…and they lived Happily Ever After…!
~Fin~
So you’d never take your son hunting for the first time, for example? :rolleyes:
Everybody’s so defensive, and ITD was just asking, nicely, for people to talk about it.
I can. They didn’t have their wings clipped.
You mean, like 90% of all quail hunts?
What do you mean by “canned hunt”?
You are not understanding my question. I’m not sure how to ask it again, I’m tired of being told that I just can’t get it.
I am simply asking that if most of the enjoyment is that nature part, what does the actually killing of the animal bring to the table. “I enjoy the taste of game” or “I feel I’m doing an ecological service” are answers I can think of that “add value” to the nature experience. I’m curious though what your answer is, not just guess what I can think of. You’re the one said that it doesn’t matter much if you get a deer or not.
I get communing with nature. The beautiful stillness and peace that can come of it. I’m asking what does killing the deer vs photographing or simply admiring it add to the experience.
Tell me you can’t explain it. Just stop telling me I can’t understand it. Or don’t. I was genuinely interested in another perspective. I just feel pretty patronized at this point, so it’s probably not worth it.
Very few hunters really get a thrill from sapping the life out of an animal, if that’s what you’re asking. There is a great satisfaction from knowing you can hit your target in a small time window, with fresh game as a reward, though.
Any excuse for a walk in the woods is a good one.
For fishing, any excuse to get out on a boat is a good one. Or to walk by a stream or river. And if you’ve never had a 6" trout pulled out of a small cold-water brook and cooked on a grill RIGHT AWAY, you’ve never had the best that trout has to offer. I grew up doing that all the time, and NO, we didn’t fish out the stream. Cousin Mike seems to be the only one of us who could ever get one bigger than 6".
The thrill of getting a bite is hard to explain. If you’ve never felt it, well … I just don’t know what to say. It’s very similar to finally getting a shot at game you’ve been stalking for hours, but has that added bit of it being an actual physical surprise (a tug on your line), not just something you see and hear.
The sound of a ruffed grouse taking off when you’ve been sneaking around forever startles the hell out of you, until you’ve had it happen enough times to steel yourself to it. That’s always good for a laugh.
Of course that’s not what I’m asking. I’ve tried to be as neutral and polite as possible. It was also a direct question in response to a specific post about a specific scenario- not a general question about the joys of hunting, period.
I think my question is long lost at this point, so I will respectfully say goodnight.
First, I love the taste of a lot of game, even when someone else hunted it.
But the main thrill of hunting is like the thrill of any game where there’s an objective and enough chance and surprise to make it different every time.
I don’t think it’s the “thrill of the kill” for all but a very few, and I don’t admire those few. I grew up with hunters (father, grandfather, uncles, and family friends) who respected life, and didn’t take pleasure from destroying it. We enjoyed shooting trap/skeet too, but clay pigeons are far more predictable, and taste like chalk.
I’ll try to answer your question ITD, if you’ll forgive an analogy or two.
Yes, the silence and quiet of the woods are definitely part of the draw, but not all of it. I guess it’s like an enthusiastic gardener; She enjoys being outside and watching things grow, but the final step in the experience is harvesting the food as part of the DIY aspect.
I suspect there may be a difference in attitude toward the animal as well. Since there are no chloroplasts in our cells, something must die constantly to keep me fed. Ignoring the protests of a few overwrought vegans, humans are definitely omnivores and it’s quite natural that both animals and plants are featured on my menu. As a part of the natural world, I feel neither guilt nor remorse for taking either. So for me, hunting becomes another item in the collection of things I like to do for myself. I think the beer I make is superior to that in the store; I think I do a better job of building my deck, installing my spa, and painting the kids’ rooms than a contractor and I think the venison I bring home is far better than meat I buy in the store… and there is an undeniable satisfaction in all of these things as a job well done. Frankly, I get a lot of satisfaction from occasionally finding, killing, and butchering my own meat. The fact that this occurs out in nature, and I’m on a sort of camping trip with old friends is a nice bonus, but it’s not why I’m there. I’m there as part of a (normal, I think) desire to provide some of my “life support” on my own. I take pleasure in knowing I can complete the entire process of moving food from hoof to plate with my own hands.
I hope this explains at least some of it, IvoryTowerDenizen. 
That makes a tremendous amount of sense. I can understand the self-sufficiency aspect completely. Thanks for giving it the the old college try.
FWIW, one of my absolute favorite books growing up was My Side Of The Mountain, because of his ability to completely support himself, from shelter, to companionship, to vegetable food and in getting and cooking meat. That independence always appealed to me. It’s why I’m hooked on all those Alaska shows (Edge of Alaska, Last Frontier, Below Zero). The satisfaction of being in nature and taking what you need to survive, I totally get. Even if I never want to do it myself!
I hope you will not mind my asking how you know this. The opposite understanding is out there (I found it in comments on Field & Stream articles about the incident), so the notion wasn’t invented for this thread, but I didn’t see where anyone would know for sure.
It is an established, derisive term for “hunts” of semi-tame animals, which have been confined at some point beforehand, the experience arranged so that shooters experience a minimum of outdoor discomfort or exertion relative to the type of quarry, and are essentially guaranteed their kills. These are either operated as commercial enterprises (in which case, for large game, the purchase price may literally guarantee a “trophy” kill; the paying shooter may get to pick out the individual animal beforehand); or, as private operations. Armstrong Ranch is the latter, for a certain set of Republican Party figures and donors. (Ted Nugent is famously a customer and provider of the former.) On another somewhat notorious occasion, Cheney was in a shooting party at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier, Pa., at which 500 captive pheasants were released especially for them.
Living in Pennsylvania, I can offer a bit of help with the pheasant issue. Although pheasants are a PA game bird, and they used to thrive in at least some parts of the state, very few pheasants survive in the wild in PA. Grouse and other game birds are even more rare in the wild. I blame it on too many predators such as coyotes and foxes, which are far more common than when I was young. Consequently, private shooting preserved have popped up, allowing hunters to shoot game birds, and often provide their dogs some activity. I have never done one of these canned hunts, but I can’t get worked up about them, either. The birds are raised in an appropriate manner, and are released to go wherever they want. I have never heard of wings being clipped, hwhich would suggest that they can’t fly. I know the wings are not clipped at the places I know about.
There is a difference between raising game-bird chicks for seasonal release, replenishing the free-living population of such birds in a given area, requiring some hunting to go and get them–and unnetting birds captive all their life, literally in front of the guns. Both practices exist
yes you are. When you ask me "why don’t you do y instead of x, I can only assume you have a problem with me doing x. Especially when you seem obsessed with asking why we “have to kill something” to do what we do. And then, of course, you turn around and act like the only reason we haven’t given you the answer you want is because we’re too stupid to understand the question you’re asking. You and the OP want to poison the well with presumptions about people “needing to kill something” or “wanting to feel manly” then you run and hide behind “it’s just my opinion” or some other wishy-washy bullshit.
Look, if you’re not interested at all in hunting, that’s fine. there’s no explanation I can give you which will help you understand why I do it. Acting like the reason I can’t explain it to you is because I’m too stupid to understand your question is not productive and not conducive to a reasonable discussion.
You aren’t kidding. They’re everywhere here in PA right now. In fact, any hunters interested can come to my place – they’re all over our yard, waking my dog up in the middle of the night, pooping everywhere, etc. And our neighborhood isn’t exactly one where you’d expect to see a deer sitting in the middle of the yard. In fact, my mother had to stop leaving bird seed out because it kept attracting them even more.
Actually, deer are NOT everywhere. You see far fewer deer in the big woods in northern PA, as well as in large game lands compared to a few decades ago. There are probably more deer overall, but hunters see fewer. Studies show that deer are changing their behavior, becoming more nocturnal and increasingly living in small wooded patches in suburban areas.
Deer hunting in PA has become a divided sport. Hunters who have access to posted private land in or near farms see deer, while those forced to hunt public game lands see very few deer. Even if you have private land to hunt, most bucks seem to only come out at night, as evidenced by game cameras that invariably show bucks only at night.
No, no I’m not. Because I’m not asking you or anyone else except for the poster I was responding to. He posted a beautiful description of how hunting lets him commune with nature and how he only even sees a deer 95% of the time.
See here:
So I asked him, in all honesty, what hunting added to the experience. Because I totally understood the nature part and I don’t understand the joy of hunting part and wanted to learn. My question was responded to by most very defensively, even when I tried to explain what it was I was asking. I wasn’t telling people they were too stupid to get my question, I was trying to respond to people telling my that a non-hunter “just wouldn’t get it”. I finally got an answer to the question I was asking- not why people hunt, but to someone like the poster I quoted, what hunting ADDED to the experience and it made perfect sense.
You seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder and are reading into my posts some issues you have with non-hunters who aren’t me. My question was respectful and in a thread aimed toward trying to understand what hunters get out of hunting it was a perfectly reasonable question. From my first post I even said I wasn’t trying to take a passive-aggressive swipe at hunting. That you choose to not believe me is not my fault.
FWIW, this was a great answer, got to the heart of my question, which I found informative and it gave me insight.
I missed this post. I wish you luck finding someone to teach you or let you into their group. Personally, I think you’ll have better luck trying to get in with and hang out with the regulars at a cop-bar.
Ok, just because I wasn’t successful doesn’t mean that you won’t be. Good Luck!
Also, shellfish allergy? I am so very sorry. Mussels in hot sauce are Amazing!
LiliesOfTheField, if you want to get in touch with what it means to kill animals to eat their meat (and I find this honest and laudable), you might want to look for a CSA farm in your area that butchers its own poultry and hogs. Buy a share of meat at the beginning of the season, and tell them you want to help with processing.