Since I’ve been home from the Argentina hunt, I’ve been busy. Part of the negotiation with my wife about making that trip was that when I returned all focus would shift to getting the house ready for the siding contractors who will start their work this week. Weekends and week nights since the hunt have been spent tearing off the woodpecker-hole-ridden, 25 year-old cedar; removal of the old house wrap; repair of uncovered water damage; and rewrapping the house. A forecast for rain (which came true big time) put even more pressure on me to get the house weather-tight quickly.
But while I was up there on the ladders and hanging from the roof and fighting the newly hatched crop of gnats, the smile seldom left my face. That’s what the warm afterglow of recently made great hunting memories will do for you. Busting up siding and pulling nails doesn’t require that much conscious attention, so the mind can easily drift to the hunt and everything surrounding it; and to figuring out ways to make it happen again as soon as possible.
Remember when you were a kid back in grade school? Remember when you’d see your 2nd or 3rd grade teacher outside of school at the grocery store or post office or gas station? It always has a big impact on kids because they seldom think about their teachers actually existing, living a life outside of school.
I find the same thing happens to me today. If I’m in the field, at the sporting goods store or on the shooting range, people recognize me easily and come over to say hello. But if they encounter me at a restaurant, hotel or airport, they hesitate and give me that look like, “I know that guy, but from where?’
It suits me just fine to be thought of first and foremost as a hunter. If you came looking for a one-word answer on what I am, that’s what I’d tell you. “I am a hunter!”
Of course, there’s more to living life than hunting. There has to be these days. There was for even Daniel Boone and the mountain men, because food is only one of life’s essentials. But it’s safe to say that hunting was nearly always on their minds even when they weren’t doing it. And that’s the way it is for me, too.
The photo that appears with this post is one that best sums up the Argentina hunt. My buddy Doug (NAHC’s Member Benefits Director) and I are high fiving after each taking a double out of the same flock of doves. That’s a memory that’s going to last a long, long time and will keep me fueled up and fired up for hunting even when the task at hand is something else, far detached from being in the field.
In this “modern” world that’s one of the biggest reasons of all for going hunting.
P.S. We’ve only received 3 comments as of today on the previous Argentina hunt post asking who would like NAHC to investigate setting up a Life Member hunt there. Please, if you’re interested, tell us by leaving a comment.