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If I'd been alive back in the Old West, I'm pretty sure folks would've hired me to shoot stuff. I never thought of myself as being anything so disagreeable and unsavory as a bounty hunter scouring the plains for outlaws. No, for some reason, I always had dangerous critters in mind. Sort of a traveling pest control business, but on a much grander scale.

I see myself clip-clopping down a dusty main street as men push through squeaky saloon doors, their shifty eyes peering at me under a bright noonday sun. I also see a distraught woman running alongside my steed as I make my way to the sheriff's office, pleading, "Bad Brown, there's a big, mean grizzly bear terrorizin' our town! Our children ain't safe! Can you get him?" I'd pull back on the reins and tip my white Stetson back on my forehead. After carefully working the orbish wad of sunflower seeds packed in my cheek, I'd spit out an empty hull and reply, "Yes ma'am. Here's my business card. If you'll kindly look on the back there, it plainly reads that I ain't never missed." The front of the card, of course, would show a picture of me squinting dead-eyed down the barrel of my trusty 12-gauge, just like those famous old shots of Annie Oakley on the posters for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Yes, for many years that was my daydream. My over-active imagination got plenty of miles out of that fantasy, too. Because when it comes to shooting - particularly at deer - I never miss. That is, until last Saturday when the unthinkable happened.

Late that morning, I took careful aim on a good buck standing broadside about 25 yards from my stand. I lined up the fiber optic sights, slowly squeezed off a round, then watched in puzzled disbelief as a half year's worth of perfectly good venison bounded unscathed into the thick undergrowth. What made it doubly unbearable was the manner in which the deer fled. He bounced away stiff-legged, just like Looney Tunes' anthropomorphic French skunk, Pepe Le Pew. I suppose it could've been the wind, but I swear I heard him mumble just before disappearing into a thicket, "You meesed, mon ami. How fortunate for me. Perhaps your luck will be better next time, no?" Well, it was either the wind or I seriously need to dial back on my cartoon viewing.

Anyway, last Saturday I joined the lowly ranks of the Mortal Hunters Club. I am now officially listed in the 2007 edition of "Who's Who In Hunting" as "Mr. Whiff." I was even told that if you look up Barney Fife, under his picture are the words, "See also Dan Brown."

My family is running out of meat in the freezer and I'm running out of time on the calendar. I'd better sharpen up and get a deer. No more fooling around. I'll allow one more encounter with a deer to shoot straight and redeem myself. If I whiff again, I guess I'll have to change the backside of those cards of mine to read, "I ain't never missed ... well, almost never." It just doesn't have the same ring to it, does it?

Dan Brown's weekly outdoor column is brought to you by Frankie's Bait and Marine, in Chisago City, and St. Croix Outdoors, in St. Croix Falls, Wis.

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