15 Comments

You need a seasonal hobby, like, I don't know, carving duck decoys. I know it's very hard to come to a screeching stop from any activity this intense, though. In my case, I go from being a celeb to kids in the schools where I present, to a woman in front of a computer. Hardly comparable, but, yeah. 😂

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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

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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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

End of the season is always such a bittersweet thing. For years, I've made it a habit to watch the last hours of the season fade toward darkness, and then take a deep breath and think about what's next. But this year is the first time in ages I haven't watched the waterfowl season end from the marsh... in large part because our season ended on a weekday this year and I didn't want to take a day off. I know... skewed priorities and all that.

So I watched the sunset from the porch while I fed the dogs, including my lab, Skipjack, who has yet to actually see me kill a duck (he did, at least, get a few doves this year). Just before it was fully dark, I heard the whine and spotted the fleeting shadow of a wood duck heading for some freshly flooded spot in the swamp. It sounded vaguely derisive.

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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

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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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

Yeah... I know the feeling exactly. Years ago, I made a conscious effort to seasonalize all my outdoor adventures and related activity. I have a month for un-effing my gear, a month or two of mushroom foraging, birch tapping, ice fishing, open water fishing, bear season, deer season, small game... not to mention reloading and shooting.... you get the idea. One season flows naturally into the next nowadays. So I always have something to look forward to, even as I’m enjoying the adventure of the moment.... and as always, life intercedes to confound the best laid plans. Lol.

Peace.

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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

The past is set, the future is not guaranteed; live the present to the fullest!

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Feb 21, 2023Liked by Holly Heyser

I love that you wrote about this, and I think there's something really valuable in simply having the grief moment. The sudden unfilled hollow makes it so clear how much the season really means while it is happening. I find it so tempting to try to rush past the icky bits of loss or desolation because they feel so bad, and bad feelings tend to mean something is WRONG...but I think it's not at all a bad thing when we don't IMMEDIATELY move on to something else equally consuming or enticing. I think important experiences deserve (and need) sufficient time to digest, reflect, process. I feel like those times are often very desolate and lonely, but surely they have to be -- if they were full of other stuff, there wouldn't be room for the deep feeling.

Of course you're totally right that non-human-determined seasons have less of a drop-off, but I guess I feel like any really important + vivid + vital time leaves a real emptiness behind when it's over, whether it's a whole season or just a great fucking party. I think maybe I count on that moment of mourning in some ways. It tells me that that time really mattered.

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