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Why do we hunt?

By MHS Member: Professor

I get this question all the time.  People at work ask it.  People I meet socially ask it.  Even people in my Hunter Education classes ask it.  "Why do you hunt?"  I usually can give a few reasons quickly enough that will satisfy their curiosity but sometimes I wonder why I really love hunting so much.

I’ve never liked most sports.  Something about baseball, football, and pretty much any other sport you can think of bores me to tears.  Even when I was a kid and my friends would want to play soccer or basketball I would decline and stay home because those activities didn’t interest me in the least. 

I remember when I was a young boy, probably no more than six or seven years old, and my dad took me out squirrel hunting with him.  I had a hand-me-down single-shot, bolt-action .22 that was a big pain in the neck to load and cock.  Dad had his Winchester model 190 semi-auto .22.  I never understood then why he spent so much time telling me that you have to walk a few steps and then stop for a while.  "Watch where you walk," he would say, "but only go a few steps at a time.  Then, look up in the trees." 

Before too long I was ready for my first deer season.  Dad pulled me out of school for the whole week so I could spend it at the farm hunting.  It didn’t occur to me then that if he had any confidence in my ability to bag a deer he would only have planned to hunt opening weekend.  He knew what he was doing, though, and I hunted 9 days straight and only saw two does (which I couldn’t legally shoot) but boy what a rush to walk around the bend of a trail into a field and see two deer grazing.

My second season proved to be much better.  I’ll never forget that feeling I had as I raised my rifle on that doe at the bottom of the hill.  My heart was beating far harder than it had ever beaten before.  In fact, I was sure that deer would hear it pounding against the inside of my chest and take off.   I took careful aim and squeezed the trigger and she disappeared.  After getting some help, we found her about 30 or 40 yards from where I shot her.  I then got my first look at the nasty side of hunting.  Thanks to MHS member, and family friend, Bobo, I didn’t have to field dress that first one.

It was several years later that I had my own son.  I hadn’t been able to hunt for the past few years but immediately got the itch after he was born.  My first season back in the woods was fairly uneventful.  I took a shot late in the day on the last day I could hunt but missed.  I wasn’t upset though.  I’d had a great week sitting in the woods and enjoying the outdoors.  Now I can’t wait to get my son out into the woods to go squirrel hunting.  I’ll probably start by telling him, "Watch where you walk but only go a few steps at a time.  Then, look up in the trees."

So why do we hunt?  Hunting is a tradition that had been passed down from one generation to the next since man has existed.  Parents love to teach their kids how to do it but that’s not all.  Hunting is fun.  You get to experience and view nature as most others don’t and sitting still in full camo for a few hours gives you the opportunity to watch creatures go about there business.  Hunting is challenging.  Even a hunter with a high-powered rifle is somehow at a disadvantage to a big buck.  Hunting is good for the environment and habitat.  Hunting animals increases the species chances for survival by thinning the population in overpopulated areas. 

In the end there really are many reasons but no explanation.  Someone who has never hunted will never understand what we, as hunters, feel in our hearts when we hunt.  Someone who hunts can never explain what it is they feel when hunting.  It is the greatest pastime we have and the only way to understand hunting is to try it for yourself.

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