Windwalker7

I hear you Muley!

While I'm just a deer hunter from PA, I too have been feeling the urge to quit. I've taken more than my fair share of deer in 30 years of hunting.I hunted PA and West Virginia. I was obsessed with filling all my deer tags. Many years taking 6, 7 or 8 deer a year. After several years I could feel my interest fading. I got burnt out. I got burnt out on the killing part of it. I loved the pursuit of it, but started hating the killing part. A few times, I actually kneltbeside the deer, I'd just shot, with tears in my eyes. I felt guilt. But the next year, I'd be back at it again. It was like an addiction. I started losing interest.Until the kids were old enough to hunt

I have a daughter and a step-son that both just turned 17 this year. I've taken them hunting the last few years and it did help getting my interest back into hunting, but only for a little while.

The daughter has taken about a dozen deer in her few years and she has stated that this is her last year hunting. She lost interest and doesn't care to go.

The boy has been playing high school football and hasn't went much this year and says he doesn't even miss hunting. He's taken about 18 deer while hunting with me, his father and his uncle. He doesn't seem to care about hunting anymore now.

Next year I'll probably be hunting myself and I am also feeling the urge, again, to just hang it up.

I did go on a moose hunt last year and found that hunting a different game animal brought back my interest. I also went black bear hunting in my home state of PA in 2003 for the first time ever. I connected with a bear and it really perked my interest for a bit.


I guess what I am trying to do is give you some ideas of the kind of things that brought back my interest, while I've been fighting this same battle you are. Taking a beginner and hunting a different species will work, if only for a little while it does perk your interest.

Maybe taking a year or 2 off will help get it back.

The one thing that keeps me in it is my love for venison. I like making jerky and smoking roasts.


I hope all goes well for you and you find a way to deal with all this. It's a tough situation. Good Luck!

Doe Dumper

Give that spot a few years Muley. The new will wear off for them after they quit killing anything and you can move right back in. I have learned to just enjoy the scenery and the trip more and it does help...I couldnt care less anymore if I kill anything. I dont really have the stomach for it anymore.

EKM

BigBulls,

If I didn't know better, I'd almost think you were referring to different "classes" of hunters (coming thruthe store) and the pursuit of a different "classes" of game (Southern whitetails versuselk)....

lead poisoner

Find another women or hit the cat house.What can one say.You ever heard the song,Can't keep a good man down.Alabama sang it.Pop a viagra hunt pill and you will be ready to hunt again. Maybe turn to God and see how he can help you.

cowboy4513

I only read the first page of this so sorry if its a repeat.

but what i would do is take a break. and wait until the desire is back... trust me it should come back ill give you an example I played Proffesional poker for 5 years and have played poker for 10 any way i was good at had 4 consecutive winning years (the first year wasnt a winning year) anyway about 6 months ago i started just going through the motions cause i needed to do it to make money. so about 3 months ago I told myself "seth why do it if your not happy doing it?" so know I am going back to school to get my Bachleors degree for business. but now im starting to get that flame back after about 3 months so dont give up i havent i just took a break. So im starting to practice so i get that killer instinct back. well Goodluck and PS probably just a midlife crisis. youll pull out of it

Red Hawk

Wow little off there, okay, where are ya, we need to come over there and smack some sense into anyone who losing desire. So you have a couple of bad seasons or days, don't like that ruin your desire in any way shape or form. Keep them guns and/or bows clean and ready for the next season

madmax83192

i live in the rockies as well you think you go around every corner and see a hunter come to colorado there are so many hunters. i hunt unit 11 the area were the biggest elk heard in the country comes through. It is packed yet i have still killed 2 elk in my last three years i have gone there. you just have to be smarter than the other hunters get up there early set up camp plan everything out.

muley69

Your missing the point. It's not about success or not, it's about the expierence, and it just isn't there. I'm not asking anybody to join me, in fact, I hope you don't. It's just when you've been hunting your whole life and it is a way of life, then suddenly you wake up one day and say "hey, this just isn't that much fun to me anymore", it is an astonishing revelation. There is no depression, no mid life crisis, wife is not cheating, kids are great, all things are pretty good. I've just started getting a bored with hunting, and tired of killing stuff. It's not easy to say that on a site like this. Frankly, I think too many people take hunting way to seriously to begin with, hence the commercialization of hunting today. I still plan on shooting a WT doe for the freezer, but strictly as meat. I just think perhaps the time has come for me personally, to pursue some other hobbies and hang up the hunting gear. I just wanted to see if others had gone through this, and what their reaction was. I have read every post and listened to what others were saying. Lot of good information in here, right now, I just am not sure why I have lost the desire.

drs1961

Iknow where you're coming from. I've not quite lost the desire to hunt, but the urge to kill is gone. I've read severalarticles on the subject and they all agree that it is a phase of maturing as a hunter. Many great hunters have reached that point and written about it in their chronicles. I now go to try and take photos of all the things that most other people never get to see and my satisfaction now comes from seeing how close I can get to and turn down trophy game and just being in the outdoors among wild game. It amazes the rest of my hunting friends that have not reached this point in their lives. I also now enjoy taking new hunters out and being their guide. Last week I got my 48 year old sister-in-law her first deer after just last year deciding she wanted to give hunting a try. After seeing the pictures of her sister, (my wife), beaming with her trophy deer, she realized that their was more to living than the hectic city life that she had lived all her life.The rush I receive after they get their first trophy is as good as any that I used to get after taking one myself. We eat lots of venison so I take does for the freezer also. I will continue hunting for our food as strange as that may sound in this day and age. There is no other place that I am more at peace and would rather be than in the wild and thatkeeps the year round anticipation of hunting season alive in me and keeps me sane.Hope you get something from this.

Rooselk

With me the older I get the more the desire to hunt. But for me it has never been about the harvest. It's the pursuit and time spent in the woods. It's a part of me and I hope I never lose that desire.