Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why do we hunt?--and Thanksgiving

I love that smell!

Can't help but stare at every patch of woods or body of water and wonder what is in there. Makes my wife crazy when I'm driving, deservedly so, as I'll crane my neck hoping to see a ripple or tail flicker and struggle to stay on the road.

My algebra is simple: Hunting+Fishing=Me

Happy Thanksgiving!

I simply cannot imagine not hunting.

There is no finer feeling than being outdoors with a Gun or Bow and a chance to take some game. Even if I rarely pull the trigger. I just dont understand people that dont feel the same way. I like to hunt and I like to shoot stuff. No Apologies.

Every year between me and my son we strive to take one of Wisconsins 1 1/2 year old bucks. Those bucks have no fat on them to mention and the meat in the hind quarters is a reddish pink at times and an eating delicacy to me.

For the most part we don't shoot any does as we feel that the neighbors shoot way to many with all the extra tags they buy each year. This controls the herd in our little neck of the woods. Not against shooting does, it just is the way it has unfolded in our neighborhood.

Liking to try new to me bullets, this year I shot a 5 point with a 160 grain Hornady Flex-Tip out of a 30-30 H&R single that wears a Cabelas 30-30 lever action scope. The bullet provided a DRT and I couldn't have been more pleased. Last years deer came on a 170 grain Sierra FN out of a Topper that was scoped with a Bushnell Banner shotgun scope with circle X reticle. Wish I could sometimes spend more but when you have a champagne appetite with a beer income, choices have to be made.

The biggest thrill I get in my 48th year of hunting is being with my 40 year old son, 12 year old grandson, and a nephew here on family land that has been in our family since around 1885.

In the morning my grandson and I are heading to the woods in the stand made for two. Snacks and drinks in tow and a thermos full of coffee for me. Hunting is Life the rest is just details.

I am a human, therefore I hunt.

Those who do not hunt choose a practiced disconnect from reality.

Tom,

I also firmly believe there are people hard-wired for hunting who never know until they get a chance. Eileen’s a perfect example. She didn’t start until her mid-30’s, and it was instant addiction.

I hunt for meat as my first priority although if I'm on an expensive out of state hunt I will try to hold out for a trophy grade animal because if taken care of properly can be as good as a doe. Depending on what they have been eating of course.

I enjoy hunting deer, ducks and geese, and fishing for salt and fresh water fish.

I figured out when I was in my twenty's that I needed to consentrate on mule deer when I was young and could climb. So I have hunted mule deer in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, New Mexico, Northern Kaibab of Arizona, West Texas, and Alberta.

For the past dozen years I have been in the whitetail phase of my trophy hunting, although I always hunted Texas for meat whitetails including does. For Trophies I have hunted Texas, Kansas, Missouri, Alberta, and Saskatchewan.

I've not felt I could handle all of the meat to hunt moose, Bison, and elk although I've eaten it and found it much more desirable than deer or beef.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I think it's built in, instinct.

If you watch hunting dogs, and they are bred to express hunting instinct, once they lock on to prey everything changes. Intensity, attitude, and so forth. And for upland game pure joy after a retrieve.

I find myself doing likewise with the immediate prospect of shooting game or hooking a fish. Focus locks on, the quality of the day, whether or not I feel cold, and other things irrelevant to the task at hand disappear. Senses sharpen. The mind quickens to find my best advantage. And I simply feel wonderful when I succeed.

Sharing the day with friends, enjoying nature, watching a good dog work, being part of the ecosystem rather than a mere observer, are all secondary benefits and great they are. But I believe it's that inexplicable desire to get out in the field that leads to the rest.

And this is probably an unpopular opinion, more so among those that don't experience it. We naturally don't like the thought of being manipulated by some unexplainable urge. It's an affront to rationality, an insult to the intellect. But of course unlike lesser animals we can control our instincts and direct them to good purposes. Like enjoying the day in the field with friends, family and dogs. And obtaining delicious provisions for the freezer.

I have hunted locally, out west, and later in Alaska and Africa.

Hunting has taken me to places I would never have gone, and let me see things I never would have seen, things that most people living in my crowded metropolitan area cannot even imagine.

To me the wilderness is almost a parallel universe, the real universe. I would have been much poorer for it if I hadn't lived and breathed it. Hunting is the reason for going there. Hunting itself, and the planning and anticipation of it, gives meaning to life.

Nicely thought provoking John - I hunt simply because I enjoy hunting (in it's many aspects).

This. As to what happened to them, they vote democrat...

Excellent post and wonderful replies..I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving.

I just got back from "Deer Camp", took a doe and an 8 point that I was sure was bigger. Like Travis I am a poor trophy hunter.

I hunted on family property, mine that has been in the family since 1882. I took my Dad, Grandpa, Father-in-Law and 3 friends along in spirit. Including my 18 year old buddy who took his own life in August.

Life balances, I saw/participated in three youngsters take their first deer this year. They were all dinks to some eyes; but they were trophies to them and us.

I hunt because I wouldn't know what to do without it; it is as much a part of me as my beard. I wouldn't trade this life with a King.

KC

Great Thread! enjoying your new book also! I will also Hunt its something I have to do, if it was outlawed tommorow Id still Hunt. Love the taste of vension, we eat alot of it, I realy cant afford beef anymore. and ony buy steaks about 2-3 times a year for the grill, even in the spring im hunting, looking for morels!

I enjoy the solitude when hunting and the feeling of accomplishment after taking a game animal. I am also thankful for "participation trophies" (dinks).

I have hunted for big mule deer all my life, taking some nice deer along the way, and going 7 years once without finding a shooter. This year my boy(13) and I finally did it. After 5 days of hard hunting we killed the buck of a lifetime. I let him shoot it and it was an 8x10 nontypical that may never again be matched. I figure I have 30 years and a 1000 hours in finding a buck like this,and then to have my boy shoot it was priceless. I tried to post a picture here but couldn't get it done. Shot it on public ground.

I love that. I'm gonna steal it!


The participation trophies fill the freezer and our bellies and stave off low self esteem for those of us who can't kill big deer.....

VERY well said. Hunting has allowed me to see the northern lights, the southern cross.....and many things that "you shall need the tongues of angels to tell what you have seen..."





For point of reference take a peek at the scenery behind me....

I am pretty unsophisticated.I hunt for the kill,then I eat it.

Amen to that. There was an article in the Denver Post recently touting the benefits of hunting. The next week, several antis wrote letters in opposition. One poor woman couldn't understand how hunters could actually enjoy hunting. I wrote a letter in response but they didn't run it, no surprise there. Here's part of what it said:

On a typical hunt, I'll spend a week or two camping and hiking in the mountains with friends and family. I'll take in every sunrise and sunset, and everything in between. And if I'm successful I'll have 100-200 pounds of the best meat money can't buy; free-range, organic, grass-fed, carried down off the mountain on my back and processed by my own hands. What's not to like about that?

And speaking of Thanksgiving, I'm glad I live in a place where buying a tag, pointing my truck toward the hills, and taking off not knowing where I'll end up is still possible.

Yep. Great thread, thanks MD: