Many of us grew up in families that hunted, so it was something that just came naturally to us.
In my case, no one in my immediate family hunted, but we had neighbors and friends that did. For some reason that I have never quite gotten a handle on I was attracted to animals and hunting from my earliest memories.
My first hunting experiences were of my Dad taking me to dove hunt and going duck hunting with friends from school.
Dad did not hunt, he just took me and let me hunt. He liked to fish, so I grew up with that, but I can only remember one time while growing up that Dad actually came home one morning, and took his shotgun and went out hunting, he killed 9 cotton tails that day.
Over the years, I have pondered the question as to "Why do people hunt" and have came up with many varying answers.
Some hunt simply because they enjoy nature and the outdoors, while others have more esoteric reasons.
They hunt because they like the taste of fresh, natural game meat. For others it is more of a social type thing, friend or relatives hunt, so they go along, more to spend time with those folks then to actually hunt.
I have noticed that many wives, and a few husbands do that, just to send time with their spouse.
For some it is an excuse to travel, they like seeing and going new places, hunting and fishing give those folks a legitimate excuse, instead of just going some place new and sightseeing.
For some it is the aspect of collecting which takes many forms in and of itself. Maybe the person is after record book animals only.
In my case, I just want good/descent representative animals of the different species. Others want to take animals of the same species from many different areas or states.
Some of the real collectors want to take all of the subspecies of a species, such as someone wanting to kill a regular white tail, and a Coues white tail and a Carmen mountains white tail in west Texas, or arranging hunts to kill all the various subspecies of caribou or moose.
It can be difficult to explain why a person likes to hunt, to a non hunter.
The hard thing for the non hunter to understand is the contradiction of loving animals and birds yet being able to kill them.
as people age, their attitudes change and their passion to hunt changes. Some will only kill something that is a real trophy animal, or they will shoot a doe or cow if it is legal, just for the meat, and have no desire to kill just for the horns/antlers.
For some hunting is a form of escape, from the family, the job, the daily rat race. That escape can range from a few hours one afternoon after work hunting dove, to a weekend spent at the leasse deer hunting, to a month in africa on safari.
Some folks, thru any number of reasons or circumstances are able to hunt all they want to. Whether it is due to being financially able, or where the person lives, or they work as a guide/outfitter/P.H.
Some folks are only able to hunt a few days a year or maybe every other year, so they subcribe to all the magazines and with the internet, get their "fix" by joining forums.
I have reached the stage in my life where the hunt is more important than the kill. I still kill game every chance I get, but I enjoy the hunt more when I am doing the guiding or just tagging along, than when I am carrying the gun.
Some folks enjoy hunting just for the thrill of the chase, in fact many folks graduate over time to harder or more intense forms of hunting to enhance that aspect.
Rifle hunters switch to handguns or archery, modern centerfire gives way to muzzle loader, firearms and bows in some cases give way to the camera. The thrill of the hunt/stalk/chase is still there, but the killing of the animal is taken out of the equation.
Personally, I hope I never reach that point. Somehow in my little world, having that power of life and death over another creature, I feel makes a person that much more of a human and keeps them in touch with the real world and their place in it.
