Why do YOU hunt?
I've been hunting for 32 of my 43 years, and often reflect on why I hunt. There are really so many, but I am beginning to believe that the cooking and eating part is fully 50% of those reasons. Is there not something so natural, so deeply gratifying, so right, about going into the fields, woods, marshes and mountains and bringing home game to lovingly prepare to the best of your ability for the enjoyment and sustanance of yourself, family and friends? Think about all the ways hunting rewards you: While afield, the country feeds your soul and spirit and challenges your mind and body. If you are perhaps with a good friend or a son or daughter, you strengthen those bonds in the sharing. If successful, you may then be faced with the joyful toil of butchering and preparing the game for freezing, perhaps with a curious child. Then as fall turns to winter, winter to spring and spring to summer you repeatedly draw the game from the freezer to employ it in an old favorite recipe, or maybe in a new concoction, learning and being rewarded again in the learning. Then, in what is perhaps the ultimate culmination of the experience; you sit with family and friends and enjoy, and watch their enjoyment as it is consumed and provides sustanance, rewarding you yet again with every grateful mouthful making you strong as summer turns to fall and the cycle begins again. These are just some of the reasons I hunt, and why I will never fully understand people who think it is wrong.