ORIGINAL: M.Hensler/PA
I was bored the other day, and found myself surfing various hunting industry websites (mossy oak, HB, Drury Outdoors, Rutjunkies, etc) reading the Bios of the staff members. It got me thinking whether or not I would ever want to enter into a career in the industry of hunting. Granted, I know many pro staff aren't full time, but given the opportunity, how many of you would enter the industry if you could make a fulltime career out of it? Obviously, hunting is a passion for all of us here, so it would be somewhat safe to automatically assume doing this as a career would be the ultimate life, but there's other things that came to mind that made me question it:
1. A career which finds you on the road a large portion of the year.
2. One in which may lead you into mostly hunts done on paid "ranches" where they just plop you in a tree and wait for the 160 class to come along.
3. The potential for your dream job to turn your passion into just another "job" with all of the associated stresses, etc.
Now, a couple of things I feel I need to mention. I know I mentioned a few companies that are very prominent on here with pro staff members as part of our community here at Hunting.net (HB, rutjunkies). Now I know these and many other companies hunt primarily or completely in fair chase non-guided situations, so please don't think I'm anyway implying that ALL of the pros fall into the above observations, it's just my opinion from watching various TV shows that many "pros" careers wouldn't appeal to me.
Ok, so, now am I nuts? What's everyone else's opinion? Given the chance, would you hunt for a career?
I have been asked several times..."Why don't you do this for a living?". MY response like some of yours is that the fear of losing the passion that I have for hunting really bothers me. Sure I can place people in hot spots in the woods, track deer, stalk deer, turkey hunt, duckand goose hunt...but I do love my job. I still get a lot of time to hunt.I make great money, I'm home every night, good benefits, and sure I'm on the road everyday (I drive for Conway Freight), but from what I've seen on TV with these caged hunts and ranch hunts...thats not hunting to me. That gives us a bad name. The perks would be nice...new camo all the time, new bows, sights, arrows, broadheads etc...but I have that now. A pro-staff/contributor job would be fine by me, hell, I have that now here on hunting.net when I let those in my general area know whats going on in the woods around them. Just my opinion.