Good post. I agree with many in that hunting is the total experience. The trips to the sporting goods store for supplies, planning for the hunts, scouting, setting of stands, hanging with my friends, practicing toward a goal, thinking, dreaming, reading, and watching videos - it is a long term psych up that gets released when my personal standard comes walking through the woods toward me.

Then, what no one has alluded to is the actual kill. I don’t hunt exclusively for the pleasure of the kill as suggested someplace in the woodpile. The kill without the preparation would get boring very quickly. HOWEVER, without the kill, why bother? That is the last stage, the final bow, the moment when all the preparation and planning and patience meet with the chance and the energy is suddenly released. What a feeling. I try to think of it every time, man, when it all comes together in the quick death of the animal that I was after, it is a rush with a good dose of relief and sadness. In those moments of coming down after the shot, after a successful recovery, the moment of aloneness with the animal I just killed as I pay my respects is intense. The kill is often the shortest part of the hunt, minutes or even seconds in most cases but the emotions are like winning that state championship football game and hearing of the death of a family friend on the way home. Is that weird?

So yes, I think myself a meat hunter...for the practical side of my experience. My family and I eat seven deer a year. My laws cater to the meat hunting mentality in that we have to shoot does to be able to shoot bucks. (earn-a-buck stuff) I hunt on property that deer cross three other properties to get to. If I don’t shoot them someone else will. I live in NJ, see many bucks in the books from NJ? Why doesn’t anyone want to book a hunt here? We do have nice bucks here and a lot of them. On one property, I wait for the big one. On the other property, there is no big one and that big old doe that busted me all last year is my goal. She knows my routines and I know hers. Who will win?

To dig a bit deeper, I consider my acorn collection from hunts with friends and family a trophy collection. The buck skull I found while tracking with a friend is another trophy in my “study.” I have beaver chewed wood, feathers from ducks killed and eaten, antlers that I’ve found and from deer I’ve killed, a full mount turkey, coyote skulls, deer hides, “Flounder” my personal best buck, photos, notes, poems, they are all my trophies. My favorite little corner is my collection of spent 20 guage shells. One marked Ryan's first duck, another Ryan's first goose, another Ryan's first deer. Ryan is my 11 yr old son. Now that is a trophy collection! So are all the memories that come flooding back as I sit here writing this.

So I guess that answers somebody’s question. I wrote this 1000 word essay about why I hunt because it made me think about 1000 of my hunts. Anyway, if I didn’t want to write it, why would I log on to the bowhunting board?

Greg