Ghost
Life Member
This is kind of a long read...but I felt it was worth sharing.
I would like to know your thoughts.
Pampered Sportsmen
One needs only to look back to gain a genuine perspective of where we have progressed, or have we? According to Mattis, “Convenience is the public cry in hunting…Today’s sportsman is so pampered with such an array of gadgets and attire for ease and comfort that deer hunting is no longer a privilege of the hardy outdoor clan…The practical deer hunters, and especially the newcomers, come to hunt the game animal where it is most plentiful, and many a bag is filled without the hunter straying a quarter of a mile from his parked car, a farm field, or a side road. The task of dragging in a deer killed even a mile back in from any road is becoming the exception today. Because of this easy hunting, out hunting force is inflated with many soft-handed members who make the outing not so much for their sheer love of hunting but for the ease with which they can assume the stature of a hunter.”
It seems that the exploits of our ancestral deer hunters lies in stark contrast to the hunter of today. We’ve become enmeshed in the intricacies of modern technology, ascribing to the latest, most efficient methodology in hunting whitetails. Our deer hunts are no longer campaigns, “making sporting history,” as Rutledge described, but rather a formula with success being almost a sure bet. Rarely do we find the same energy expanded as those that once tramped for endless miles as penned by George Shiras, “A sportsman’s life consists largely of three elements: anticipation, realization and reminiscence. We look forward to the trip by rail, by canoe and then perhaps a tramp on foot into the heart of the wilderness. Then comes the camp and its pleasant environments, and that lucky, radiant day when the early morning sun casts a glint upon the branching antlers of a mighty buck.”
According to historian Dr. Rob Wegner, “We need to look back on our heroic, distant past so that we can make claims to the future. Without tracing our personal roots and grounding our self-identity in some kind of a collective with a shared past, we will never acquire stability or a basis for a self-sustaining community. We need to return to the basic values of the early American deerslayer—self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft and marksmanship—and forget all the mechanized gadgets and technological devices.”
If we are indeed to learn anything from those hunters of yesteryear and perhaps emulate some of their storied past, than we must never forget these parting words from New York’s most famed huntress, Paulina Brandreth,
“Hunting is a recreation and invigorating pastime that never should, through a super-civilized, over-artificialized state of living, be allowed to die out. In this age of neurotic haste it means rest and renewed health to the man whose brain and energies are being constantly overtaxed. It means stronger muscles, a more vigorous constitution, self-reliance, hardihood. A real man does not care for sport that does not involve difficulty, discomfort and sometimes danger. The trouble with modern life is that physically it is terribly softening. We need something to counteract the effects of luxury and too easy living. Hunting does this because it takes a man to places where he has to depend on first principles, and where he comes in contact with obstacles that tend to build up and strengthen his natural abilities and manhood. It makes his eyesight keener, teaches him patience, and unfolds many natural laws and beauties and wonders that otherwise would remain to him unknown. We all need something of the primitive in us in order that we may have a rock bottom on which to stand.”
I would like to know your thoughts.
Pampered Sportsmen
One needs only to look back to gain a genuine perspective of where we have progressed, or have we? According to Mattis, “Convenience is the public cry in hunting…Today’s sportsman is so pampered with such an array of gadgets and attire for ease and comfort that deer hunting is no longer a privilege of the hardy outdoor clan…The practical deer hunters, and especially the newcomers, come to hunt the game animal where it is most plentiful, and many a bag is filled without the hunter straying a quarter of a mile from his parked car, a farm field, or a side road. The task of dragging in a deer killed even a mile back in from any road is becoming the exception today. Because of this easy hunting, out hunting force is inflated with many soft-handed members who make the outing not so much for their sheer love of hunting but for the ease with which they can assume the stature of a hunter.”
It seems that the exploits of our ancestral deer hunters lies in stark contrast to the hunter of today. We’ve become enmeshed in the intricacies of modern technology, ascribing to the latest, most efficient methodology in hunting whitetails. Our deer hunts are no longer campaigns, “making sporting history,” as Rutledge described, but rather a formula with success being almost a sure bet. Rarely do we find the same energy expanded as those that once tramped for endless miles as penned by George Shiras, “A sportsman’s life consists largely of three elements: anticipation, realization and reminiscence. We look forward to the trip by rail, by canoe and then perhaps a tramp on foot into the heart of the wilderness. Then comes the camp and its pleasant environments, and that lucky, radiant day when the early morning sun casts a glint upon the branching antlers of a mighty buck.”
According to historian Dr. Rob Wegner, “We need to look back on our heroic, distant past so that we can make claims to the future. Without tracing our personal roots and grounding our self-identity in some kind of a collective with a shared past, we will never acquire stability or a basis for a self-sustaining community. We need to return to the basic values of the early American deerslayer—self-reliance, hardihood, woodcraft and marksmanship—and forget all the mechanized gadgets and technological devices.”
If we are indeed to learn anything from those hunters of yesteryear and perhaps emulate some of their storied past, than we must never forget these parting words from New York’s most famed huntress, Paulina Brandreth,
“Hunting is a recreation and invigorating pastime that never should, through a super-civilized, over-artificialized state of living, be allowed to die out. In this age of neurotic haste it means rest and renewed health to the man whose brain and energies are being constantly overtaxed. It means stronger muscles, a more vigorous constitution, self-reliance, hardihood. A real man does not care for sport that does not involve difficulty, discomfort and sometimes danger. The trouble with modern life is that physically it is terribly softening. We need something to counteract the effects of luxury and too easy living. Hunting does this because it takes a man to places where he has to depend on first principles, and where he comes in contact with obstacles that tend to build up and strengthen his natural abilities and manhood. It makes his eyesight keener, teaches him patience, and unfolds many natural laws and beauties and wonders that otherwise would remain to him unknown. We all need something of the primitive in us in order that we may have a rock bottom on which to stand.”