>Some people go hunting, others are
>hunters.
> The difference has nothing to
>do with skill or refined
>
>ethics. One is not generally superior
>to the other. The difference
>may be in the molecular
>dots and
>dashes of genetic code. It may
>have to do with the
>bending of character in the
>tender years of
>childhood. Whatever the case, the result
>is the same.
> An outfitter friend of
>mine had a client with
>time and money enough to
>put a lot of heads
>on the walls
>of his spacious trophy room. One
>day, the client called my
>friend and said he meant
>to sell his trophies.
>He had gotten himself a new
>wife who disapproved of hunting.
>
> It was a long time
>before I came around to
>understanding that man. My first
>reaction was glib. Get
>another wife. Then I wondered how
>a man marries a woman
>without knowing she is going
>to grind him
>for hunting. And if he does
>know her inclination why bother
>with her at all?
> Fact is, my thinking
>was wrong. I expect the
>man did what was right
>for him. I hope he
>simply cared
>more for the woman than he
>did for hunting. I hope
>he was just the sort
>of man who just went
>hunting.
>Because he and his new wife
>have hard times coming if
>he is a hunter.
> Except for those hampered by
>ill health or advanced age,
>people who ?used to hunt
>?invariably turn out
>to be people who went hunting.
>They will tell you how
>they quit when they went
>to college or moved to
>
>the city. They make it sound
>reasonable as if reason counted
>for anything. To a hunter,
>these
>explanations sound more than slightly strange.
>As in, ?yes, I used
>to breathe a lot, but
>it really is too
>much trouble when you live in
>Chicago?. For the hunter, you
>see, does not go as
>a matter of
>convenience .He goes because he must.
>And even if you sentence
>him to pavement for an
>indeterminate
>period, he remains a hunter. He
>will cease to be a
>hunter when he ceases being.
>
> At the end of his
>life, my father was sick
>for a long time. We
>both knew he was never
>going to get better.
>And two weeks before he died,
>we talked about a new
>gun he wanted, the shooting
>he would do with it.
>
>He was a hunter.
> Ask a man who goes
>hunting what he is and
>he will probably give you
>his occupation, fry cook,
>podiatrist, astronomer. Like as not, he
>thinks of himself as being
>that job. The hunter will
>ordinarily
>make the same kind of response.
>He is lying. He will
>state his occupation to satisfy
>social convention, but
>he knows full well that the
>thing he does is for
>money is not what he
>is.
> As an aside, the term
>sportsman is one I have
>never liked much as a
>synonym for ?hunter??.it makes me
>
>think of polo players, racing yachts
>and men who lack purpose.it
>also makes me think of
>winning or
>losing and competition, which is fine
>in athletics but are sorry
>reasons for hunting.
>By the same token, ?sportsmanship seems
>a rather feeble word for
>the behavior required of hunters.
>A
>bad sport is disagreeable. A bad
>hunter is corrupt.
>Sportsmanship is about manners, politeness, and
>being gracious to an opponent.
>They are excellent
>qualities, but insufficient to guide a
>person through the complexity of
>a hunting life.
> The animal hunted is not
>an opponent and hunting is
>decidedly not a game.
> There is no certain
>way to predict whether a
>person will be a hunter,
>one who goes hunting or
>one with
>utterly no desire to hunt. A
>partner of mine whose family
>traditions are so deeply rooted
>in hunting, has
>a son who was introduced properly,
>encouraged, and given every opportunity
>to become a hunter. He
>is
>a fine young man in all
>respects, but you could not
>make him show up to
>deer camp with a club.
>Another
>man of my acquaintance was born
>to a family of aristocratic,
>city dwelling intellectuals. He never
>spent a
>day in the field until he
>was grown and had a
>family of his own. Despite
>the odds, he is a
>hunter to the
>bone. Pushing a youngster in either
>direction is useless.
> I knew parts of
>this year?s ago. Yet the
>whole thing came clear only
>within the last month, as
>I read a
>promotional flier for an outdoor magazine.
>
> The flier contained a single
>sentence, reportedly spoken
>from Sitting Bull. Which is about
>as strong and straight as
>words can be. ?WHEN THERE
>ARE NO MORE BUFFALO,WE WILL
>HUNT MICE,FOR WE ARE HUNTERS
>AND WANT OUR FREEDOM.?
>
> A non-hunter might get
>tangled up in the plight
>of the buffalo and the
>injustices visited the Sioux:The
>hunter will not. This is not
>a statement of sorrow or
>regret. Instead, it is an
>eloquently simple
>observation on the nature of hunters
>and the hunting is natural.
>It also contains the absolute
>
>justification for hunting when basic survival
>is no longer at issue.
>
> The modern hunter routinely leaves
>the comforts of home, travels
>great distances, spends considerable
>amounts of money and endures physical
>hardship. These hunts are done
>with no assurance of success.
>
> Indeed the hunter often knows
>in advance the odds are
>heavily against him.
>Hunters have not been reduced to
>hunting mice precisely because they
>saw that wildlife required
>assistance almost a century ago. Hunters
>have a perfectly legitimate claim
>to the animals they pursue,
>a
>claim far more compelling than the
>perverted foolishness of the ?animal
>rights? movement.
> Hunting is more than recreation,
>more than a wildlife management
>tool, more than an ancient
>
>occupation.
>Some are Hunters and want their
>freedom.
That's a hell of a lot to think about. Thanks for sharing.
