davwilli: go ahead and ramble, all the stories are good!
I used to know a guy who also quit deer hunting because it was "too easy". He liked to walk through the thickest stuff he could find. He said, "All you do is keep walking until a deer jumps up. If it has horns, you look through the scope, and when you see brown, you pull the trigger." After a few years of that, he quit - - no challenge.
I too hunted about 5 years before getting my first deer. That one did walk up to me and stood there while I shot him. But, on the average, I have definitely had to pay my dues between each and every deer I've shot over the past 40 years of hunting.