Recently a member here posted some pics of an amazing deer he took on this forum. There has been some very civil and adult debate resulting about hunting (which may be a bit OT but definitely part of land management). Rather then take his post yet further from its intent I thought I would post this stand alone. This is my attempt to explain as hunters, why we hunt.

Why We Hunt, By Jack Spirko

I am going to attempt the best I know how to explain why we hunt in a way where some that do not might begin to understand hunters a little better. Like any real attempt to explain something to someone who has not done it this one will be via a story.

I started hunting at 13 both with the gun and with the bow. and by the time I was 15 I had taken two bucks with a gun and two doe with the bow. That year I committed to getting a rack buck with the bow if it took all season. At that time archery season in PA was 4 weeks long and I hunted every single day. It is a big commitment for a 15 year old to spend that much time in a 2x2 platform in a tree in rain, heat, cold etc but I did it and was still hunting the second to the last day of the season.

In my first two season I scored early in Archery Season so I had not experienced seeing the fall shift into winter and watched all the animals change patterns etc. In this long season I had seen many deer some very close I could not shoot many were does I choose to pass on. On this day my uncle did some rattling behind me and it worked. A 7 point buck tried to sneak in to see what was up and crossed me as he did. I took a very long shot for me (about 27 yards) the buck was almost angling directly away from me leaving me a very small target to angle the arrow from behind into his chest.

3 years of dedicated practice came to full fruition on this day. Those hours and hours of shooting hay bails off our roof had come to be worth every sacrificed video game and screw off hour they had cost. The shot was beyond perfect! It sneaked past the surrounding brush and sliced perfectly into the chest from behind. He ran about 150 yards and was down when I found him dead. I got to him quite ahead of my uncle and when I bent down to admire my kill there were tears in my eyes. I was happy, real happy but they were not tears of joy. I was a little sad for the deer as I am for any animal when I take its life but not enough to cry. I had already taken bigger bucks with the gun so it was not that the deer was so amazing or anything.

Something got to me and I did not know what. I did not want to be seen as some kid who got upset so I did the old wipe your eyes on your sleeve and got on with field dressing before my uncle got there. It was a long drag out to the road (about 3 miles) and by the time I got home all we did was hang up the deer, I took a shower, ate a bit of food and was out like a light. Over the next few days I began to understand why I had that moment but it would be years before I could put it into words so that others could understand. At 15 I just did not have the life experience to put it into context.

The reality was at that moment a lot of things had come to a head all at once. I knew for instance my uncle and all his friends would stop calling me "kid" I had now sort of graduated into being their equal having taken a rack buck with the bow was something even some of them had yet to do. I had proven myself by sticking to it for 4 strait weeks and when the moment came I did not choke or get the shakes I made what is to this day probably the most difficult shot I have ever taken with a bow at big game. After about a month in the bush I had come to know the animals more so then before and felt connected to it in a way that is hard to understand.

I had listened to the grouse drumming because they were drunk on fermented fox grapes and thought it was spring. I had watched squirrels run up and down the tree I was in never knowing I was there, I had more then one chickadee land on my arrow and look at my gray blob form with curious eyes but no real fear. I watched the leave go from green to orange and yellow then to brown and then fall to the ground. I had in some ways become part of the bush and when I took that deer it was now in a way a part of who I was and what I had become. In other words I was part of those woods at that point and in killing the deer a part of me died too. Additionally for the first time I came to an inner understanding of what and who I was.

I was not Jack Spirko some kid in Schuylkill County PA trying to figure out my life. I was for the first time truly at peace with the fact that I am indeed part of the wild world I had always loved, my place was as both a protector and as a predator and in the right place and time indeed I am even potential prey. In that moment at the side of that beautiful deer I became aware of all of this and more. I could not explain it but that is where the tears came from in short it was about realizing who I was and my place in the universe.

I also know that today that deer has lived more as a memory then he could have in the bush. In about 5 more years if no one would have shot him his teeth would have been gone and he would have starved in a very cold Pennsylvania winter. Yet today his antlers are on my walls and I have told his story a hundred times. I can't tell you the exact day I shot him as in Oct what ever. But I can tell you I was 15, it was the second to the last day of the season and that I shot a deer that changed me in a way that has continued to impact my life. That it still fuels my undying dedication to preserve the wilderness and our outdoor traditions even today more then 20 years later. The day will always be "the day of the deer", time and dates don't matter just the memory of something special that can never be taken away, cheapened or packaged for sale. It is mine and it can only ever be for me and for those I share it with, there are few things that live in a man's heart that way.

The day he takes a wife, has a child and the day of the deer all have a great deal in common.

That is the best I can do, I don't know if it really helps a non hunter to understand but that my friends at least for me is why we hunt,

Jack Spirko
www.jackspirko.com