many days of mud-blocked hunting areas and a few lucky deer that got away.

For the first time in years, I’ve still got all my tags in my pocket.  

I’m ready to extend my effective shooting range from 30 yards to 300 yards to kill something.

I’m convinced the majority of Missouri’s approximately 500,000 firearms deer hunters believe that camaraderie is not only the No. 1 reason they hunt deer  but also the No. 1 reason they feel they have to be afield on opening day.  

I can think of no other reason for the fact that, by the time you read this, opening day of the 2009 firearms deer season will have come and gone, and most of the men and women who greeted the morning of Nov. 14 with such eager anticipation either already have or soon will pack up and head home, whether they’ve killed a deer or not.

Most of them won’t don their blaze orange duds again until opening day of the 2010 season.  

That’s good news for those of us who take advantage of as much of the regular, antlerless and muzzleloader seasons as possible.