Why We Hunt

Late Season Camp, Day 1

I Hunt, Therefore I am

In the Twitterverse, I’ve been called a murderer, sociopath, and a number of other less than complimentary names. Why? Because I am a self-proclaimed hunter, and I hunt to eat and I hunt for sport. This is a personal conversation, and I can only explain through my own eyes. I observe my hunting companions, but these are still my own observations as to why we/I hunt.

Early Hunting Experience

My start in hunting began at a very early age, in the 1970s in rural Nevada. On the weekends, our options were limited.  We could watch a few hours of Saturday morning cartoons. Wandering around town on bikes or what in those days passed for a skateboards worked. Swimming and goofing at the local pool, an occasional movie, a trip to the local park, building models, board games, fishing, camping, and hunting. That was about it. No Twitter, Facebook, or texting our friends; and sure as heck no Xbox! Growing up, we only had four snowy channels to choose from on the TV anyway. There was no internet or Tivo! So our big weekend events tended to be family camping, fishing, and hunting trips.

I was devastated the first time I took the life of another animal. We were hunting varmints for sport, and after my first ground squirrel with my new single-shot Remington .22 I was done for a while. However, the allure of the mountains and deserts was so strong with me. Soon I was seeking every opportunity to be in the outdoors, most especially fishing, camping, and later hunting. As a kid, hunting was a sport and sort of a rite of passage.

Of course, we always took game for the table, and with the exception of a few varmints, we ate what we killed. We especially loved the variety of upland birds. My idea of an ideal breakfast growing up was the combination of bicuits, gravy, eggs, and some kind of wild game. Blue grouse, sage grouse, chukar, quail, dove, or hungarian partridge, were on the menu. Often we also would have venison instead. Either way, for me it did not get any better than that. I was never a pancake guy for whatever reason, but I digress…my point is we featured our game meats at our highest meals.

Hunting as Sport

I loved shooting guns as a kid. I became accomplished with my .22, and my first real gun-dream was of a .410 shotgun, as this was my first pathway to real hunting with the adults. After a bit of ribbing, my Dad’s childhood buddy loaned me that gun. For several years it was my only avenue to hunting. I didn’t kill much with that shotgun, but I was in the game!

My parents later acquired a 20 gauge Model 1300 for me and my Dad took a Remington 700 BDL in 25-06 in payment for a debt owed. Those two guns became the core of my arsenal well into my adulthood. These were adult guns and at the age of 12 I had passed my state Hunter’s Safety course and began hunting with the adults as an adult. This is how I started, as a sportsman, although I’ve always eaten all the game that we took.

Is Hunting Always “Killing”?

Undeniably, most of us hunt for the thrill of the chase and to be in the great outdoors. We can do that with a lethal weapon, as in taking animals for food. We can also do this with a camera or simply a pair of binoculars or spotting scope. Birders are hunters…it is just that they hunt their birds with optics rather than weapons. The thrill is in the finding of the quarry and getting within range of your weapon or optics to “take” the animal, even if that is in the form of a digital image or a note in a birder’s ledger.

As I’ve aged, I rarely hunt varmints and I tend to catch and release most of the fish that I land. I no longer kill rattlesnakes out of hand. It isn’t that I don’t want to kill these animals. First, I respect them. It is also more that I value the hunting for meat now than I once did. I fish purely for sport, so I catch and release. If I do take a fish for the table, that is exactly where you will find it several days later.

The act of ending the life of another creature is a sobering experience 

There is a special thrill in locating and outwitting trophy big game animals. As long as the meat is utilized, there is nothing unpalatable to me in “trophy hunting”. The biggest thrill, however, is in researching, locating, and outsmarting a trophy animal. This is a very difficult endeavor, when you are a DIY hunter. As you age, it becomes increasingly satisfying as with every year gravity becomes your advancing enemy.

Organic Food

I now focus heavily on the harvest aspect of hunting. My wife and I now know that game meat is the ultimate organic protein source, we have made it the centerpiece of our table fare. We seek to harvest at least one cow elk every year, and often take two or more.  We eat elk, deer, antelope, or game birds at most meals throughout the year. We’ve learned to make elk-burger, salami, and jerky. This year we came up short on hunting tags, so we may buy a half-carcass of grass-fed beef, driving home the importance of our annual venison harvest.

Spiritual?

More than anything, however, hunting is a means of communing with nature that is so deep and personal, it rather defies explanation. There is a sense of responsibility and a deep understanding of the source of food on the table that ties you to the land. We experience nature in all of her forms, from hot August pronghorn season with its temperatures over 100 to the dark pre-dawn on a windy subzero December elk hunt.

My favorite hunting sensory overload occurs every year at dawn when the aspen leaves turn and the frost lies thick on the sage. The sun takes away the shivering by increments and I revel in this every year. You simply have to experience this. Because I hunt, I am literally immersed in nature most of the year, whether it is on the hunt or preparing for the hunt. Just being in the outdoors for a few hours away from cell phones is enough. Just by opening your eyes you will experience many unusual or unforeseen things.

Ethics

One Shot, One Kill

The act of ending the life of another creature is sobering. Take that responsibility with the gravity it deserves. I’ve shed tears in private moments with game animals who did not expire painlessly or without suffering. It is a horrible experience and one that I work hard to avoid personally and with new hunters in my life. We owe it to each animal to live by the mantra, “one shot, one kill”, and that means that you had better be in layup range if not slam-dunk range whenever you make the decision to take an animal. When we do our job in this way, we do offer the game animal a death that is far more painless and humane than almost any they face in the wild.

When we do not live by this ethic, we lose our credibility as hunters. I’ve succumbed to the temptation to take a risky shot in the past. There are times when I’ve taken a careful “free-throw” range shot with good success, but we must have care to take animals ethically. I’ve also made my mistakes, born of carelessness.

The sport aspect of hunting is where sometimes non-hunters and certainly anti-hunters have difficulty. I can understand why it seems murderous or sick to some people that a hunter takes joy in the pursuit of a game animal that ultimately ends at the dinner table. As a species, we are hunters. We survived because we hunted. Certainly, there was joy in primitive man when he took game for the community. It appears we haven’t lost that connection to our game.

I absolutely look forward to hunting and enjoy the hunt once I’m in the field. Taking of the animal is the culmination of the hunt, and represents food for the table. I always celebrate the conclusion of a hunt that ends in a very quick and humane death for the game animal. Let’s not pretend that death is “good” for the animal, but it is part of that animals and my own life. Death just is. Death is inevitable, and if we as hunters perform to the highest ethical standards, that death comes quickly and humanely. If we as hunters do our job in herd population management, we do reduce the starvation and disease-related deaths. These are certainly good outcomes overall.

And Finally

We hunt for many reasons. These include sport, communing with nature, and to eat higher quality food. We hunt to be with friends and family. Sometimes we hunt with camera or spotting scope, just for the thrill of sharing this living animal with others, and being aware of its existence. In any case, when we hunt, we are undoubtedly as close to the source of our primal foods as we can be. We learn wisdom and patience from hunting and from nature. When you outwit a game animal and take it to the dinner table, you do become closer to the earth and to your humanness.