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Blood, memories, and the making of an adult deer hunter

The author (above) and his brothers didn’t come from a hunting family, but they have established their own outdoors traditions as adults. North-central Minnesota consistently has produced venison for them in recent years. (Photo by Courtney Perry)

My watch disappearing into a pool of blood. Among the many memories of my first deer hunt, that is the most vivid. It happened 10 years ago, when I was 47. I’m what they call an “adult-onset hunter.”
As I chronicled in my recent memoir, I started hunting when I was 40 as a way to survive a brutal divorce and custody fight. My first forays into hunting were ducks, pheasants, and grouse, which are small and non-mammalian. I knew that shooting a deer would be a different story, and it was.

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