<font color="green">All I want for Christmas is a 12-point buck</font>

By John Kuhn
Special to the Index
You can always tell when Christmas is nearing in Texas because the houses are dressed in lights and the men are dressed in camouflage.

A little known fact is that the Constitution of 1845 actually makes it illegal for men to leave the house in anything but camouflage from late October through New Year’s Eve. (The constitution goes on to explicitly prohibit turtlenecks on men.)

Deer season is a wonderful opportunity for men to show their children how much they love them. They do this by forcing them to huddle in tiny, unheated structures and stare at trees and fields for hours at a time. The children’s job is to eat snacks and ask constant questions. Some example questions that children should ask while hunting are: “When can we go home?” “Are we done yet?” and “I’m hungry.” (That last one is not technically a question.) The job of the adult is to shush the child and whisper, “Keep an eye on those trees over there” somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times.


It’s a scientifically proven fact that all Texas hunters have thought about how cool it would be if a Sasquatch came wandering out of the woods while they were hunting. After this thought occurs, the hunter will spend an hour wrestling with the moral implications of the scenario. Do you shoot Bigfoot and prove that he’s real, or do you let him live to frolic another day? Bigfoot knows that this thought process is going on in the minds of hunters—that’s why he never shows up. He doesn’t have a lot of confidence in Texans with guns. (This phenomenon also explains why hunters like Dick Cheney sometimes shoot human beings instead of big game. “I could have sworn he was a Sasquatch,” they often tell police later.)



The deer hunt is a scene of pure simplicity that unfolds all over Texas this time of year. Just a man and the land. And a high-powered rifle with a $700 Leupold VX-3 scope from Cabela’s. And insulated coveralls with hand warmers in the pockets. And a thermos full of coffee. And a solar-powered deer feeder. And a game camera mounted to a tree. And a camouflage wool-lined hat with fold-down ear flaps, and a pair of antlers to rattle together, and a bottle of natural doe urine spray, and a box of ammo, and four thick pairs of socks. And a roll of toilet paper (just in case).

It doesn’t get any simpler.

It’s considered an extremely successful deer season if a child gets his or her first deer. Even the deer are happy about this. When they go home from grazing at the magic corn bucket the deer say things like, “Well, I feel real bad about Doug, but at least he was that kid’s first buck. I hope they make a shoulder mount out of him.”


It’s also a successful deer season if an adult gets a buck, but only if the buck meets certain criteria. There is a point system that I’m pretty sure the IRS came up with. If I understand it right, you take the circumference of the base of the antlers and divide by pi. Next, count up the number of antler points and multiply by the ambient temperature. Last, measure the distance between the farthest two points on the antlers. That is your denominator. You have to subtract five points if anyone calls them “horns” instead of “antlers” during the measuring process. Points are also deducted if you shot a non-typical deer. An example of a non-typical deer is Bigfoot. Or Dick Cheney.


Hunters come in all shapes and sizes, but only in two colors: green camouflage or bright orange. Hunters who wear orange think the high visibility of their clothing will keep them safe. Hunters who wear camo think orange makes the other hunters look like dweebs. They also think it makes them easier to shoot. They only wish the deer would wear bright orange, too.

I’m only kidding about hunters shooting each other, of course. Hunting is more than a sport, after all. Men who hunt are members of a unique brotherhood, a fraternity forged by a shared love of gamey meats and a shared desire to get away from their wives even if it means staying outside in a forest miles from the nearest bathroom during the coldest months of the year.

Though hunting involves high-powered firearms and rickety tree stands, it’s actually one of the safer leisure activities commonly practiced in the United States. You almost never hear of a deer hunter being mugged, for example. Muggers prefer joggers. This could be because joggers don’t normally carry rifles and knives designed for gutting large game. The fact that deer hunters never get robbed leads one to believe that hunting could be a great deterrent to crime. If we all just hunted all the time, no one would ever get robbed. And we wouldn’t have to go to work.

It’s important for non-hunters to understand deer season etiquette. If someone shows pictures of a kill around the workplace (and they will), you should never make disparaging remarks. Don’t say, for example, “Boy, that’s the smallest buck I’ve ever seen” or “Smiddy’s buck had a bigger spread, didn’t it?” That’s like telling a coworker that someone else’s baby is cuter than theirs. It might be true, but you can’t say it. You have to wait and tell your spouse “I saw the ugliest baby today” when you get home from work. Same with a photo of a wimpy deer. A no-fail response is “Nice one, Pete.”

Hunters should remember never to show a picture of a substandard buck. If you shoot what is derisively called a “spike,” you should claim that your toddler shot it. The only thing worse than a spike is a one-point buck. A one-point buck is also known as a unicorn. They are considered non-typical. They usually stay with Bigfoot.

John Kuhn is author of the book “Texas Eccentrics” and is principal of Mineral Wells High School.