dakota.potts
New member
I just went on my first hunt and it was generally an awesome experience for me. I'll make another thread on it to keep the two topics separate here.
It was a hog hunt on private land. I paid the owner to take me out and he guaranteed a hog plus processing for a fairly reasonable fee. Maybe not the way I'd do it again (especially with dogs involved) but I wanted someone with experience to help make sure it was good for me and humane for the animal.
I spent weeks researching guns, bullets, etc. I spent close to $150 on supplies. I bought a scope for my AR-15 (which I deemed my most accurate, and therefore most humane firearm). I worried for a long time over bullet weight, construction, etc. I shot well over 100 rounds from different positions a couple days ago in preparation.
So today I go out and we see a small sow. She's probably 30-35 yards away. She was facing me head on and the guide told me to go ahead and take her. I held it right between her eyes and it went just a little low (which I should have figured at that distance) and best we can figure, went through the nose into the brain and exited the top of the skull near the rear. It was less than 45 seconds to get there, and she was still kicking, but probably all nerves firing. About as close to a perfect shot as I think I could have possibly asked for.
The rush and emotions I felt when pulling the trigger would probably be impossible to describe. I remember flicking the safety off and the way the crosshairs moved. I remember feeling the trigger stage in small detail that I had never noticed before. I don't remember feeling the rifle move at all, which is strange because even though it's a small round, it has a distinctive springy kind of recoil that I'm used to feeling. I remember seeing with hyper clarity the gases exiting the barrel while looking through the scope, as well as the bullet hitting, the pig dropping, and the herd scattering. I've never felt such a rush of adrenaline, pride, happiness, and generally awesome emotions as seeing that I made the single clean shot I had been preparing for for weeks. It was the kind of adrenaline where you just laugh and laugh to yourself because you can't do anything else.
But laying in bed before a nap, maybe 7 hours post hunt, with the meat in a freezer and the hide in another freezer waiting for me to tan it, I started to feel something else. Guilt. Anxiety. Greed. I know all the reasons I wanted to hunt. I know it's ethical. I know I took about the cleanest kill I could possibly have taken, and I know I'm using every bit of the animal I possibly could (including leather for crafting and some of the bones). I know that I eat a lot of meat, and there's no way I can oversee the ethical treatment of the animal the same way I can when I take it myself.
I had always had respect for the animal and in my research I came to appreciate them. I don't think they're hideous beasts. I think they're animals living on instinct like any other and they actually remind me of my dogs in a way. That I would have these feelings, I accepted as a condition of an ethical hunter. What I didn't expect was these deep remorseful feelings to come. I expected to maybe deal with them when I shot the animal and then get better later, not the opposite.
I know there are lots of people here who have been hunting their whole lives. Some people maybe don't give it a second thought. But I'm wondering who's gone through a similar thing before and what they'd have to say about it, if anything.
It was a hog hunt on private land. I paid the owner to take me out and he guaranteed a hog plus processing for a fairly reasonable fee. Maybe not the way I'd do it again (especially with dogs involved) but I wanted someone with experience to help make sure it was good for me and humane for the animal.
I spent weeks researching guns, bullets, etc. I spent close to $150 on supplies. I bought a scope for my AR-15 (which I deemed my most accurate, and therefore most humane firearm). I worried for a long time over bullet weight, construction, etc. I shot well over 100 rounds from different positions a couple days ago in preparation.
So today I go out and we see a small sow. She's probably 30-35 yards away. She was facing me head on and the guide told me to go ahead and take her. I held it right between her eyes and it went just a little low (which I should have figured at that distance) and best we can figure, went through the nose into the brain and exited the top of the skull near the rear. It was less than 45 seconds to get there, and she was still kicking, but probably all nerves firing. About as close to a perfect shot as I think I could have possibly asked for.
The rush and emotions I felt when pulling the trigger would probably be impossible to describe. I remember flicking the safety off and the way the crosshairs moved. I remember feeling the trigger stage in small detail that I had never noticed before. I don't remember feeling the rifle move at all, which is strange because even though it's a small round, it has a distinctive springy kind of recoil that I'm used to feeling. I remember seeing with hyper clarity the gases exiting the barrel while looking through the scope, as well as the bullet hitting, the pig dropping, and the herd scattering. I've never felt such a rush of adrenaline, pride, happiness, and generally awesome emotions as seeing that I made the single clean shot I had been preparing for for weeks. It was the kind of adrenaline where you just laugh and laugh to yourself because you can't do anything else.
But laying in bed before a nap, maybe 7 hours post hunt, with the meat in a freezer and the hide in another freezer waiting for me to tan it, I started to feel something else. Guilt. Anxiety. Greed. I know all the reasons I wanted to hunt. I know it's ethical. I know I took about the cleanest kill I could possibly have taken, and I know I'm using every bit of the animal I possibly could (including leather for crafting and some of the bones). I know that I eat a lot of meat, and there's no way I can oversee the ethical treatment of the animal the same way I can when I take it myself.
I had always had respect for the animal and in my research I came to appreciate them. I don't think they're hideous beasts. I think they're animals living on instinct like any other and they actually remind me of my dogs in a way. That I would have these feelings, I accepted as a condition of an ethical hunter. What I didn't expect was these deep remorseful feelings to come. I expected to maybe deal with them when I shot the animal and then get better later, not the opposite.
I know there are lots of people here who have been hunting their whole lives. Some people maybe don't give it a second thought. But I'm wondering who's gone through a similar thing before and what they'd have to say about it, if anything.
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