Look, let me say up front that I've been tempted. However, I've always shied away from recording my hunts. There are a bunch of reasons.
I do record all my turkey hunts-- not video, just audio. I put them out as podcasts every spring. My reason is that listening to live turkeys is the best way to learn how to call to them. I have gotten a lot of positive feedback from my listeners. Deployed troops listen to my recordings, because the ambient sound reminds them of home. I've wanted to do a podcast of what the deer rifle opener sounds like, but last year's attempt wasn't so hot. I'll try again this year.
So why don't I want to Go-Pro the whole thing?
Having originally started out in radio and TV, I know what it takes to do it right. A shaky head cam does not make you Curt Gowdy and the American Sportsman. A quality shoot requires quite a bit of effort, and that is all the stuff I want to escape when I go hunt.
Second, hunting is a fairly uninteresting sport to record. It, like fishing, is in the same category with watching paint dry. Even the really exciting stuff is rather boring to watch from the outside. That is why the outdoor shows doll everything up with a heavy metal soundtrack and a lot of goofy fist-bumping.
The real magic is what is going on between the ears of the hunter. No Go-Pro is going to capture that. The important thing for me is getting time shortly after the hunt to collect my thoughts and begin writing them down. It is the feelings and ideas that need to be recorded, not the event itself. A lot of those rough drafts have ended up here on the 24hourcampfire over the years.
I think a good part of the reason we have so much anti-hunting sentiment is that folks look at the inane stuff coming out of cable hunting shows and the moronic stuff on Youtube and they mistake that for the reality of hunting.
I used to know an older fellow that had gone to war zones and disasters and elsewhere and shot freelance. I asked him how he could shoot stuff like that. He said that as he kept doing it, he eventually grew mental calluses, but as long as it was in the viewfinder, it did not faze him, and that he often threw the camera up and shot, because he could not face it otherwise. I think that, right there, is the best reason not to record your hunt. Hunting is not something you want to objectify.
He was right. A few years ago, there was an auto accident at a Memorial Day parade. Angus was there, marching with his bagpipe band. An old vet plowed into the back end of the crowd. I think he'd had a seizure. Me, being the old fire horse and being the band photographer flew into action and waded in with my trusty camera. I walked out with quite a few good shots, and I managed to scoop all the local TV news, who were just pulling up their vans as the tow truck was leaving. I sold a shot of the guy piled up inside the turtled vehicle to the Cincinnati Enquirer for $75. There I was, up to my eyeballs in it, and it was no different to me than shooting the parade. I don't want hunting to be that way.
