An American Past-Time

There are many things that are considered an American Past-Time. There’s baseball, football, and many other activities. But what about hunting? You know the American outdoorsman sport.

I have come from a strong bloodline of hunters. I could go back many generations of hunters in my family from my ancestors that hunted to survive to me which hunting is a passion. It’s not a hobby nor something that an inexperienced person could pick up but an activity that skills are passed down from generation to generation. To many non hunters it may seems easy. You wake up early in the morning on a Saturday while every other “normal” person is sleeping and you put on those tree looking clothes and head out into the woods. I mean who in the right mind would want to spend a Saturday out in the woods when there are plenty of movies or parties to go to. Then you climb a tree and a dumb animal comes along which you just point a gun at and shoot. I wish it was that easy.

Hunting takes a lot of skills. You have to worry about scents. Yes that means you can’t put on the popular perfumes or colognes and go hunting. You also have hours upon hours of practice with your firearm. What can I say hunting season is only a few weeks out of the year so there’s plenty of time to spend down at the ranges. And deer really aren’t that stupid. There rather quite smart animals. Granted their thinking process isn’t as complex as humans but animals are here for two reasons. To survive and to breed, and they have the survival aspect down rather well. They notice the slightest movement you make. The slightest scent change in the air. They notice everything.

Now I have been rambling on and you’re probably wondering what’s the point of this article. The point is that hunting teaches a lot of high quality life skills. You’re probably thinking “What skills for life could sitting in the woods hugging a tree could you learn?” Hunting has taught me responsibility, ethics, patience, and persistence. It taught be responsibility because of handling a gun. Guns can be dangerous depending on whose hands they are in. In a person raised up around guns a gun is as safe as a Q-tip. I know a gun inside and out and how to safely use the gun. The only thing that gets shot by my guns are what I want to shoot. Ethics is taught by hunting because there are so many different laws that deal with hunting. Not all these laws can be checked every time so it is up to the hunter to choose what is right and what is not. Yea that buck you have been chaseing for years is standing right in front of you but the sun is already set and the hunting time is up. There’s always tomorrow. Patience is a really big thing in hunting. You see that deer you’ve been stalking all year off in the distance. Your gun could probably hit it even though its 500 yards out but you wait till the deer makes its way close to you where you know you can make a great shot on a deer. A shot that the deer won’t suffer through. And then there’s persistence. That deer has avoided you for two years but you still go out in that woods to try and bag that deer.

I know hunting is not for everyone and you can learn these skills in thousands of different ways but this was my way of learning these skills. This is my passion, the one thing I look forward to every year all year. If you ever get the chance to go out in the woods and hunt I would suggest it. You learn a lot of valuable things and have a great and rewarding time doing so.