Woke up this morning with this thought....

Actually, I have had this thought on and off for some time. Years actually.

I miss what deer hunting used to be and it isn't a frame of mind that controls how I feel but rather the deer hunters I am in contact with. I guess I have to put it down as I see it in order to explain it.

Back when I was a kid in Maine, deer hunting was a culture that was pervasive in as much as every man I had ever met was a deer hunter. I honestly never met a man who didn't hunt until I was out of state for the first time.
For this reason, I was shaped by my surroundings and the mentality of those people who I shared my town and state with. Everyone seemed to be like minded.

Back then people hunted deer and everyone supported the winners and the losers at the end of every season. nobody pointed to someones failures as proof that they (the successful) were superior and honestly it was just the opposite. Everyone had hunted so much and so many seasons that there was not one person who didn't have at least one bad year and there was nobody that didn't have a loss.

As kids, we didn't even consider the one upsmanship because there was a pecking order among hunters. No kid would have dared to brag or boast because there was always someone older and more accomplished to knock that wind right out of you. You would have looked like a fool to brag. There were so many measures of success that pointing to the size of your animal alone (as if it were the last word on the subject of ability) would have suggested that you were a greenhorn in the world of hunting.

On the other side of that was the total support that everyone got when they suffered a bad year or a loss. Everyone could relate and by relating they would support. It was a great time to be a deer hunter.

Years passed and trophy hunting started to come about in the outdoors life and sport afield magazines and it wasn't received well by the people around me because it went against our nature. I guess it was something like someone who hunted (just like us) was attempting to insinuate that they were somehow exceptional. It really left a bad taste in the mouths of many.
Sure we loved to see a big deer taken by a hunter but it was because we appreciated the hunters success and understood how that must have felt.

However, it was the editors of such magazines (IMO) that caused the trouble when they started signing up individuals to hold the torch as it were and promoted them as being somehow superior. I don't think anyone enjoys hearing that they are somehow lesser or even being put in a position to feel that way.
It was the beginning of a new and soon to be short lived error in marketing where I came from.

This was the first time I saw people start to defend their inability to compete with the "Pro Hunter" and start to focus on the elected "Pro" by comparing their hunting situations with that of the Pro.
It got kinda ugly in as much as these Pro's and their supporters started to become the butt of jokes among the commoners. This is when it all started to fall apart.

I wish this had never happened.
Pride breeds contempt for the prideful and pride blinds those who embrace their success as somehow god given.

Funny as it sounds, I actually secretly enjoyed the 1970's anti hunting crowd and what they accomplished in attacking trophy hunters. I dont care if it was right or wrong... it stopped all the foolishness as old school hunters finally got a voice for what they were against. It made for odd bed fellows for sure but nobody liked where the hunting scene was headed, so everyone I knew just shut up and let the few trophy hunters out there take a public beating until they just vanished.

IT WAS AWESOME!. all the crap stopped and we went back to being hunters and sportsmen. I guess people like us figured that if you wanted to be an elitist you should just go fly fishing where it was more inappropriate and accepted.

Then the internet came along. What a two sided sword this was.

It seems that the best thing that could have happened to hunters as a community has instead divided us into factions and driving that (IMO) are the trophy hunters who have (this time) managed to brain wash everyone.

I guess the way the industry was able to do this was due to the fact that unlike the 70's (where public information formats were limited) the current marketing has been going on (unattended by the elders) for so long and in so many formats, you now have generations that don't know anything different than the current marketing thrust aimed at the sport hunter.

For example.... There wasn't deer farming back in the 70's and it wouldn't have worked on us if there was. It would have been a joke to real deep woods deer hunters who were also farmers. Raising deer isn't anything different than raising free range chickens,,, which we did. I even shot a few when I was a little boy with my little bow and arrow

You know what?... my father didn't praise me for shooting an animal that we kept close to the house by feeding it everyday. I think he seriously wondered what the heck was wrong with me for shooting a chicken. By the time I was 10 I got it. There wasn't any great feat accomplished in killing something that was tame and able to be found by looking at the hands on a clock. Yep... I grew up and understood the difference between being a man and being a boy.

Today's young folks don't even get this fact and that's how this foolishness is able to grow as it is doing. That growth is bringing nothing positive to the table IMO.


It just bothers me.... Thanks for letting me vent

(EDIT)

After walking around and thinking about my thoughts expressed above, I think this forum (and traditional forums) may be the last bastions of hope left to me and my kind. I appreciate this forum even more now.

I couldnt have said it better.

Well said.

I'm with you on that. I was born in 1979 but I was raised with that mentality. Thing is, new hunters are taught by TV and the media.

I actually wrote an article (not posted anywhere), about a similar subject last week.

Posted Boy Gallego wrote:I'm with you on that. I was born in 1979 but I was raised with that mentality. Thing is, new hunters are taught by TV and the media.

I was born in '62 in a state that was 30 years in the past (as my grandfather was fond of saying) and I got to see the rise and fall of sport hunting. People got a bad taste in their mouths when hunting was referred to as sport. We hunted because we loved to hunt and we made use of what we were hunting. It wasn't a sport.

For those who wanted sport in the realm of our interests, we took to fly fishing or archery. The same reasons for hunting existed for us who added the sporting aspect but we didn't hunt for sport. Two different things all together.

Back then we wouldn't have passed a deer because it didn't have the look or wouldn't make the book. Heck... The only book most folks cared about when it came to their deer was the book where they made field notes for posterity.

I never met a person that hunted for horns only, back when we were hunters. Such a person would have been looked down on....regardless of what he did with the meat after the fact. I never met the person who would have let a deer lay over night when it was 70-80 degree's, just so that they would increase their chances of getting the antlers.... despite the fact that the meat would be ruined. Sure we lost more deer due to the fact that we wouldn't wait but the mentality dictated that if the meat was spoiled, the deer was already lost.

We valued the animal for what it was intended, which had nothing to do with prestige.

Back when we hunted, the prestige granted to one hunter was based on that hunters ability to successfully complete a hunt and that meant putting the hide to good use by selling it or tanning it. That meant putting the flesh to good use and using the horns (if any) as a hat, gun rack or other such use. In other words...putting the entire deer to good use. We didn't hunt to collect bone like some African ivory poacher.

I guess it was ingrained in each of us by those who mentored us. We didn't kill for the sake of killing but we sure did enjoy the kills we made, because those kills were honorable. I see very little honor anymore. People killing dozens of animals each year for no other reason than to put those kills on film. Where is the honor in that?.

I see many people spending tens of thousands of dollars to raise deer like cattle in order to shoot them and put in their claim as super sportsman. How does that make this person a hunter?.

I see no future in the "Sport" of hunting. I only see a future in hunting.

I actually wrote an article (not posted anywhere), about a similar subject last week.

Maybe it's coming to a head then. Pretty odd that two people would be at the point of where they are expressing a similar view in print if there wasn't something to it. I am sure we weren't the only two but on a small forum like this?. That's more than chance I would say.

Maybe it's coming to a head then. Pretty odd that two people would be at the point of where they are expressing a similar view in print if there wasn't something to it. I am sure we weren't the only two but on a small forum like this?. That's more than chance I would say.

Definitely. In fact, the reason I started trying to film my hunts was to show an average hunter and all the work that goes into it and all the work that goes into after the shot. My goal was to show it from start to finish. I just didn't get to film my 1 deer kill this year. I should have filmed the after the shot, but with all the adrenaline rush, I was just having too good a time with my Dad and best friend dragging it out in pitch black uphill for half a mile. It was an old school hunt if any. Picked a funnel spot with trails in big woods and sat on a log. All I needed was my 30-06, a knife, and a drag rope.

I also realized what you do, in killing dozens of animals per year to film a show. I don't know if I'd be able to do that myself. I definitely feel remorse in killing. Knowing I want the meat for the year helps me get through it. But once I'm maxed out on freezer space, I just do not see another reason to go hunt. I love being in the woods, so I go anyways with the intention of finding an excuse not to get another lol. Maybe just far enough from my bow to only film. I just love 'the hunt', the peace and quiet. I gotta get out of the city!

My little article is exactly about how a tradition turned into sport and its sad.

Posted Boy Gallego wrote:
.....how a tradition turned into sport and its sad.

You summed it up right here