Hunting Sense

Hunting, like everything in this world, has changed over the years. There was a time when it was a necessary for our very survival. That isn’t the case anymore, though. We can run to the corner fast-food joint, visit the supermarket, or have pizza delivered right to our door in less than thirty minutes. The days of having to go out and hunt for our food are over. All these reasons make it difficult to say you have to hunt to survive.

Since beginning this blog I’ve received some good natured jabs from my wife about my hunting. It’s all meant in fun, just like me teasing her about buying purses, but I find they still sting a bit just the same. So, I’ve found myself asking what it is that drives me to hunt. It’s not to survive, that’s apparent by all the reasons listed above. Exactly what is it then?

After giving it some thought, I realized survival is still the reason I hunt. Sure, feeding my family isn’t dependant on it, but feeding a need in me is. Not going into the woods may not physically kill me, but something inside of me will die just as sure as if I was hit by a train.

I grew up around hunting. My uncle gave me my first gun when I was just one day old. By the time I was five, I was using a pellet rifle and I harvested my first whitetail deer when I was thirteen. I’ve been around it all my life. And during a large part of it, hunting was necessary to help put meat on the table when the money ran short.

There’s also great satisfaction in knowing that you yourself have provided food for your family. Not by handing over cash at the local market, but rather by venturing into the woods and matching wits with an intelligent wild animal. And, unlike at the grocery store, the odds are stacked more heavily in favor of the prey. It taps into that role of being a provider. It fulfills one of those primal instincts that no amount of civilizing or progress can completely wipe clean from our DNA.

So, the reasons I hunt?

I hunt so the traditions of my family, skills passed down through the generations, and that primal instinct present in us since the first caveman picked up a club to hunt with may survive. But even more than that, I hunt so that part of me that connects to those things and makes me who I am may survive.

Why do you hunt?

Good Hunting,
Cliff

hunt, hunting, survival, woods, gun, whitetail deer, deer, rifle, wild animal, DNA, primal, instinct, traditions, skills, why do you