What’s the point of hunting? It’s a question we hunters obsess over.
Do we hunt to fill a tag, or kill a limit?
Do we hunt for food or trophies?
Or do we hunt for the simple joy of being outdoors, connected to a place through our senses, tuned on high by the chase?
I confess to all of the above. But sometimes the answer is also “none of the above.” There have been hunts when the camaraderie of sitting around a campfire with friends, downing a cold one or two, is all I really needed. The hunt was simply the excuse to gather around a fire and tell stories while watching logs burn to embers.
Success in the field isn’t really a requirement for a good hunt camp story. It can even be an impediment.
Most hunters understand this. The psychological sustenance we derive from hunting isn’t measured solely by the number of animals killed, or the size of an animal’s horns. But we also know that success makes a difference, sometimes a big difference, in how we feel when the hunt ends.
Big game hunters usually have a limit of one. You either fill your tag or you don’t. Since I’m mostly a bird hunter these days, I’m thinking about limits rather than focusing on one kill.
I’ve been fortunate over the years to stumble into killing a limit here and there. For all that talk about just being happy to be outside, breathing the fresh air, yada yada, there’s no doubt those days when game laws required me to put the shotgun away have been some of the best.
It’s a plain truth that being a proficient hunter feels a lot better than being a lousy one.
We put limits on the number of birds we kill for good reason. We manage game species in North America using science rather than intuition as our guide. Science tells us that most species can absorb the impact of limited hunting pressure, but if hunting is unlimited, that pressure can decimate game bird populations.
A few years back, I knocked down a four-bird limit of sharptails in the Sweet Grass Hills. To commemorate the moment, I laid the four birds down in the grass and snapped a couple of photos of the grouse with my English setters — Jack, nearing the end of his hunting career, and Doll, who was just getting started.
Then we turned and headed for the truck. Since we had limited out, I carried my unloaded 12-gauge over my shoulder. Of course, as we neared the truck Jack got a little birdy and suddenly a pheasant burst from the grass in front of us.
The bird was in season, and would have capped off my limit of sharpies nicely, but all I could do was watch it fly. If there’d been no limit on sharpies that day, I surely would have been loaded, though that’s no guarantee I would have killed the bird.
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “I’m not a good shot, but I shoot often.” That quote aptly describes my wing-shooting skills, so you never know, but that rooster did come up nicely, right in front of me and flew straight away. It would have been the easiest shot of the day.
The pheasant incident is a reminder that limits sometimes have unintended consequences. In this case, I hit my limit of sharptails and stopped hunting, despite the presence of other game birds in the Hills. But there are times when limits can result in hunters killing more, rather than fewer birds. Instead of being a cap, the limit becomes a target, the measure of success. I’ve been guilty of this myself.
As I reflect on those days, I wonder if the hunter in me has somehow lost the point.
The first in a series on bag limits, slams and the real point of hunting.