Why do you hunt?

I hunt deer & turkey. Both for the trophy and food. I eat anything i shoot. I wont kill an animal just to be killing.
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Same. I killed a lizard one time.. hit it with a rock my grandpa saw and well lets just say that it needed garlic....TRUE story...

Iv been a deer hunter since i was 6 and never missed a season and i can honestly say its been years since iv bought meat from the store (except the rare t-bone) i was raised to respect every animal and unless my life was in danger never kill what you dont intend to eat. As far as bear and other big game i have no clue.. in my opinion its people with to much money that want a story for the club house at the local country club. but thats just me.
 
Do most of you have the animal "processed" (don't know the proper term) for meat by a professional, or do some of you undertake this task yourself?
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I gut mine but have them processed. What can I say, I'm a better hunter than I am a butcher! My wife and I eat what I kill so I figure if I'm going to take the time to hunt and kill game for the table, I'll let a professional do the butchering.
 
When I was a kid and the steel mill was laying off or on strike we could retreat to one of the grandparents' farms and survive. Nowadays if there is ever any big strike or production glitch the only people who will survive will be the hunters, fishermen and "hobby farmers".

We worked on picking cotton, tending to watermelons, picking beans, raising chickens, pigs, catfish and cattle plus hunting and fishing. What used to be the common small farm is now just a "hobby farm" and the average American gets 90% of their calories as one or another product of factory farmed corn. So hunting is a primary source of real food. Most everything else is reprocessed corn.

Mankind stopped depending on the process of gathering bugs and lizards some time a few thousand years ago when we started hunting. We went from chasing down antelopes to spearing game to using bows and rifles but the principle is the same. Modern society is more efficient raising food but that efficiency is an historical anomaly and will pass one day in a year or a century. When it passes if I'm still alive I plan on being a hunter and farmer, not a gatherer of bugs and lizards.
 
i started when i was 11. shotgun for deer,pheasant,quail. when i was 14 took up bow hunting. by 16 i was hunting with muzzleloader too. my father and grandfather hunted when they were younger. for them it was more for food than fun. for me its food, time with my dad and grandad when he was here. we went out of state 5 times and being outside enjoying peace and quiet. i find that if i sit somewhere long enough the birds and squirrels will come out and play. i do enjoy the sounds of nature even when its distubed by a shot or 2 ringing out.

i don't varmint hunt and i have no problem with it. i would if i had the land too and they were being problems. there is a groundhog or 2 that come around once in awhile here. but it don't chew on anything on my land.

we usually take the deer to a butcher. i thought on doing it myself. would probably be cheaper.
 
I started hunting when I was forty because a doe beat up my dogs in front of me one morning when I was letting them out and getting the paper. I did some research and learned that there are too many deer and not enough hunters. That leads to more ticks and more Lyme disease, it's hell on the ecosystem, and more deer starve to death.

I've found after two unsuccessful seasons that hunting is much harder than I thought it would be (chaining a dog to a tree doesn't work well for example). But I also found that I gained a new and profound appreciation for the outdoors and for wildlife.
 
Because I can.....: :D
Great tasting game animals for my family to eat.
Enjoy the outdoors, and watching all kinds of things in the woods.
Great stress reliever being away from the telephone and the rat race in general.
Family tradition passed down for years, thats just what we do.
Like the song says....... I can run a trot line, skin a buck, country boy can survive. Can you provide food for your family when things get tough???
 
My dad started taking me along as soon as I could keep up and stay out of the way, about 5. I did the same with my boy. The memories we have of hunting, shooting and campfires with out hunting friends are priceless.
 
why do i hunt??

well for one look at my name...i have been hunting for 17 years now (im 22) and i dont see any reason to give up now, i am also an adrenaline junkie, cars, trucks, boats, roller coasters, wakeboarding, snowboarding, atv's you name it if it gives you an adrenalin rush then i have most likely done it

but let me tell you what, when you spend weeks scouting in the preseason, get in your stand at 5am, listening to the woods wake up and the coyotes going to sleep, and having the deer that you were hunting walk by your tree right where you were hoping he was going to be.......there is no adrenaline rush out there that can match that feeling.........


oh and as a side note, i dont get fired up about gun hunting anymore, gun season is when i go kill 3-4 does for the freezer and local population control, what gets me fired up to the point of shaking is BOWHUNTING.


Bowhunters are predators, gun hunters are oppurtunists.......trust me i've been there.:D
 
beef is gross.....

oh and i forgot one thing.....i hunt enough that i dont buy meat....so that cuts down on the grocery bill, i cant even eat beef anymore, beef is inferior meat to me that i wouldnt even let me dog eat......doing your own processing helps keep costs down. my dad and i figured it out one year how much we pay for venison if we do everything ourselves and it was like 1/4 the cost of buying the equivalent amount of meat in beef.....not to mention that our meat is healthier. we dont add anything to our venison burger and when i brown a pound of venison burger for hamburger helper i dont even drain the fat off cuz there isnt any to drain off!!!



my venison recipes= gourmet

beef= :barf:
 
Bowhunters are predators, gun hunters are oppurtunists.......trust me i've been there.:D
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Not true real preadators eat anything they can find and are very opportunistic they don't care if there meat was killed recently or been dead for a week.:p
 
+1 to most already stated as well as can be.

One other aspect, for me, is a sanity break. I get away for a morning, or a day, or a week - away from the job, away from the farm, away from the phone, away from email, even away from the kids (at least for now).

To go into the woods and breath deep, slipping along quietly on an old logging road or elk trail, makes me realize just how insane "normal" life is now.

Man, I am ready to go right now:D
 
Hunting is the American way.

My ancestors were hunters. My family has always been hunters. We hunt to eat. We hunt as a way of life. Because of hunting and the game management involved in the process, my deer herds are larger in both number and in body mass than they were previously. My family operates about 7000 acres of owned and leased ground and we have 3 distinct deer herds-- two whitetail herds and one mulie herd. We select which animals go each year and which stay. Our genetics are much stronger for it.

I found out long ago that if I want to get my own meat back, I process it myself. I found the commercial processor stacking carcasses up and mass butchering them then dividing the meat up at the end. I am very particular about the way my meat is processed. Therefore, I do it myself.
 
I too have been a hunter for many years. Everything I hunt gets ate, except yotes. We proccess most of our deer. We will occasionally take one to proccessor if the weather is warm to let them hang.

I use to do a little target shooting. Paper aint that good, dont care how you fix it. Now days I have less range time and more time in the woods.

There is somthing about a fawn rubbing on your ladder stand. You just cant explain, until you get the non hunter to woods.

FORGOT TO MENTION TURKEY SEASON 3 WEEKS WOO HOOO
 
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I hunt because I like to eat wild game. I only hunt what I will eat. Years ago I watched cattle in a feedlot, and wondered how an animal responds to smelling the death of its own species for days before its own death. I know that the animals I kill for my food spent every day in the wild, full of life until that last moment. I learned that wild game is actually better for you than beef, because they browse and graze on "field " food. They are leaner and haven't been fed antibiotics and growth hormone and God knows what else that cattle are fed. I think wild birds are cleaner than bred chickens and turkeys. I love to be outdoors in the mountains. I also process most of my own meat, unless I want special "elk sausage sticks" or jerky, or need some ground blend for meatballs and meatloaf, or burgers.
 
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I hunt simply because I grew up in a rural (farm) setting, and wild game was a welcome change from daily fare, and we only butchered once a year unless a cow broke a leg or some other mishap befell one. Dead milkers don't fill up the tank. All my uncles and neighbor kids hunted, and venison was the uber reward for hunting alongside them. I hunt today for the added meat with no artificial drugs, fillers or Frankenfood factors; that and the fact that I'm disabled and we usually need more stuff in the freezer. I can tell you this from experience; paper targets and clay pigeons simply do not make edible table fare. Chalky taste and high fiber are NOT part of tasty viands. Also, I learned long ago that deer horns cannot be softened up to any degree making them edible. I shoot flatheads without a second thought; at least when I have a tag for one.
 
You haven't lived...

...Until you've spent your morning freezing your ass off in a duck blind with a thermos bottle of hot soup and a sandwich waiting for the birds to fly. Drawing a lead on one of those (mostly Canada geese and mallard ducks), is exciting as hell. Those hours at the trap range really paid off. When it's all over, you get to eat some waterfowl that's much better than you'll ever get in a store.

It's a lot of work, not cheap, but exciting and, if you're good at it, rewarding.

I haven't been hunting for a couple of years because of health problems, but I sure hope to get back out in the field again.
 
african answer

uncle ben, i do believe you got some good answers.the only thing i can add is that in africa people will also hunt for self-defence. this is usually lion and leopard. this is called ''problem animals" if this animal is found on your land and you did not report its precence you will be fined. this is very good becuase you preserve your life the locals lives as well as the neigbours, and don't forget the livestock. however my main reason for hunting is recharging my battery.having said that if you don't want to hunt, don't. i know a lot of sports shooters that don't hunt but we still discuss shooting for hours. what calibres do you use? maybe you should take a rifle and join a hunt and see if you like it.
 
Everything above...
But I feel compelled to post in my own type writin'
Tradition, It is in my lineage and is the american way.
Skill, I am always trying to insure my skills will be prime if and when I am not able to buy groceries for any reason.
Peace and quiet, at least until I fire off the boom stick.
Technology, I love the fact that we ain't stuck with hickory bows and flint tips.
The smell, I love the scents of a morning in the woods, burnt gun powder and the smell I find when I dress out a game animal.
For an adrenaline rush I leave the guns home and load up dogs and get after hogs in hopes I have to handle a very mad very large very dangerous wild hog! All before he tears up any dogs too bad.
Brent
 
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