Rooting for the World’s Largest 6-Point

Regular readers of this blog—researchers are busily looking for an even less-appealing word in the English language than blog but have so far come up empty—know that I’m not a big fan of hunting videos. If you’re making love to your significant other in the privacy of your own bedroom, that is—or has the possibility of being—transcendent. If you’re doing it before a video camera with the intent of selling it to others, there’s a different word for it. This also happens to be the difference between hunting and hunting videos.

Recently, I came across a video (below) entitled “World’s Largest 6 Point Whitetail” by Tim Wells and the crew of Relentless Pursuit. “Here he comes,” whispers one hunter, as the buck swaggers into view. “That’s a monster,” responds another. Then the suspense music starts and we get a glimpse of what is flat out the biggest 6 I’ve ever seen.

The buck stands in an opening for a bit, takes a few steps, stops to graze. The spooky music intensifies. “It’s the big six,” a voice says. The buck lifts its head again and starts meandering to its left. At 1:45 in the 2:27-minute-long video clip, the spooky music changes to “moment of truth” music, meaning that something big is about to happen. At 1:54, the range, 35 yards, appears on the screen. “Shoot him. He’s gonna jump the fence,” says a voice. But there is no arrow. At 2:02, the buck stops for a moment, quartering away, offering the ideal shot. “Shoot!” hisses the voice. And—just in case you’re slow—Shoot!!! appears on the screen.

“C’mon, Mike!” the voice pleads as the deer calmly hops the fence and walks away. “I wasn’t ready,” Mike says. (These words also appear.) The camera swings toward the hunter, who is smiling. “I thought he was going to walk right by us.”

I found myself strangely buoyant and realized that when somebody’s trying to make a buck off the death of a buck, I always root for the deer.

Here’s the video: