Yes, the views have changed with age, but not dramatically. When I got that first BB gun I was eager and ready to hit anything that moved and some things that did not - and if that killed some small critter I was OK. It was the good aiming and scoring that counted. After the BB gun, there was a long dry period.
When, as an adult, I finally got the time and opportunity and decided to learn (mostly teach myself) about firearms and hunting, those were serious projects. I hunted in order to learn and use the needed skills and to get meat for our family. The actual killing was neither pleasure nor pain - it has been a part of a natural and important activity - but it seems that I always revered the animals and felt the need to stand there quietly for a few moments in respect.
For the past 50 years I have hunted alone most of the time, so all is very quiet. Even those few times when with the two or three great buddies that have been wonderful partners, never has there been a moment of outward celebration about a kill. There is a natural reverence involved.
We no longer need wild game meat. But we do eat it and, except to control destructive varmints, I hunt only that which we will consume. I'm old now, my remaining hunts surely are short in number, but I still rise to the challenge of being way deep out there all alone on their turf and trying to be a good hunter.
If fortunate to draw buck mule deer and/or bull elk tags for this fall, I'll be at it again. At my age the thrill of being successful is quickly tempered by the bigger challenge of getting that carcass to some two track. That task may leave me dead out there some day.
It is about death - a natural part of life - but it is not about the killing.
