Hunting

One disadvantage to being in college and learning all kinds of new and exciting things is that I, at this very moment, am missing elk season. Hunting is something that is extremely misunderstood in the U.S. and all over because people think that we kill these innocent animals that had no way out for nothing but an adrenaline rush. Yes, the adrenaline rush when you do finally get the bull you’ve been dreaming of makes for an awesome feeling, but there is so much more to hunting than what meets the eye.

One thing that is so true about hunters is that, though we may struggle getting up early for nearly everything else in our lives, rising and shining at two or three in the morning is an easy thing to do if you got the hunt on your mind. The air is freezing, your lungs file a  complaint with every breath, and your brain is almost entirely numb from exhaustion. But once you get out there in the middle of the forest where every other things is still asleep, and you find a good place to sit where you can see a long ways away, all of the aching from cold stops. You get to view the land as it wakes up in a way that you can’t do any way else. You’re not disturbing it, you’re literally a part of it and everything around you is completely unaware that an outsider is present for the awakening for an entire (very small) ecosystem. It’s poetic really. To be hiding from nature out in the open and as a part of it.

When you do finally get a kill, yes there is always an adrenaline rush, but more than that there is an underlaying sense of remorse for what you’ve done. This beautiful animal was living just a moment ago. And you thank God for the privilege of being able to harvest it and use it’s meat for your family.

Then comes the dirty work of cleaning your kill, but that’s a whole other story in itself.

Bottom line is that hunting has gotten a bad rap for years and I really, honestly can see where people are coming from, but the majority of people that are rudely against it seem to not understand it at all.