Anti-hunters constantly state that hunters are "all about the kill." In my short, few years of hunting, I can tell all of them, that although the kill is the end point of what were are searching for, it does not begin, nor stop with that. In fact, the pack out, putting meat in the freezer, or the BBQ's months later are also something that I fondly think about. Seeking the "thrill" of killing an animal is the furthest thing from my mind while I'm out hunting, and believe it or not, every time my friends and I take an animals life, it's not 100% high fives and chest bumping. I feel anti-hunters can vindicate their feelings by labeling us as killers or blood thirsty, when in fact we mostly are nothing of the sort. I often feel regret and remorse for taking an animal's life when the hunt has finally come to its fruition. It's a constant mental battle in my mind...was this life worth taking, should have I let it go, why did I do this? It always comes back to the thought that this animal lived the most free, independent life that any animal that becomes food for humans beings has ever lived. I don't have all the answers, and being that I grew up in a non-hunting family, I'm still learning and developing my own ethics as far as hunting, but I can tell anyone straight faced, that when I kill an animal, I do feel some remorse, regret, and sadness for the life that I just took, but also realize that if I am going to be a human carnivore and have to choose where I obtain my protein, there's no place I'd rather get it from than the back country wilderness that we have been blessed with. I took a lone calf elk this fall with my bow, and some friends were happy that I filled my tag, and even some hunting friends of mine gave me grief for killing an "innocent baby." In the long run, I filled my freezer with an elk that more than likely could have fed a bear or mountain lion later in the year, but for me, it filled my freezer for the winter and I managed to do it with a bow at a distance less than 30 yards. There's something to be said about how difficult fair chase bow hunting can be, and like it or not, reality is that meat has to come from somewhere, and if you eat meat, you have no right to tell me that its more ethical to get it from a market place than from the woods. As far as actually killing an animal, is it "thrilling!" as so many anti-hunters will tell us it is? Well there's always excitement when successfully connecting on an animal, but it is way more than that. It's about the planning of the hunt, the endless days you put in, the perfect setup, the ethical placement of the shot, the countless hours and days that went into the hunt, and eventually what it provides my friends and I when we finally succeed. A successful hunt doesn't have to have a dead animal. Thats why we call it a Stalk and Spook a success...because if you were out there doing it and getting close enough to spook something it's always a success. It is definitely never "all about the kill."
