For me and Eileen the primary reason has always been meat, which provides not just a wider array of tastes than domestic animals but a sense of independence. But both Eileen have hunted trophies pretty seriously as well, and found that contrary to what many believe, older male animals can provide very good eating. I’ve lived just about totally on wild game since about age 20, and both Eileen and I have during our 32 years of marriage.
But recently I had to ask myself why again, after two abnormal hunting years in 2013 and 2014. In 2013 my Labrador severely dislocated my knee on September 28th, and the only big game animal I got was a whitetail doe, taken late enough in the fall to gimp out there and get it done. Luckily, Eileen took three animals, but none with a lot of meat: a whitetail doe and fawn, and a pronghorn doe.
Consequently we entered 2014 without nearly as much meat as usual, but through some luck in Montana tags and two trips to Texas managed to put 10 big game animals in our freezers. Some were what Ingwe calls dinks, including two 50-pound pigs and another whitetail fawn, a mistake on Eileen’s part—she saw a buck chasing it during the rut so thought it was full-grown. But there were also a cow nilgai and elk, and a couple of mature if not trophy mule deer bucks, though Eileen’s would have had about a two-foot antler spread if one antler hadn’t been broken off short.
This fall we started with a September waterfowl trip to Alberta, since Eileen needed LOTS of ducks and geese for her upcoming cookbook on marinades, brines and rubs for wild game. We brought back around 150 pounds of cleaned birds, and then rearranged and cleaned our freezers, as we do every fall before rifle season starts, to see how much we might need of what. It turned out we didn’t need any meat at all, but there was enough space for a deer or two, so we’re out hunting, theoretically for antlers, though eventually Eileen decided she wanted at least one deer for experiments with really big cuts of meat.
Haven’t taken anything so far, and last night it was really cold out there. We started to wonder why the heck we were shivering in the woods, but while talking about it on the way home, with the pickup heater going full blast, we discovered we’re both essentially scouting for NEXT year. I even hiked up a long Forest Service ridge we’ve hunted off-and-on since we moved here 25 years ago just to see what was going on, since finding a deer or elk with large enough antlers was about as likely as finding a kudu.
Eileen has mostly been hunting whitetails on a big riverbottom, and discovered a bunch of interesting places, sometimes with a little help from me. Down there we even discovered some new places to hunt pheasants and geese after big game season ends after this coming Sunday, since we can always find a place to squeeze some birds into odd corners of the freezers.
However, we also eventually decided we’re hunting because it’s that time of year, and we can. One of the great aspects about living in America is we can hunt wild game that belongs to all of us, yet another reason for giving thanks on this November day. Good hunting and happy Thanksgiving, everybody!
