Originally Posted by
Land Owner
I became a Master Craftsman through year of accurate reloading and shooting rifle rounds. I was capable of placing the bullet, out to 200-yards, right where it was needed to transfer energy and drop a game animal it in its tracks. When the shot was over, THE WORK started!
My hunting, shooting, and reloading Mentor passed, taking most of my momentum in those with him. I was overwhelmed upon inheriting his entire estate, including reloading and shooting arsenal. I bought a shooter's estate, but burned out in its sorting, storage, selling, and shipping before it was all sold. The "Flea Market mentality" of the buying public is trying on one's patience.
Significantly in those, and Covid twice, I aged a lot and let go of the "shooter's edge". My Host at Deer Camp observed that I am "not mad at the deer anymore", passing up shots that used to be a blood lust for venison, but in silent part because legislatively, the purchase-as-you-go and non-resident price to play there (and the terrain) got too steep.
Locally, on ordinarily "level" ground, maintaining equipment, buying and hauling materials, preparing the land, waking early, stumbling and trudging the darkness on hog-broken roads to stands, climbing, then the seconds, minutes, hours, and days spent sitting on small hard seats, alone in my own thoughts, in the cold, in the rain, in the heat, whatever "climate change", "suffering" biting insects, waiting-waiting-waiting for an opportunity in which the game participates, then THE WORK starts, became less important and more difficult on my own than sitting in a comfortable chair, in a warm and dry place, having a conversation with a friend. The hogs are running the local asylum. I am not there (as much) to deter them.
"Thinning the herd" sounds good. Thinning too deeply or without a plan is risky business. Then there is the public, selling and shipping again. I am still bummed out in those but have not overlooked rising prices in firearms and equipment.