Buck fever; the un-spoken truth.
I never get buck fever. In hunting circles I'm known as Mr. Cool. My fellow hunters look upon me with a quiet awe at no matter how large the antlers are my feathers never get ruffled. Oh yes, of course there is the occasional equipment failure, you know, scopes that magically fog up at the exact moment the big 5x5 bull comes into view, which is almost allways followed up with the "stuck" safety scenario. "damn fog!!"
Explaining to my hunting companions the proper way to un-stick a stubborn safety is to eject all your ammo onto the ground, and sometimes breathing real fast will un-fog a scope. Upon hearing this my pals nod in agreement and roll their eyes skyward to thank our creator they are fortunate enough to be in the company of one he has seen fit to have blessed with this knowledge. yet they never seem to learn, you see I try to lead by example and there's times I get so frustrated I could scream!
It must be a youth thing, us old guys are long past the babbling idiot stage, and when the cards are on the table you can bet we have our poker faces on. One young man whose name I will not mention, but for this example I'll call him "Greg" has a real problem with buck fever. In the few years I've hunted with him he has muffed more than one chance on a trophy bull and there's just no excuse for it other than buck fever. Cripes! his first season out after Elk he called in a big bull and he got so excited he couldn't shoot! Why luck like that is wasted on the young is beyond me, and to make matters worse that very same season I had two huge bull Moose come in to my "expert" calling and the first was at a mere 10 yards! But wouldn't you know it, my release malfunctioned and went off as I drew sending the arrow into the groung barely 8 feet in front of me! talk about your bad luck! the bull merely turned his head and stared at me, he actually gave me a second shot! Wouldn't you know it the darned release did it again! When the second shot hit the ground the bull headed for tall timber. A few seconds later the second bull came in virtually in the same spot! I managed to get my release to hold properly, but the two ill managed shots must have loostened my sights because they were wobbling all over the place, Itried my best to get them to stop, but to no avail, Ishot about a foot over his back.
One good thing is that buck fever and equipment failure never seem to happen at the same time, if it did there's no way a youthful hunter could stand the strain. You see as we mature we grow more able to accept life's little set backs, sure we will still get excited when a big antlered trophy whatever strolls into range but you can rest assured that we are not likely to go "gaga" when the moment of truith arises. When it's "go" time the cross hairs or sight pins will be on target, and except for the occaisonal earth tremor, chest pain,dud shell, back spasm, wind shear, Indian or incontinence attack chances are we will get the job done.
Sooner or later "Greg" will get his act togather, in the wean time I'll keep leading by example and God willing maybe some of my coolness will rub off on him. I only wish I could write down the formula that keeps buck fever from troubling me, hell, I'd be rich! Then maybe I could afford some more dependable equipment.
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