Jeff Essary was already driving to his deer hunting spot along Missouri’s St. Francis River when a friend, Chris Wilson, called to ask which stand he was planning to use.

“I told him, ‘The two-man stand. Why? Where would you hunt?’” Jeff said.

Chris thought the “welded stand” would be a better choice. The first one Jeff had ever built, it needed some shoring up, but it was still solid enough to support a Missouri duck hunter who’d decided to trade his shotgun and steel shot for a smokepole and single bullet.

Jeff went there instead, and Chris might never let him forget that it was his idea.

Dec. 21 was cool and overcast, and a gentle breeze was blowing out of the northwest. Jeff parked 300 yards east of the welded stand, pulled on his hunting clothes and sprayed himself  with a cover scent, and then followed a bush-hogged path to the stand that had seen better days.

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An Ohio real estate agent learned last year that the best way to hit a curve ball is to go out swinging.

After severely injuring his hand and ulnar nerve during a bowhunting trip to Arizona early in 2011, Matt Sheterom thought he’d be sidelined for the rest of the season, at best. He feared he might never again be able to hunt with a bow.

But that was before he struck up a conversation with a fellow vacationer, also from Ohio, in the Dominican Republic. Their idle hunting chat resulted in his becoming fast friends with Steve Esker.

“When I told Steve I couldn’t hold a compound bow any longer and might have to forego the upcoming hunting season, he told me of all the shoulder issues he suffers and how he now hunts with a crossbow,” Matt said.

“We became fast friends, and he offered to help me in any way he could.”

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Rena Altman’s coworkers know she’s married to an addict.

That became perfectly clear last fall, when her husband, Dave, called her workplace. High as a kite, he badgered a secretary into patching his call through to her.

“I did it,” he said, a three-word sentence almost too much for him to utter. “The big one.”

Like most addicts, Dave takes no responsibility for his actions.

“It’s my wife’s fault,” he says.

In April 2009, Rena and her sister, Robin, were walking in a field close to their Pennsylvania home and came upon a shed antler.

“My wife took a picture of it with her phone and sent it to my niece as she and I were getting ready for a bass tournament,” Dave said. “She asked, ‘Should I bring it home?’”

Duh.

“It was huge,” Dave said. “I couldn’t wait for them to get home so I could see it in person.”

Dave spent the next several weeks looking for the antler’s mate without success. He even dreamed about the buck.

But he didn’t really go out of his way to hunt it.

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Does giveth, and they taketh away.

Don Barbour of Mishawaka, Ind., is all too familiar with this bowhunter’s proverb.

On the last afternoon of Indiana’s early archery season in 2010, he jumped a bedded buck and doe while walking to his stand. Because the wind was blowing in Don’s favor, they never smelled him, and it’s doubtful they saw him, which explains why they didn’t head for the next county.

The doe bedded down again on the other side of a fencerow, and the buck had no intention of leaving her. Don and her suitor stared at each other from a mere 40 yards, but the wall of vegetation between them was too thick to allow a shot.

Accepting fate, Don watched the buck through his field glasses. He counted six points on each side of its rack, but there was something weird about the brow tines. They were wrapped with weeds or something.

“I really wanted to get a shot at that buck, so I tried moving parallel,” he said. “After taking one step, however, I decided I couldn’t do it. The leaves were just too dry.”

A half-half later, the doe stood and bounded off toward the next nearest patch of woods, buck in tow.

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