Hunting: a Tradition

When the average modern citizen thinks of hunting, I'm not sure what they picture. Thanks to Walt Disney, the media, and a lot of animal-rights nuts, many of them will, no doubt, imagine cruel, sloppy men trudging through the forest, murdering the happy woodland creatures easily and without remorse. "Poor little Bambi!" they wail, hating us for the coldness of our hearts and the blood in our eyes. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

There are many types of hunting, but only one real type of hunter. The true hunter is respectful of others and of their property. He has great respect for his prey, and will never, ever shoot when he doesn't reasonably expect to kill cleanly. Allow me to quote from my favorite hunting book of all time, The Old Man and The Boy, by Robert Ruark:

"Hunting," the Old Man said when my noise slacked off, "is the noblest sport yet devised by the hand of man. There were mighty hunters in the Bible, and all the caves where the cave men lived are full of carvings of assorted game the head of the house drug home. If you hunt to eat, or hunt for sport for something fine, something that will make you proud, and make you remember every single detail of the day you found him and shot him, that is good too.
"But if there's one thing I despise it's a killer, some blood-crazy idiot that just goes around bam-bamming at everything he sees. A man who takes pleasure in death just for death's sake is rotten somewhere inside, and you'll find him doing things later in life that'll prove it."

The Old Man had it pegged. He also said, "Our nation is afflicted with nobility, everybody wanting to reform somebody else." I see a lot of that today, more than thirty years after the book's publication, and the Old Man was saying this sixty years ago. I have to be glad that he died when he did, because he missed the era when the largely-ignorant populace, driven by high-dollar media campaigns, voted out the hunting of the mountain lion in California. He missed the same folks voting on hunting and trapping issues across the United States, where the people we have educated on wildlife management, and have employed in our state and federal governments, are ignored in the important decisions that have to do with wildlife. He missed having to hear, over and over again, that mountain lions have killed or maimed one more man, woman or child in California, with ever-increasing frequency since the hunting ban. He missed a president who bends over backwards to defend lies and misinformation, in order to take the guns out of our hands. He missed a president using a tragedy in a Colorado school against the law-abiding citizens of his own land.

Hunters, by nature, are not outspoken. When we're among our own, we may offer our opinions and advice, but as a whole, we keep to ourselves. In today's political climate, that is counterproductive. Now, more than ever, many of the most powerful officials are working steadily at taking away our rights. We deeply feel that we want to be left alone, and we'll leave everyone else alone. But it's not working. I like my privacy as much as, or more than, anybody else, but we've got to stand up and be counted for who we are. Depressingly clear to me is the fact that hunting is very hard to explain. My father, when asked why he loved hunting so much, replied, "If I have to explain it, then you wouldn't understand it." Too true, but we've got to try, somehow.

The hunter's instinct rests in us all, whether born and raised in the country or city. We are all descended from those cavemen and mighty hunters in the Bible. We hunt to live, we live to hunt. Yes, we can survive without the meat from our kills. Yes, the meat from our hunts, if actually broken down into cost-per-pound, per season, etc., costs more than beef from the grocery store. But without the meat, we would still hunt. It's great to get out in the woods and feel the wilderness around you, but if you want to really feel where you came from, try outwitting the animals. Try, on their own terms, to get close to a whitetail deer. It's a great high. You'll never feel anything like it, without trying it for yourself.

I guess we hunters are about the most complex simple folks there are, or maybe the simplest complicated folks. There's a lot to us, but it doesn't take a heck of a lot to make us happy. Just let us alone in the woods with a gun, some ammo, and some time, and we're happy enough. Too bad everyone isn't so easy to please.

- Russ Chastain

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