There are plenty of reasons to learn to hunt. The most ancient and trendiest modern reason for hunting are actually the same: it’s a great way to secure lean, free-range meat for yourself and your family. Wild game meat reduces your reliance on the commercial food chain and helps you know exactly what you’re eating in our age of processed foods. Hunting is also a great way to learn more about the natural world, and to support wildlife habitat and conservation in the U.S. Best of all? Hunting is fun.

But getting started isn’t always easy. Hunting is a commitment that takes time, interest, specialized gear, and lots of leg work. But it’s worth it. That’s why we pulled together this step-by-step guide to help you navigate all the essential stages and skills of becoming a hunter, from signing up for a hunter safety course to cooking your hard-earned venison, and everything in between.

Let’s get started.

Navigating this Post

Because there’s a lot to hunting, there’s a lot to this article. Here’s a handy list to help you find the information you’re looking for more quickly. Read straight through, or click on a chapter to jump right to it.

1. Hunter Education
2. How to Find a Hunting Mentor
3. Navigating Hunting Laws and Seasons
4. Hunting Gear
5. Guns, Ammo, and Shooting Practice
6. Finding a Place to Hunt
7. Basic Tactics for any Hunt
8. Field-Dressing, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game

1. Hunter Education

By Natalie Krebs

Hunting is a highly regulated activity, which means you’ll need a license to hunt wild game like deer, turkeys, squirrels, and more. Before you can purchase a hunting license, however, you need to take and pass a hunter education course.

Do I really need hunter ed to buy a license?

Each state has different requirements for this: Some states only require hunter education if you were born after a certain date; others require all license buyers to hold a valid hunter education certificate. You can find your own state or province’s requirements here.

No matter your state’s requirements, it’s still a good idea to take the course. Hunter ed teaches safe firearm handling, ethical shot placement, your state’s regulations, and more. In-person courses also give you the opportunity to ask experienced hunters questions and get to know other new hunters.

Can I try hunting before I take hunter education?

You certainly can, though this is easier in some states than others. This also requires you to know someone who hunts and is willing to take you. The first way to do this is to purchase an apprentice hunting license, which allows you to legally hunt and harvest an animal under the supervision of a licensed adult hunter. Apprentice licenses are only available in certain states, but they’re a great way to gauge your interest in hunting.

The second option is just to tag along on a hunt with another licensed hunter. With a few exceptions for non-game species (like coyotes and hogs), you won’t be able to pull the trigger yourself. But you’ll learn a lot, and get a pretty good idea about how you like that particular style of hunting.

Where do I sign up for hunter education?

Go to hunter-ed.com and click on your state. Most states allow you to take an online course through this site, and will note any additional requirements like in-person tests or field days. If your state doesn’t participate in the online course, check out this map to go straight to your state’s hunter ed page.

How much does hunter education cost?

Hunter ed courses range from $0 to $30, depending on your state and whether you take the course online or in person (usually free). There’s a service fee for online courses, though some states require you to pay up only after you’ve passed the class.

Where is my hunter education certificate valid?

You can use it to buy a hunting license in all 50 states and many countries. This is another reason why it’s important to take hunter ed even if your state doesn’t require it: If you ever want to hunt in a different state, you’ll likely need a hunter ed number to buy a license.

How long is my hunter ed certificate good for?

Once you pass, you’re certified for life.

Read Next: How to Shoot a Traditional Bow

Do I need a bowhunter education course?

Most states don’t require these, but offer them anyway. If you want to bowhunt (this includes a crossbow) in a state that does require a bowhunter education course, like Montana or New York, you’ll have to take one in addition to (not instead of) a general hunter ed course. You can find out if your state requires bowhunter ed here.

I passed my hunter ed course. Now what?

Congrats! You should have been issued a temporary or permanent hunter education card—go make several copies of this before you lose it, and file them in a safe place. It’s also a good idea to save your hunter ed number in your phone so you have it handy when you need to buy a hunting license. If you ever lose your card, you can print or request a replacement from your game agency, but it can sometimes be a hassle.

2. How to Find a Hunting Mentor

Hunter education classes are critical, but there’s no way around it: learning to hunt from one is like learning to drive by reading a driver’s ed manual. The only way to get good at either is to practice, and to do so with guidance. That’s where mentoring programs and other hunters come in.

Your Personal Hunting Mentor

If you already know someone who hunts, start there. This might be a friend, family member, coworker, or neighbor. Depending on your relationship with them, you might just be able to ask them to take you hunting sometime. If you don’t know them as well, ease into it. Ask them questions about what you need help with the most, like finding a good archery shop or buying the right hunting license.

Work your way up to asking them to join you for an in-person project. Maybe you need help picking out a deer rifle at Cabela’s, or navigating your first trip to the shooting range. Eventually you should know each other well enough that you can ask to tag along on a hunt. Better yet, your new mentor will hopefully invite you to join them.

Once you find someone who’s willing to help you, be sure to pull your own weight. Never forget that this hunter is doing you a favor, and that helping you learn to hunt cuts into their own schedule. Absolutely ask them for advice, tips, and to hunt with you, but take initiative, too. If they take you to the range once, go back on your own next time. If they recommend a public-land spot, go check it out. Don’t count on them to hold your hand for years to come, or to hunt with you every time you want to go.

Learn-to-Hunt Programs and Community Support

If the hunter you hoped would help seems non-committal, that’s okay too. There’s someone else out there who will be excited to help you, whether you know them yet or not.

This is where learn-to-hunt programs come in. These in-person workshops are usually organized either by your state game agency (like these, in Indiana) or a wildlife conservation organization, like the Quality Deer Management Association’s Field-to-Fork program. Search for programs by state or by the critter you’re interested in learning to hunt. Critter organizations include the National Wild Turkey Foundation, Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, the Ruffed Grouse Society, and more. If you want to talk to a real person who can give you tailored advice, contact the R3 coordinator in your state. It’s their job to help you get started.

A lot of learn-to-hunt programs fill up fast, so if you’re having trouble getting into a class, don’t give up. Keep trying, and in the meantime, do your best to meet people in the hunting community. Go to a Ducks Unlimited banquet or a Backcountry Hunters and Anglers pint night. These are great ways to get to know sportsmen and women in your area, who can offer you the advice you’re looking for, and maybe even take you hunting.

Finally, if you’re having trouble finding classes or events to attend, consider finding a mentor with digital resources like Powderhook. And if all else fails, remember: There’s not much you can’t learn from YouTube. —N.K.

3. Navigating Your State’s Hunting Laws and Seasons

As you probably noticed in hunter education, there are lots of regulations that govern how, what, and when you can hunt. To make things even more complicated, there are two sets of guidelines for hunting: laws and ethics. It may, for example, be legal to hunt deer with a rifle that you haven’t practiced with. But that doesn’t mean you should. You owe it to the hunting community and to the animals you hunt to follow your state’s regulations, and to do so under fair-chase conditions. Game law violations have serious consequences, ranging from tickets to revoked hunting privileges or worse.

The best way to avoid getting into trouble is simply to learn and follow your state’s regulations.

Start with your state game agency’s website. That’s where you can find season dates, general hunting regulations, and species-specific rules. You can also purchase a hunting license there.

Season Dates

Every year, your state game agency releases the dates that determine when you can hunt a certain species. Squirrel seasons, for instance, are usually pretty simple, with dates that typically start in summer or early fall and run through late winter. Deer and other big game seasons are more complicated. As a general rule, these open in early fall and run through December or even later. Season dates are usually broken down by the method of take, such as bow season, rifle or shotgun season, and muzzleloader season, with some overlap. Rifle seasons are the most popular, and you’ll notice the most hunters in the woods then. Your season may be further broken down by the type of deer that’s legal at a certain time (e.g. antlered vs. antlerless). Season dates can also vary by county or, out West, by hunting unit.

Hunting isn’t just a fall pursuit. Rabbit and predator seasons run through late winter, spring snow goose season opens in February, spring turkey seasons run from March to May, many bear seasons open in May and June, and you can often hunt invasive species like feral hogs any time of year.

Hunting Regulations

There are general hunting rules that typically apply anywhere in the U.S. For instance, it’s almost always illegal to shoot an animal from a vehicle or while you’re standing on or beside a road. Other regulations depend on your state: In places like Oklahoma and Texas, it’s perfectly legal to pour a pile of corn onto the ground and hunt deer over it. Meanwhile, this practice (called baiting) is illegal in states like Indiana and New York.

To avoid running afoul of such varied regulations, learn your state’s general hunting regulations by reading the current year’s reg booklet, which you can find online or pick up in a sporting goods store. Know when you need to wear blaze orange, how to transport your firearm to the field, and other essential info.

Then study the animal-specific section. If you’re hunting squirrels, you should know how many squirrels you can kill in one day (your daily bag limit), which squirrels are legal (e.g. gray squirrels and fox squirrels) what kind of weapon and ammunition you can use, and your possession limit (i.e. how many squirrels you can store in your freezer before you have to stop hunting or start eating them).

Pay special attention to tagging and transportation requirements for big game like deer and elk. There are rules about when and how to tag an animal you’ve killed, and how to transport it. You’ll also likely need to report, or check in, your harvest within a certain time period. States like Missouri are strict, requiring hunters to check in deer by 10 p.m. on the day it was killed. Meanwhile, other states may never require you to report your deer at all.

Finally, be sure to pay attention to wanton waste laws. Taking home meat is one of the best parts of hunting, and leaving behind certain edible parts of the animal is actually illegal. You can choose to take or leave the more adventurous parts of a deer, like the heart, liver, and tongue. But you cannot leave, say, the front shoulder just because you packed out most of the meat, and you’re too tired for one last trip.

Buying a Hunting License

Once you’re familiar with the season you want to hunt, you’ll need to purchase a license. Again, you’ll buy this directly through your state game agency online, or you can purchase it in person at sporting shops or big box stores like Cabela’s and Walmart. If you buy a license online you can usually print it out, but some states don’t do this with all their licenses and will mail it instead. Translation: Don’t wait until the night before opening day to purchase a license.

There are two general types of licenses: over-the-counter tags (abbreviated OTC) or draw tags. Draws are more common in Western states, and where the demand to hunt an animal is higher than the resource can handle. To mitigate that pressure, state game agencies only issue a certain number of tags for that species each year. That means you often have to apply for that license, like bighorn sheep in Wyoming or elk in Kentucky. Happily, there’s always something to hunt with an over-the-counter tag, no matter what state you’re in.

It’s also important to know the difference between a hunting license and a tag, and any other privileges or stamps you must purchase to hunt a certain species. Many states require you to purchase a hunting license, which is usually good for small game, and then purchase additional tags for deer, turkeys, etc. If you want to hunt migratory birds like ducks and geese, you must purchase an annual duck stamp online or at your local post office. (You can read more about duck stamps, and why you need one, here.)

Finally, there’s a difference between resident and non-resident licenses. Resident tags are much more affordable than non-resident tags, so you get the most bang for your buck when you hunt in your home state. If you ever travel to another state to hunt, you’ll have to fork over extra cash for the non-resident tag. (Remember: The pricier tag is a lot easier to stomach than the penalties for falsely claiming residency.)

If you’re ever unsure what license or tags you need, call your state game agency and ask. They’ll be happy to answer your questions. —N.K.

4. Gear

While there’s plenty of shiny (and expensive) gear out there, you don’t need all that much to get started hunting. Different species may require specialized gear, but the basics for every hunt are pretty similar. If you don’t want to invest in a bunch of new clothing or gear right away, borrowing gear from a friend or buying used gear is a great option.

A Note on Camo

While you can usually identify a hunter by his or her camo, camouflage isn’t mandatory for hunting. If you look at old hunting photos, you’ll notice that hunters tended to wear wool coats, flannel shirts, and blue jeans. It’s only in the last 50 or so years that hunters really started relying heavily on camo. More important than any camo pattern is your ability to remain still and conceal your profile (more on that below). Ducks, turkeys, and predators are typically exceptions to this rule thanks to their sharp eyes, though you can certainly kill any of these species while wearing a pair of Carhartts.

Layers

Like most outdoor and athletic pursuits, layers are key and cotton is your enemy. The weather on a hunt can range from steamy 80-degree days during early bow seasons to the fridge temperatures of deep winter. Layers allow you to dress for the weather and the type of hunting you’re doing. If you’re going to be sitting in a deer blind most of fall, you’ll need more layers than if you’re chasing elk all over the mountains.

Base layers (long underwear and a long john top) are the best place to start. These should be synthetic or merino wool—wicking fabrics that keep you warm even if you get sweaty then start to cool down. Synthetic or wool socks are key, too. If you need mid-layers, opt for a sweatshirt, a fleece, a down vest—whatever fits under your outer layers and keeps you warm without adding too much bulk. You’ll likely want a camo jacket and camo pants, both dedicated outer layers. If you don’t have camo, wear natural, neutral colors like green, tan, brown, or gray.

Boots

A good pair of boots can make or break your hunt, so it’s wise to invest in a pair of these. Again, these don’t need to be camo, but many good hunting boots are available in camo patterns.

The type of boot you choose will depend on where you live and what you want to hunt, but it’s hard to go wrong with a durable mid-calf leather boot. Something similar to the classic, ever-popular Danner Pronghorn is a good place to start. Hiking boots can work well for early-season hunts across dry terrain. If you want to do a lot of backcountry hunting that requires packing heavy loads, you’ll want a sturdier boot built for that kind of weight. If you live in swampy country or you’re planning to turkey hunt (which often coincides with heavy spring rains), you’ll probably want a pair of knee-high rubber boots. Pay attention to whether your boots are waterproof, and what kind (if any) insulation they have.

Big Game Gear

If you’re going to be hunting deer from a treestand, invest in a safety harness. Think of it like a helmet for your bike: You probably won’t need it, but if and when you do, it could save your life. If you’re planning to hunt whitetails in the timber on public land, you’re also going to want a climbing stand. If you’d prefer to hunt on the ground, opt for a collapsible ground blind. Other important gear includes a pair of binoculars, a hunting pack, a bottle of wind indicator, and a haul line to raise and lower your bow or rifle if you’re hunting from a treestand.

Turkey Hunting

Camo is your friend when it comes to turkeys. You’ll want a face mask and thin camo gloves, and a box or friction call to get started. If you’re really intimidated by calling, try a push-button call. Many turkey hunters prefer to wear a vest with a built-in seat cushion, but a small camo hunting pack is fine if you don’t have one. You’ll also need decoys. If you only have the budget for one decoy, get a hen deke; if you can afford two, opt for a hen and a jake. A small pair of binoculars on a bino harness are handy, too.

Waterfowl Gear

This is one of the most gear-intensive types of hunting, which often requires lots of decoys and, frequently, a good duck dog. For new hunters, your best bet is to tag along with an experienced waterfowler, who can hopefully lend you a pair of waders (which aren’t cheap). If you’re field hunting, you can skip the waders and wear regular hunting boots or, better yet, a pair of knee-high rubber boots. You’ll also want to bring along ear plugs or electronic ear protection, especially if you’re hunting in a metal pit blind. Without them, fast shooting by multiple hunters can damage your hearing and give you a ringing headache in short order. Bring a camo hat to conceal your face from sharp-eyed ducks. If you already have a pump or semi-auto shotgun, bring it; if not, ask to borrow one.

Upland Gear

Camo isn’t important for hunting rabbits and upland birds like pheasants, quail and grouse. This style of hunting involves covering lots of ground and combing heavy brush to flush animals rather than hiding from them. Wear a pair of sturdy pants that can protect you from thorns and cacti. Don’t forget to layer, too. Even if it’s frigid out, you’ll warm up quickly. Good boots are critical on an upland hunt, and you typically want something lighter-weight without too much insulation. Hiking boots with good ankle support are a fine option if the terrain is dry or steep, but sloppy and snowy conditions call for a waterproof or warmer higher-profile hunting boot.

Women’s Gear

If you’re having a hard time finding hunting gear that fits you well, you’re not alone. Check out our women’s gear guides here and here for our favorite women’s hunting pants, boots, sports bras, and more.

Accessories

Don’t forget blaze orange (if required), a beanie or ball cap, gloves, and a camo face mask for bowhunting or turkey hunting (though you can use face paint if you prefer.) Remember to pack a hunting knife for any gutting or cleaning work (see the section on butchering, below, for more). —N.K.

5. Guns, Ammo, and Shooting Practice

By Alex Robinson

If you’re a recreational shooter who’s looking to get into hunting, this part will be pretty easy for you. Just make sure you’re getting plenty of practice, you choose quality hunting ammo, and you keep shots at game within a comfortable distance. But if you’re totally new to firearms, this can be one of the most intimidating aspects of getting in to hunting.

The first thing to know is that most folks in the firearm world are nice, friendly people who are usually more than willing to offer some help to a beginner. That’s even true if they may seem a little rough around the edges at first.

If you have a friend who is a hunter or shooter, ask them to introduce you to shooting with either an air rifle or rimfire rifle. The low recoil will allow you to practice good shooting form without taking a beating and potentially developing bad habits like flinching or jerking the trigger.

If you don’t know any shooters, find a nearby range that offers a course or class for beginners. Letting someone walk you through safe firearm handling and good shooting form will help you immensely. (Pro tip: Check your eye dominance before getting started.) You’ll get a little bit of this instruction in hunter’s education, but not nearly enough to make you a competent shooter in the field.

Your First Gun

Once you’ve got the basics down and have a little experience under your belt, it’s time to get a gun of your own. Choose a gun based on your hunting need and the regulations in your area. When you’re looking for a rifle or a shotgun, remember that you get what you pay for. If you’re looking for an affordable rifle or shotgun, you’ll be able to find a solid gun in the $500 range. Call a few gun shops and explain what you’re looking for. If they start trying to talk you into a gun that costs $1,000 or more, take your business somewhere else.

When you’re starting out, lighter calibers and smaller gauges are the way to go. Think .243 or 6.5 Creedmoor for rifles and 20 gauges for shotguns. Getting rocked by recoil on your first few trips to the range is going to slow your development as a shooter.

Once you’ve got a gun, there’s plenty to consider: safe storage, getting it sighted in, buying ammo, and cleaning it. Besides the safety aspect, your main job now is to practice with it and get comfortable handling it. This means spending as much range time as possible, which is good, because once you get comfortable, you’ll find that shooting is pretty damn fun. Just wear good hearing protection and eye protection, and follow all the range rules. And if you don’t know what the rules are or have questions about them, just ask!

Make sure your practice replicates what you’ll see in the field as closely as possible. When it comes to rifle shooting, that means practicing from field positions (after your rifle is zeroed, of course). If you’re trying to get into bird hunting, consider signing up for a sporting clays or skeet league, or even a wingshooting clinic. This will sharpen your skills and give you the chance to meet other shooters.

Just remember: The primary goals here are 1) to get comfortable with safely handling the gun you plan to hunt with and 2) to become competent with that firearm so you’re able to make a quick, clean kill in the field.

Making Shots on Game

Shooting a game animal is more challenging than shooting targets at the range. This is because you will be excited and there will be additional variables that affect the shot. This includes a moving animal, brush obscuring part of the critter, cold fingers, or wind swaying your treestand. Because of this, it’s extra important to only shoot at animals that are well inside of your comfortable range. For many first-time big game hunters, that means inside 200 yards with a rifle and well inside 100 yards for with a shotgun or muzzleloader.

Each hunter must decide his or her own ethical maximum range. But here’s a good rule of thumb to follow: you should be able to hit a target the size of the animal’s vitals 100 percent of the time. If you can’t, you need to move closer. Also, your maximum effective range may change depending on field conditions. Maybe you can’t get a steady rest, or the wind is ripping across the canyon. If you have any doubts, don’t take the shot and move closer, or wait and let the critter move closer to you.

6. How to Find a Place to Hunt

There are two versions of hunting ground—public and private. Many diehard hunters rely on a mix of private and public hunting land and there are pros and cons of each. But the goal when you’re starting out is to find land that is relatively easy for you to get to, has a good population of the game you’re targeting, and isn’t overloaded with other hunters.

Private Land

In an ideal scenario, you already have access to private land to hunt on. Maybe your family owns land or you’ve got friends who hunt and will give you access. This isn’t the case for many folks, but that doesn’t mean you’re out of luck on private ground. It’s definitely possible to get free access to private hunting land, but you’ll have to do some leg work. Identify nearby landowners (using a digital mapping app like HuntStand or onX Hunt) who have properties that look promising and simply go ask them for permission to hunt.

A couple important tips: It’s easier to get permission for small game or turkeys than it is for deer; get permission before the season starts; don’t stop by late at night or when the landowner might be eating dinner; cash crop famers are more likely to grant permission; be nice and courteous no matter how the landowner responds.

If asking permission on private ground seems too intimidating, you could also consider leasing land to hunt. There are plenty of websites that show which lands are available for leasing. Consider a small out-of-the way property and also splitting the lease with a hunting buddy.

Public Land

On the flip side, there’s public land. Most state wild game agency websites have maps that show designated public hunting lands. Some states, like Montana, have an incredible amount of public land that is open to hunting. Other states, like Illinois, have a minimal amount of public ground.

Once you get an idea of public land areas nearby, you’ll want to do some basic digital scouting. This means using a mapping app or Google Earth to check out satellite images of the property. Take note of access points, terrain features, and potential habitat. After identifying some likely areas, go check out the properties well before the season (see the “scouting” section below).

There are a couple important things to consider when looking for public-land hunting spots. First, any areas that are a short drive from large towns or cities will likely see a heavy amount of hunting pressure. You can have success on these areas, but the hunting is more challenging (because the critters are conditioned to avoid hunting pressure) and you need to be careful about bumping in to other hunters.

Read next: Newbie’s Guide to Hunting-Spot Etiquette

If you are in good physical condition and like to hike, use that to your advantage on public land. Most hunters set up relatively close to parking areas. The farther away you get from roads and other hunters, the more game you will find. Look for signs of other hunters out there. That means boot tracks, glow tacks, manmade trails, and stands or blinds. If you’re seeing a ton of hunter sign, you probably want to move on to a new spot. Also, use terrain obstacles like marshes or streams to your advantage. Most other hunters will not want to cross these obstacles, so throwing on a pair of waders and making the slog can often lead you to better hunting opportunities. —A.R.

7. Basic Tactics for Any Hunt

Every hunt for each different species calls for different tactics. Your hunting strategy can even change based on location, or weather, or season. But there are some very basic tactics that all hunts require no matter what the game or location. Understanding these basics will help you grow into a better, more effective hunter.

Scout More Than You Hunt

The most successful hunters spend more time scouting than hunting. Learn to love scouting—exploring new areas, learning about the species you’re hunting, and spending lots and lots of time outside. The goal here is to find areas that game animals hang out in before you actually start hunting. You can do this by spotting the animals, or by reading sign they’ve left in the area. Before the season starts, it’s a good idea to get out and walk the areas you plan to hunt. This will help you determine if there are critters around, but it will also help you get more familiar with the terrain. As you walk a new property, imagine that you’re a critter trying to travel through an area without getting spotted. Pay attention to the trails you take. Often times they will lead to natural terrain funnels (like a strip of dry ground between two ponds). These are good places to target and if you walk trails back from these funnels, they’ll often lead you to bedding areas or feeding areas. If it’s legal where you are hunting, setting trail cameras is an invaluable scouting strategy.

Once the season begins, keep scouting! Now you must try to find areas to hunt without spooking game. If you’re after deer or turkeys, that usually means exploring new areas midday, when the animals aren’t moving as much (you don’t want to scare them out of the area). You can also scout from your vehicle with binoculars. In more open country, just driving roads in the mornings or evenings can give you an idea of the areas animals are using. For example, if you’re after waterfowl, driving around and watching where ducks and geese are flying and feeding is key.

Get Sneaky

Animals know when they are being hunted. You’ve probably seen deer in a park or maybe even in your backyard. Those deer might have mostly ignored you, maybe they let you get close to snap a photo with your phone. But deer on public hunting ground (or private ground) won’t let you do this during hunting season. All wild animals have incredible senses and survival instincts. To get close to wild game on their turf, you’ve got to be stealthy enough to slide in under those senses, undetected.

It starts with being quiet. When you are in your hunting area, walk softly and slowly. This helps you avoid that loud crunching march of a hunter tromping though the woods, which wild game recognizes instantly. But it also gets you in the right mind set. It forces you to slow down, think, and watch before you move. Speak softly, too. The human voice carries an incredible distance in the woods. But on top of that, staying quiet will help you hear game coming. The quieter you are, the easier it is to hear all the sounds around you, like a turkey gobbling on a distant ridge, or a deer shuffling through the hardwoods.

If you are hunting big game, your most important consideration is wind direction. The sense of smell is the most powerful survival characteristic for critters like deer, bears, elk, and antelope. The only way to truly beat a big game animal’s nose is to use the wind in your favor. You want stay downwind of the critters, but also downwind of their bedding areas and trails. A simple windicator is an essential tool for any big game hunter. It will help you see how the wind swirls in valleys or drainages and shifts throughout the day.

And you also have to beat wild game’s vision. Camouflage clothing is useful, especially for sharp-eyed game like turkeys or waterfowl, but it isn’t essential. Dressing in earth-tone clothing that is quiet and suitable for the weather conditions works just fine. The real secret is to use the terrain and conditions to avoid being spotted. Don’t stand at the top of an open hill or ridge. This is called skylining yourself, because you stick out obviously against the skyline. Try to keep the sun at your back when possible and stay in shaded areas (animals can catch the glare off you and your gear if you’re in open, direct sunlight). If you are stopping to take a break or maybe do some calling, keep a wide tree at your back. If you’re hanging a treestand, pick a spot where the trunk and branches will break up your outline. Always use the terrain around you to break up your human profile.

Be Patient

A lot of content and advertising around hunting pitches the experience as an action-packed, adrenaline-fueled, adventure. It’s true that those moments exist in hunting, but for most of the time you’ll be sitting quietly, watching, listening, and WAITING.

This in fact, is the hardest part of hunting for many people—establishing the right mindset so that you are happy to go into the woods by yourself and sit quietly for hours on end, while still being focused enough to detect game before it detects you.

The secret is to enjoy the wait. Slow it all down. Watch the natural world come alive around you. Listen to the birds, look for squirrels, stay alert and stay off your damn phone. If you do this for long enough, the critter you are hunting will appear and then the adrenaline-packed showdown can begin. But even if the critter doesn’t show, you’ll have appreciated a different experience—the experience of actually hunting. My general rule is this: Wait until you are totally certain no game will show up, then give it another 30 minutes (or just wait until legal shooting light ends). —A.R.

8. Field-Dressing, Butchering, and Cooking

By Gerry Bethge

The plan was a good one, and four years in the making. Tucked into my fanny pack was a laminated card with step-by-step illustrations on how to gut a deer. As a kid, I studied that card far more than I ever had my homework, praying that I’d someday need to refer to it. Although I had cached its words and line-drawings to memory, it brought confidence to a young hunter and I checked to make sure it was in its proper pocket, right next to the dragging rope, each time I went afield. Two days before Thanksgiving in 1977, I had cause to use it. The 6-point buck I shot with my bow only went 30 yards before dropping in a stream.

In the times before headlamps, gutting a deer in the dark meant trying to steady a flashlight on the deer’s brisket while unzipping the hide on its belly. That went okay, but in short order I found that I needed to refer to my instructional card. Once I shined my flashlight into the buck’s guts, I realized there was no orderly compartmentalization of lungs, heart, diaphragm, liver, and intestines, as my card suggested. It all looked intermingled—with lots of blood.

A full hour later—a rather macabre yet clean gutting job completed—I was finally on my way back to the house. I hung the buck to cool and, when I cooked that first piece of meat, the venison tasted better than anything I had ever eaten before. That lesson in wild-game handling would remain indelibly ingrained in my mind. Whether big game, small game, or wildfowl, what you do before and after the shot will have the biggest effect on its palatability.

These are my simple rules for great-tasting game each and every time.

1. Get to the Range

No matter what the hunting implement, becoming proficient with it is crucial for clean, quick kills. You owe it to the game that you are hunting and you owe it to the folks who will eventually be eating it. The only way to do it is to get to the gun or bow range as often as possible to practice. Shoot, shoot, shoot—and then shoot some more. Make certain that your gun or bow functions properly, but above all know your capabilities and avoid taking risky shots at game or birds. The more quickly it expires, the better it will taste.

2. Gut It Quickly

Proper field care of wild game should begin the moment the animal hits the ground. If not, the result will be poor or gamey-tasting meat. To avoid this, you need to be prepared with the proper tools. Most importantly, a sharp knife, latex gloves, and the proper means to transport your game. Whether you are gutting big game, small game, or birds, take the utmost care not to puncture the stomach contents, intestines, or bladder during the evisceration process or risk tainting the meat. It’s also important to avoid contaminating the internal body cavity with dirt or debris. If contamination does occur, wipe it clean as quickly as possible.

3. Cool It Down

Next to gut matter and dirt, heat is the biggest detriment to great tasting wild game. It’s, therefore, critical to cool down bird and animal carcasses as quickly and efficiently as feasible. Thorough field dressing begins the process and is typically sufficient if it is not too warm during a day hunt. If not too warm—40 degrees—big game can be hung in a garage or barn for several days prior to butchering, although the more consistent temperature of a walk-in cooler is far more ideal. Game birds and small game such as rabbits can be more quickly butchered and prepared for the freezer.

4. Cut It Up

Loads of information is available on proper game and bird butchering. But no rule is more important than to use the proper tools—a sharp knife, a skinning knife, and meat saw—and to work on a clean surface in order to keep the meat dirt-free. Although butchering your own game might seem intimidating at first, you’ll get the hang of it. If you’re not interested in trying this, you can always drop your deer off at a professional game processor. Plenty of hunters do this, and receive professionally cut and wrapped packages of venison in a few days. This will cost you somewhere between $50 to $120 for deer, depending on how big the animal is and how much your butcher charges.

If you want to try it yourself, here’s how. For big game, begin by extracting the inner loins located on the inside of the body cavity. They run along the spine. Most hunters remove these first, because they tend to dry out quickly. These and the backstraps, which are located along the backbone outside of the body cavity are considered to be the best portions of meat. Halve the backstraps for better portion size. Meat from the neck, front shoulders and legs is often ground and mixed with ground pork or beef fat for the best flavor and consistency, or turned into sausage. To prepare the larger hind quarters for freezing, simply separate the muscle groups by running your knife blade along the seams and lines that are clearly visible on the quarters. Once separated, these larger cuts of meat can be further cut into steaks or roasts to freeze.

Gamebirds and small game are even simpler to butcher. Once plucked, skinned, and washed, they can be either frozen whole or separated into smaller portions. For ducks and other gamebirds, you can also use your hands to tear open the skin above the breast, and then use a sharp knife to fillet the breast meat off the bone.

Read next: 10 Mistakes Most Hunters Make When Cooking Wild Game

5. Freeze It

Much like temperature is the enemy of game in the field, air is the enemy of game in the freezer. So no matter whether using a vacuum sealer or ordinary butcher wrap, it’s important to remove all the air from your packaging in order to avoid freezer burn. If opting for butcher wrap, it’s a good idea to first seal the meat in plastic wrap and then butcher paper. To ensure the best quality results, add several packages of meat to a resealable plastic freezer bag and immerse it into a sink of cold water. The water will force out all the air. Seal the bag, and now your game meat is ready for the freezer.

6. Cook It

Wild game and birds can provide some of the best meals available anywhere—if they’re prepared correctly. Poor-tasting game is almost always the result of having not followed the previous rules. Take proper care of game from field to freezer and it will almost always taste great—with a couple of caveats. Because game is naturally low in fat, it’s important not to overcook it unless you’re opting to use it in a braised dish or pot roast. Although some might disagree, it’s also full of deep, rich flavor making it a minimalist’s dream. Venison loin and steaks, for example, are served best when cooked medium rare in butter, salt, and pepper. Gamebird breasts and small game such as rabbit deserve similar treatment. It’s always fun to experiment with various recipes, but you might want to save that for store-bought meats and poultry.

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A new survey of Americans’ attitudes toward hunting, fishing, trapping, and recreational shooting shows support for all those activities dropped over the past three years, even as the Covid-19 pandemic pushed more people into America’s woods, waters, and shooting ranges.

The drop in public support for legal field sports comes after nearly 30 years of increasingly favorable attitudes, and may reflect a wider and growing discomfort with activities that are considered the domains of mainly white, rural, older males. 

The “Americans’ Attitudes Toward Legal, Regulated Fishing, Target/Sport Shooting, Hunting, and Trapping” survey, conducted by Responsive Management, was released last month by the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation, a think tank devoted to communicating trends in outdoor activities.

The Outdoor Life Podcast: Public Approval for Hunting Drops Sharply

The multi-modal survey of over 2,000 respondents was conducted this spring, and asked participants from every region of the country a wide range of questions about their attitudes toward regulated hunting and fishing, recreational shooting, and regulated trapping. Public approval for each activity showed declines from a similar survey conducted in 2019. In some cases, it recorded the lowest approval rating for some types of hunting in 30 years of similar surveys.

Public approval of legal hunting dropped 4 percentage points over the past two years, from about 81 percent of Americans in 2021 to 77 percent of Americans this year. Approval of recreational shooting dropped 3 percentage points, and approval of recreational fishing also dropped 3 points, to 90 percent favorability.

Respondents were not only asked if they strongly or moderately approve of those activities, but also if they strongly or moderately disapprove of them. That disapproval rating was also among the highest recorded in the decades-long survey. Seventeen percent of Americans strongly or moderately disapprove of legal hunting, 18 disapprove of recreational shooting, and 5 percent disapprove of fishing.

Public attitudes toward trapping are perennially low, with about 54 percent of Americans approving of regulated trapping and 28 percent expressing disapproval with the activity.

The survey drilled into public attitudes about methods and motivations for hunting, and again, nearly every category saw statistically significant declines over the past few years. Hunting either to protect humans from harm or for wildlife management purposes had the highest approval rating, at 78 and 77 percent, respectively. Hunting “for the meat” had a 75 percent approval rating this year, down from 84 percent in 2019. Surprisingly, hunting “to get locally sourced food” or “to get organic meat” showed major declines in approval, down 11 and 14 percentage points, respectively, from a similar question in 2019.

Deer and wild turkey hunting had the highest species-specific approval ratings, with 70 percent of Americans approving of deer hunting and 69 percent of Americans approving of turkey hunting. Hunting for rabbits, ducks, squirrels, elk, and alligator all had approval ratings of over 55 percent. But when asked about legal hunting for black bear, dove, grizzly bear, wolf, and mountain lion, public disapproval exceeded approval.

Some 69 percent of Americans approve of hunting with a bow and arrow while 66 percent approve of hunting with a firearm. Fifty-two percent approve of hunting with dogs. But disapproval exceeded approval for methods of hunting that imply that humans have too much advantage over wildlife, including using scents that attract game, hunting over bait, hunting on a property that has a high fence around it, or using high-tech gear for hunting.

Results of this most recent survey are worth considering, says Mark Damian Duda, executive director of Responsive Management, which conducted the survey. Duda has been surveying Americans about their attitudes toward hunting, fishing, trapping, and shooting for over 30 years, asking generally the same questions every three years or so in order to establish reliable long-term trends.

“This survey is quite sensitive to changes in attitude, and all of the drops in approval are statistically significant,” says Duda. “These are not incremental changes, but rather meaningful drops. Each one percent of change represents 2.5 million Americans, so when we see approval go down by 3 to 4 percentage points, we’re talking about as many as 10 million Americans.

“Two years ago—when we last conducted the survey—we had 81 percent support or approval of legal hunting,” he adds. “Now we have 77 percent. And on the other end of the spectrum, when we ask about disapproval of hunting, we see that rise from 12 percent to 17 percent of Americans. That’s worth looking at and taking note of.”

Duda cautions people not to dismiss the survey as a single point in time.

“Yes, this is a single study we’re talking about,” he says. “But I saw indications of these trends at the very beginning of the year. Our company does a lot of individual state surveys every year, commissioned by state natural-resource agencies, and I saw the decline [enumerated in the national survey] in five different states and five different studies. When you see the same results in conglomerate, then you can have strong confidence in the trend, and that it’s not an expression of a single point in time or point of view.”

Hunting Approval Depends on Region and Demographics

While 77 percent of Americans strongly or moderately approve of legal hunting, only 65 percent of African American residents approve of legal hunting. The group with the lowest approval of legal hunting—at 61 percent—is Hispanic or Latino Americans. And in terms of age groups, while 81 percent of Americans age 55 or older approve of hunting, only 69 percent of respondents from 18 to 34 years old approve.

Generally speaking, the groups that had the highest favorability toward hunting are those who have hunted, shot recreationally, or fished in the past three years, live in a rural area, are male, white or Caucasian, 35 years or older, live in the Midwest, and reside in a small city or town.

The groups with the lowest approval of hunting are Black, Hispanic, did not fish or shoot in the past three years, are between 18 and 34 years old, are female, live in the Pacific West region, and reside in a large city, urban area, or suburban area.

Regionally, the lowest approval rating for hunting was in the West, where 74 percent of respondents said they strongly or moderately approve of hunting. The approval percentage was 75 percent in the Northeast, 78 percent in the South, and 80 percent in the Midwest. The region with the highest disapproval rate for hunting was the West, with 20 percent disapproving of the activity. Only 13 percent of Midwesterners reported disapproving of hunting.

The survey also measured regional attitudes toward recreational shooting, legal recreational fishing, and regulated trapping. The region with the highest fishing approval was the Midwest (92 percent) followed closely by the South (91) and the West (90 percent). Approval for recreational shooting was strongest in the Midwest, with 82 percent favorability. Meanwhile, only 73 percent of New Englanders approve of shooting, with 22 percent disapproving of the activity.

Support for trapping was strongest in the Midwest, with 54 percent approving of the activity. It was lowest in the West, with 51 percent approving, and 32 percent disapproving.

Is it Okay for Other People to Hunt?

For more than two decades, respondents to the survey have been asked whether they agreed that others can hunt in accordance with regulations. The idea for the question is to get a feeling for indirect support, even if respondents themselves don’t hunt.

This year, 86 percent of respondents strongly or moderately agreed that it’s okay for other people to hunt. That’s a significant decline from 2011 and 2019, when 95 percent and 92 percent, respectively, of Americans said it’s okay for other people to hunt. It’s a question that may have implications for ballot initiatives or other electoral attempts to regulate hunting or wildlife management.

The groups most likely to strongly or moderately agree that it’s okay for other people to hunt are, not surprisingly, similar to those who support hunting in general: those who have hunted, fished, or shot in the past three years, live in rural areas, and are Midwestern white males over 34 years old.

The groups least likely to agree that it’s okay for other people to hunt: Hispanics, Blacks, Americans from 18 to 34 years old, and urban females from the West Coast.

Duda says this particular question is among the most resonant of the survey, because it gets at hardening opinions about hunting and shooting.

“I’m a researcher, and it’s not my business to tell you why we’re seeing these changes,” Duda says. “But I can tell you that we are definitely losing support among younger Americans. We [sportsmen and women] are not talking to Black or Hispanic communities, and we need to do a better job of reaching urban people and women.

“In my opinion, our community has a lot of work to do,” continues Duda. “We need to put more money and effort into campaigns to increase the cultural support for hunting. There are some good efforts out there—the National Wild Turkey Federation has been a leader, and I wrote a book called How to Talk About Hunting that gives some concrete suggestions of what needs to be done. Some of it is obvious. If you’re posting on Facebook and talking about ‘killing-and-grilling,’ you are not helping the cause. When we talk about hunting and shooting, the words we use are incredibly important, and the way we portray what and why we do matters.”

Duda also thinks larger cultural divisions are influencing Americans’ attitudes toward hunting, shooting, and fishing.

“In the past, people might be okay with other people doing all these things, but now that people are increasingly picking sides, I think there’s a perception that if people belonging to another group do these things, then they automatically oppose it. And of course, that’s accelerated when people don’t have personal, positive experience with these traditional activities of hunting, fishing, trapping, and shooting. I think we need to actively introduce or reintroduce these activities to more new people.”

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I was nine years old, pressing my nose up against the cold bedroom window. Outside, my father and older brother walked toward the woods to go deer hunting, their blaze-orange knit hats bobbing up and down. I remember in that moment wishing that I had been born a boy so that I could go hunting with my dad too.

It was the late 90s then, and I hadn’t met any female hunters yet in my short lifetime. My mother wasn’t a hunter. My grandmothers and their mothers before them had never hunted. So, I just assumed that only men were hunters. But that didn’t change the fact that, deep down, I wanted nothing more than to be one.

One day I mustered the courage to tell my dad that I wished that I could go hunting, too. He was surprised, but he didn’t skip a beat either. I was enrolled in my hunter’s safety course immediately. By spring, I was officially a licensed hunter.

As I grew older, I noticed other women who hunted, both in real life and in history books. Brenda Valentine was at the top of the list, showing up in the pages of Turkey Call and the Red Head. My favorite historical figure was Annie Oakley, the famous sharpshooter in the late 1800s. I read everything I could about them. Fast forward to today, and I have been hunting for more than 20 years. Women are one of the fastest growing demographic of hunters. We may still be the “minority,” but we are no longer so rare.

But the proportion of hunters who are female—10 percent in 2016, according to the USFWS—is still well below our historic hunting rates.

A study published last fall detailed the discovery of a 9,000-year-old female big-game hunter in what is now southern Peru. The young woman, estimated between 17 and 19 years old, was buried with a hunting toolkit of stone projectile points and animal processing tools.

Archeologists concluded that among ancient big-game hunters, as many as 50 percent were women, “indicating that big-game hunting was likely gender neutral or nearly so among Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene populations.”

Most people think ancient hunter-gatherer societies divided duties strictly along gender lines: men hunted, women gathered. This recent discovery, among other research, proves otherwise. Yet I feel no surprise at all. This proves what I have always felt to be true: Women have always been hunters. And that 50 percent finding tracks today: According to a recent survey of college students who had never hunted, but indicated they might like to, nearly half were women. And another recent study from June 2023, found that among 63 modern hunter-gatherer cultures, 73 percent of women participate in hunting. Researchers say women not only participated in hunting (most often big game) but taught others to hunt, used a wider variety of weapons than men, and were key for providing wild meat for their families.

Look back through documented history and you’ll find far more male hunters than female. Yet, hunting was the key to survival, so it only makes sense that it was an all-hands-on-deck situation. Women played a huge part in providing for their families then, as we do now. This resonates with me even more now that I’m a mother. Humans depended on hunting to survive, and I can’t imagine not being a part of that effort.

Modern Women Hunt Too—Quit Acting Surprised

I liked reading those stories about Annie Oakley so much because I could relate to her so well. One of my favorite quotes of hers is this: “When a man hits a target they call it marksmanship. When I hit a target, they call it a trick. Never did like that much.”

I’ve experienced all kinds of reactions when people find out I’m a hunter. Some are positive, others negative. I haven’t liked all those responses, but none have ever deterred me, either. People make assumptions about me based on my appearance, and it takes people by surprise that I go into the woods by myself, kill an animal, and bring it home. They say things like, “Why not just go buy meat at the store?” and “Doesn’t your husband go with you?”

At the age of 20, I killed a big buck during early muzzleloader season in northern New Jersey. I stopped at a little hole in the wall sporting goods store on my way home to pick up some more muzzleloader supplies for the rest of the season. As I slid out of my truck, I noticed several hunters outside the shop. They were smoking cigarettes and sipping steaming coffee out of cardboard cups.

“Did you shoot that buck?” one of them asked, eyeing the antlers that rose above the tailgate.

I smiled and nodded as one of them approached to take a better look.

“Are you sure your boyfriend didn’t shoot it?”

I laughed this time and assured him that the buck was indeed mine, before walking past the men into the warm shop.

A few years later, I was on my way home from a friend’s house late one night. I was out later than I’d planned and had an early morning the next day, so I was speeding a little to get home. I was cruising through town when I saw red and blue lights in my rear-view mirror.

I pulled over and got out the usual paperwork from my glove box. I had a clean record, so hoped I wouldn’t get a ticket. The officer approached my window and asked the usual questions about why I was speeding, and I handed him my driver’s license. He looked at my license and back at me, then at my truck.

“Are you that girl who hunts all the time?”

I started laughing. “Yes, that’s me.”

Read Next: After Being Barred from the Men-Only Family Deer Camp, Beginner’s Luck with a 215-Inch Iowa Buck

We had a short conversation about hunting, as he was also a hunter. He let me go with a warning.

Some hunters treat me like an outsider, while others welcome me as part of the club. Today, women are still questioned about whether we’re truly hunters. Surely we’re just hanging onto the coattails of our significant others. We often must prove ourselves and our knowledge before being taken seriously. The recent rise in “Instagram huntresses,” women who I’ll define as often pretending to hunt to get free gear and gain likes, has done little to help genuine female hunters earn respect. While trends like those make it harder for us to be accepted as hunters, it also doesn’t matter much. Those of us who hunt for the love of it tend to ignore the noise and keep hunting. Because we’ve always been hunters, and always will be.

The post Newsflash: Women Have Been Hunters as Long as Hunting Has Existed appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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I UNSLUNG MY SHOTGUN and army-crawled beneath the barbed-wire fence. Then I got to my feet and hustled along the field edge in the dark. The lights of the farmyard glowed up on the hill, and I walked quickly to create more distance between myself and the neat white house where I imagined a farmer was making coffee and preparing for his morning chores. I’ll admit, what I was doing felt sketchy. I didn’t have permission from the farmer to hunt his ground. In fact, I’d never met him.

But I wasn’t trespassing. 

I was hunting on Turkey Hunter Access Program land, which is privately owned ground where public hunting is allowed—but only during spring turkey season. This is thanks to a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources plan that pays landowners $5 per acre to let me (and other turkey hunters) prowl their property. 

What an ingenious program, I thought as I hiked the 600-plus-acre farm that seemingly no one else was hunting that morning. The landowner earned more than $3,000 from the state, but the state taxpayers weren’t taking the hit, because the DNR paid the landowner through turkey stamp dollars, federal grant money, and National Wild Turkey Federation funding. The end result is that hunters get access to private land without paying for it, except for a $5.25 turkey stamp.

As it turns out, there are programs like this one expanding across the country. They offer private landowners payments, tax benefits, and habitat improvements through federal or state funding. In return, landowners open their properties to public hunting. In the Midwest, East, and South, where most of the best ground is privately owned, the concept of public conservation and recreation on private land could be the silver bullet for so many of our hunting-access shortages and habitat issues. But these programs are generally so underfunded, obscure, and, frankly, boring that they haven’t gotten the love they deserve. And in some states, the programs are facing competition from outfitters who are looking to privately lease large tracts of land and ambivalence from transplant landowners who don’t like the idea of public hunters on their newly purchased hobby farms. 

Somewhere in the distance a turkey gobbled and I picked up my pace. This may be private land, but it’s a public gobbler—and I was determined to beat my fellow turkey hunters to him. 

Paying for Access

You’ve probably heard of these voluntary access programs or seen their property boundaries on a digital mapping app. Commonly referred to as walk-in areas, they are all essentially the same in concept, even though each program is called something frivolously different in each state. In Ohio it’s OLHAP, in Kansas it’s WIHA, in North Dakota it’s PLOTS, and in Virginia its POWRR (what these abbreviations actually stand for is irrelevant, so I refuse to spell them out). 

All of these programs are funded by federal dollars through the Farm Bill under VPA-HIP (another abbreviation I won’t bore you with by naming fully). In 2019, there were $50 million available for states to vie for. Twenty-six states and one Native American tribe were awarded funding in 2020. The most that any received was $3 million (Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Virginia). While many states prop up their access programs with hunting-license dollars or donations from outdoorsmen, the federal funding is lifeblood for most programs in the East.

In the upcoming Farm Bill, which will likely pass late this year or next, there’s a plan to triple funding to $150 million. While that sounds like a nice chunk of change, it’s a tiny drop in the bucket of what could become the first trillion-dollar Farm Bill.

Of the dozen experts I talked to about voluntary access programs, none could pinpoint a single strong and clear opponent to expanding funding for voluntary public access. The plan to increase funding has bipartisan support. It’s being pushed by two Republican senators from Montana and Kansas and a Democrat from Colorado. And yet, the $150 million is not guaranteed. 

“The Farm Bill is a delicate compromise,” says Whit Fosburgh, president and CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. TRCP helped work the first VPA funding into the 2008 Farm Bill. “The biggest issue would be overall constraints in the broader bill. If every program takes a haircut, we won’t get $150 million.

“But nobody dislikes this program.… If you’re a fiscal conservative who believes the states, not the federal government, should be the locus of power, this program is for you. If you’re a fan of private landowners, this works for you. If you like hunting and fishing access, this works for you. If you’re a fan of conservation, this works for you. The program transcends partisan boundaries.”

Even if the $150 million in funding does pass, it’s not enough to create landscape-level changes just yet. Yes, these programs are growing, but slowly.

“That’s a result of the available resources,” says Backcountry Hunters and Anglers president and CEO Land Tawney. “Fifty million dollars split among 26 states is not a lot of cash. You can’t grow quickly like that. The states want to invest, and they’re investing some of their own money, but this program needs to help supplement their investment.” 

VPA-HIP doesn’t have a clear battle cry, like BHA’s “Keep it Public” slogan or a compelling do-or-die story like Bristol Bay’s threat from the Pebble Mine. It won’t grab national headlines when exponentially larger and more controversial Farm Bill issues—like the food stamp program, which is currently estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over 10 years—overshadow it.

“Folks may be utilizing programs that are funded by VPA-HIP and they don’t even know it,” says Tawney. “It’s very similar to the Land and Water Conservation Fund.”

In case you don’t remember (and why would you?), the LWCF takes royalties from offshore oil and gas drilling operations and allocates them to local conservation and recreation projects ranging from national wildlife refuges to city parks. After years of bargaining and petitioning by its proponents, the once underappreciated LWCF received full and permanent funding in 2020 under the Trump Administration.

Perhaps with enough advocacy, VPA-HIP will have its day in the sun, too.

Public Pressure 

Hunters in the East need more public access immediately, or sooner. The National Deer Association released a report earlier this year that stated 88 percent of whitetails killed in the Midwest, South, and Northeast are taken on private land. Let that sink in for a moment: Private-land hunters are killing about nine deer for every public land hunter’s one. 

Regionally, 81 percent of the Northeast harvest, 91 percent of the Midwest harvest, and 93 percent of the Southeast harvest occurred on private land. Texas, where 93 percent of land is privately owned, leads the country with 99 percent of its deer harvests taking place on private ground.

“The deer hunting tradition, at least in the East and Midwest, has always been founded in private lands,” says Torin Miller, senior director of policy for NDA. “Farmers hunting their own land and inviting their family and friends to hunt, too—that’s just the way it is.”

But when states and organizations like NDA work to recruit new deer hunters, those folks will need productive places to go. Recruitment and access are core issues for NDA, Miller says. 

The person signing up for a Field to Fork program is more likely to live in a city or suburb than on a sprawling farm. They’re not going to want to throw down for an expensive lease or outfitted hunt. 

In popular deer hunting states where more than 90 percent of the ground is privately owned—like Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, and Oklahoma—voluntary public access programs seem to be the only real option for growing public hunting. 

For all of the attention and controversy that Western public land issues drive (think corner crossing in Wyoming, Montana elk management, Bears Ears Monument in Utah), the Midwest and South are home to the vast majority of America’s hunters. For example, in NDA’s 2020 report, Texas alone reported more deer hunters (770,000) than all of the Western states combined. 

The Access Answer Hiding in Plain Sight

Even in its early years, a voluntary access program can have a massive impact. Virginia likely would have never have had its first modern public-draw elk hunt without a voluntary public access program (this one’s called PALS). The program started in 2020, and now more than 20,000 acres are enrolled in the southwest region of the state, where Virginia’s reintroduced elk herd of 250-plus animals lives. Most of the elk live in a county with no public land. 

“We were able to have our first elk hunt in 2022 on 100 percent private lands,” says Tom Hampton, a lands and access manager for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources. “All of the properties but one where elk were harvested were VPA-HIP properties.” 

Six hunters drew tags through a lottery and were able to hunt private properties without paying trespass fees or outfitters. All hunters killed their bulls. The biggest was a nontypical scoring 413 ⅞ inches.

The PALS land consists mostly of reclaimed coal mining ground. As part of the program, the DWR pays local contractors to remove invasive species like autumn olive and lespedeza from private lands, then replant them with native grasses. 

“Mostly what we’re working on is early successional habitat—grasslands and shrublands—which not only benefit elk but a host of other species, like turkeys, deer, and pollinators,” says Caitlin Homan, a wildlife habitat biologist for DWR. Of course, turkey and deer hunters can access the PALS lands too.  

The concept worked on a much larger scale, too. Southwick Associates conducted an economic report of 12 VPA-HIP state programs in 2021 and estimated that these states generated $47 million in combined hunter spending. The states’ programs accumulated 1.16 million enrolled acres, which were used by an estimated 73,900 hunters. This accounted for an estimated 323,500 additional hunting days. Assuming I was allowed to hunt every day, that’s the equivalent of supporting my own personal hunting for 886 years.

But the most interesting figure was the return on investment for individual states. Idaho saw an ROI of $39.51, meaning for every dollar invested, $39.51 was generated in spending. Every state in the report turned a positive ROI.

Private Problems

If I’ve made voluntary public access sound too good to be true, remember that it’s a federally funded program, and with that designation comes no small amount of red tape. First, state agencies need to write detailed grant proposals and compete for limited dollars. 

Once their program gets approved, they have to enroll landowners, who are sometimes skeptical of government programs. In some cases, the governor’s office or state administrators have to  sign off on deals. And states must get properties approved through the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. That’s plenty of opportunity for a good idea to die. Plus, federal funding lasts for only four years at a time, so states have to get creative if they want to consistently sign up landowners for longer terms.

In other words, states that don’t have their affairs in order will have a hard time fielding one of these programs successfully. 

Then, once properties are open to hunting, the state must manage any conflicts between hunters and landowners. That conflict could be a truck blocking a field road, an unclosed cattle gate, or shooting too close to a farmhouse. It takes only one bad encounter for a landowner to decide not to re-enroll. 

Plus, there’s that competition from outfitters and other private land lessees, who can often pay more per acre than any state program could.

“We’ve had issues here in Montana where people drive around and see the Block Management green signs and then offer the rancher $10,000, or whatever it is, to have only one person on the property instead of the public,” Tawney says. “Sometimes these programs create a short list for these conglomerates of lessees that are trying to lease a lot of land.”  

As more urbanites move to rural areas, there will be more newcomers in rural communities who might not understand hunting, firearms, or the importance of public access. You can see this play out in the Northeast, which has a long history of public hunting access on private land. In Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, it’s legal to hunt private forested land as long as the property isn’t posted. 

“The first thing someone does when they move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire is put up a ‘Posted’ sign,” says Mark Beauchesne, who manages landowner relations for New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. “There may have been five generations who had hunted on that land and maybe even been caretakers for it, and now they’re shut out. Those are the most disturbing calls I get.”

New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont all incentivize private landowners to allow public access. In New Hampshire, the state reduces a landowner’s property tax by 20 percent if they sign up for the Recreational Use program, which specifically allows public hunting and fishing. That program celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Beauchesne, a longtime New Hampshire hunter, says the spirit of the program has roots in the very founding of America. 

“Before this country was settled [by Europeans], we couldn’t hunt the king’s deer freely,” he says. “But once we revolted, the deer became a trust for the public. People relied on each other in lean times. You allowed your neighbor to hunt on your property and they shared the harvest.” 

So when Beauchesne tries to convince landowners, new or old, to keep their property open to the public, he makes a cultural and historic appeal, not a financial one. 

“I tell them this isn’t just for hunters, it’s for other recreators too,” he says. “It’s for the good of the community. It’s so you know who your neighbors are. It’s about sharing what you have.” 

Beauchesne’s argument will have to resonate nationally if voluntary access is going to succeed on a grand scale. The programs’ payments and benefits will never increase enough to serve as anything more than supplemental income and recognition of a good deed. Landowners who enroll in VPA will do so because they care about conservation and their community.

Back on that turkey hunting access property in Wisconsin, I closed the distance on the lone gobbler, which was roosted in the farthest corner of a clover field. I listened to him gobble and drum as he made his way from the timber to the field. I hastily set up on the field edge, almost certain the tom would come to my calling. 

But he acted just like a good public-land turkey should. Instead of coming straight to me, he went to the middle of the field and ducked behind a hill, not 50 yards from me, gobbling the whole time. If he ever poked his head above the shin-high clover, I never saw it. His drumming was so loud that I could feel it in my chest. In a brief moment of panic, I stood up to try to see the gobbler over the crest of the hill and get a snap shot. But somehow he saw me before I saw him and was gone before I could even raise my gun. 

On the long walk back to my truck, I saw the farmer cruising down a dirt road in his tractor. I stepped aside and he zoomed by, giving me a big wave and generous smile, as if he had watched the whole hunt play out. 

Oh yeah, I thought. I’ll be back next year.

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The future of hunting depends mainly on those in positions to decide it. While many advocates of hunting invest an enormous amount of time and resources trying to convince the leaders already in place of its value, one university in Louisiana pitches hunting’s value to conservation long before those leaders get hired or elected. Known as the First Hunt Program, pro-hunting professors at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge send graduates of their program into the workforce with more than just the idea that hunting is necessary; they’re arming them with first-hand experience from the field.

Dr. Bret Collier and Dr. Kevin Ringelman have coordinated LSU’s Collegiate First Hunt program since 2014.

“We teach hunter education and shooting sports, safety, and ethics, and coordinate all the hunts out of our offices,” Collier says. The professors extend their recruiting and reach well beyond the bayou.  

“We take all-comers from a wide variety of institutions, including Auburn, University of Florida, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, and Tulane, and [students] spread out all across LSU majors,” Collier says. He notes that the class demographics average 65 to 70 percent female, 10 to 20 percent people of color, and primarily urban/suburban students. These metrics are typical of most land grant universities.

Collier says the program has created more than 45 hunting opportunities despite no outside grant funding. So, where does funding come from to pay all the expenses associated with hunting? Quite a few places, including the professors’ own wallets. “Usually, Kevin and I pay for all the consumables (e.g., ammunition, food for trips, that sort of thing) out of our pocket,” Collier says. 

The outdoor industry has extended some help. “Nomad Outdoors has provided clothing for the program’s new hunters free of cost for the last five years,” Collier explains. He notes that other industry partners have also helped, including Delta Waterfowl, Benelli, and the Dallas Safari Club. 

But such an extensive program requires more than just equipment, ammo, and opportunity. It also requires time, a commodity that’s in short supply for most people these days, Collier says.

“Kevin and I have full-time jobs as professors; neither of us gets any professional benefit to do this, but we do it because we love it and think it is important. We have built a program here that is at the apex of what collegiate shooting sports and hunting engagement program should look like.”

Ringelman added, “This is entirely pro bono work, and it’s a lot. I haven’t hunted for myself in two years.”

More Than Hunter Ed

The LSU program goes beyond your typical hunter ed course, according to Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries’ Wildlife Protection and Conservation Management director Larry Reynolds. What sets the program apart is how it actually gets participants out to experience the very thing they’re learning about.

“LSU’s college hunt program does this very well by making them hunters, if only for one season, and putting them in the camp, on the stand, and in the blind with actual hunters,” Reynolds says. “In the camps and lodges, students hear not only from us about what hunting means to conservation but from landowners, land managers, and club members. [They hear] about why they invest so much in hunting, what it means to them and their families, and how they see the role of young biologists in maintaining the foundation of this relationship between hunting and conservation.”

LSU is creating more than just a new hunter. The program is building a sustainable supply of future decision-makers who will consider the hunting interest and the North American model of wildlife conservation when doing their jobs.

“We create 40-plus hunting ambassadors every year,” Ringelman says. “By hunting ambassador, I mean a student that fundamentally and intuitively understands the importance of hunting and hunters to wildlife management and not only internalizes that reality but spreads that messaging to their peer groups. That peer group could be others in the wildlife management field, but it could also be veterinarians, zookeepers, politicians, bankers, attorneys, elementary school teachers, or camp counselors. A hunting ambassador, seeing their coworker roll their eyes at guys in camouflage rolling by in a pickup, says, ‘well, actually…'”

The ability to acknowledge and engage in such teachable moments is one of the crucial skill sets Collier and Ringelman equip their graduates with in the First Hunt Program.

READ NEXT: Why We Suck at Recruiting New Hunters, Why It Matters, and How You Can Fix It

“Understanding the role of hunting and hunters in wildlife conservation is critical to negotiating virtually all wildlife conservation issues and people these students will grapple with in their careers,” Reynolds says.

Changing Perspectives Through Education

One hunting ambassador-turned-wildlife-professional is Ducks Unlimited’s biologist in Illinois and Indiana, Madelyn McFarland.

“I don’t come from a ‘traditional’ hunting background,” McFarland says. “No one from my immediate family hunted. We got our meat from the grocery store, and I rarely knew where it came from. I wasn’t anti-hunting or anti-hunter, but I didn’t want the emotional burden of taking an animal’s life. I’m ashamed to say it, but before LSU’s First Hunt Program, I couldn’t understand why I would ever want to hunt if someone else was willing to harvest or farm and process that protein into neat grocery store packaging for me.”

Through mentored training and duck blinds détentes, the First Hunt Program is changing the pro-hunting agnostic or apathetic hearts and minds of students like McFarland.   

“I’ve become an avid waterfowl hunter since completing the program,” she says. “I’ve derived a sense of community and connection to the natural world since adopting a new sport. Participating in LSU’s First Hunt Program shifted my perspective on several things—namely, the food I consume and where it originates, how I connect with others, and the role I play in conservation.”

LSU’s program goes beyond cultivating a pro-hunting environment; for these students to become pro-hunting, their concerns—especially the uncomfortable ones—are answered and, most importantly, addressed professionally.

“My primary concern was how I would feel about taking an animal’s life,” McFarland recalls. “I had never fired a gun, let alone at a living creature. I wasn’t sure if I’d feel proud about harvesting my first duck or cruelly taking its life. My lack of experience with guns also made me uncomfortable. I wanted to avoid any accidents in the blind at all costs.”

McFarland’s metamorphosis from hunting agnostic to advocate was more than just a single decision. It was a complex process involving personal, ethical, and even technical teaching moments that Collier and Ringelman always fielded with grace, patience, and inclusion.

“From a hunter safety course to gun training at the range, waterfowl identification and history and science of hunting as a management tool, our discussions centered around navigating the emotions and experiences as a first-time hunter,” McFarland says. “LSU’s First Hunt Program was a comprehensive process that guided me through the new hunter journey from start to finish.”

A Family Affair

How effective is the program? Good enough to empower students to recruit future hunters. 

“I like to think I opened the door to a new experience for my little sister, Lauren,” McFarland says. According to Lauren, her sister did just that. 

“She was so excited that we could share a passion for hunting together,” Lauren says, who McFarland confessed is mostly a pescatarian but will now eat ethically-harvested wild game.

“I think there’s something poetic about that,” McFarland says. “We haven’t had a chance to hunt together yet, but I’m eagerly looking forward to it.”

That family passion was developed through a thorough, balanced mentoring approach at LSU.

“From first impressions, it was already apparent that the new hunter’s program was well thought out and organized,” Lauren says. “The program catered to people of all backgrounds and experience levels and included mentorships and help from several passionate hunters, professors, and wildlife agency officials. All my concerns were addressed on the first day of the hunting program. Specifically, the program ensured all participants were comfortable and prioritized hunter education and safety.”

Like many ambassadors, Lauren’s takeaways were more significant than just tagging out.

 “This experience gave me a profound recognition of the sport,” Lauren says.  “I realized it is not all about the harvest but also about respecting the wildlife and their habitat, gaining a deeper connection to the resource, and understanding your environmental impact and role.”

Like her older sister, the ambassador label fits Lauren well. It enables her to connect with people well outside the traditional demographics of hunting.

“The program has allowed me to provide a woman’s perspective on hunting and promote inclusion for underrepresented groups, both vital factors in attempting to increase hunter participation and recruitment,” Lauren explains. “By sharing how my first hunt transformed how I perceived wildlife conservation, it is my priority to influence the future generations of conservationists and hunters.”

A Decade of First Hunts

What has the First Hunt Program taught two PhDs like Collier and Ringelman?

“An unmeasurable amount,” Collier confesses. 

“The program has taught me to value my own upbringing, which was rich in experiential outdoor experiences, inclusive of hunting with my mom and dad,” Ringelman adds. “It’s caused me to more consistently value each individual animal that is harvested. It’s easy to get jaded by just another hen shoveler added to the stack, but when it’s a student’s first-ever bird they harvested, it takes on a special value. That added layer of meaning is not front-and-center when you go out with a group of veteran hunters. I have also learned from students to take nothing for granted; the most common question I’m consistently asked is which direction the metal part of the shotgun shell goes.”

READ NEXT: In Washington State, Hunters May No Longer Be “Necessary to Manage Wildlife”

As the First Hunt Program moves toward its tenth year in 2024, Collier and Ringelman are quantifying its success. “We have had outstanding success,” says Collier. “We estimate a retention rate of greater than 50 to 65 percent five years out of people who go through our program.”

That forecast means the future of hunting might come down to whether there’s a Tiger at the decision-making table. Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Collier and Dr. Ringelman, the chances are there will be.

The post LSU Professors Teach College Kids to Hunt in Hopes of Developing More Pro-Hunting Wildlife Professionals appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a two-part series on first deer hunts. We partnered with the National Deer Association’s Field to Fork program to mentor two of our gear editors last fall. Read Part 2 here.

“So are you going to take the heart?”

I freeze at the question. Even though this is also OL assistant editor Ashley Thess’ first deer hunt, it’s clear that she’s miles ahead of me. People take the heart? I think to myself, then respond: “It’s too soon to ask me that!”

We’re on day two of Field to Fork, a mentorship program for new adult hunters put on by the National Deer Association. Fortunately for me, I’m not the only person in the room who doesn’t come from a hunting background, although most are like Ashley: from this region of the Midwest and familiar with hunting culture from extended family. During the orientation, speakers cover a range of topics, from the history of hunting in the U.S. to what deer perceive with their sixth sense. They also discuss hunting etiquette—don’t walk into a public area covered in blood, don’t leave your deer uncovered in the back of your truck. They tell us that this might look bad to non-hunters, who aren’t used to seeing something like that. When we got to this part, I had to stifle the urge to look around, to see if anyone was watching me. Was I one of the non-hunters they were talking about? 

Paradise Lost

“Laura’s doing what?”

This is what I overhear when my husband tells friends in Seattle that I’m going to Missouri to hunt a deer. Despite not eating meat himself, my husband, like Ashley, has extended family who hunt, so he has some idea of what I’m getting into. I don’t, so I keep quiet.

Prior to joining the OL team, I hadn’t even met many hunters. A chance early-morning encounter with a bowhunter along a trail. Someone who picked us up while we were hitchhiking, moving coolers of elk meat in his truck to fit our packs. Certainly not in my frontcountry life. Most of my social circle has never thought about hunting; never met a hunter. To my knowledge, I don’t even know a gun owner in Seattle.

I had a different sort of exposure to the outdoors growing up. Each summer, my parents would pack up my sister and me for days-long road trips to obscure national parks and wildernesses, the two of us usually the youngest kids on any given trail. They had spent their own youth in Yosemite, bushwhacking down from Half Dome before sleeping under the open stars in the Valley, or climbing obscure routes in the High Sierra, then washing the sweat out of their clothes in the Merced River. But by the time they took my sister and I to see it, the bucolic free-for-all that had been Yosemite was over, now tightly regimented with designated campsites and laundry facilities. 

My sister and I were taught not to pick plants or take rocks, to avoid cutting trails, not to feed the animals, and to make noise when you hike so you don’t surprise the wildlife. As I got older I noticed my mom liked obscure trails without designated endpoints—she always wanted to go over one more ridge, and then one more after that. My dad would dawdle behind us, with his old film camera, taking endless photos of landscapes and alpine flowers that he would never develop. They were looking for what they had once found in Yosemite: a wild, beautiful, untouched place. 

A First Encounter

My hunt is being mentored by senior deputy editor Natalie Krebs—a definite perk of being on staff at OL. We meet one of the landowners hosting Field to Fork near the entrance gate to their private property, tossing our gear and ourselves into the back of a UTV. He drives us about a mile, passing various deer blinds and treestands before reaching our designated spot, in view of an abandoned granary on top of a hill.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting from sitting in a deer blind, but it’s not this. The field in front of us is bordered by woods in an early winter palette, drab browns and tans that usually leave me feeling depressed. But as we sit there it starts to take on the qualities of an oil painting, pulsating with small movements—a cardinal flashing red in the trees, a distant coyote slowly skirting the edge of a feral field. Natalie and I are staying almost perfectly still ourselves, which only heightens the effect. At one point we hear rustling behind the blind—probably squirrels—but it’s loaded with tension. 

The windows are paneless, and colder air is wafting in as the evening light starts to dim. After a while, a buck appears near the top of the hill in front of us, close to where we saw the coyote. I only have a tag for an antlerless deer, so we just watch it. We don’t talk much except in a whisper, with Natalie pointing out something in the landscape or me asking a question. She tells me about how she likes treestands best, because when the wind moves the tree, the stand moves along with it and you feel like you’re part of a tree.

At this point, I’m kind of hoping a doe doesn’t turn up. If it does, I’ll need to raise the rifle, chamber a round, aim it, and shoot it. But I don’t really want to disrupt the scene in front of us. 

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Natalie has told me, multiple times. “You’re not going to be fired.” But I’m pretty sure I am going to pull the trigger if the opportunity presents itself, because I’m enjoying being here—in this deer blind, in Missouri, in winter—and hunting a deer is the moment around which this experience is revolving. During orientation for Field to Fork, they told us that, if we are lucky enough to shoot a deer, all reactions—laughing, crying, whooping—are valid. I appreciate this, because I have no idea what my reaction is going to be.

I think I’m paying close attention to what’s going on around us, but then I turn to look out the window to my right and there’s a small deer looking back at me. I go wide-eyed, whispering to Natalie. “Don’t move,” she says.

Too Close to Nature

The closest I’d been to a deer before this hunt was over a decade ago, while backpacking in Olympic National Park. I was out in front of my friend and lost in thought when I looked up to see a fawn directly in front of me on the trail. It was very small, with white flecks on its back. We were so close I could have reached out my arm and touched the fawn’s face. Seconds ticked by with neither of us moving, until someone came up behind us and we both looked away. I watched the fawn move off to the side of the trail to graze, while the other backpackers pulled out their camera to take a picture. Later, I felt less like I’d communed with nature and more like I’d done something illicit. 

It’s this idea of getting too close to nature—disturbing it? engaging with it?—that I’m probably the most conscious of. The day before our first hunt, the new hunters and our mentors went to a gun range to practice with a target, seven of us all firing shots off at the same time. Even with ear plugs and muffs on I was struggling not to jump every few seconds. I tried to push away an imagined chaotic scene—the bullet would rip, blood would spray, a fawn would bolt, birds would screech and fly from the trees—and focus on actually learning how to shoot where I meant to shoot in the first place.  

The young deer to my right turns out to be a button buck, so we watch it graze on the grass for a while, maybe 20 yards in front of us, before it wanders off. Close to the end of shooting light, a whole crowd of deer appear on the hill with the granary, but it’s getting dark and I’m not comfortable shooting at such a distance. So we let the moment pass.

Something Like the Wild

The next morning we head to a new spot, called “corn cob.” The name turns out to be apt, because instead of grassy fields flanked by woods, we’re looking out at a field of corn, the withered stalks another layer of beige blending into the woods and fields. The old granary on the hill the day before looked so abandoned that I assumed the whole area was once a working farm, now in the process of being swallowed up again by the woods. But the food plot in front of us is so clearly purposeful—for the deer—that I’m confused. Am I in nature or not? 

Eventually I decide that, whatever idea of “wild” I’m trying to map onto this place, the deer aren’t as fussed about it; this is part of their world, anyway. We watch two bucks walk between the rows, grazing separately at first, before moving closer together. Every few seconds one of them will jerk their head up to look around before going back to grazing. They know we’re here, but the food source is worth the risk. After 20 minutes or so the two bucks leave—good for us, Natalie tells me, as a doe might not walk into the field while they are there. We go back to watching closely for signs of movement as turkeys gobble in the distance. 

But it isn’t until late in the morning, when we’re close to calling it quits, that a doe finally walks into the field, maybe 30 feet from our blind. She’s with a fawn—old enough to have lost its spots but still small by comparison. 

The air is cold and still, but now the stillness is ringing in my ears and instead of calmly not moving, I’m furiously not moving. Natalie’s whispering instructions, to stay still when the doe is watching us, then to move swiftly into position when she drops her head down to feed. Despite our best efforts, the doe sees something she doesn’t like and trots back down the trail. But the fawn stays put. The quiet remains in the air, so I don’t move. Then Natalie starts whispering again; she’s got her binocular up and the doe is cautiously moving back toward us. She eventually makes it back into the open, barely stopping to eat at all as she turns around looking for whatever spooked her before. But this time we are already in position, and there is nothing to see when she looks in our direction. 

Eventually the doe turns broadside. Deep breath in, with a slow squeeze of the trigger after the exhale.

The gun goes off with every bit as much drama as I’d imagined the day before. After a second goes by, I look up from the scope in time to see the doe racing into the woods at top speed. But nothing else seems to move. No birds fly off in distress. Even the fawn is back to eating in less than a minute. Soon, it’s as if nothing ever happened. Did I even hit her? I wonder. 

Natalie assures me I did. “I saw her jump up,” she whispers. “We’ll wait 20 minutes or so and then follow.” We sit there quietly for a little while I try to process how I’m feeling. “You seem pretty calm,” says Natalie. It’s true that whatever remains of the pre-shot jitters are fast working their way out of my system. And on the other side, I’m feeling something like relief: I shot a gun at a living, breathing part of the tableau in front of me and the whole thing didn’t crack apart. 

Warm to the Touch

Twenty minutes later, we are down from the deer blind, looking at the spot where the doe was standing when I shot. There’s a sprinkling of red on the ground, but the hue is more late autumn foliage than blood. If it had been earlier in the season I would have walked right past it. I can’t see the doe from where we’re standing, but it’s unlikely she got far, so we start following the blood trail.

I narrate what I’m seeing out loud, veering left into the woods after 20 yards or so. I finally remember to look up from the ground, but it takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing. The doe is on the side of a hill, her head on the downslope, wedged underneath a tree. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed the tree fell on her.

I go closer. She looks huge, with a light brown coat, soft-white ears, and eyes glazed with dark iridescence. I push back memories of being told not to touch the animals and bend down to feel her abdomen. I can see now that she had slipped running up the slope, and then slid down until her body was wedged under the tree. A scene that I set into motion when I pulled the trigger. 

Do not touch the wildlife goes out the window pretty fast after we get going on the field dressing, cutting a line directly down the center of the deer’s abdomen and then pulling it apart to reveal everything inside: guts, liver, lungs, stomach. Sometimes we’re cutting with a knife, sometimes we’re using our hands to disengage connective tissue. At one point, Natalie demonstrates how to reach up into the neck to disconnect the internal organs from the trachea. When it’s my turn, I try to focus on her directions, thinking that I’ll process what it is that I’m doing later: feel where the heart is, move your hand up until you can find a tube with bumps along it. “Can you feel the trachea?” asks Natalie.

“Wait, sorry, I need a second,” I say. My hand is still on the heart, her heart. I’ve never touched a heart before, and the feelings of its heft, soft and strong at the same time, drowns out my thoughts. Underneath my hand, it’s still warm, but cooling fast. 

READ NEXT: The Heart & the Skull: Sometimes a First Deer Hunt Requires a Punched Tag

Our hands and forearms are caked in blood as we drive the UTV, with the deer in the bed, back to Natalie’s truck. It all looks so visceral, and before this first hunt I would have also thought it would be gruesome, but it’s not that. Even days later, when I’m still finding dried flecks in the bed of my fingernails after I don’t even know how many times I’ve washed my hands, the feeling it gives me is of being connected back to that moment in the woods, the sepia tones blending across the landscape, both wild and manmade, when I felt the doe’s heart. I left her heart deep in the woods—even if we were only a couple of miles from the road. 

The post The Heart & the Skull: A First Deer Hunt Brings You Closer to the Wild appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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ONE OF THE most unsettling perspectives on hunting that I’ve read in a long time was published in Bon Appétit, of all places, under the headline “I Eat Meat. Why Was Killing My Own Food So Hard?” The article follows a modern and trendy storyline: A well-meaning person (usually from a city) wants to try hunting because it’s more sustainable than buying factory-farmed meat and because it feels more ethical than having an unknown slaughterer do the killing for them. In social circles that value “knowing where your food comes from,” hunting and butchering your own meat can seem like the gold standard.

In general, I love this storyline. I see it as a way to build bridges between hunters and nonhunters, city folks and country folks, and hell, maybe even liberals and conservatives. The Bon Appétit story hits on all these themes, albeit a bit clumsily, but then the narrative comes down to the killing part of the hunt and things go spiraling out of control. Here’s an excerpt from the story, in which the author is about to take a rifle shot on a cow elk, the first animal she’s ever killed:

“There are so many elk but only one standing apart. A clean, clear shot. Tripod set, muzzle pointed, camouflaged finger extended, safety unlocked. She’s in my crosshairs, crystal clear, but my thoughts are not. Take the shot, Jen mouths. I can’t. Not because my hands are shaking. They’re not shaking. 

“I think about the randomness of death, of who dies from COVID or a car crash, at a concert, in a classroom. Hunting, I know, isn’t the same as such atrocities. Yet I couldn’t help but, if only for a second, see a parallel. Americans. Elk. Going so achingly innocently about their day.”

This scene is playing out during a mentored hunt on the Vermejo Ranch (a high-dollar hunting outfit in New Mexico). The author goes on to describe her last real chance to kill an elk:

“I think about tomorrow’s forecasted bone-chilling blizzard and how, if I’m doing this, I’m doing it today, and drinking an old-fashioned or two tonight. Whenever you’re ready, whispers Jen. I’ll never be ready. So I shut down and just do it. Shock, adrenaline, shame. I bury my face.

“Until I force myself to look up. The herd has bolted at the sound of the gun, leaving my elk standing alone. And me, horrified, confused. You shot her in the liver, Aly says. She doesn’t feel pain, just a little sick.

“The second shot is harder because it’s quartering away, because I don’t want to shoot anything ever again. I squeeze. She drops. I sob like a sudden widow, like someone I don’t want to be.”

I first read this story just as my own hunting season was getting started. Over the next few months I killed quite a few critters and every once in a while I’d think about these lines. What stuck with me, like a festering infection, was that through the help of her mentors on this private ranch, the author had been gifted the life of an elk, and she decided to take it begrudgingly, shamefully. Then the author shared that experience with a large, nonhunting audience. The storyline I once loved backfired. Bridges set ablaze. 

As the editors of Outdoor Life—and many hunting organizations around the country—continue to work to recruit and mentor new hunters, it occurs to me that we should start talking more openly about the killing part of the hunt. Clearly it’s still being misunderstood, even by those who think they might want to join our ranks as hunters.

Savvy hunters generally do a good job of talking about the conservation principles behind hunting, the benefits of wild game, and the ethics of making a clean killing shot. But maybe we should also be talking about what it means to kill. And we should certainly be asking our new hunters in training: How do you feel about killing an animal?

Hunting Is About Killing

Many experienced hunters tend to gloss over the killing part. We all know that it’s proper to say that hunting is about communing with nature, or spending time outdoors with loved ones, or procuring nutritious meat for our family. What’s more, we tend to describe killing an animal as “harvesting” a deer or “tagging” a buck (you will find that language used in this publication and every other hunting publication out there). 

This is all because we don’t want to glorify the killing part. None of us would want to share a camp with someone who says they hunt only so that they can kill as frequently as possible.

José Ortega y Gasset, the highly regarded Spanish philosopher who wrote the classic Meditations on Hunting, put it this way: “One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.” 

That’s a good and true sentiment, and this is a line that gets quoted a lot. But without diving deeper, this way of thinking can make the killing part seem like an afterthought. In reality, the act of killing the animal, and those moments right after, are often the most emotional, meaningful, and complicated aspects of the hunt. A modern American adult living in a city might never have witnessed, or participated in, the killing of an animal before. This fact should not be underestimated. 

It all gets thornier when even the most experienced hunters all feel a little differently about the killing part. Sentiments about killing change from hunt to hunt, animal to animal. 

Years ago I was on my first moose hunt in British Columbia, well after the rut was over. Our only hope of taking a bull was by snow-tracking one through the timber. One gloomy morning, I was following my guide who was in turn following a set of fresh moose tracks through a little pine thicket. Just at the edge of the thicket he excitedly waved me forward and there, not 40 yards away, stood a gigantic bull. I threw the rifle up and shot him twice, and then watched him crash seconds later. My guide whooped loudly, slapped me on the back and ran up to the bull, which was still breathing its final ragged breaths. I had shot lots of deer and even elk before this, but the pure massiveness of the bull on the ground before me was a shock. The feeling was heavy, as if I had just killed something prehistoric. 

Right away the guide wanted to prop up the bull’s rack in order to admire it, but I stopped him short, saying, “Let’s just give him a minute.”

The guide gave me a kind of curious smile and a nod. I suspect he thought I was worried about the bull springing up in his death throes to gore us. But that wasn’t it. I wanted to hang back so the bull wouldn’t see us. I hoped that he would die in peace, alone in his forest; not in terror, with some strange two-legged creature looming over him.

That’s a melancholy little story to share with someone who is just learning how to hunt. But it’s also the type of thing new hunters might want to hear about before it’s their turn on the gun.

It’s OK (Not) to Cry

Here’s the other tricky thing to talk about: Most of the time, shooting game is fun. Any waterfowler who has shot ducks over decoys understands the beauty in dropping a bird from the sky. Any archer who has killed a deer with a bow knows there is something aesthetically pleasing in releasing an arrow and watching it disappear perfectly into its target. And any rifleman delights in the process of perfectly executing a shot on an animal from a distant range. 

Then there’s the adrenaline rush. Without the killing part, there is no rush. It comes before the moment for some of us, after for others. It can feel like raging, uncontrollable panic or just a momentary quickening of the heart. Outside of hunting, it’s difficult to replicate this same intense feeling of aliveness in modern life. Experienced hunters seek out this feeling. Brand-new hunters will likely be shocked by it, especially if it isn’t addressed well before the hunt. 

I think in our age of hunting social media and all the virtue signaling that goes with it, there’s sometimes too much emphasis on the sadness that comes with killing a game animal. It’s as if the very public and overwrought reverence for the death of the animal somehow makes the hunter who killed the critter more virtuous. OL staff writer Tyler Freel wrote about this years ago, when he noticed many hunters quit smiling in their photos and instead posed looking crestfallen with the animal they’d killed. 

Plus, if we say that we hunt as a way to be closer to nature, then this kind of behavior—remorse over the natural order of things—is leading us in the wrong direction.

Take for example, any typical hunt with my highly driven bird dog, Otis. When ol’ Otie dog smells a rooster, everything about her changes. Her ears perk forward, her body slinks lower to the ground, her nose sweeps frantically side to side. She is no longer a timid Labrador prone to snuggling on the couch. She has transformed into a predator. The rooster running through the grass in front of her wants only to escape, to survive. But just as badly as that rooster wants to live, Otis wants to catch it. When that rooster finally flushes and I shoot it (Lord, please don’t let me miss) there is no sadness in Otie’s retrieve. She hunts with all the joy and tenacity of a wolf.

To me, that is the representation of modern hunting in its purest form. My dog does not hunt because she has to: She’ll get a full bowl of food and a warm couch to sleep on even if the rooster gets away. She hunts because it’s her true instinct. If she didn’t hunt, she wouldn’t be a dog, or at least, not really. That’s the way it is for many of us human hunters as well. We strive for those moments where our natural hunting instincts take over.

Cynics might argue that we shouldn’t indulge in these primal instincts. Our modern society has evolved so that we can leave these unpleasantries behind. That leads us down a fraught philosophical road I’d rather not travel. But I will say this: I’ve never felt healthier, more present, or more focused than I have when my hunting instincts take over. Perhaps a few of the millions of modern Americans who are suffering from depression or anxiety might benefit from a similar experience?

We should never apologize for the joy we find in hunting or try to disguise it with a mournful photo and social media caption if that’s not how we really feel.

It’s true that taking an animal’s life should always be done thoughtfully. But it’s possible to be thoughtful and joyful at the same time. For the modern American (who is not hunting because their life depends on it), hunting, in all its elements, should be fun. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that if the killing part doesn’t bring you some measure of enjoyment, fulfillment, or excitement, then perhaps you should not be a hunter.

When Not to Pull the Trigger

I wish I had been there at the Vermejo Ranch to tell that Bon Appétit writer: It’s OK. You don’t have to kill this elk. Maybe just tag along for someone else’s hunt. Simply witness the killing part first.

Some new hunters won’t know if they actually want to kill an animal until the moment of truth. When that moment arrives, some should be encouraged to not pull the trigger. Other hunters won’t know how they feel about any of it until they actually kill the critter. Many of them won’t come back again next season, and that’s OK.

I think the guidelines are pretty simple: There is no virtue in proving that you can kill. There is no real reason to justify eating meat. If the burden of killing is so great, then do not kill. Not all of us must be hunters.

Killing and butchering your own food might make you feel more in touch with nature, but it won’t bring you epiphanies on COVID-19 deaths or mass shootings. At the very most, it might teach you a little about the reality of life-and-death in the wild and your own place in that relationship. That’s exactly what some aspiring hunters are searching for, but with others, it could be more than they bargained for.

I think this is also why some older hunters in their final years tend to be a lot more selective about the animals they shoot, or they just decide to hang it up altogether. After a lifetime of punched tags and full freezers, some aging hunters simply don’t have the heart for the killing part anymore.

A few seasons ago, I was at a deer camp in Kansas and the hunting was slow. A buddy and I decided to shoot some does if we got the chance so we’d at least have venison in camp. But when a big doe and her fawn walked into a shooting lane, one of the guides stopped my friend as he raised his gun. The guide pleaded, with surprising urgency, for him to spare the mother deer. So of course, my buddy didn’t shoot and both deer walked. We came to learn that the guide had a terminal illness and that this hunting season would likely be his last. With his own death so near, the killing part of hunting had become all too final.

Ortega y Gasset also wrote this: “Every good hunter is uneasy in the depths of his conscience…. He does not have the final and firm conviction that his conduct is correct. But neither…is he certain of the opposite….” 

If or when that uneasiness becomes overwhelming, it’s time to put down the rifle. 

Read more OL+ stories.

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I never wanted to be anything but a United States Marine. Now, twenty-eight years after earning the title, I am preparing to spend my second Veteran’s Day as a civilian, a status in which I’ve spent fewer years of my life than those in a uniform. Perhaps it was inevitable. I am but one of seven Marines in my family, with a cousin now on a journey to become the eighth. The other services are represented in my family as well, all the way back to Gettysburg. I never considered the Corps an option, just a natural extension of my citizenship, a stop on the trail of my life.

Though I generally enjoyed my decades in the Corps, I am truly enjoying my reacquaintance with life as “just Worth.” A friend and 30-year, three-war Marine calls it a “reclamation of self” and it is incredibly liberating after years as “Lieutenant Colonel Parker.” Still, having gone from belonging to something larger than myself, a sense made visibly manifest by a uniform, to the decidedly solitary pursuit of writing, sometimes I feel that I’ve lost something I can’t get back.

At the trial in which he was sentenced to death, Socrates famously declared, “[t]he unexamined life is not worth living.” For me, military service was about accumulating experiences as a means of examining life. Sometimes it is like living with the volume turned all the way up; a series of razor’s edge moments connected by stunning levels of boredom or discomfort or hysterical laughter. Those conditions, and the sometimes closer-than-blood connections born of them, are exactly what I sought. They’re also the primary thing I miss. I cannot revisit some of the most intense moments I experienced over three decades. I’d likely skip a repeat of some of them. But in civilian life, I’ve found the essence of the best of them afield, in the company of hunters.

Finding Connection in the Field

The moments of clarity and meaning and the quiet sense of belonging I find under open sky exceed even the value of the game I’m hunting. That matters. Veterans who experience difficulty on re-entering civilian life report loss of identity and a sense of belonging as the chief reasons. It’s hardly surprising. Military culture, and success within it, is built upon continuing acculturation and increasingly difficult standards. Simultaneously, only 7% of the American population are veterans of military service, a fact that makes it all the more difficult for returning veterans to connect, particularly in rural areas with less dense populations.

Veterans are not the only culture that needs connections to thrive. In the most recent census, conducted in 2016, only 11.5 million Americans reported themselves as hunters. This in a nation of 321 million people. Hunting is getting harder, particularly for those of us in places without a strong public lands tradition. Land access, ammunition shortages, and the simple fact that, as with veterans, fewer and fewer Americans know a hunter, much less how to hunt, conspire to put hunting on the wane. Time conspires against us too, we are all scheduled to levels of absurdity, overcome with time and effort saving devices and their inexhaustible appetites for the data we must feed them, leaving me wondering who is mastering who?

This is not to imply there are not hunters, veterans and civilians alike, offering a tribe to veterans. I am regularly contacted by people looking to extend deeply generous efforts; group hunts, fishing tournaments, and adaptive hunting clinics for wounded veterans. But frankly, a two-day hog shoot does not a hunter make. I say that with more than a year in the seat as the Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Armed Forces Initiative President at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. My sole purpose has been to recruit, reawaken, and retain military hunters and anglers in the hope of building a tribe that will survive beyond their years of military service. It’s hard. But like any good Marine, I see opportunity in difficulty, one both sublime in its simplicity and stunning in its challenges.

Just like military service, hunting requires progressive acculturation and increasing standards. That fact makes veterans fertile ground for the creation of outdoorspeople. Though there are plenty of ready similarities between military service and life afield, long term, one on one, mentorship is the single critical factor in making or re-awakening an enduring hunter. I sat in a deer stand as a boy, because that’s what boys did where I grew up. But no one taught me how to hunt.

Bringing It All Together

For me, it started with one phone call from one Marine, now my local hunting buddy, who put me in a duck blind for the first time in twenty years. A civilian friend invited me to three days of stunning Arkansas flooded timber bursting with mallards. I’m going back this winter. Another civilian friend added me to the invite list for an opening day family dove shoot. A Marine with a local lease put me in his deer stand, then a field along the same woods for turkey. Another Marine invited me, and two others, to Texas to chase Rios. Most importantly, all of them took the time to teach me how to hunt and then see that I did it. Those lessons, that passing on of an ancient tradition, gave me the confidence to wander North Carolina’s largest Wildlife Management Area, just 15 miles up the road, by myself. Next week, I will join hunters, some of whom I have never met, some of whom I have not seen in a quarter of a century, all of them veterans, in the mountains of Southwest Colorado. We gather to chase elk, but the truth is we’re chasing something bigger, something we can only have when we’re all together.

What is it that brings us together?

We gather to remember to share a moment, to take a deep breath, to remember what it felt like to stand together when we were young and strong and unscarred but for black ink on fresh skin by which we declared our loyalties. We come together to celebrate the fact that we were once boys who sought to become men and were willing to leave it all on the field to do so. We gather for the hunt, the bite of cold air on sweat, the burn of our muscles, and the elemental connection to the processes of life found in the pursuit of game. We gather to remember.

So, this Veteran’s Day, I ask you to honor the day by resolving to find a veteran and invite them to the woods, the swamp, or the mountain. Share your spots and teach them how to honor that gift. Teach them the ethics of the hunt. Help them recover and clean game. Then do it again until they can repeat the process for another. There is no greater gift than your time. Give it, so that two deeply American communities may flourish together.

Russell Worth Parker is a retired U.S. Marine-turned-writer. He is the editor-at-large for TomBeckbe.com and lives with his wife and daughter in Wilmington, North Carolina.

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Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks is moving forward with a controversial program to stock pen-raised pheasants on state-owned lands in an effort to recruit more hunters. FWP is now seeking final approval from the Fish and Wildlife Commission to fund the program through 2026, and the department hopes to get birds on the ground before the youth hunting season starts in September.

Although the program has received significant pushback from hunters and sportsmen’s groups in the state, stocking could begin as early as next month, according to the Lewistown News-Argus.

Outdoor Life reported on the inception of the state’s pheasant-planting program last June. Since then, FWP has doubled down on its position that the initiative will help with hunter recruitment and retention efforts by giving youth hunters more birds to shoot. The department has also contended that the release of farm-raised birds can serve to boost wild bird populations in the state.

FWP wrapped up its environmental assessment last month, and after taking further public comment, it recommended that the stocking program move forward.

Read Next: Montana Proposes Pen-Raised Pheasants as a Hunter Recruitment Tool

However, the Times-Argus reported earlier this week that of the 218 comments that FWP received between April 20 and May 19, four out of five opposed the stocking program. This reinforces one of the fears that some conservation groups have already voiced regarding the state’s decision-making process.

“Montana BHA fears that the decision making for this proposal has already occurred, and that FWP is conducting a farcical effort to engage hunters before ultimately ignoring our comments,” Vice Chair of the Montana Chapter of Backcountry Hunters and Anglers Thomas Baumeister wrote in a letter to the department in February.

Baumeister also pointed to the other major concerns that Montana sportsmen have with the pheasant stocking program. For starters, opponents of the stocking program contend that while giving youth hunters the opportunity to shoot farm-raised birds might increase their level of success, it wouldn’t provide them with an authentic hunting experience.

“Presenting a fabricated put-and-take opportunity teaches to kill, rather than to hunt,” Baumeister explained in the letter.

Opponents have also refuted FWP’s argument that the program could help jump-start wild bird numbers in the state. Pointing to various studies that show the low survival and production rates of pen-raised birds in the wild, they contend that stocking farm-raised pheasants is not a viable strategy for boosting wild populations.

Because of these factors, they say the $1 million that the state plans to spend on raising and releasing pen-raised roosters amounts to a gross misuse of public funding. As Andrew McKean pointed out last year, the department’s goal is to release up to 50,000 captive pheasants annually, which comes out to $20 per bird.

Opponents have argued repeatedly that the $1 million would be better spent on habitat improvement projects that benefit wild birds, or on any number of recruitment and retention strategies that prioritize fair-chase hunting.

“At best, this stocking proposal will see poor retention for new hunters while proving to be a waste of dollars better spent on meaningful change and habitat improvements,” Baumeister said.

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Data released during the 2022 National R3 Symposium that took place earlier this month shows a decrease in hunting license sales nationwide. The sale of tags dropped off by 1.9 percent from 2020 to 2021, according to the report by the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports.  

Now in its second year, the study seeks to understand how the onset of the global pandemic altered hunting trends. Even with the overall decrease, the report indicates that last year’s tag sales were still higher than pre-pandemic levels, with 17 of 46 states seeing an increase between 2020 and 2021. 

Interestingly, non-resident licenses saw a significant rise in sales from previous years, increasing by 12.9 percent from 2020. Overall, 43 of the 46 states that participated in the study witnessed an increase in non-resident sales, including the country’s western region, which saw the largest increase at 15.5 percent.  

“While there was a decrease in resident hunting license purchases in 2021, the surge in nonresident license sales blunted the overall effect, and sales were still higher than pre-pandemic 2019 levels,” said CAHSS Director of Research and Partnerships Charles Swanny.

In contrast to out-of-state licenses, resident license sales dropped by four percent from 2020 levels, with 37 states recording a decrease in tags sold. The western region witnessed the steepest drop off, with a five percent decrease compared to 2020. 

The contrast between resident and non-resident license sales could be attributed to various factors. In 2020, travel was very limited due to restrictions imposed by states during the pandemic. Non-resident sales appear to peak during May 2021, correlating with the same month in which states began easing pandemic travel restrictions nationwide.

Climate and severe weather events have also had a noticeable effect on hunting opportunities across the country. In recent years, drought has limited hunting opportunities in western states, including Wyoming and Utah. Meanwhile, massive wildfires in states like Colorado and California have made hunters more susceptible to season cancellations or land closures, prompting residents to look elsewhere for their hunting trips. 

Read Next: Sportsmen, Gun Owners Generated a Record $1.5 Billion in Conservation Funding Last Year

Another significant issue that is highlighted in last year’s data is the recruitment of new hunters. In 2021, new recruits decreased by nine percent, according to the report. There was also an increase in the number of hunters that purchased a license in 2020 but did not purchase in 2021, also known as “churn.”  

This downward trend is a concern for industry officials and wildlife managers, especially after the number of America’s hunters reached its highest peak since the 1980s in 2020. This boom was led by a five percent increase in tag sales and a 25 percent increase in new hunters. 

“As an industry and as fellow hunters, we have work to do—especially if we want to ensure the sport’s longevity, and what it means to our conservation model as a whole,” writes OnX in a recent report. 

CAHSS will continue to monitor license sales to help industry officials and state agencies expand hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation. This data is being uploaded into a user dashboard that updates license sales data with input from state agencies in real time.

The post Hunting License Sales Saw a Slight Decrease in 2021 appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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