By Manuel S. Cervantes
Ken Back said it best, as I was looking around the Black Widow Shop in Nixa Missouri a few years ago, during one of the breaks in GFA’s instinctive shooting clinic, talking to Roger, asking for a new armguard, and out of nowhere here comes Ken Beck and notices what I was doing, and said, “Hey, you already have twelve of those, what do you want another one for?”, “You have this disease! Don’t you?”, and he was right, because, of course, it is some sort of a decease, this weird gene that most; either negate, don’t have, or don’t understand! The hunter’s heart!
What is the hunter’s heart? This has to be one of the hardest things to explain to any nonhunter, let alone any antihunter. We generally describe it as this urge to get out there to hunt. It is an almost irrational force that drives us to do crazy things like getting up at 3 am and getting outside when the weather is horrible with rain, snow, and sometimes hard winds that freeze you to the bone! True hunters will endure really long and difficult hikes, super uncomfortable camping conditions, terrible food, and sleep deprivation to the nth degree. This force is so powerful that takes full control of our lives from all possible angles. Some of us will disregard important things in our lives to be able to go hunting. Some of us will even sacrifice family, marriage, work opportunities, vacations, religious beliefs, and social life! Some of us will sacrifice EVERYTHING just to be able to hunt a little!
Having the hunter’s gene; is something we most definitely have inside ourselves somewhere. Something that would make a great doctoral dissertation study in human behavior. Why do some of us have it and others don’t? Why wouldn’t we just go to the supermarket and get some great-tasting beef, chicken, or pork? Why do we want to talk about hunting all the time, and no other subject captures our attention more than a good whitetail hunt story? Not football, not politics, not even the war in Ukraine and The Gaza Strip?
By no means do I consider myself an expert in the subject, but let me confess that some of the absolutely worst disputes and arguments my lovely wife and I have ever had to endure were over bowhunting and my non-negotiable devotion to it. Hunting has been and continues to be the number one fascination in my life, it’s an uncontainable urge you really cannot control. My marriage has survived this conflict somehow. Being completely honest and open about it has been a super important factor in keeping my wedding band on my left hand’s ring finger. Back in 1994 when my wife Carmen and I started dating, I told her I was going hunting for a week for the first time. I didn’t ask her, just informed her. She immediately asked where and why. Of course, my answers were not sufficient, and a few weeks later I was gone into the mountains of central Jalisco, Mexico with a friend in pursuit of whitetails with recurves and wood arrows in hand.
That was a long time ago, but it set the stage for what we’d deal with in the years to come. She does not accept that I take so much time bowhunting, but she knew, well before we got married that I would be getting into the woods a lot every year bow in hand! But why? I don’t know, because it matters to me, and because I must do it!
The bottom line is that when we were dating, we never talked about bowhunting after marriage, she never brought it up, and neither did I. It must be mentioned that if we had ever talked about it like seriously as to how much effort, time, etc… would be devoted to hunting, there is a very high probability that she wouldn’t have married me!
So the question remains unanswered, and I don’t intend to answer it myself because I don’t know for sure. All I can offer is a little insight into this endless dilemma. “Why must we hunt?”, can anyone, even Fred Bear, or Howard Hill answer that question with absolute conviction? Searching for answers just leads to more questions!
Our origins as hunters, and not just ours, but all predatory creatures were given this hunting gene by natural selection, by evolution, and just pure random luck. Could have humans evolved as 100% herbivores? Probably not, because as we understand, homo sapiens’ brains grew up to massive proportions due to the huge ingestion of proteins coming from meat!
So, there you have it, what drives us to hunt is the same instinct or force that drives a pack of wolves or lions to hunt, or for that matter a spider or a ladybug (ladybugs are predators too; in case you didn’t know). We hunt because we have the hunting gene in us, and it’s an absolute obligation to do so. It’s as important to us as going to work in the morning, it’s as important as seeking shelter or a home for our family, and it’s as important and sometimes more important than anything else in our lives!
Every human being on this planet has a vocation to pursue. Mine was that of a hunter, and it’s a tragedy that I cannot do this for a living, but I definitely do it in order to live! There are cooks, carpenters, masons, doctors, etc… and I am not a bowyer, a fletcher, or a leather worker either, I just hunt. The rest of the trades belong to someone else. When I go hunting if there is no one cooking in camp, I just eat simple sandwiches and drink water. Not going to bother cooking elaborate meals, for me there is no time for that since all my time is devoted to scouting, getting ready, and actually hunting. Also, although I enjoy building my own arrows out of wood and have made a few longbows myself. I don’t consider myself very good at it and just do it as a pastime because it links me to my hunting and it’s a lot of fun.
Us hunters don’t go a single day without doing something that relates to our passion. We think about it all the time and do something every day that keeps us engaged in it. This very thing; that is so obvious to any observer is what drives my wife crazy. Piles of books and magazines on hunting, tons of arrows, quivers, recurves, and longbows. Camping gear, binoculars, camo jackets, wool trousers, twenty pairs of hunting boots, etc… etc… It has no end, and it will endure until the day we go away!
Time spent in the woods, fields, and mountains is precious in this day and age. Give thanks to our creator for this gene that some of us have! Write down in a diary some good notes about your adventures hunting. One day, when we no longer are able to get out there and sincerely hope that inevitable day never comes, we may just have to resort to reading all our little notes to be able to feed that voracious gene! The hunter's gene!