David Andreatta

@david_andreatta

His name was Pete Tonery and he proclaimed himself an "eccentric hunter."

That sounded intriguing enough for me to follow him into the woods in the dark in the middle of nowhere. He had a shotgun; I had an iPhone. What could go wrong?

Pete was one of dozens of readers who invited me to go deer hunting in the final days of the season after a column in which I had pledged to learn the art so I wouldn't have to feel like such a cupcake and a meat-eating hypocrite this time of year.

He hunts most mornings on his property in Hamlin for about an hour in what he described as a casual exercise in which bagging a deer is secondary to the reward of communing with nature.

That was fortunate for Pete since he hadn't shot a deer all season.

The deer were out there, though. He taught me to read the signs. The fresh "rub" on trees, the fresh "scrape" on the forest floor, the fresh poop on my shoe.

Setting off in the predawn gloaming, we were the sounds of pine needles crunching underfoot and the swish-swish-swish of my nylon jacket. I was a walking show tune.

Like every creature in a five-mile radius, I was keenly aware of the swishing. Pete shrugged it off. Once we got settled, he explained, the woods would absorb us and we would hear animals broadcast their arrival like they were on Broadway.

That's what was great about Pete. He wasn't preachy. He came to hunting later in life, in his forties, and shuns all the snake oil and gizmos designed to give hunters an edge over their prey.

He eschews traditional camouflage for a homemade poncho he fashioned out of furniture upholstery whose kaleidoscopic pattern recalls an old-time movie house carpet. He hunts with a .20-gauge shotgun, the kind marketed toward youths.

Maybe those things are why Pete hadn't taken a shot all season. But he claimed to have killed 10 deer in his 15 years of hunting, and that's nine more than most people have hit with their cars, so to a cupcake like me he was Grizzly Adams.

His tree stand was a one-man tower about eight feet off the ground. When we arrived, Pete guided me to a swivel chair he had arranged on the forest floor behind him to his left.

He acknowledged my position wasn't optimal since deer have an acute sense of smell. But I reminded myself that this exercise was about the hunting experience, and as any deer hunter will tell you, much of hunting involves sitting silently long enough for your muscles to atrophy without ever spotting a deer.

The uninitiated like me envision hunting as an active sport. We imagine Robert DeNiro traipsing across the stony terrain of the Pennsylvania mountainside, rifle in hand, stalking an elusive deer. A-ha! Poop!

Mostly, though, deer hunting is about sitting motionless in the now, alert to the wind on your face and the world awakening around you, and hoping like hell you smell outdoorsy enough to avoid getting "scented."

Many hunters shirk showers and perfumes. That morning, I could get away without showering but I had a reporting assignment in state court in three hours and deodorant was in order.

Luckily, I use Old Spice Denali, which the company promises "smells like wilderness, open air and freedom." No way a deer could scent that!

Once at our posts, Pete loaded his gun with the only bullet he brought.

"Make yourself comfortable, keep warm, don't move. That's about it," he whispered. "And try to enjoy the spectacle."

So that's what I did. And everything Pete had said about the woods absorbing us came to pass. Soon, I entered a meditative state of simultaneous relaxation and heightened awareness. It was beautiful.

Squirrels chittered unseen in the treetops. Nuthatches emerged, followed by blue jays and mourning doves and crows. At one point, a fox trotted by, completely oblivious to our presence. We had become forest creatures.

Then, just as a morning blast of pink and orange brightened the apple orchard to our east, came the footfalls behind me. They were methodical and heavy. This was no tiny beast.

Crunch. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Crunch. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Crunch.

I recalled something Pete had told me earlier: "When you see a deer your adrenaline spikes. You've got to get yourself together."

The beast wasn't in my eye line yet, but I imagined a gallant buck with a rack like a Norwegian stalagmite field prancing toward me. It might have been Bambi back there, but in my mind it was the Moby Dick of deer.

Crunch. One Mississippi, two Mississippi. Crunch.

Then a wave of anxiety washed over me. What if old Moby got spooked? A swishy nylon jacket is no match for a stalagmite. He could gore me like a matador. Would I qualify for worker's comp? Do matadors get worker's comp?

That's when the adrenaline kicked in and, I guess, so did my deodorant because the crunching abruptly stopped. I tried to harness Pete's advice like Obi-Wan Kenobi but it was too late. Synthetic "wilderness, open air and freedom" was everywhere.

Thud! There was the sound of what could have only been all four hooves bearing down at once followed by a rustling that dissolved into the ether. I spun around and it was like old Moby was never even there.

Not long after my brush with death, Pete uncocked his shotgun. "Was that sufficient enough experience for you?" he asked.

It would have to be until next season, when I'll have my hunting license and take another reader up on his or her offer.

"It can be very frustrating," Pete said. "But even when you don't get a deer, there's that reward of forcing yourself to sit out there and participate in your environment."

Twitter.com/david_andreatta