Thanksgiving Hunting Traditions

For a lot of hunters, these traditions have sparked a lifetime of hunting. Some of these traditions keep that fire going for others. For hunting families, it’s a great excuse to get outdoors together. Most folks have the holiday off from work, and after all, what other occasion gathers the entire family together?

My family dedicated that evening to hunting. Every year my great aunt hosted Thanksgiving at her home, which included a small farm operation on a little more than eighty acres. By small, I mean she kept a garden during the summer and managed a dozen or so cows year-round. I know cows and deer don’t typically mingle, but for some reason, it just worked at her place. The lack of hunting pressure that surrounded her property did too. As long as we were savvy about how we hunted, the deer behaved like normal. Sooner or later, someone would get a crack at a good buck. The deer hunting was good, and boy did it hurt when my uncle sold the place after my aunt died.

After an early lunch, we’d waddle into the living room to build a fire and nap. My dad and grandfather took the two recliners nearest the fireplace, and I stretched across a floral couch that could have been used as 80-grit sandpaper in a pinch. After an hour or so, I’d wake to the sound of my grandfather slamming the wooden handle on the recliner as he lowered the footrest. He’d stoke the coals and throw another log on the fire as he and my dad discussed where to hunt that evening.

Then, as if I wasn’t in the room, they’d discuss where to put me. As I got older and notched several deer under my belt, they’d ask for my input too. But, there was something freeing and thrilling about them placing me somewhere. To my knowledge, they never tried to gar-hole me. They genuinely tried to put me on deer, even at their expense. These spots were usually where they’d encountered or killed bucks before.

I remember sitting these spots, anticipating a giant to come trotting by any minute. They were some of the most exciting hunts I’ve had, even when I didn’t see anything. And though I was green and somewhat oblivious to the reality of hunting back then, that kind of naïve excitement gave the woods a mythical quality for me. It’s a shame, but that kind of excitement rarely rears its head in the deer woods now.

Still, one particular Thanksgiving stands out from the others. I was thirteen, had been on a few solo hunts, but had yet to kill my first deer. That day the wind made it difficult for the three of us to hunt without messing each other up, so my grandfather decided he and I would hunt together. He took me to a spot we called the four acres, which consisted of a pasture that was—you guessed it—three acres. It dropped off on all sides into hardwood bottoms, and on the north side of the field, a sliver of that pasture narrowed to about thirty yards and made about an eighty-yard-long finger that descended into the timber where multiple ridges emptied. It created a natural funnel for deer. We even planted a food plot in that spot that provided enough surrounding cover for them to feel comfortable during daylight. It was an excellent spot where you might see deer any time during the day.

In order to help me kill my first deer, my grandfather brushed in an Ameristep Doghouse blind about seventy yards from that food plot in a small strip of timber where we could see down into the bottom but still close enough for an inexperienced hunter to shoot a .30-30. He sat in a Coleman’s director chair, and I balanced on an old feed bucket from my aunt’s cattle shed and waited for any legal deer to cross that plot. He positioned the blind downwind of the plot, and that Thanksgiving evening, we hunted there.

While we waited, he whispered instructions for various scenarios in which a deer might emerge, when suddenly he stopped and we heard the stampede of what we thought were my aunt’s cows charging from behind us. We both frantically turned toward one of the blind’s windows. Much to our surprise, we didn’t see the cows but a bachelor group of shooter bucks that came running around our blind not twenty yards away.

My grandfather tried to speak, but never got more than a couple of incoherent stutters out as the trio of big racks and white flags bolted away from us. At the time, it seemed unbelievable, like those vintage covers of hunting magazines with a hunter in plaid taking aim at pending world record typical buck. As an eager teenage boy, I quickly shouldered my rifle, but it was too late. The bucks were already bounding into the timber.

We both sat staring through the shoot-through mesh window in silence. I don’t think either one of us was breathing. When my grandfather finally spoke, he told me not to worry, that I’d get another opportunity. Of course, he failed to mention that one, much less three wall-hangers, don’t just come running by your blind every year.

We didn’t see any more deer that evening, but like my dad and grandfather’s hunting stories, that encounter only fueled my imagination. I was eager to return to that spot, where I eventually killed my first deer the following weekend. No, it wasn’t one of the wall hangers just a basket rack eight. But at the time, it might as well have been a record.

Someone else owns that place now. A house now stands where my aunt’s cattle shed once gave shelter to cows from the rain. Even one of the antlers from that basket rack burned in a housefire. My grandfather is gone too. My dad and I still hunt together, though there’s no Thanksgiving ritual, not a formal one, anyway. Proximity and time require more intentionality for us to hunt together.

I think the old saying, “With much wisdom, comes much sorrow,” carries a profound implication for hunters. As I learned more about deer hunting, behavior, and biology, much of the magic from those early hunts dwindled.

Deer became observable animals, rather than illusive creatures. Big buck sightings became an improbable calculation, rather than a possibility. Yet, that one Thanksgiving hunt, improbable as it was, reminds me that deer can still surprise us, even when we think we have them figured out.

That possibility, hope, or whatever you want to call it keeps me (and I’m sure countless others) coming back to the deer woods every year. My family’s tradition is gone, but it started me down this hunting rabbit hole. For that, I’m thankful.