I get the sense that hunting is in decline. The old farmers say there are fewer permits being sought, fewer hunters out in the woods. The hungers I know are environmentalists, ethical and responsible people, I am always happy to give them permission to hunt on my property.

There are also many irresponsible clowns who shoot deer from their cars, hit people’s dogs and horses, use high-powered weaponry on their targets. That is the nature of the world, I think, good people and confused and troubled or damaged people. It has always been so, I imagine it will always be so.

I have never been fond of deer, as so many writers and poets are, but I’m not a hunter. Hunting is so important to so many people, most of them men. Fathers and sons bond through hunting, friends spend days out in cabins with one another, drinking and talking. Some people drink up nature, they sit in blinds and trees for hours in freezing November weather, most of them find reasons not to shoot a deer – it was too young, too small, too trusting.

Some great bullshitting is done in the woods during hunting season. And for sure, there are people out there hunting in earnest for food to feed their families in the winter. Everyone tries to give them permission. I have a neighbor and a friend who is 86, a former World War II paratrooper. He hasn’t shot a deer in awhile, I don’t think, but he is out there every year, walking in the woods, following tracks.

I knew a man in Hebron who got out to his tree stand at 4 a.m. and sat there all day, drinking coffee from his thermos and eating ham sandwiches his wife made and packed for him. In the seven years I knew him, he spent day sand days out there and never shot a deer. Why, I asked, do you do it? I just love to watch the animals walking around, he said. I couldn’t to pull the trigger, not once, even though I swear I will

Another neighbor told me he and his father go hunting every year, its a bonding trip, he said. Where do you guys go, I asked? Oh, I go to the Adirondacks, he said, my Dad goes to Vermont. We get together for dinner at night. It’s a special time.

I know a woman who goes out hunting, she claims she needs the venison for food, she says she lives off nature, but she is often seen at the Subway in town buying her meals. I don’t think she has shot anything.

I knew a farmer’s daughter, a poet, who has gone out hunting with her father every year since childhood, she hates hunting, she always feels he is disappointed with her, he thinks she doesn’t try hard enough. She gave me a high five in the market last year, she got a 10-point buck, he got nothing. Now, she says, she doesn’t have to go hunting any longer.

When he does catch a deer, he guts it himself and passes out some venison to neighbors and friends.

I’m not sure we will see his like again. Hunting is a proud and beloved tradition here, but one of my neighbors has given up hunting  with his buddies this year, he decided to take his nephews to Best Buy in Saratoga to buy a flat screen TV rumored online to be 40 per cent off.