Axioms of the Hunt – 2025

Axioms of the Hunt – 2025

I only know one other deer hunter in Knoxville but at the family farm it is a completely different story. Professors tend to be snobs and are aghast that I hunt. But as I remarked once to a snobbish colleague, if you don’t hunt, fish, hike, camp, or ride motorcycles, why do you live in Knoxville?

It is now deer season in Georgia and it is time again to revisit my axioms of the hunt. We have just changed over from bow to gun. I spend an inordinate amount of time at the family farm and in the woods. Venison is the only red meat I have eaten since 1971. I spend a good deal of time looking at deer, but only if the deer oblige. During bow season I was overrun with deer. I passed on shot after shot. The bucks were small and had no more than 4 points. I do not shoot immature deer. The does were either small or with fawns. I do not break up family units. 

Although the fawns are weaned I will not shoot the mamma doe. I wait until the rut comes in November when the does chase away the fawns. I do not shoot immature bucks under 6 points. I passed on the biggest doe I have seen because she had such good genetics, I want her to have big babies. But I did finally see a mature doe by herself and took her with a crossbow at 40 yards. I had to give up by beloved Mathews Solocam compound bow that I have used all over the world when some good old boy sabotaged a hang on stand, cutting through the straps. I stepped on the platform in the dark at 6:30 in the morning Georgia and fell 20 feet. When I came to and saw I had motion in my arms and legs I went to the emergency room. I had bruised ribs and a shoulder that the doctor described as being a mess. So hello total shoulder replacement and goodbye compound bow and hello crossbow. The likely saboteur is gone and the father and son from Florida who lease the land next door are nice guys. 

Last year was the first one that I did not take a deer. I ran out of venison and since that is the only red meat I eat, I did without. Now that it is gun season, all the deer that were around during bow have vanished, replaced by hen turkeys. I have just spent a week in the woods and only saw 5 deer total. Only one was a marginal buck of 6 points. My cousin told me he would have taken it but I passed. It is a long season.

So here are my axioms of the hunt.

As always, thank you for reading my musings. I sincerely appreciate you. 

HB’s Axioms of the Hunt

1. The wind will always be at your back (this is different from running where the wind is always in your face).

2. If by some miracle the wind is in your face and you suddenly hear a deer, the wind will shift to your back.

3. Murphy says that “if it can go wrong, it will”. Hunters know that Murphy was an optimist.

4. Deer will always pick the least assessable place to die.

5. If your gun (or bow) breaks, your 42 blade leatherman’s tool will not have a tool that fixes it.

6. When you take it go get it fixed, the repairman will say “In my 30 years I have never seen this happen.”

7. In bow season the deer will be in muzzleloader range. In muzzleloader season the deer will be in gun range. In gun season, the deer will be no where to be found.

8. If you can shoot a doe you will only see does with fawns.

9. If you can only shoot a buck, you will be overrun with does.

10. Deer calls never work. However, the best way to call a deer call is to take a leak.

11. Anyone who claims to have success grunting and rattling is lying.

12. If you see the buck of a lifetime walking down a path, you will only have a lefthanded shot (if you are righthanded and vice versa).

13. If you see the buck of a lifetime and you are bow hunting, the arrow will fall off the rest when you draw.

14. If you hunt a road where deer always cross, they will only cross when you are looking in the other direction.

15. If the outfitter has a success rate of 100%, it will be lower when you leave.

16. Animals shrink if you shoot them.

17. If you only shoot deer 6 points or better, you will only see 4 pointers and spikes.

18. Deer only look up if you are in a tree stand.

19. A turkey always struts one foot past the exact distance that number 6 shot can travel.

20. Camo is about as effective as a deer with a sofa painted on its side can hide in your living room.

21. Hunting clothing billed as no-scents makes no sense.

22. Buck lures only attract hunters to buy them.

23. The only people who swear by grunting and rattling for bucks are the ones who sell them.

24. Primos calls if they work at all must only work on Mississippi deer and turkeys. They sure don’t work in Georgia or Tennessee.

25. If you leave your stand at noon, the deer will walk by at 12:01.

26. The only purpose of scouting before the season is to find out where the deer were.

27. A person who looks down their nose and sneers “You kill bambi!” isn’t worth knowing.

28. If you go on a hunting trip with a group, expect to be the only one who doesn’t kill anything.

29. If you are hunting your own land without seeing anything all day and suddenly you hear something coming down a path, it will be your dog.

30. No woman is worth your time unless she thinks you look cute in camo.

31. Do you have more success stalking or still hunting? Neither.

32. Is the best time to hunt early, midday or late? None of the above.

33. Deer will always walk down the path you are not hunting.

34. Walking into a McDonald’s full of hunters for an early morning biscuit always causes the place to go quiet. Maybe my camo patterns are clashing?

35. Anyone who tells you that a deer smells better than a person is obviously a European.

36. Anyone who asks you why do you own so many different caliber rifles is obviously stupid because it doesn’t make sense to own ten rifles of the same caliber.

37. Since camo wearers look like trees and grass, I guess this makes them environmentalists.

38. Most muzzleloaders were designed to hangfire only when a big deer shows up.

39. That Al Gore rather than the inventor of the Loggy Bayou climbing stand was awarded a Nobel prize is a travesty.

40. My favorite t-shirt says “Conservation through incompetence.”

41. If God didn’t want you to kill deer he wouldn’t have invented the pickup truck.

42. If God didn’t want you to hunt in the cold rain, he wouldn’t have invented GoreTex.

43. If Al Gore got the Nobel prize for inventing GoreTex, then I guess I am ok with it.

44. Since I have never seen a woman who looks like a Victoria Secret’s model, I presume that all about those women are fakes, the product of computer imaging. Similarly, videos that show bucks grunted and rattled-in are fakes.

45. Those who can smoke in a tree stand and deer will walk by even though the wind is wrong and seem to kill big deer every time are the chosen few – of which I am not one. Maybe I should start smoking.

46. A person who claims not to like venison has never eaten my cooking.

47. Jerky is not a food since it cannot be broken down by saliva and chewing. It must be swallowed whole.

48. That jerky is not a food was proven when after I tried to eat it, I gave it to my dogs – who also refused to eat it.

49. I am a small deer specialist. Typically, I only see immature deer (which I let walk).

50. Anyone who says that if you kill a trophy animal every time you hunt then it would not be fun is a fool.

51. The hunter the outfitter describes as being “the luckiest hunter I have ever seen” will always be a person in camp. That person will not be you.

52. Recurve bowhunters are snobs and are hunting’s equivalents of fly fishermen.

53. The longest week I ever spent in my life was in a camp in Alberta hunting for bear and all the other hunters shot recurves.

54. There are 6 things that every bow hunter must do in order to shoot accurately. When a trophy deer approaches you will do five of them.

55. If you believe that nonsense about buying all that expensive no scents gear so you can “Forget the Wind – Just Hunt”, let someone release your dogs one hour after you go in the woods.

56. Game cameras tell you where to hunt at 2:03 in the morning.

57. The one hour before sunup is the longest time of the hunt – much longer than the 5 hours or so that follow.

58. Nothing is more satisfying than being able to furnish your own food.

59. Sure you can kill just as many deer sitting at your kitchen table as you usually do in the woods, but coming home even empty handed to your dogs makes it all worthwhile.

60. My dogs have always been fed a mixture of kibble and venison. Last year I had to feed them lean ground chuck. They wouldn’t eat it so I gave it to a local food bank.

61. I’ve hunted plains game in South Africa, bear in Canada, elk in New Mexico, red stag in Argentina and seriously big deer near Eagle Pass, Texas. But nothing beats being at the family farm hunting on the lands of my ancestors.