Some scribe once polled a thousand hunters in order to determine whether or not hunters follow a specific behavior pattern. I suspect this work was inspired by Shakespeare who once penned life’s seven stages from an infant “mewling in his nurse’s arms” to an old man with “pipes and whistles in his voice.” By my thinking, both scales are more or less right on. Here’s how, briefly stated, the hunter stages go.

Stage 1 – The Shooter Stage - Shoot something….. Anything!

Stage 2 - The Trophy Stage - Pass up lesser animals.

Stage 3 – The Limit Stage – A proof of hunter skill.

Stage 4 – The Different Methods Stage – Archery, Muzzleloader, etc.

Stage 5 – The Not About Self Stage – Most important is being afield and helping others.

I think it’s only natural to look at oneself and see how our own hunting lives stack up against the norm. For myself, Stage 1 is right on. Fifty years back my first deer was a whitetail doe, and I was as proud of her as I would have been with a wall hanger buck.

My Stage 3 came before Stage 2. For most of my life, I had a short weekend to hunt deer. More often than not, I left town after a Friday night football game, drove all night, hunted Saturday and Sunday morning, and returned home. I was determined to come home with anything that had antlers, and too many of those deer were yearling 3 or 4 pointers. I was older when I hit Stage 2 and settled for a mature buck or nothing.

I’m currently living Stages 2, 4 and 5. I’m into muzzleloaders and shooting deer with my vintage lever-action rifles, cast bullets, etc., but it is also the hunt and friends that matter most, and not the kill. I must also add that affordability has certainly entered into my personal equation.

This course of events has little or nothing to do with age. My father was almost 70 when I took him on his first deer hunt. He was positively driven to put a deer down on that first hunt. The antlers came later.

A “trophy” can be many things. Record books go by inches of antler, horn, or skull measurement. To me, it’s all in the eyes of the beholder. In 2017, I bagged a whitetail buck with six perfect, symmetrical points. He didn’t have “book” measurements, but I admire that rack most every day.

Trophy book wise, my hat goes off to anyone who takes a Boone & Crockett or Pope & Young trophy. I probably never will. I may or may not have an African trophy that makes the Roland Ward book, but I don’t care. There is a much easier book to make, and that’s the SCI or Safari Club International book. Book animals are not my thing, but SCI has categories for “free ranging” or “estate” animals, not to mention categories for both rifle and handgun trophies. If you want your name in the SCI book, a better than average whitetail or pronghorn antelope will put you in if you have it officially measured and pay the fee.

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A few years back I vowed never to return to Dallas, TX after some shabby treatment by the parking lot people at the Dallas Safari Club expo. Well, I broke the promise last week when Betsy, our daughter Lisa, and I went to the Chicago Cubs opening series against the Texas Rangers.

I’m not a “technology” guy. I don’t even have a cell phone. What amazed me the most about our trip was that our airline tickets, rental car reservation, hotel reservations, parking lot passes, and game tickets were all on Lisa’s cell phone. On top of that, the GPS in Lisa’s phone told her where to make every turn. In driving around both Dallas and Ft. Worth, she never made a wrong turn.

You probably take these things for granted, but it just about blew me away. Although the beautiful Arlington Stadium is only 25 years old, the Rangers are building a new ball park with a retractable roof. Most amazing was the AT&T stadium where the Cowboys play. We thoroughly explored AT&T. If and when you go to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area, don’t pass up AT&T, the old stockyards, or Angelo’s BBQ.

See you next week.