I think that is just fine Dave. I don't like the animals dying either. I have said it before and I will say it again....

I absolutely love everthing right up to, and right after the kill; with regards to a hunt. I do get excited - no lying, but one could get just as excited letting the animal walk, as I do when I have enough does down. Letting young bucks walk up a rub a tree; to see if a bigger one comes..... That is the essence of responsible hunting; take the most mature animal to maximaize the death of the animal. Let the young ones wak!!!!!!But right now - only 4 years in - I am still firmly hooked. I know I hunt for the right reasons, I do it as ethically as I can. I tell people that I hunt deer; not becasue they are in too many auto accidents, but because we have to keep their numbers in check for greater reasons. Herd health, the availability of browse, the greaaaaatest protein on earth, and the fact that we evolved as hunters. If you eat meat - you might as well procure it for yourself - especially if you are concerned about what is pumped into store bought meat to make the animal, ''more profitable''.
And also, for all of the folks out there telling us hunting is cruel - with burger or pepperoni popping thru their teeth - get a life and a clue - you are hippocrats.

I love it! But seriously Dave - like many other things in life - I belive it is natural, giving and just plain heart warming to know even the most hardened gun nuts and hunters actually do think about what they do - instead of becoming a ''blood thirsty killer'' that becomes so detached from what they are doing they forget why they are doing it in the first place.

My friend, may I say my contemporary, I am beyond satisfaction with your work. I am glad I learned to listen.

Sincerely,
Tommy

It's funny how you say hunt birds or shoot targets as an alternative. I believe birds probably have the same self preservation instincts as deer... but you and I both know there is a big difference. There's just something inside me that clicks when I kill an animal that outweighs my wife and children. It is an emotional spiritual kind of thing that is very different from shooting blackbirds or sparrows or even quail, ducks and pheasant. I usually kill no more than one doe a year unless I have a new gun and that is a big change. My friends used to always say every deer I saw was dead but as we get older our perspectives change. Now I enjoy taking new hunters into the woods to see them make their first kill and help them through it. It is a passage.

I think it's part of the right of passage for many hunters.

You go through the varying stages of hunting from "novice", to "if it's brown, it's down, to becoming more or a "trophy hunter, to a "land manager" to finally a "teacher".

The older I get, the more I appreciate the beauty of the woods and watching the animals. I still hunt to try and take mature animals, but if I eat a tag sandwich it doesn't taste as bad anymore.

Jim

When I go hunting,these days that pretty much means deer exclusively, it is with the full intention of killing an animal. Without that intention, it's just going hiking with a rifle. Don't get me wrong, I like hiking; but when I do it, I find it more enjoyable without 8 or 10 lbs of wood and metal to lug.

At 53 I've got to agree about taking up a sport "... that doesn't involve killing something that wants to live as badly as you do." That's why I mostly trophy hunt with a bow or handgun. An incredible challenge and I hardly ever have to worry about actually killing something!

Incidentally, I've spent that last couple weeks lurking in the foothills of the Big Horns with my trusty old M29-2. Not only have I not seen anything with antlers, I've seen only a couple of does and hardly even seen any tracks of deer or elk. On the other hand, the coyotes are almost as common as cottontails, I haven't gone a day without seeing lion tracks, and I'm hearing about all the wolves the ranchers have seen. We've got predators, yes we do!

I've not seen any recently dead deer so I don't think it's the chronic wasting or blue tongue, and I really doubt that the predators have eaten *all* the critters. My only conclusion is that the pressure from predators has caused the deer and elk to completely change their habits and hangouts.

An article on how deer and elk respond to heavy predation sure would be nice!

I started hunting about three years ago and was pretty much instantly hooked. I still very much enjoy deer hunting, but yes, the kill itself is hard. I love venison too much to not hunt deer, though.

And while there is a certain rush to seeing a nice rack meandering towards your grunt tube or bleat can... nothing ever quite matches the adrenaline of a mature tom gobbling and strutting his way across a field.

Likewise, nothing beats the camaraderie of sitting in a few rows of standing corn in the January wind, drinking coffee and telling jokes while waiting for that distant honking that means the geese are coming in...

This is so timely for me and mine. Dave, have you been talking to my kids? I am blessed in that my two kids, daughter 19, son 23, are my favorite hunting buddies and I saw them take another step toward maturity this fall. My daughter loves to hunt squirrels with me and always insists on carrying the old .22 s/s Winchester 121 Youth that was my first gun. She is usually running wide open in the squirrel woods and is one of the few people I know that can make a single shot sound like a full automatic (haha). This fall tho, she was quieter and more reserved. I asked if something was wrong and she said "no, she just didn't enjoy it like she used to." I thought "oh no, the beginning of the end is near" and asked if she was losing interest. She then said something I shall treasure for a long time. She said that she still enjoyed it, just in another way, that she had come to understand that it wasn't all about a full game bag, but more about scouting for deer season, spending time in the woods with her brother and me, and the tradition of it all.
Earlier this week I took a couple of days off to bow hunt around home with my son and while we didn't get anything, we agreed that we both enjoyed the time more than any bow hunting done in a very long time and that we would start another tradition of taking a week off each year to do more of the same.
Our deer gang gets together during the first week of WV's general firearms season and it has become more of a reunion and social event than a contest to see how many deer we can take and means just as much, if nothing more, to us all.
I have shot more film that powder over the recent years, and while I still savor a big venison steak or my wife's home made squirrel gravy, it's not all about pulling the trigger anymore.
I am truly blessed.

When I made my first kill with a BB gun as a kid I felt a twing of sadness seeing that dead animal, and at 48 it still touches my emotions the same way when killing any animal. I eat what I harvest, and respect God's good will in providing the meat to me.I would hope all ethical hunters feel the same way.
ps-I do have issues with hunting strickly for trophy, such as Bear, but if the meat can be eaten I would hunt that animal as well.

I think it's a natural evolution. I know it's a cliche, but that whole five stages of a hunter hypothesis dovetails very nicely with other more mainstream pyscho-babble research into human emotional development like Erikson's eight stages of human development or Maslow's heirarchy of needs. The simple fact is we change as we age and Miles' Law (where you stand depends on where you sit) kicks in.
Like I'm sure most of you I used to be a hard-core in-the-woods-every-waking-moment hunter. In college my class schedule fit around my hunting and required classes be damned (may help explain my checkered academic record...).
I remember writing a snarky, mocking letter to Terry Mcdonnell, then editor of Sports Afield back in '96 or '97 (right before Hearst completely destroyed Sports Afield by turning it into a magazine for the pre-metrosexual snowboarders of the world...) because he had the temerity to publish an essay by the novelist Thomas McGuane in which McGuane admitted (and I'm paraphrasing from memory here, if I can dig up a copy of it I'll post it because it's a pretty good example of a young, exuberant moron shooting his mouth off...)
that he "didn't exactly feel hunky-dory when game went down" or something to that effect.
Now I don't know about you guys, but when I was 24 or 25 I felt pretty damn hunky-dory every time I squeezed a trigger or released a string on a deer because that body count was important.
I guess that in Maslow's "heirarchy of needs" I was firmly in the "esteem" stage at that point, and it outraged me that such touchy-feely tripe would be published in such a venerable institution as Sports Afield.
I've grown up a lot since then but I still vividly remember that letter, not only for the audacity of a young no-nothing punk attempting to dress down one of the most distinguished American novelists of the last 50 years or so, but as a reminder of how much I've changed since then.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a doddering old nostalgist or anything, but now I understand what McGuane was trying to say, whereas the 24-year-old me thought he should probably give up hunting, grow a ponytail and go find a bongo drum to bang as he practiced primal scream therapy with the rest of the men's group.
What can I say? I'm older now, I have an altogether different perspective. I'm a more contemplative hunter now and I give what I do much more serious thought than I used to.
I think that's the way it should be.
Hunting is like a lifelong therapist who always has a spot on the couch for you, never accuses you of having Oedipus issues and never sends you a bill. If it's not teaching you new things about yourself in every stage of your life then you're doing something wrong and need to take up something that doesn't demand serious reflection or thought, like golf.
I don't know if I'll ever get to the point where I don't want to shoot anything at all (especially if I ever go to Africa...), but if I do I'm going to accept it and just smile when some clueless young punk mocks me.

Ralph,
Regarding your question of hunting bear for example, there is another issue to consider here sometimes. In farming areas where there is a healthy population of black bears, they sometimes have to be hunted and harvested to cut down on livestock predation. The ones that I have seen taken are always divided up among the hunting party and while they are edible, they aren't the best table fare out there, but they must be controled in the best interests of the local economy.

I am really not trying to be sarcastic. I am only 20 so I don't fully understand many of your feelings. Is it possible you have these mixed feelings because when you get older you are closer to death yourself?

I too used to have a great problem with trophy hunting. Or any hunting that is not for sustenance. I still do not fully understand or respect it. But I have learned not to judge anyone too harshly for it. After all - we are all in this universe spinning around together. I have learned there is no true good or evil. There is no true right or wrong, whether you're talking about hunting, human relations issues, climate issues, or even the deadly struggles of man versus man; hindered by the rich that wage the wars we poor men and women fight. I have learned in my short time that one thing is universal....

We are all just trying to hold on to what we have, for as long as we can. Whether it is our land, our faith, our traditions or our social tendencies; no matter what part of the planet we live on, we think we are right; our religion, our medical practices, and even our educational systems; be they crude or of the 21st century.

If I were in the woods, gun in hand and the most beautiful wolf, or cougar or grizzly stepped out; I would pause...for the land or the universe, or mother earth, or God would be blessing me with something a bit different than a herd animal. I have evolved to feel this. I need not to hear, nor read, nor be taught this inner feeling, and that is truth.

One man thinks trophy hunting is barbaric, because the rack or the skin or the coming mount is more important than the meat, or altogether considered alone; while another thinks it is a primal connection to his lost ancestors. Yes, some native peoples trophy hunted as well, even though I believe even they would roll in their worldy graves if they were to see some of the things we have done to the lands and animals they left us. But that is for Him to pass judgement on.

There is something profoundly different and unique in the circle. The shape is so defined, so perfect in every way. It is neither large nor small, white or black. It is a cycle that must be respected, learned and cherished. Our children will take our reigns when we are all gone and perished from this earth; and when they do, it will be their legacy to exert what we have instilled in them and what we leave them.

What will you have left? I would hope we will all at least feel as if we have left something good and true, if so, our work will be done, and when we close our eyes that final time; there will be no fear, there will be no light nor darkness. There will be no one to call to, nor will we be alone.
We will be in the woods; no longer able to lift a firearm or bow, incapable of speech, action or judgement. And that will be just fine.

It seems many of us are very close to this in life - and THAT is truth.

Shoot guns or photos my friends - it matters not.

tjb
I thought just as you when I was 20. I think that as we age, we have more experience, more kills more drags, more processing,etc. In short, we've already done that. We also tend to appreciate life a little more. I wish you could somehow save your posting for about 35 years and go back and read it in the context of the other posts. As we age, we learn, as we learn, we evolve
Enjoy your hunt and many more