This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Editor's note: Robert Kirby is gone not-hunting. This is a reprint of an earlier column.

Bow hunters will be out in force next week, trying to get back to their primitive roots by killing deer and elk with sharp sticks instead of hitting them with cars like the rest of us.

I mention this now because many of you believe that the number of crazy people in Utah has gone way up. Relax. It's just bow hunters getting ready.

Now is a good time to point out that I have nothing against hunting in a responsible manner. By this I mean that it takes you fewer than 50 rounds to bring down your quarry, and that you eat it. Also, that you don't do anything really weird.

This pretty much covers most rifle hunters. Little, if any, disturbing behavior is required to shoot a big animal with a scoped rifle from a distance of 100 yards. That far away, you could be watching TV or eating a MoonPie at the same time.

For true hunting weirdness — stuff that could get them mentioned in an abnormal psychology book — archery hunters are it.

Where else can a guy dress up like a ninja, squirt himself with animal urine and go sit in a tree without getting endorsement offers from major pharmaceutical companies?

(OK, other than Memory Grove.)

Rarely will you see an archery hunter in the wild. Sometimes you'll spot one poaching from the back of a pickup, but that's not real hunting. It's more like shoplifting.

Serious bow hunters have green beards, camouflage loincloths, facial tics and poor personal hygiene. The best place to spot one is in the middle of town, where such behavior causes them to stand out, occasionally among irate mobs.

In the woods, bow hunters go to extraordinary lengths to remove all traces of their presence, including painting their tongues, rolling in dirt, canceling credit cards and legally changing their names.

Odd as it seems, this behavior is necessary in order to get close to deer, who surpass even human mother-in-laws when it comes to being suspicious. And since arrows don't travel as far as bullets, you have to be close to kill her. The deer, I mean.

Based on the only bow hunt I ever went on, here is how it works:

A. Become invisible enough to be declared legally dead.

B. Climb a tree.

C. Remain motionless for hours on end.

D. Battle effects of uremia.

E. Finally go to bathroom in tree.

F. Watch startled deer run away.

G. Dodge arrows fired by irate hunting partner.

The only thing more fun than being covered with moss and sitting in a tree is being on the ground trying to sneak up on a deer.

Sneaking up on deer is much harder than it sounds. In fact, the mere sound of you reading this column has caused deer as far away as Colorado to bolt nonstop in the direction of Portugal.

Some scientists believe this is because deer have a highly developed sense of hearing. What deer really have are ears the size of drive-in-movie screens. With ears that big, you could be deaf as a post and still hear stuff.

To sneak up on an animal with giant ears requires stealth, cunning, patience and nothing else to do for about nine weeks.

Provided that the sneaking-up part is successful, shooting the deer comes next. Occasionally, hunters find this difficult because of something called "buck fever," a nervous phenomenon that causes the hands to twitch, thereby spoiling one's aim.

At one time, "buck fever" was related to bloodlust, or sensory overload caused by finally arriving at such a critical moment.

Today, however, this squirmy feeling stems more from a sudden realization of how much money, time and discomfort it took to get to this point.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley.