Back in 1980s and early 1990s, I was traveling the country whitetail hunting for months with both bows and guns. North to south, east to west, the basic premise was the same – keep your impact on the land as low as possible, hunting only when everything’s perfect, or nearly so. I was counseled to hunt the property from the outside in, avoiding sanctuary areas like they were guarded by claymores, to never set up near a bedding thicket, and whatever you I did, don’t spend a lot of time walking around.
All of this went against my very nature. Growing up hunting public land in the wide-open West, where covering lots of ground to locate elk herds and pockets of mule deer and prairie whitetails was essential, sitting back and letting things happen made little sense to me. In 1994 I heard a popular country song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, “I Take My Chances.” In part, the lyrics go: “Now some people say that you shouldn’t tempt fate; And for them I cannot disagree; But I never learned nothing from playing it safe; I say fate should not tempt me.”
What tempted me was breaking the whitetail mold,
