Yes, I was a hunter. In my younger days.
Not any more.
I didn’t stop hunting out of some anti-gun or anti-kill animal philosophy.
It goes deeper than that and involves several expeditions.
I’ve already related my BB gun hunting trip with Johnny for snakes elsewhere. The first time I gave up hunting.
At 16, my step-brother Jimmy and I felt bad about Mom complaining that rabbits were eating her garden plants. You could see the entire garden from Mom and Dad‘s second story bedroom window. Sunup and a .22 long rifle. Got a rabbit. Woke up Mom and Dad in the process. Forgot how much noise a gun makes - especially in a closed room. We had the rabbit for dinner, but Jimmy and I had to eat standing up. Second time I gave up hunting.
I forgot. So at 17 I’m hunting deer with Dad. Friends and neighbors beating the bushes to drive the game to Dad down in the grove. After a while, I got tired of waiting. When I saw Dad, he was kneeling on the ground crying. He explained - he had come face to face with “White Beard”, the legendary 12-point albino stag. Had him lined up right between the eyes with his 30-40 Krag. Ole White Beard stared right back down the barrel of the gun. Dad couldn’t pull the trigger. That stag didn’t even flinch until he heard me coming and bounded safely outta sight. I gave up hunting. Again. I didn’t want any part of an activity that could break a man down so.
They say third time is a charm, and that should have been the end of it.
But how soon one forgets.
Home on leave for Thanksgiving. Me and Darryl decide we have a few hours to spare, it was the opening days of deer season, Darryl had a Remington 36, and I still had access to Dad’s 30-40 Krag. What could possibly go wrong? We parked on the edge of the road and headed into a Poconos winter forest, trees bare of leaves that crunched underfoot and spotty patches of scattered snow. We found the still-warm and steaming bear scat and paw prints on the edge of one of those snow patches. We started trying to track the beast down. Twenty minutes later we hear a rustling behind us. They say that a bear can outmaneuver and sneak up behind you. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I don’t know if that was what was happening or not. I do know that we were tracking in a circle right back to the area of the scat and suddenly two spooked hunters looked startlingly at each other and yelled “Run!” Back by the car, feeling safe, the two brave hunters used their superior firepower to chop down a tree. That sapling didn’t stand a chance.
I haven’t been hunting since.