I had a conversation recently with a non-red-meat eating Buddhist (but whose grandfather was an avid hunter) about what the experience was like approaching, performing, and dealing with the first medium or big game kill. She's not attracted to hunting but seemed to be genuinely interested in the rational and emotional processes I went through.

In my case, my first kill was an impala in South Africa in 1997. I'd only started firearms shooting as an adult in 1987 (airguns as a kid), and in the intervening ten years I'd gotten excellent training in firearms but primarily for self defense.

I'd gotten to know many hunters as well, of course, but the thought of hunting really hadn't emerged until I got the invitation to go to Africa with a friend of mine from the shooting school and hunt with a PH he'd met through business in SA. Wow, I thought, what an opportunity to initiate onesself in the hunting life! I started learning about game anatomy and kill zones and such, and my rifle skills were up to the task, but on paper with nary a drop of blood spilled. I wouldn't have to deal with field dressing in Africa, but I wanted to learn about it, too, for future use.

Scene change: we're in the hunting vehicle the first morning and I'm on point for the next shot. I've seen the terrain and the fact that the game can quickly run and hide, that shot distances can range from a dozen yards to hundreds, and that I'd have to rely on the PH to judge the trophy, and that the three-second shot window we'd been taught in school is quite realistic.

I also realized as I was riding along, scanning the bushveld for animals, that I hadn't yet seen an animal shot. Yes, I'd seen shot animals before, but not at the time of the hit.

Lots of PHs use impalas as a first test of their clients' abilities, and as it turned out, that's what happened to me. We spotted a backlit, broadside impala at about 90 yards and my PH said, "Take him." My mind slipped into range mode and I felt no emotion or thoughts about shooting an animal. The backlit impala looked like a black silhouette, standing still and watching us. "Hold on the front leg, up one-third the body, settle down, PRESS," went the mental mantra.

BANG! The shot looked well-placed in the scope and felt good going off, but WHAT THE HELL'S HAPPENING!? The impala jumped with the shot and RAN OFF like it wasn't hurt! Did I miss? was my first incredulous thought. How's that possible? I started to feel embarrassed, dishonored that I'd missed my first shot on game. I asked the PH and he assured me that I'd hit it well.

We drove up to where the impala had stood and the trackers immediately got on the trail. I followed them into the bush and one of them pointed out a bright red frothy speck of blood, which made me feel stressed that the impala might still be alive and suffering. Lung hit, I recalled from my reading. Forty yards into the bush the trackers ahead discovered the impala down and dead.

When I came up on it, this is what I saw: a completely dead impala that looked more like it was sleeping and not writhing in pain or inability to breathe. I didn't feel exactly sad for the animal, but I did feel a sense of loss for its death, coupled with relief that its run after my shot lasted only a few seconds before it expired and ended any period of suffering. I petted it gently and thanked it mentally for its sacrifice.

My rifle training impelled me to look where the bullet had hit, and it was a couple of inches behind the front leg, meaning that I'd only hit lungs and not the heart. Why I hit there and not above the leg became a question I needed to contemplate, as I knew on bigger animals a rear lung hit may not put it down for a long time, which is why I favored the top of the heart as my target. (As near as I can figure, the self defense-oriented training I received emphasized center of mass targeting and that was what I instinctively shifted my aim toward at the last fraction of a second before the shot went off. I've since adjusted that detail in training.)

Now that I was relieved of the concern that I'd wounded an animal that was still running around the bushveld, I started to feel good about what had just happened. One shot, one kill, done quickly. I felt I'd passed the initiation into hunting in an honest and ethical manner. I felt good to have done that in the fellowship of two of my good friends and now hunting buddies. I didn't feel angst or remorse about having killed the impala, but rather thanks to it for the opportunity to make this transition in life.

Care to share your experience?

My dad started me hunting as a little kid with a single shot H&R 20 ga and a single shot .22 for birds, rabbits, and squirrels. Graduated to the bigger stuff a little later with my first centerfire being a 243. The reason for the single shots was twofold; they were simple and safe for a kid and they taught me to pick my shots carefully. I have always tried above all else when the time came to kill cleanly and as quickly as possible. I have always practiced judiciously with my rifles (including 30 to 50 shots per day with an air rifle in the backyard) in order to be able to do so.

I've never felt bad about any game I've taken. I do always feel a sense of loss and of gratitude. Hunting is a noble pursuit and a game animal properly taken dies a far more dignified death than the animals raised in confinement to be dispatched on an assembly line in a packing plant. If someone is a genuine honest vegetarian because morally they have a problem with the killing an eating of another living thing then I can respect that. I disagree but I respect their feelings. What I can't abide are the meat-eating hypocrites who pay someone else to murder chickens or cows for them in a slaughterhouse and then get on their moral high horse about my killing poor Bambi. I feel by harvesting, field dressing, and butchering the animal I've earned the right to eat it. That's more than I can say for a lot of people.

Every kill I make brings w/ it a bit of sadness. Then, that's the way I think you should feel, a mixture of elation & sadness. After all, it's not shooting a bad guy coming in your home, there is no malic toward the animal, it's just the end of the game & you one that time. I think that's one of allures to hunting DG, the playing field is a bit more even, winning is just that much better.

I have given a fair amount of thought to this subject. Like a lot of American hunters, my first kill of a big game animal was a whitetail deer. And like Slingster, my first kill of an African animal was an impala.

But this thread is about firsts, so I will talk a bit about my deer. He was not any kind of trophy animal, although I still have his antlers, and can see them from where I type these words.

I was sitting on a hillside, overlooking a brook. A game trail crossed the brook about 75 yards below me.

An old, worn-down-to-smooth-antlered, four point buck, crept out of the woods near the right bank of the brook, and eased his way carefully into the stream. I remember that moment very clearly. I remember thinking that I was going to kill that deer.

I held my rifle, a .30-06 mounted with a low powered variable scope, like a naval rifle. My elbows were anchored inside my knees, bone on bone, in the textbook, rock solid, sitting position, and I was able to swivel through an arc of at least thirty degrees without much disturbing my hold.

I watched the buck move, step by gingerly placed step, out into the water. I tracked him through the scope. I was holding on his neck, at the place where it joined his brisket, a bit lower than halfway up. I did not want to have to track him, and at this range, with all of the advantages of this situation, I did not think I would have to.

The buck paused, and at just that moment, I pressed the rifle's trigger to the break. At the shot, I lost him in the recoil, but I knew full well that my shot was good, the way any rifleman knows all of his good shots from each of his bad ones.

As I brought the rifle back down, I saw that the buck had just dropped in his tracks, that he had collapsed into the rushing stream, and that he was staying down.

That felt good. I remember very clearly that I felt no sadness then, not a bit of it, just good.

Afterwards, after I had I picked my way down the hill to the brook, and walked through the water up to the dead buck, to where he lay in mid-stream, only then did I feel that bittersweet sadness that I think any true hunter must feel for his quarry.

Not sadness because I had killed him, but sadness because he had died nonetheless. Hell, I was glad that I had killed him. But I was sad anyway that he had died, and that I was the one who had taken his life.

I still feel that way about every animal that I hunt and kill.

Like most ranch raised kids in the Hill country of Texas, and probably most kids in most of the South, or Southwest, I can't remember haveing never shot a gun! My ancesters were frontier settlers in Texas and were hunting people by necessity. The meat markets in our part of Texas in 1836 were few, and far between. It only follows that I would be in the hunting fields as soon as I could walk. My grandfather, and father, and mother were hunters, as were my aunts, uncles, and cousins!

My first rifle was presented to me by my father at the age of six years, but I had been shooting my granfather's 410 ga shotgun, and .22 rifle for a while. In fact had taken lots of rabbits, and birds by the age of six!
My first head of what was known as BIG GAME, in my part of the world, was a whitetail deer, shot in the head with a 22 lr from about 20 yds, and I didn't feel sorry, in fact, I felt a sense of accomplishment. I knew we would have pleanty of meat for the family, and that I had furnished it! I was seven years old, and felt like I weighed 200 lbs! That kill was for a purpose, while it absolutely crushes me to accidently run over a rabbit with my car, even today, but I feel no sorrow in harvesting a game anuimal!

I find that,like Slingerwho was born in a city like San Francisco, who only shot, or hunted as an adult,and found hunting at great odds, considering the background, was lockier than most city folks. Quote:

quote:

In my case, my first kill was an impala in South Africa in 1997. I'd only started firearms shooting as an adult in 1987 (airguns as a kid), and in the intervening ten years I'd gotten excellent training in firearms but primarily for self defense.

or adrookwho was born in
the south in a hunting family,who was tought to hunt by parents! Quote:

quote:

My dad started me hunting as a little kid with a single shot H&R 20 ga and a single shot .22 for birds, rabbits, and squirrels.

Both are simply adhereing to man's natural instinct to hunt! The problem comes when those from large cities, never find that instinct, and nobody around them has found it either, starts to think what Disney put on screen is the real thing, and that animals are simply little furry people. Nobody ever told them that no animal ever dies of old age in the wild, and the deaths they suffer are far worse than any death adminesterd by a hunter's bullet, or arrow. This naturally leads them to think that animals live by a human code of ethics of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", when animals live by the "Do unto others, BEFORE they do unto you"code!
No death in the wild is a pleasant thing to experience, or the watch others experience! Man is an omnivore, and his body needs all the things from the food he eats, and the one thing his body cannot do without is, is the vitamines gleened from meat. If he is a strict vegeterian, he must supliment with the vitamines found in meat or his body suffers! IMO, that alone should make it clear man is a meat dependant animal. Nature is nither right nor wrong, it just "IS"! Man has the mistaken idea that he knows better than nature, and my friend, he doesn't! Hunting, and eating meat is not what man chooses to do, but what he is designed to do, by NATURE!

The first kill is also the first actual manifestation of what I call the hunter's paradox - that you destroy the very thing that defines you, that drives you, and that gives meaning to your existance.

I also think this is where man's capacity for understanding and ability to define is overwhelmed and with any amount of consideration we are left in a transcendent but unfathomable state. Of course there are those who, whether by nuture or nature, do not care, nor are capable of thinking much more beyond the simple mechanical actions of killing but there are plenty of humans who do consider what they do. To kill is to lose innocence and to realize that we do impinge upon our surroundings, both constructively and destructively, and hopefully that we do it in a manner that is both sustaining and respectful. I fully concur with Ardook that the most despicable are those who think far enough to condemn those who shoulder the burden of personal responsibility for destroying life but go no further to shoulder responsibility for their own impingements.

quote:

Originally posted by MacD37:
I find that,like Slingsterwho was born in a city like San Francisco, who only shot, or hunted as an adult, and found hunting at great odds, considering the background, was luckier than most city folks.

Just to clarify that while I came upon firearms, training, and hunting while living here in the S.F. Bay Area, I was born and grew up through high school in Honolulu, Hawaii. There is some hunting in Hawaii, but it's not a major cultural element within the Chinese community.

And thanks to those who have contributed to this discussion. I'm finding it fascinating. More, more!

I am probably a majority of one but I NEVER have these metaphysical thoughts about taking a game animal. I am 72 years old and was born and raised in Mississippi where EVERYONE hunted. I don't actually remember the first animal I killed but if truth be told it was probably some kind of bird. In all truth probably a song bird. As to thoughts probably the first thing that goes thru my mind is that was or was not a good shot. As to great thoughts about the game animal zip,nada,nothing. It's dead that's it. I give no thoughts to the act or the 'majesty' of the animal. With respect to hunting in Africa, I go to Africa to kill game animals and I have just completed the act when I take it. I really don't feel I have crossed any 'line'. My first animal in Africa was a Giraffe caught in a snare and down. Only feeling was inconvenience as we had to take the meat back to camp before we could continue hunting.

Zimbabwe,

What motivates you to hunt if there is no thought or regard for the animal you have killed? I assume you weren't hunting for meat in Afica. Were you concerned with trophy size? How about the difficulty or aesthetics of the hunt (beyond the difficulty of the shot)? Do you prefer wingshooting or prarie dogs where the mechanics of the shot are the ends and the animal is just a means to that?

You certainly have an interesting perspective and I don't envy your apparent dispassionateness. I would also guess you are a very cool shot!

I have no idea what 'motivates' me to hunt. I've been a gunsmith most of my life and have always hunted. I do not trophy hunt in fact I have one set of tusks and 2 Zebra rugs and that's the extent of my African trophies.I do eat most of what I kill. I suppose the book title 'With Gun in Good Country' about sums it up. Just always wanted to be in Africa with a gun. I'm not a particularly good wingshot and enjoy plinking as much as anything. I will probably not get to Africa again but would go in a minute if the opportunity presented itself. Really don't think enough about the reasons to put them in words.

Zim,

Thanks for the response. I think I understand it now as I always just wanted to be in the wood with a stick or a rock or a wristrocket or BB gun or .22 etc too. It would be about like asking a beagle why he wants to run a rabbit. I've thought about the "whys and wherefores" but in the end, it's just a thing that comes natural.

I will say my first big game animal was a fork horn whitetail from a big old white oak on the edge of woodlot along a hay field. When I first saw him crest over the hill in the field toward the trail I was sitting over, my heart felt like it was just below my tongue and about ready to explode. It's amazing the arrow didn't fall off the bow I was shaking so bad. It wasn't a very good hit and the deer went about a half mile - mostly through dry yellow cornstalks and kept up a stead drip of blood (caught him in the ribcage just above the brisket but below the heart). He made it to a river and I thought he'd crossed so swam over to the other side to keep looking. My buddy started looking up and downstream on the first bank and ended up finding the dead buck under a cut bank. He hollers over "I found your deer" and held up the head. He swears that I was walking on water on the return across the river. Needless to say, I was pretty pumped.

That deer was absolutely delicious too, having lived in corn and clover and acorns for all of his young life.

Eric
We just returned from Africa .My son in law Mark took his first big game.
His big fear was doing it right. He is a good wing shot and competent with both pistol and rifle, with a minimum of Gunsite type training.
I had just about quit hunting after my son was killed in Iraq two years ago. Mark convinced me to go ahead and go on the Safari my Son and I had planed he went with me to the Dallas show to book it. As planning progressed all three of my brothers decided to go also. I did not know if I really wanted to hunt any more Mark was unsure about big game hunting. We hunted together me to renew my hunting him to begin his. I think one is either a hunter or not. One is either introspective about hunting or not we are both and formed a strong bond. Was his first kill emotional Yes. And were the emotions wide ranging Yes. First and foremost did I do it right. Then Joy Then sadness then joy.
My first kill in Africa was clean and I had close friends with me.
Doyle





IMG]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c373/dmhuff/Doyle015.jpg[/IMG]

Doyle:

Waidmannsheil! to you and your son, to him for his birth, and to you for your rebirth, into big game hunting.

quote:

Waidmannsheil!

Eric
Waidmannsdank!

Note the strange sling on the 375 "field testing".

quote:

Originally posted by Doyle Hufstedler:

Eric
Waidmannsdank!

Note the strange sling on the 375 "field testing".

Please share the results of your testing!

My first kill was a Doe Whitetail Deer and my first African kill was a Implala Ram.

I enjoy hunting more than anything, I don't feel any sadness when I shot an animal, the day I do is the day I quit hunting!

I certainly could be wrong, I have been a couple of times in my 70 yrs of living on this planet, 64 of it hunting on my own! It is my firm belief that those who must analyze everything everyone does,for the right or wrong of it, have issues that have nothing to do with the subject they are analyzing, and are basicly a person who is filled with doubt, not only about their own actions, but enough to find fault with the activities, and attitudes of others! Each man has his own cross to bear, and when the moors of society, butt heads with nature, these people seem to be in pain. In so much pain, that they want to set the rule for all!

It is quite simple, Man is a hunter/gather, and nature will rule when we get down to the right, or wrong of hunting, and the feelings the activity invokes in man. The fact that "YOU" do not eat all the meat you take on Safari, means nothing! You, or I may go to Africa for different reasons, I go for several reasons. One, is because I enjoy Africa, two, because I like hunting multiple species on the same hunt, three, the takeing of game is needed for many reasons, one of them is to sustain a given species continued existance, by assigning a value to that species. Things that have no value are generally discarded for something that does have value. Four, is because I want to hunt dangerous game for the adrenaline rush, and I know what I don't eat, the people in the villages surrounding the safari will, if not, the other animals will have a meal they didn't have to risk their lives to get! NATURE WASTES NOTHING!

In the end, I am a hunter, I hunt, and that includes killing of game, and I appologize to no man for that activity. Society is man made, not natural, and nothing could be farther from nature than a politicly correct attitude.

I like the bit about asking a beagle hound why he likes to chase rabbits.

My first "gun" experience was getting knocked backwards by a 12 guage Ted Williams brand Sears and Roebuck shotgun when I was 8 years old. I pestered my Pop until he let me do it, and he stood behind me to catch me and the shotgun as we went flying. I was hooked.

My first "game" animal would have been a sparrow with a BB gun, then rats at the dump with bow and arrow.

Finally, late blooming at 13 years of age: a squirrel with 20 guage.

Pop came back from Viet Nam, and bought for brother and me a single shot shotgun each.

I well recall arising before dawn and seeing the constellation Orion overhead as we headed into the squirrel woods of deepest, darkest Central Indiana.

Sweet memories.

If anyone has to ask me why I hunt or like to shoot guns, they are too far gone to understand.

Slingster:

Your post stirs a lot of the conflicting emotions that John Dos Passos and Ortega y Gasset have written about. ( I just mentioned two men with Spanish names. I worked once with a guy whose father was in the British Consul's office in Madrid. He told me that Americans at the bull fights used to cheer for the bull. It always infuriated the Spaniards - but the Americans never stopped doing so)

I'll try to sum up a complex subject in what I read once:" It is not all of hunting -to kill". Anyone who has never felt momentary sadness over an animal he has killed doesn't deserve to be called a hunter. (American Indian hunters always said a prayer over the animal they killed)

I started killing birds with sling-shots with rocks when I was about 8 I remember the first one vividly, I felt terrible but at the same time I had this instinct to hunt, it was a conflict for a couple days i was troubled by it, but I couldnt resist the urge to do it again, (i think some criminals have this dillema in some cases) after that hunting has just been hunting, I remember my first elephant was no different than my first impala, it was that first bird that gave me that feeling 31 years ago.

My first animal was a cottontail rabbit about 45 miles from Casper, WY.

My first big game animal was a Pronghorn antelope in the Gas Hills of Wyoming near the Great Divide Basin.

My first African big game animal was a Kudu.

My first European animal was a Wild Boar.

So by my count I still have a few more first left.

Slingster,

I share many of the same feelings, and have looked through the literature for help in putting the feelings to words. There are a few great books out there on the subject. David Petersen's "A Hunter's Heart" and "Elkheart" come to mind, as does Ted Kerosote's book "Bloodties" and Posiweitz book whos name escapes me.

On firsts, well, my first was probably a Snowshoe hare when I was eight y.o.. My Dad bought me a .22 for my birthday and took me deer hunting with him for the first time that year. I recall we shot a lot of hare's on the deer hunt, and that was probably my first as we lived in a suburban area at the time and had to make lengthy trips to get to an area to hunt. Here's a pic of me with the deer he shot on that trip...



My first big game animal was a calf moose I shot when I was 11 y.o. My Dad graduated me to a 30/30 when I was 10, but I wasn't lucky enough to get a moose that year. When I was 11 we hunted at every available opportunity from August right up to the last day of the season on Oct 31 to get this calf. We definitely earned it, and it will always have a special place in my heart...



Cheers,
Canuck

When I was around twelve years old I used to take pot shots at pigeons with my pellet rifle out of the third story bedroom window. Since they were probably at around 30 to 50 yards away I didn't get too many hits and when I did they just flew away. I assumed my little rifle wasn't powerful enough. Then, one day, one dropped out the tree. "Oh my God!", I thought, I have killed one! It was my first "hunting" kill. I raced out to find the dead bird, and it was clearly dead. I didn't know really what to do, I was more interested in making a good shot than killing a pigeon and now that I had killed one what was I to do with it? I was sure I would be punished for shooting out of my bedroom window and perhaps receive extra punishment for shooting the hapless bird. Since I was only 12, I hadn't read Ortega y Gasset or Peter Capstick and Ted Nugent certainly wasn't part of national hunting folklore. On the one hand I was thinking that I was one dangerous dude with a rifle and on the other I was pretty sure I would get into a lot of trouble. The family cat, Fifi, provided my solution. She trotted up, I offered the bird and she took it into her mouth and trotted off. I now had a secret.

A few hours later I was sitting with my family on the back porch. Fifi trotted by with the half eaten pigeon on her mouth. My mother scolded Fifi, my father took another sip of bourbon. When my mother got up to go inside I told my father, "Dad, in fact I shot the pigeon and gave it to Fifi". He looked at me for a few minutes and then finally said, "What was the range?"

I can never remember not hearing the "Hunter's Horn." I am a predator! I never feel any emotion other than joy and satisfaction when I kill an animal. I don't feel sorrow for the animal because I kill much more cleanly than a lion, a leopard, a cougar, a wolf, an automobile, a snare or starvation.

I hunt because I like to kill animals and would kill one every day if I could. An animal's feelings never enter into my mental equation. Animals were put on this earth to serve us and one of the ways they do so is to be our prey.

An animal has no human characteristics or emotions and to believe otherwise is to have been completely indoctrinated by Disney and the animal rights kooks. They are not noble, brave, faithful, disreputable, cowardly nor dishonest. They are merely creatures who want to eat, drink, sleep and breed. An animal couldn't be bothered with what it takes to satisfy those basic needs. That is why they stare at us from behind the bars at the zoo and not the other way around.

Perry

Like a couple others here, I grew up in the city and started hunting as an adult. I really think this makes a difference in how people react.

My first animal was a huge Canada goose in Washington state at the age of 31. I wish I could say I remembered the details better, but there were half a dozen other hunters in the field that day, so too much going on to pause for much reflection. (I do remember my friend and I were so jazzed by the hunt that we forgot to fill the gas tank on the way home, and ran out of gas outside Umatilla, Oregon!)

My first big game animal was when I was 34 -- a 5x5 bull elk on a guided hunt in New Mexico. My guide and I spotted a bachelor herd on a ridge, parked the truck and stalked them on foot.

Eventually, I asked the guide to stay behind and crawled on my belly toward the first bull I spotted. He was feeding away from me up a little draw, but turned and stood a moment with his shoulder centered in an opening in the brush, almost like a bullseye. I rose up to a kneeling position and shot him behind the left shoulder at 40 yards. The hillside exploded as my elk ran off -- as did four larger bulls I hadn't seen in the excitement of my first stalk.

He hadn't run far, and I remember that when I walked up, I thought, "Wow. I did this."

After the hunt, I went to visit a friend in Colorado, and we went out to a bar to listen to a bluegrass band. I couldn't pay much attention to the music because I kept replaying the hunt in my head.

Also memorable about that elk hunt was that I used an old Model 70 I'd bought from a friend; his dad had used it to hunt elk when they lived in New Mexico 40 years earlier. I really liked giving that rifle a trip to its old stomping grounds. But I also started to recognize that ultimately, the hunt is about the animal, so now I'll hunt with just about anything!

My first African animal was this red hartebeest, just 16 days ago. It was almost as exciting as the elk, and reminded me that there can be more than one "first." But for now, I think I'll go look at my elk antlers.

Like many of you guys, I grew up in BFE middle of no where USA. I was given a pellet gun when I was about 6 or so and had a 22 by 7. A lever action Mossberg IIRC. Wish I still had it.

I can't remember my first animal most likely a gopher, as I've killed countless thousands upon thousands of them, but the one animal I vividly remember in my young hunting career was a raccoon. I was about 11 or so, we had a couple families of coons that where raiding our garden at night, so the ol man and I taped flashlights onto our 22's and went on a 'mission'. We surrounded 4-5 in the corn and ended up killing 3, another 4-5 scurried out of the garden and climbed into the apple trees, and we proceeded to pick them off one by one. It seemed like there was bodies lying everywhere. The one that really got me was one of the final ones shot. It was a young one 4-5 months old, and was not hit well, it screamed like a little baby when wounded and I started crying myself. My dad finished it off, but I didn't shoot another coon for years. But when I did kill them again, I felt no anguish over it. Killed a few dozen with my bow. THAT was a fun hunt.

My first big game animal was a nice antelope buck the following season. Wasn't much of a hunt since we knew that the herd lived less than half a mile from the house, and knew what thier patterns where. We drove up to the bench , got out of the truck, made about a 200 yard stalk and I made a perfect shot with my new Remington 243. He ran in a 20yard circle and fell over dead. A nice 14"er as my first big game animal. I mounted the horns on a plaque and every time I look at it I vividly remember the hunt. I think the feeling I had was more so a sense of accomplishment than anything else. I grew up in a family of hunters. Not just Sunday hunters, but men who spent days and days in the mountains chasing elk on horseback in azz deep snow and camping in canvas wall tents for weeks at a time. At one time we had 12 pack horses, and lord knows how many saddle horses. It was like my right of passage into manhood by taking that first animal, later that fall I missed my first elk :-( but ended up shooting a small 4pt. The kicker of the season was the very last day I killed my first whitetail buck. A nice 120" type deer. I've been hopelessly hooked hunting deer since then.

My first African animal was a gemsbuck. I made a not so stellar shot on a facing bull and we chased him for two days before finally catching up to him and finishing him off. The bullet struck him in the armpit and took out nothing but meat and hide. Luckily the wound was open enought to allow it to drip just a little at a time. We hunted and hunted for that sucker until we finally caught up to him and finished him off. He dripped a drop of blood about once ever 10 yards. My hats off to the trackers for keeping up with him over 2 days. I'm not sure

I will ever top that 'hunt' as we where targeting a specific animal and not just a good one to fill the bag like so many African hunts are. IMO. One of the worst moments in my hunting career and also one I will never forget! I did feel bad about wounding him, but was extreamly disapointed in my performance. Of the thousand 'hunts' I’ve been on, it was with out a doubt in the top 3 memories.

quote:

My first African animal was a gemsbuck. I made a not so stellar shot on a facing bull and we chased him for two days before finally catching up to him and finishing him off...I'm not sure I will ever top that 'hunt' as we where targeting a specific animal and not just a good one to fill the bag like so many African hunts are.

Yes, an excellent point! I had that same realization on my first African hunt, too: if you wound an animal the hunting world immediately focuses on that single animal, not just any good animal. That's why I tend to use bigger than necessary calibers and bullet weights to provide additional stopping power and margin of error so that I get DRT or close to it.

quote:

Yes, an excellent point! I had that same realization on my first African hunt, too: if you wound an animal the hunting world immediately focuses on that single animal, not just any good animal. That's why I tend to use bigger than necessary calibers and bullet weights to provide additional stopping power and margin of error so that I get DRT or close to it.

I think the only reason we were able to find him was because the "hole" was made by a 375.

I wish I was perfect but some times things happen. Unless I quit hunitng, I doubt it will be the last time I chase a wounded animal.

First big game animal I killed was a doe. My strongest feelings didn't come from killing the animal. I had a dead animal. After I field dressed the animal, I had meat. It still had its skin on, still looked like a deer, but there was no doubt it was meat. I had just "made meat." That was a very strong impression that for some reason had not sunk home when I hunted small game and ate it.

I don't know if there is anything that brings one closer to the sense of participating in, and being a part of, the ecosystem of a region than making meat in that place, and eating it. When I hunted in Africa, I did get to eat some of the meat I made -- that was very special to me.

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by DanEP:
First big game animal I killed was a doe. My strongest feelings didn't come from killing the animal. I had a dead animal. After I field dressed the animal, I had meat. It still had its skin on, still looked like a deer, but there was no doubt it was meat. I had just "made meat." That was a very strong impression that for some reason had not sunk home when I hunted small game and ate it.

Dan:
I know exactly what you're talking about. I think part of the reason I don't have strong emotions after the kill is that the critter is now "meat" in my mind, too, and lots of butchering needed to make it truly so.

DEER....BANG!....VENISON.

I'm less a trophy hunter and more a meat hunter, so perhaps that's part of it. And I, too, loved being able to taste some of the African animal meat I shot (unfortunately, not all of them).

Like many, my first was a whitetail buck.

I was probably 11 or 12 and all I remember was excitement and adreniline that wouldn't quit.

When I was out of college, my travels took me away from hunting for over 15 years. I got back into hunting because of a friend who knew how to hunt in the desert.

My most recent big game animal was an Arizona Pronghorn. I scouted him out alone weeks before and found him again the day before the season started.

On the opening day I was able find him again and took my first Pronghorn, a very good buck that scored 77 B&C.

What were my feeling after I took him? I think it showed a change in me - I was disappointed - That the hunt was over. With good reason, it was 8:30 am on the opening day and I had taken a weeks vacation for the hunt! Now I had to go home!!

As I have grown older I love the hunt just as much as the taking of an animal - Maybe more. I can honestly say there have been alot of hunts that I didn't take an animal. But, I can also say I have never had an unsuccessful hunt. Hunting is now a journey, not a destination. I guess that is growing up.