Indy pretty much nailed it, but yes, being out making your own meat--there's a feeling that's just incomparable. Whether I'm successful or not, I feel being in the bush for me is always the most fun I can have in this lifetime. It's like Sears once said: "We go into the woods not to rough it, but to smooth it", or somesuch.

Leighton

It is fun.

Hunting is one of the few things that I was very good at when I was seventeen, and am very good at now that I'm fifty seven.

Hunting helps connect the forty years in between, and hold my life together.

I like the meat, but it's not a necessity. In fact, last year, I honestly had too much moose meat. I'm a single guy, and I ended up sharing a lot with family and friends.

Which partly explains my second reason. I like the cameraderie. I like getting out with my buddies for a cottontail hunt, a pheasant hunt, or whatever. Even though most of the day you're on your own, it's still great to come back and relive the days events, or last years events, or 10 years ago events.

I don't hunt for trophies, but I have two 10 point bucks mounted. I think they make great conversation, and are a great way to honour the animal.

When I go to Africa (hopefully next year), I'll have mounts of that, as well.

I am more " just out in the woods" instead of in town and civilization with mankind all around it. There is no politics, no
work grind demands.

I moved to Oregon because there are miles of "just getting away from it all wilderness" in all directions where I live.

I find sanity. I have a friend who will protect me if I am attacked by Yogi or Snagglepuss the Cougar and will also feed me. In my hands it feels good, it is my rifle.

I revel in the beauty of nature and God's creations when I hunt.
I am in God's church when I hunt. Taking an animal is immaterial. If I do take one, that is fine. If I go home empty handed, that is fine.

As was said, the clear dawn on a very cold morning, has a raw beauty to it. In Oregon, I love to be way up at high altitude as the morning comes up. The sky is bright blue, and yet in the valleys below it looks like a sea of fog. Everyone in town looks out there windows and see an overcast foggy looking day.

This must be truly what heaven is like.

Hunters, true people who hunt have a common thread of appreciation for the environment that they are in out there.
The tree huggers will never understand it, even though they may see the same things. The road hunters are excluded from the same understanding. Hunting involves getting off of your ass ( unless you are handicapped and not capable).
Shooting something from behind the wheel of your pickup is not hunting, it is just killing game.

I hunt for reasons like last Elk season being as high up in the mountains as one could go in that area. It was a miserable morning by mankind standards. Cold and raining. Across a clear cut at 500 yds, I saw about 25 Elk jump up and start to run down the mountain side.

I watched in awe of the beauty of it and the wildness of nature.

I managed to ignore the 5 or 6 pickups that stopped on the road and were busy knocking off 500 to 700 yd shots with their magnums, and not even getting near enough to hit something. They are not an example of why I hunt.
With my 7mm Mauser in hand, I was not even tempted to try a 500 yd shot under the circumstances.

I hunt because I love what God has created. It gets me away from what man has created.

Cheers and good shooting
seafire