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Paul Planer's avatar

My favorite bit:

"Hunting all day is exhausting, but I really like being in the marsh at the moment the ducks are liberated from the long siege. I enjoy hunting them, I enjoy shooting them successfully, and I enjoy eating them. But I also enjoy knowing their lives will be a little easier now without assholes like me trying to kill them."

Perhaps this hidden absolute about hunting, once you have lived within the rhythm of the pursuit long enough, so often overlooked, should be celebrated more in print?

Many of us do indeed find no shock at all in the feeling of joy we experience when indeed our quarry is safe from all of us who give chase! The quiet assurance that comes with knowing we are a part of this natural scene, but not the only part!

Your paragraph speaks to the ethics behind those who founded the North American Model of Conservation so long ago. It also points out a glaring deficiency in most of today's writing about hunting. Great piece of writing and a good one to ponder over.

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Steve Dibb's avatar

A story nicely told. I too, (like others here) feel that the end of a season reflection is missing in the hunting media. We regularly read about the exciting moments of hunting; ducks gliding into the decoys with wings set as we grip the shotgun, the heart-stopping flush of a pheasant at our feet, looking through the bow sight with bated breath as a deer slowly moves into the shooting window. Those are but mere moments in the overall hunting experience. What we don't often read about are those special moments during the rest of the hunt, especially that last rays of sunlight on the final day of the season. Here in MN, our deer season for bow ends on December 31 and for years, I have trudged out to the stand on that last day to take in the end of the season before the rest of the world starts their New Year's celebration. I have never harvested a deer on on the last day of the season and I'm not sure if I even would. It would almost seem a shame that, after the deer had survived through a 100 day season of bow, gun and black powder hunting, that it would fall to an arrow those final minutes of the season. And so, I sit in my stand until well after dark; listening to the curtain of silence fall upon the woods, reflecting on past days afield during this season and planning for next fall's opening day. After all, I only have next eight months to get everything ready!

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