The Green Zone: Man vs. Wild: South Dakota Style

I'm a man that can appreciate a fair fight.

I've been out here doing things the old way—the hard way—and all these prancy little whitetails have been alluding me for nearly three days now.

I'm out here with a stick, a string and a pointy arrow in the snow-blanketed Dakotan prairie looking to put food on the table, and I'm starting to think they may have just gotten the best of me.

But what fun is shooting a deer from a tree stand at 150 yards with an infrared scope and a gun with enough muzzle velocity to put down a water buffalo from a mile away? 

As soon as I saw Vikings' defensive end Jared Allen kill an elk with a spear, I was hooked.  Make it hard.  Make it even. 

Hunt the way your distant ancestors did as they rolled across the tundra chasing wooly mammoths.  There's something very romantic about keeping the hunt level between the hunter and the hunted, but this sucks.

I feel like the Predator chasing Arnold Schwarzenegger around greater Central America, except without the cool lasers or active camouflage and not as intimidating.

Me, I'm just really cold and my fingers are having a hard time nocking the arrow because the blood flow is slowly beginning to restrict itself back to my vital organs so I don't die out here as dusk falls over the frosty landscape.

When you really start to freeze, you can only do the whole Navy SEALs trick where you contract all your muscles to warm them up for so long before you just get bored and your mind starts to wander to anything else besides the fact that your feet are wet and it has just started snowing. 

For example, now that I make this whole Predator reference, it occurs to me that a considerable number of the movie's actors turned into politicians. 

There's old Governator of course, then Jesse Ventura and the lesser-known Sonny Landham (who played the silent Native American tracker, Billy, who actually had the balls to go out and meet the Predator alone, like a man). 

Right now, any thought will do aside from the growing suspicion that the deer are playing games with me.

I've heard a lot of people say that hunting is "sport," but this—this is something else. 

This is a straight-out endurance contest.  Somewhere out there, there's an animal whose days are numbered. 

Somewhere out there in the cold, there's a deer that's too hungry to wait until after dark and will make the mistake of walking in front of me at the wrong time. 

Sooner than later, I'm going to have my fill of venison.

I can appreciate the vegetarian types, I really can.  I believe it is truly noble for a person to give up meat.  It's globally efficient, after all. 

I just can't help but lean into the holiness that comes from harvesting your own food with your own hands, following the kill after you've shot through both lungs, tracking it until it's dead and taking in the whole "Circle of Life" bit. 

There's nothing quite like the feeling of drawing your knife and slitting the skin of that animal, digging your hands into its guts and vital sack, pulling out all the slimy parts and understanding just how humbly sacramental the process is.

But again, I cannot seem to articulate how frustrating this animal is right now.  About fifteen minutes ago a gorgeous buck walked right in front of me, but turned and ran as a gunshot rang out in the distance. 

Those damn rifle hunters have got them all skittish-which is just one more reason this whole experience is just like Predator.  After the whole commando crew lit up the jungle with their loud guns and explosives, Dutch ended up killing the thing with a log and a huge rock. 

I hate to say it, but if my luck keeps up, I might just head home and turn to politics.