July 2026
Dad's Old Camo And a Tradition Reborn | Virginia Whitetail Hunting
Story By: Nicholas Cecchi
More than twenty years after my father passed away, I slipped my arms into one of his old camouflage jackets for the first time. My mom handed it to me a week before this hunt when I was visiting her on the other side of the country. It was classic old-school military surplus—faded pattern, heavy fabric, and just a half size too big for me. It had been folded and stored away for decades, untouched since the years when my dad wore it into the woods. When I pulled it on, it carried the quiet weight of time. It felt unfamiliar and deeply familiar all at once.
Learning to Hunt Without a Mentor
My dad passed away when I was still a young boy. Growing up without him meant learning things the hard way, usually on my own. Hunting was one such thing. A few years back, I made a quiet commitment to myself: hunting—the tradition my dad had hoped to pass down—would not end with him. I would carry it forward in our family. Picking up most of the skills as an adult has not been easy. With the exception of an occasional generous mentor, I’ve had to teach myself most of what I know about hunting—through books, mistakes, long sits in empty woods, and countless hours watching and learning. I often think about how different that process might have been with my father’s guidance and often recall the handful of outings we shared in the field. As a kid, I used to pray that God would somehow give me more time with him, somehow allow me to make one more memory with my dad. As I grew older and dealt with his passing, those prayers became less and less frequent, but the deep-rooted desire remained.
Scouting a Mature Public Land Whitetail
This past season was only my second season hunting whitetail deer, but I had been intentionally planning my approach long before opening day. I’d been tracking an eight-point buck on public land since summer—studying his trails, finding his food and water sources, and watching his patterns develop. There were still no guarantees he would ever offer an opportunity, but the work itself mattered because every mile walked and every hour spent was driven by the hope of one day making my dad proud.
It was mid-October and a cold front was just coming in. I had planned to head out for the hunt on Saturday morning, but something itched at me on Friday afternoon—now was the time. I needed to be in the woods that evening, even if it was a shorter sit in the stand. I left work a few hours early, threw on my dad’s old camo, and rolled out. As I buttoned up my dad’s jacket for the first time and stepped off the trail alone, I couldn’t help but think that if he were still here, this was something we might be doing together. I offered a simple prayer that the evening would be meaningful in his honor.
The woods answered almost immediately.
Before I even reached my tree, deer were already moving through the area. It was one of those rare moments when the woods feel alive in every direction at once, as if you’ve stepped into a scene already in motion rather than arriving to start one. I stood frozen in the open, watching shapes drift between tree trunks. Squirrels worked the ground while a fox cruised through in search of one as its next meal. Birds flitted overhead. A doe came bounding in as if she was being chased. She stopped and made direct eye contact with me from about seventy five yards away. I froze, expecting that I had just blown the whole hunt—and potentially tomorrow morning’s as well. We stared each other down for a few minutes before she ran off.
At this point, I decided that even if the hunt was blown, I was still going to have a nice sit in the woods. I climbed carefully, trying to make as little commotion as possible, but something felt different: none of the forest’s wildlife seemed to be bothered by my presence.
Passing on a Young Buck for the Right Opportunity
The particular area I was hunting requires that all shots be taken from an elevation of at least ten feet above ground level. When I was about five feet up, the same doe came sprinting back with a young four-point trailing closely behind. Once again, I froze—amazed I hadn’t already blown the hunt and afraid I was about to now. The temptation to take this young buck outside of the regulations scratched at me, but I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I dishonored my dad’s old jacket by tainting it with an illegal harvest. I waited for them to move behind cover and slowly rose to legal shooting height. My crossbow was cocked, and I was just waiting for the young buck to come within distance.
Harvesting a Mature Public Land Whitetail
Less than five minutes after settling in at legal height, new movement caught my eye. This time it wasn’t the doe, and it wasn’t the young four-point; it was him—the eight-point I’d been watching for months—moving confidently, ready to challenge the four-point for the doe. He passed right beneath me before I could even react. I watched as he broke the two up, sending them in different directions. He circled back around within twenty yards of my position, pausing to sniff the ground where the doe had left her scent shortly before his arrival.
The moment itself came quickly, but it didn’t feel rushed. When the shot came, it passed in a flash. He took the blow to his vitals, bolted about seventy-five yards, paused, and toppled over. It was then that the woods finally seemed to go quiet.
Standing over him, the weight of the evening finally set in. For two decades, I had prayed for a new memory to be made. The jacket that had been buried and untouched in a dark closet for those many years now carried new marks from its first short return to the woods—sweat, blood, a few quiet tears, and a timeless memory. It had returned to its purpose while resting on new shoulders in fresh light.
Some would call it luck. Others might call it coincidence. For me, it felt like something else entirely—gratitude for a long-sought answer to prayer. Gratitude for the hunt, for the work it took to get there, and for the strange way life sometimes gives us what we once asked for…just not in the form we ever expected.
Carrying Hunting Traditions to the Next Generation
The deer will feed my family, but only for a season. The jacket will fade a little more each time I wear it. But the memory of that evening—of years of learning without a guide, of trusting a quiet pull to leave work early, of stepping into the woods with my father in spirit if not in body—will last far longer than either. In just a few short months, my own son will be born. Standing there in my dad’s jacket, it finally hit me that the tradition he hoped to give me wouldn’t stop with me. For so long, I was chasing something backward, trying to reconnect with what I’d lost. Now I realize I get to carry it forward. One day, I won’t be learning alone anymore—I’ll be teaching. And the jacket will likely find its way to a new set of shoulders for new memories to be made.
Hunting has taught me that the real rewards and answers to prayers aren’t always measured in filled tags or antlers on the wall. Sometimes they arrive quietly, wrapped in old fabric and earned patience, reminding us that guidance comes in many forms—and that we’re never as alone as we think.
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