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Post by deerman1 on Dec 19, 2009 23:34:15 GMT -5
Nope not in the least it makes me feel good every time I like the way they taste too!!!
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Post by SFC (R) B on Dec 20, 2009 0:14:36 GMT -5
I would say that what a lot of people feel and have described is a sense of reverance. Reverance for the life we have taken and for the responsiblity of doing this ethically that we have been entrusted with by the Almighty.
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Post by Russ Koon on Dec 21, 2009 13:23:19 GMT -5
I was the first hunter in our immediate family. My parents had not hunted, nor did many of their friends in the area where we lived until I was fourteen, when we moved to the farm. Probably that affected my earliest hunting somewhat.
I enjoyed shooting the rifle I bought with my first paycheck from putting up hay at the neighbor's place, and practiced diligently with the single shot until I was very accurate with it, but when squirrel season finally arrived, I couldn't seem to hit worth a darn! It was frustrating to sit under a hickory or the old beech den tree where I knew the grays would be running around in the branches and take careful aim on one that finally held still, then see it running away unharmed after the shot.
Took me a while before I caught myself at the very last split second, shutting my aiming eye and pulling off the squirrel. This wasn't about flinching from recoil as a kid will often do with a shotgun. It was a mental battle with part of me not being ready to face the reality of the harming of the squirrel.
After I finally realized what was going on and had a good think on the matter, the next squirrel hit the ground. Then, as you'd expect, I had to deal with the "hunter's remorse" feelings of guilt and sorrow for taking the life of the innocent little critter, and it was genuine and severe, but not so much so that it stopped me from going out again the next morning.
Reduced feelings of remorse were still there for several years, gradually leaving as I became older, even well into adulthood.
I expect for some those feelings never completely leave. For me, I can honestly say they did, after a long time, and I now feel no remorse whatever, except as stated if I fail to kill quickly and humanely.
I think I'm as much a softie for a helpless critter or a kid or a person down on their luck as ever, but the knowledge that hunting is a humane and sensible means to end an animal's life and that eating that animal and/or controlling its population to an ecologically proper level is a natural and useful purpose for doing so, and that no remorse is called for, has gradually been reinforced to the point that it has expelled the last of the twinges of guilt that were once there.
Without a hunting background in the immediate family, I probably came a little later than some to that degree of confirmation, but I suspect most of us get there eventually.
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Post by ridgerunner on Dec 21, 2009 20:31:08 GMT -5
I feel Overjoyed when I harvest an animal...Never sad...I do have respect for the animal, but I'm not sad..why be sad? Man, has been hunting for thousands of yers to survive and provide food for the family..You should be thankful, respectful of the animal, but not sad.
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Post by johnc911 on Dec 21, 2009 20:45:22 GMT -5
This is a little weird.
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