None of us like to make mistakes. The worst kind are those that have an impact on the welfare or peace of mind of others. But even mistakes that only we, ourselves, know about can be personally bothersome: mistakes remind us of our fallibility. A person who prides himself on his capacity to pay attention to detail can be especially hard on himself when mistakes are made. Even if no harm comes to anyone or anything.

Deer hunters are no different. Most of us, who hunt the wily whitetail, are proud of our powers of observation and attention to detail. We go to elaborate lengths to control our scent in the woods. We mind the wind when hunting. Some of us wear a special thin glove on our shooting hand and put up with cold fingers, just to be ready when the moment comes. We practice on what is the best way to snap off the rifle’s safety in a quiet manner. We try to stay in the shadows when working the edge of a fir thicket. We plan each step, so as not to snap a branch or twig under the fresh snow.

As you see, detail people make the best hunters. Are you a detail person? I used to think that I was, although my wife has long said otherwise. It is one reason that she steadfastly refuses to fly with me in the Cessna. Hoping she would change her mind about my acumen as an aviator, I have over the years concealed from her my worst mistakes on the ground, especially those that dealt with my inattention to detail.

It is time to come out of the closet. Time to come clean and confess. It can only be purifying for my soul. As a younger man, I made some pips, but they were few and far between. It seems that with the passing years, my CTB problem has worsened. CTB stands for “capacity to blunder.”

This past hunting season, I set a new record for screwups.

One particularly cold, windy November morning, while hunkered down near a game trail, I attempted to heat some tea water with my little mountain stove. I flicked my Bic, and BAVVOOOM! Flames shot three feet in the air, igniting some dry leaves and my green wool hunting pants. In an act of courageous desperation, I managed to stem the conflagration by reaching through the flame and shutting of the valve on the Butane bottle. The body hair on my right arm has just begun to grow back. I didn’t see any deer that day.

A few days later, during our annual weekly deer hunt in the deerless North Woods, I came out of the woods at mid-day. It was my turn to go back to camp early and start the pot roast. Arriving at the truck, I unloaded my Remington 721 .270 with the spanking new Leupold scope and leaned the barrel against the front tire of the truck while I took off my day pack and shut down the GPS. Two miles down the road a nagging feeling of emptiness came over me. My rifle, the priceless old .270 that once was my Dad’s hunting gun, was not beside me on the seat. Yes, I had done the unthinkable. Driven away without my rifle. When I got back to my parking spot, the rifle was there resting on the leaves patiently waiting for me. A sigh of relief. The scope was not crushed in a pile of broken glass as I had envisioned. The family .270 was OK.

My hunt companions, the Skulkers of Seboeis, chose to acknowledge my CTB issues with a suitable award on the last evening of hunt week. I had been similarly recognized 20 years earlier for failing to renew our camp’s fire insurance three months before that camp burned flat in a lakeside grass fire.

The ultimate hunt blunder was a Biggy, a cardinal screwup of the highest order. I am still shaking my head. Diane will first learn of this here, not across from me at the kitchen table. The night before the muzzleloader season, I showed her my percussion cap Thompson .50 caliber. I then explained to her the loading process of her new inline CVA .45 caliber Magnum Eclipse. I then loaded them both in preparation for the next morning’s hunt. That is to say I thought that I charged up both frontloaders with appropriate powder and shot. That afternoon in my treestand, I got to thinking: Did I load Diane’s .45 caliber when I explained the process to her? I’m not sure. She could be carrying an empty gun.

That evening back at the house I asked her if she remembered me putting the Pyrodex pellets and a bullet down the barrel. “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I watched you load it.”

Nothing more was said after that. She hunted with the gun a couple of times, as did I. In fact, two different times I had does in the sight of that gun, all the while thinking that I was a trigger pull away from 100 grains of Pyrodex behind a .45 caliber projectile. Little did I know that I, and Diane earlier in the week, had been hunting armed with nothing more lethal than a 209 shotgun primer, basically a cap gun. All of this was discovered on the last day of the blackpowder hunt when I pulled the trigger in an attempt to “clear” the gun before cleaning it for the season.

Now that all of my blunders of the hunt are out in the open, one thing is a lead-pipe cinch. You will see white blackbirds when Diane changes her mind about not flying with me in the Cessna. Next November, I am determined to pay more attention to detail during the hunt. Meantime, I’m not sure I want to fly with me either. At least, not until I can get my CTB levels back to normal.

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].