and I am starting to believe that I am the worlds worst hunter.  I have been at it now for 4 years, and I have never even had a deer in my sites.  Personally, hunting is something that I want to do.  I love the time spent in the woods, and settling into a tree stand is nice too.  Getting up early and getting out before sunrise is, I think, good for the soul.  But this is not why I want to hunt.  There are several reasons:

1. Mass produced grocery store meat is disgusting.  For a long time now, I have known about how science has met the food chain with revolting consequences.  Hormone injections into cattle for spurring meat and milk production is done with reckless abandon for its impact on people.  Science is, at best, the great interferer if life, in my opinion, especially when the solutions to the problems that it tries to remedy often have side effects that are worse than the original problem.  To me, the free range meat of local deer meat is superior to any deal that you can get at Kroger.

2. Human existence has all but eradicated any natural predators that deer have.  As a consequence, deer populations are exploding across the country, causing detrimental effects both to humans and deer themselves.  For people, hoards of deer attack small farms and ravage crops, cause countless accidents on highways across America.  For themselves, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a terrible disease.  Removing the sickly from the herd is a service to them.

3. I have always been a believer that if you are capable of eating meat, you should be capable of killing it.  You should know what it is that you are eating, the body of another animal.

4. I am on a personal quest to be self sufficient.  If all other means of feeding my family are otherwise removed, I want to have the skill to hunt.  Hunting also frees up financial resources used to purchase meat for other things. 

5. It seems to be the only reliable way to bet by butt out of my chair and into the woods.

  At the end of the day, hunting is a human tradition.  I was not raised in a hunting family, but I hope to give that to my children.  This year, our freezer still only has the remnants of an organic cow that we purchased from a dairy heard that was being thinned, but at least there is always next year.