Pope on Hunting

Saxton Pope

Bow hunting is an art and a challenge. It took me 9 seasons to bag my first whitetail deer using bow and arrow (see my post “Appointment in Bangor” from October 2011), and along with the black bear that I also shot using bow and arrow in Ontario in August 2010 those are among the highlights of my hunting life.

While hunting with bow and arrow is clearly more challenging that with a firearms, I don’t think that this lessens the firearms hunter, especially since I do both. We need to be united as a hunting community, and cannot let ethics be confused with preferences (for an excellent article in this subject, click at the link http://www.huntright.org/where-we-stand/ethics-vs-preferences). We must keep in mind that united we stand, and if we brake our ranks we will fail and those that wanted to prohibit hunting and see men apart from nature will prevail.

But this is not the reason that I am writing about. On my last posting I talked about the “Love of the Chase”, and tried to articulate the reason of why I hunt, probably in a very clumsy way, but while reading “Hunting with the Bow and Arrow” by Dr. Saxton Pope, one the fathers of modern archery, I came across a passage called THE PRINCIPLES OF HUNTING, that I reproduce below. I only wish I could write as well as Dr. Pope.

“In the early dawn of life man took up weapons against the beasts about him. With club, ax, spear, knife, and sling he protected himself or sought his game. To strike at a distance, he devised the bow. With the implements of the chase he has won his way in the world.

Today there is no need to battle with the beasts of prey and little necessity to kill wild animals for food; but still the hunting instinct persists. The love of the chase still thrills us and all the misty past echoes with the hunter's call.

In the joy of hunting is intimately woven the love of the great outdoors. The beauty of woods, valleys, mountains, and skies feeds the soul of the sportsman where the quest of game only whets his appetite.

After all, it is not the killing that brings satisfaction; it is the contest of skill and cunning. The true hunter counts his achievement in proportion to the effort involved and the fairness of the sport.

…

Here we have a weapon of beauty and romance. He, who shoots with a bow, puts his life's energy into it. The force behind the flying shaft must be placed there by the archer. At the moment of greatest strain he must draw every sinew to the utmost; his hand must be steady; his nerves under absolute control; his eye keen and clear. In the hunt he pits his well-trained skill against the instinctive cunning of his quarry. By the most adroit cleverness, he must approach within striking distance, and when he speeds his low whispering shaft and strikes his game, he has won by the strength of arm and nerve. It is a noble sport.

However, not all temperaments are suited to archery. There must be something within the deeper memories of his inheritance to which the bow appeals. A mere passing fancy will not suffice to make him an archer. It is the unusual person who will overcome the early difficulties and persevere with the bow through love of it.

The real archer when he goes afield enters a land of subtle delight. The dew glistens on the leaves, the thrush sings in the bush, the soft wind blows, and all nature welcomes him as she has the hunter since the world began. With his bow in his hand, his arrows softly rustling in the quiver, a horn at his back, and a hound at his heels, what more can a man want in life?”

Note: The book “Hunting with the Bow and Arrow”, as well as many other fantastic books, can be downloaded for free at several internet sources, including www.Amazon.com and Project Gutenberg (www.guntenberg.org).

The Love of the Chase

Uruguay 2008 with Ariel

Over the years I have tried to answer the question of why I hunt using rational and scientific argumentation, talking about the negative impact of human development over nature, the virtual elimination of predators and other animals that compete with society’s scarce and disputed economic resources, and rationalizing that the only way to preserve a piece of nature or a little bit of wilderness is by extracting an “economic surplus” from them, and that only hunters, among all members of society, are willing to allocate the time and money to manage nature in such way.

However, as I began to dedicate more time to hunting and the outdoors I also tried to explore not only why I loved to hunt but why I had to hunt. Which compulsion would make me crave for autumn and winter and dislike summers or how could I explain to my wife that I am not trying to punish myself when I wake up long before first light and go out in inclement weather to hunt or worse yet why I spend more money on my Labrador retriever than on our children college fund?

After chasing it for many years, from when I hunted quail and shot fish in my childhood in Brazil to going on safari in Africa, I believe I finally found the answer to such pressing and profound question. It is still rational and scientific, but biological and philosophical instead of economical in its content.

I am not an anthropologist or a philosopher to write a treaty on human evolution or meditate on hunting, I am a hunter, and as a hunter I can say that deep in my genes and in my soul the predator lays, patiently waiting for opportunities to surface and strike upon its prey. I hunt because I am a predator. I am on the top of the food chain and as part of nature I must perform my ecologic function, occupy my niche, and feed on my prey.

Although detractors of hunting would like us to believe otherwise, Homo sapiens are as integral and important components of nature as any other creatures, and as we went through a similar evolution process as all those living creatures we evolved as the most successful predator this planned has ever had. Evolution shaped us not only physically but also emotionally and psychologically, and not even in our modern yet stupid time will misguided and ill-intentioned people be able to negate that.

Of course, it could be argued that humans being rational creatures should be able to control their most basic instincts, but by doing so we would only further remove ourselves from the natural world and then nature would play a constantly diminishing part of our life until by being ignored for so long it would be forgotten. And if nature becomes unimportant by being ignored and forgotten what can we expect that will become of it, a wasteland of shopping malls, golf courses and subdivisions or worse yet a dump yard for human rejects?

By castrating our instincts and not hunting we would not only deny ourselves the much needed vacation from our demanding lives and pressing (and some times depressing) routine, the human condition as mentioned by Ortega Y Gasset, vacations in which man can develop true happiness but also risk developing a total disregard for nature, a disregard that could have a most terrible outcomes, the end of all wilderness within human reach.

Hunters, more than any other group in human society, are responsible for conservation since we not only want to be able to hunt today but also in the future, and we want our children and their children to be able to have as close a communion with nature and we do. Hunters have a symbiotic relation with their prey, while hunting provides us nourishment for body and soul, we make our prey stronger by helping providing suitable habitat and maintaining the prey population within the habitat’s carrying capacity. Hunters interact with their prey year after year after year.

Because of this constant interaction between hunter and hunted, predator and prey, at one time I was afraid that the burning ember that keeps the predator alive deep inside us could be extinguished either by lack of fuel or by too much fuel but I no longer worry about that. Due to circumstances of life I had to spend many years without hunting. It was hard but I endured and Hemingway, Ruark, and other close friends kept the ember burning. On the other extreme I was exposed to Africa and not even its abundance of game could tame the predator inside me, for all the excitement of the chase was present again on the first opportunity, either shooting a pheasant over my dog or drawing my bowl at a whitetail doe.

The excitement and trill of the chase, the fulfillment that it gives us, reminds me that men are entitled basic rights, among them “the pursuit of happiness”. But, happiness is a state of mind, is doing what we like, pursuing what gives us pleasure. Happiness is in the action, not necessarily in the achievement. Ortega Y Gasset really captured the essence of men’s pursuit of happiness in saying that “the hunter does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, he kills in order to have hunted”.

And, since the happiness is found in the action, and the continuation of that action, not necessarily in the achievement, then, I hunt not only because I am a predator, but I hunt in order to be happy.

Chess Game

Probably the greatest benefits that I have from writing the posts for my blog is that I can exercise my memory and remember some occasions that were really special.

In the seasons of 2003 and 2004 I hunted deer (or was taught how to hunt deer) with my friend Bob Scott at his place in D Avenue, between Kalamazoo and Gobbles. I told the story about the 2003 hunt in my book “A Wild Beast at Heart”, in the chapter “Opening Day”.

I just can’t remember where I hunted in 2005, but that is probably when Bob took me bow hunting a couple times. I was immature enough to blow a chance at a nice eight pointer that Bob shot later on the same day, and also moved to hastily and spoke several does at dusk on another day when I was on a tree stand for the first time.

Soon after that Bob and Pam sold their “D Avenue” home and acreage and moved into town, and suddenly we no longer had access to a property were to hunt.

During the summer of 2006 my son Daniel and his friend Ryan discovered the “secret pond”, which is formed by the Whisky Run creek, and could be reached by foot from our subdivision. As I knew that it was located in private property, I escorted the boys to the home of the owner and told them to ask permission to visit the no so secret pond.

When deer season was around the corner, I went back to the same farmer and asked if I could have permission to hunt his property, or even if I could lease the hunting rights for a portion of it. After much talking he gave permission to hunt the Northwest corner of his property that comprises a corn field by the road, small woods and a swamp.

I took opening day, a Wednesday, off work, and by o’ dark thirty I left home for the three minutes drive to my new hunting grounds. I set a camping chair by a fence among bushes and started long wait for first light.

In the morning there were song birds of all types, but no deer, and at around 11:30 AM I went back home for lunch with my wife. Just as I got on the road I doe crossed it. After lunch I watched “La Dolce Vita”, the fantastic 1960 Federico Fellini movie staring Marcello Mastroianni and the gorgeous Anita Ekberg. After the rather sad ending, I returned to my hunting post.

After a lot more bird watching, when dusk came and I was getting ready to leave, I saw a beautiful eight or maybe ten point buck and had a terrible case of buck fever. The problem is that besides all my trembling, that buck was looking straight at me from seventy or eighty yards away.

I took a hasty shot; the buck jumped the fence and disappeared in the swamp never to be seen by me again. I looked a lot for blood, but the shot was a clear miss.

On Saturday I went back to the same spot, and continue to watch birds. This time a group of does came from behind me by mid morning. The wind was on my face and they soon scented me and got hell out of Dodge.

On Sunday I relocated my chair to try to spot the does before they could scent me, but they came by a different path, and although I could see them coming I never had a shot before they spooked.

This was becoming an intriguing game of wits.

During the week I had to work, and on Thanksgiving Day we went to Holland, Michigan, to visit with our friends Clóvis and Sandra. As we were leaving the sky was clear and stars were everywhere, I the air carried a cool bite. I sensed a frost for the next morning, and confidently told our friends that I would shoot a deer the next morning.

As the family left for “Black Friday” I left for my usual sitting place and found that the corn had been picked. I relocated my chair to have a better view of the swamp and the “doe highway”, and started the wait. This time the group of does came at the outer edge of the swamp, and when they were about thirty yards from me, there was a loud snort and took of running. Immediately I left my chair and found cover behind some bushes.

They went up a slope and most of them disappeared behind it, but the largest doe turned back and started stumping its front paws while trying to locate me. There was just enough ground behind her, to make an uphill shot safe, so I placed the crosshairs of my scope at her chest and let go a Lightfield slug.

It was like hitting a toy with a sledge hammer. The doe flipped backwards, and disappeared in the corn stubbles. I quickly came looking for her and found a very large and fat doe, very dead on the spot she was hit.

I paced the distance back to the bush that I hid behind and counted about ninety yards. No bad for an off-hand shot.

After field dressing the doe I took her home and waited for my family to come home. The only pictures that I have are completed out of focus, courtesy of the bad mood that my teenager daughter was in.

While butchering the doe I found the lead slug resting against the hip bones.

After eating all the venison, the only trophies that I have from this hunt are two out of focus photos and the memories of the great chess game those does and I played. This again proves that antlers or horns are not required to make a hunt successful.