Northwind~

I agree, I love the experience, and just being outdoors experiencing nature first hand. The entire experience is incredible. I think that one of the reasons we hunt is to become part of nature and participare in an ecosystem, rather than be passive observers, separate entities that differentiate themselves from nature.I feel that italso has alot to do with independence and self reliance. Wepursue and kill something and weconsume it. We didn't pay a farmer or slaughterhouse to do anything, we did it ourselves. Furthermore, hunting brings a certain sense of reality. When I am hunting, I get the feeling that "this is the way things are supposed to be." When you think aboutit, just abouteverything else in our lives is to a degree a fabrication of human society to better progress and support human society. Everything fromgetting an education to working to paying taxes.It all seems somewhat artificial. But by participatingin nature, we are being true to ourselves and adding a crucial element to our lives that we were never meant to be without.I think there is alot to what KP has said. I find it very difficult to describe. When you really think about it, it is a fact that we are predators. It is a fact that predators kill. There is nothing inherently wrong with this. It is just part of nature. When considering that, it is hard for me to say that I don't enjoy the kill. I agree that something just doesn't sound right whenone says that he enjoyskilling. Butthen again, killing isn't just plain killing. There is something wrong when someone enjoys malicious killing. But when we hunt and kill an animal, it is something totally disconnected with the principles of human violence and malice. It is not killing in general that we enjoy. I think it is The Kill that we enjoy, something that is part of the hunt, part of nature, that has so many other elements than simply death, and none related to malice. We were biologically programmed to hunt and kill. Should we try to deny that and find flaw with it? If we did that, wouldn't we be in reality finding flaw with nature? That is just as twisted as anything else. I think OHbowhntr made a great analogy relating the kill to watching a birth. Although they are inverse in nature, there is something very similar, or rather some deep relationshipbetween the two, something that makes them both special. Perhaps it is the continuation of a cycle. Birth leads through life ultimately to death, and out of death is born new life. I think there is something deeply spiritual about the hunt and the kill thathas beenengraved within ourselves through ages of evolution and countless lifetimes dating back to our earliest ancestors. When it comes to this I think Ted Nugent actually does a wonderful job describing it. Sometimes he is a little over the top for me, but I will not go there. When it comes to this I think he is right on the target.

I love deep spiritual and philosophical thought. Great topic.