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

Everything about hunting is right. All the prep work. Making sure you're up for whatever needs to be done when you step out, whether that be to reduce the varmint population or kill a deer. Sometimes you know it's going to be miserable. Sometimes you go places where it takes a few of you to get it done and come back home. Sometimes things happen and it takes everything you have to get back home.

When you eat what you worked so hard for and then so hard on preserving and preparing the difference between store bought and real food becomes unmistakable.

We've never talked about it, but I know my wife fully understands that I will either die doing this or very shortly after something stops me from doing it.

My Father planted the hunting bug in me. He even checked me out of school a few times in the first and second grade to go dove hunting and we have an old home movie skinning squirrels after the first time he took me squirrel hunting at my uncle's farm.

When my Uncle took a shot at a squirrel from the opposite side of the tree, and the spent shot start falling around me and my Father, I said, "Daddy, it's starting to rain"!

Later on, I trudged along after him with my Winchester 67-A Boy's Rifle .22 (unloaded of course) when we'd go quail hunting. Every now and then he'd let me shoot at some bird or something. One offhand shot at a blackbird about 75 yards away was one of the more memorable ones. I even took it to school for "show and tell" the following Monday and no one got upset!

I think I got the "gun bug" from an uncle on my Mother's side who had a "lot" of guns... a Model 70 Featherweight .243, a Remington 725 in .280 and a Winchester (43?) in .22 Hornet and a .410 S x S.

Why do I hunt...I don't know. It's just what I do...

For me it's about bringing "real" meat home every year as we don't buy any red meat at all. But second, family and friends in the outdoors together, the mn deer camp I host every year, my annual trip to Colorado for elk with dear friends and often it's also a trip to Mt. with my two boys...this year I drove 2 days to hunt 2 days in Montana. before I had to get my son home for him to fly back to work, but those 2 days camping and hunting with him in the west are key for maintaining our great relationship, we never even pulled the trigger.....but saw some great views and wildlife.
Oh and then there's the part of using one of my rifles!

I hunt because success is usually a big slap of reality. Hey, you killed this, now think about why and what for...
More people should grow, then kill and prepare their supper.

Hunting is and always will be in my blood. My paternal grandfather was a dirt poor (really dirt poor) farmer from the Michigan Northwoods. Since this was long before TV was invented, there were twelve children, my father being one of the youngest. In dad's family, if you wanted to eat, you hunted and fished. Game laws were ignored... I really don't know if there were game laws back in the early 1900's.

I grew up on a small farm outside Saginaw, MI. There was lots of small game and no big game at all. I was in my teens before I ever saw a deer near our home. This has changed over the last sixty years. The farming areas of the Saginaw Valley now supprt a very large deer heard. Back then our freezer was always well filled with pheasant and rabbit. Again, game laws were ignored.

Immediately out of college I started shooting rifle competition on the Saginaw Gun Club team. Our team ran the sighting-in days at the club and I refused to hunt big game... no way was I going out in the woods with the people who came to sight-in. I did start deer hunting when I was thirty when a friend invited me to go deer hunting with him in the far Upper Pennisula of Michigan. Ain't nothing up there but trees and more trees, very few people . I got lucky and bagged a yearling buck the first day. The next fall I went deer and antelope hunting near Buffalo, WY and, again, deer hunting in Michigan.

At that time I had a good job and plenty of vacation. Each fall, I would spend two weeks hunting out West and another two weeks deer hunting here in Michigan. My job was kind of intense and I did so look forward to spending that time away from telephones...

Now long retired, I spend a lot of time each fall just sitting in the woods and watching nature. These are good times as were the days I've managed to wander the Western mountains by myself. I no longer have a real need to kill animals... I've done that but I feel the same way about being in the woods by myself that Thoreau did about time spent fishing... that time is not deducted from one's lifespan.

Just ran across this thread, and have enjoyed reading it. I'm not capable of putting my thoughts into words as some of you guys are.

My dad took my mule deer hunting for the first time in 1971, and I've been hooked on the outdoors ever since. I will usually try and find a trophy mule deer or whitetail, but will always shoot at least 4-5 does, a couple for me and the family, and a few for friends or hungry folks.

I am hooked on the comaraderie offered by sharing deer camp with dear friends, an remain in awe of God's creation every time I stop foot outside. I hope I never lose that feeling.