The old king is dying. And in his mortality, King Lear questions his daughter Cordelia about her love, to which she replies “Nothing.” Lear, confused, insists, “Nothing will come of nothing. Speak again.” Shakespeare’s King Lear is rife with this thematic “nothing” and many-a-whitetail-bowhunter can easily identify. We faithfully wake in the dark, brew up some strong coffee, stalk ever-so-silently into the woods, climb into a tree with the highest aspirations of taking that trophy buck or simply feeding the family, only to find a whopping nothing for our efforts. Frustrated, we climb down and stalk our way out thinking, “maybe I’ll catch a break on the way to the car”… nothing again. Nothingness seems to be a common experience, a kind of ‘paying your dues’ in the woods, and no one likes it. The reality is, as whitetail bowhunters, we need to embrace the nothingness for what it is, the opportunity to be in the wild, hunt, learn, and ultimately, take a deer.

This realization came to me in my stand on a recent hunt. It was my fourth day out during the early pre-rut. The temperature was an unseasonable 76 degrees. I had thoroughly scouted the area, found several deer trails, and fresh droppings. I found the crossroads of several trails coming off a major artery from the bedding area surrounded by white and red oaks… and most importantly, I spotted deer in the area on several occasions. I patterned them. They seemed to work the area in the afternoon, so my goal was to be in-stand no later than 8 AM. This would provide several hours for the woods to quiet down for the afternoon acorn snack. With the temperature in the higher 70’s I also hoped they would continue in their late summer feeding mode of movement. My strategy was simple, each day I would move a little farther into the woods up the major deer trail, set up my stand abut 15 yards off that trail and quietly wait-out the deer. I was confident. All went according to plan, accept, no deer. An entire day invested, yet, no deer. Driving home later that day, I was frustrated. I scouted them, spotted them, patterned them, called them, tried to control my scent, tuned my bow and arrows, practiced the shots… I did my part, but no deer!

This experience got me thinking, ‘why even go through all this trouble?’ Being a relatively new hunter, it seemed a valid question, and in my lonely stand, I had only the squirrels and chipmunks to help me figure it out. My mind drifted to Shakespeare. Being an English teacher by trade, it’s only natural for me. Specifically, I began hearing the play King Lear in my head, mostly because it is what we are reading in class. That line, “Nothing will come from nothing. Speak again” resonated. It spoke to me in some mystical way and made me think about the hunt and the ‘no deer’ situation, my own personal nothing. What I realized was not only re-assuring for a new bowhunter, but also applicable to life in general, it was a three fold lesson summed up as ‘There’s always something.’

My first realization was recognizing the beautifully basic simplicity of the woods. So often I find myself, friends, and family far too wrapped up in the hunt to enjoy everything else happening in the woods. Sure, we listen to the birds and the squirrels (sometimes out of sheer boredom), or watch the autumn leaves float to the forest floor, but do we appreciate them? I watched a little red squirrel vigorously scour the golden oak and maple leaves for a coveted acorn, grub, or seed in preparation for the impending winter. The little guy did this all morning practically non-stop. What dedication and persistence! Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be so assiduous? On a previous day, I saw a hawk land and majestically fly off further down the road out of sight. A few days later, as the cooling autumn air brushed past my face, I listened to the ‘hooting’ of a great horned owl prepare for his evening hunt. And on numerous days I enjoyed watching blue jays playfully move about the woods. I believe there is something deeply spiritual about the woods. Something programmed into us by God that pulls us into the wild. Once there, we begin to see and feel the creation unravel around us, speak to us in an ancient voice that comforts us and reassures us that we are, indeed, a part of this wilderness, this divine creation. Ralph Waldo Emerson in his Nature said, “In the woods we return to reason and faith… I am part an parcel of God,” and I feel it summarizes what we bowhunters can experience whether in a stand, blind, or still-hunting. There is something immense about realizing our smallness and interconnectedness to the natural world. In a word, recognizing our symbiosis.

Next, I realized that no matter what happens in the woods, deer or no deer, there is still a hunt, and that hunt is a discipline. The purpose of the hunt is, of course, to take the quarry using our God-given brains and skill, but sometimes their God-given instinct is just a bit brighter. That doesn’t change the fact that we hunt. There is something to be said for the discipline itself. Consider that we wake early on our days off from work (or run out the door of work on an early day), and throw on pre-packed camo and bow to hit the woods for a mere 2 hours of daylight), scrub ourselves practically scentless, carefully put on scent-controlled clothes kept in double-bagged plastic, and silently creep into the woods to sit for hours, as still as humanly possible, ignoring our hunger, thirst, need to urinate, or even scratch an itch, all to have a chance at loosing an arrow at the wary whitetail. Did I also mention the months of scouting, dropping hundreds, nay thousands, on tackle, clothing, scent control, books, periodicals, DVD’s, and anything else ‘bowhunting’ we can find, and spending hours at the archery range perfecting our technique and micro-tuning our bows and arrows. Couple this with the fact that as traditional bowhunters, we often must shoot every day in order to kept our skill and form with the finicky longbow or recurve. We are disciplined. What we do is a discipline that is practiced and executed through the ritual of the whitetail deer hunt.

Finally, if “nothing will come from nothing” than we as bowhunters must account for our precious life-hours spent in the woods. The truth is something always comes from nothing. Of course there is the joy of being surrounded by nature (though weather can alter our perception of that joy). But in the quest for the elusive whitetail, there is something learned when no deer come. There is a chance to consider what went wrong. And in considering that thing or things wrong, there is the opportunity to correct them. In my case, I found several things about my ‘well executed’ hunt that could have gone much better. For instance, my initial plan was to go in deeper each day in order to get farther from the main road and better blend into the surroundings and explore. What was wrong was that all the deer activity, and the major hub, was either closer to the main logging road or in the opposite direction heading towards the river and their bedding area. So while going deeper does better conceal my presence (mainly because the deer feels more camouflaged itself in the woods, rather than next to a wider open logging road), it then makes the success of the hunt reliant on the deer coming up a single trail. No deer came up that one trail, yet I did notice two deer far up near the logging road, with fresh droppings later found to confirm. Another thing wrong was scent control. By laboring deeper into the woods, carrying my climber tree stand, I worked up a mild sweat that wetted my clothing. Regardless of my carbon scent spray, or the rigorous showering I did with scent-away soap, sweat breeds bacteria and thus scent. Regardless of how high in the tree I was, my scent could have swirled its way down into the astute nose of the deer alerting him or her to my presence. Furthermore, when my clothing became damp from that sweat, it exacerbated any mild remaining scents on the clothing. Ultimately, after pondering all the ‘wrongs’ (and there were a few more) I was able to structure a plan of action to correct these things on my drive home. To start, I invested in better scent control clothing that breathes. Furthermore, I lightened up my load and now wear less clothing going in, putting on layers in the tree to prevent sweating and keep me warm during the hunt. I also began picking trees with a higher concentration of trails closer to the deer bedding area by the river. It was only after the repeated nothings of previous hunts that allowed me to realize my missteps and correct them. All these corrections made me a better hunter and more likely to take a deer the next time out.

Clearly whitetail deer hunting is hard, time-consuming work. But for we bowhunters it is a labor of love. A love of the woods and its fascinating rhythms. A love for the discipline of the hunt itself, the rituals, the tackle, and the endless stories and friends that come from the hunt. Lastly a love to perfect our craft by problem solving and applying solutions to make us better, more skillful hunters. So while King Lear never really does answer his question about “nothing,” hopefully, my ‘nothing’ will produce something in deer-form next time.

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The deer during the hunt in this article was not taken with a White Wolf Custom Bows Beowulf Recurve 59#, strung with a Bearpaw Fast-flight string, using Beman MFX Classic Arrows, and Muzzy 125 grain Broadheads.

When not in the woods, Erik Serrell-Dube is a high school English teacher and lecturer at a local community college. He enjoys cycling, snowshoeing, the spending time by the ocean with his wife.