Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire How many older hunters feel this way.

When I was young deer hunting was everything ( all hunting was actually). I would strive hard and hunt hard, sleeping outdoors in the snow and eating weenies and beans for chow.

When I started going to the camp I hunt at about 12 years ago that started changing. Deer population back then was high and I had found my Nirvana. If you didn't see deer you weren't looking.

Not anymore. I look forward to going but really don't super care if I get a deer or not. I really go to hang out with friends I only see once a year and eat great chow. I simply go to get away. The place is an old Inn, once a bar, and is heated with 7 bedrooms. I stands empty most of the year, with hunters coming in for turkey in the spring, squirrels in September and October and deer in late November. Otherwise it is shut down.

Several years ago the power went out. I replaced that at my own cost since nobody really knew how to handle it. I had to run from the pole and rewire the entire place and put in a new panel. I Appalachian engineered that job running the wires on the outside of the walls. But that was better than what had been there, lights hung on antenna wire.

Many times when I get deer I give them to someone else in the camp. We have two guys that struggle financially so I give them the meat. I don't really need the meat and my wife won't eat it anyway. No deer goes to waste, ever.


Now I really don't go to kill a deer as much as all the other aspects. This year I'll buy one tag and only shoot a buck, which I do not intend to work hard for. Then if I get that deer early I will be camp biotch without issue. Since the old man who stopped hunting years ago has passed away that job is open.

Sometimes I want to have that passion, that drive, I had years ago. But I just don't. The entire point of deer camp has changed for me.

Kinda like elk hunting for me,but no lodge or cabin

Several years ago I switched from 'gotta get a wall hanger, to whatever I feel like on any given day' which I've noticed actually means on most days I just don't feel like messing with a deer.
My childhood friend will be in later this week and a big group of us will hang out at his families farm as always, but more and more I just don't hunt it hard like I used to.

After killing a couple of decent public land bulls, the need to prove anything faded. Now, all I want is to hunt for a few hours over my dogs, and bring a few birds home for the pot.

I would almost call it a natural progression. Many guys get that way.

I feel that way at times. But a nice buck still makes my day, when I get one. I only shoot bucks, and normally only mature ones when I can. Sometimes I have to settle for less. For myself it is about the challenge. Just shooting a deer doesn't do it for me any more.

My problem is everyone always expects me to shoot a buck. People who don't even deer hunt. Not sure why they care so much.

I am thinking of going in on some property with a bud or 2. Just need the right location. I used to head north 3.5 hours to deer hunt for 20 years. I kinda grew tired of it. Plus, I shoot bigger deer in the southern part of the state. Better tasting also.

Maybe figure out something that will renew your interest. But nothing wrong with not caring if you shoot a deer. I know a buncha old guys who go to "duck camp". Every year. I inquired about the duck hunting and was told none of them could remember the last time anyone brought a shotgun.....

I could care less whether I kill a deer or not ,Now I just really enjoy the woods and the quiet.
I hunt by myself .

For as long as I've been married the wife has told me that I go to deer camp for the food which is true. I killed the biggest buck of my hunting career more than 40 yrs. ago, there have been two bucks taken at camp that went into the Hoosier record book. It was as much a thrill to have been a part of that hunt as if I had taken those deer. The older guys at camp no longer hunt and most of the guys my age now have sons who hunt. The younger guys pitch in to help with getting deer out of the woods for their Dads and the other older hunters. It's fun to see them taking part in the hunt having watched their family bring them to camp before they could walk.

I admit that I've looked at a huge pile of meat on the kitchen counter ready for processing and ask myself why the heck did I do that.

I am sitting here now debating whether to go hunt by myself or not this afternoon. I already shot a 10pt. and my buds are all busy today. I go back to work Wednesday........

I'm with you there...

I go out just to be there... Didn't draw a single tag this year and went to wyoming for the opener.

Passed on a doe Saturday evening as I didn't want to mess with one and drag it in the dark.

The season means more to me now than ever. Being and seeing...

Quail sure have gotten a lot easier to carry!

I have 4 lbs of jerky made, and 2 in the oven now. Also about to eat some backstraps with my daughters.

Wife is not real fond of venison. She will eat burger sometimes in chili or spaghetti. And maybe some nice loin, but thats it, and not always.

Her family was from the U.P. and she grew up smelling a whole different kind of venison cooking than what I shoot today. All the northern lower deer I took were also much gamier tasting than the stuff I shoot most often now.....

I just look forward to the day or two I spend in the woods up north - where it's so quiet that one can actually HEAR the snowflakes hittin' the ground..

Gettin' deep into a woods, away from everything, is a great time to reflect.. I go now for my son - not for me.. Can't go this year due to many factors, but next year we'll take a few days and get out into those woods..

Hope y'all have a great, successful hunt this year. And, BTW, stay SAFE...

Our temperatures have been unusually warm this year. The elk are way high and staying in the black timber on the steep north sides to stay cool. During the season, we saw hundreds along ridge tops, about 1500 to 2000' above us...and this country is STEEP! At our ages, it's not worth the climb up there to get one. Maybe next year it'll be colder and they'll come down during the season.

I've seen descriptions of the five stages of hunters evolution and similar postings.
They are worth a look.

It examines a progression where to a young hunter success is ultra important, and young hunters often have little money and limited skills, but often have tremendous physical ability.

Closer to the end of the line you have those hunters more involved in conservation projects, physically limited, often ambivalent about their own success, yet often still very successful due to their knowledge and acquired skills.

I no longer have the urge to hunt, yes I will kill varmints on the daughters farm, but that is about it.

All I have left is a Mossberg 351C .22 semi-auto plus a single shot .22WMR and single shot .22LR, that is it for rifles anymore. All the centerfires have been passed to the kids.

That's me to a T. I go back to my brother's cabin and deer hunt. I'm keeping the tradition going. We never shoot anything big, just deer. It's the best part of life, the week after Thanksgiving, deer season.

That happens to many hunters. At some point, the killing is not the reward of the hunt.

There is a progression many hunters go through. At the start of the hunting career, body count is what matters, and it may not matter what is being killed, such as English Sparrows, Starlings, etc., just rack 'em up.

After several years of body count, there comes a need to shoot a limit of whatever we are after, and if we don't limit, we did not have a good day.

Moving on, the need to take the biggest antlers, or the biggest fish or the longest beard/spurs, comes into play.

Then you get into the last stages, where you really enjoy being out there, and the killing of the game is secondary, and you feel you had a successful hunt even without firing a shot.

I started hunting when I was 8yo in 1964, and have not missed a season. I don't kill near as much as I used to, but I still love the hunt. For me, a successful day is being out there, that's it, just being out there.

I have given a 'pass' to lot's of legal game in the past 10 years or so, except for coyotes. I never give a pass to coyotes.

I always hunted my azz off, regardless of the weather until I filled every tag I could get my hands on. It was always about filling the freezer with as much meat as possible for me. Now that my kids are gone and I've been diagnosed with kidney disease and put on a low protein diet, I'm finding it difficult to care whether I kill any deer or even go hunting or not.

I feel the same way. I stopped hunting deer several years ago but do still go elk hunting every year. 31st year this year. But I don't go to kill something. I go to enjoy the company and if an elk comes by that I just have to have, or I need elk meat in the freezer, I'll take it.

It's funny how age changes our perspective on so many things. Also a shame that this change is wasted on us old farts. Ha.