It was one of those vintage St. Petersburg Times features. Designed to elicit a torrent of letters and get people engaged, even riled. It obviously worked. It’s about a Brooksville archer-hunter who kills enough game, including deer and boar, to feed his family and share with clients and friends. Mounted trophy heads bedeck the walls of his home office.
It’s all about “lifestyle,” he says. Indeed, the 28-year-old personal trainer is part of a small but growing number of people trying to literally live off the land. Modern hunter-gatherers, if you will.
We all know the arguments against processed foods – and where hamburgers come from. And eating what you kill — plus thinning the herd — can be mitigating arguments on behalf of the “sport” of hunting. But I don’t pretend to be objective. Never have. Herbert “Survival of the Fittest” Spenser would likely think me hopelessly naïve. Hunters would add hypocritical and stupidly urban.
But to me, the only argument that really matters is this: Do you, as a hunter enjoy it? Is it fun to don camouflage; climb a tree; wait in ambush; string a bow; and kill something that wasn’t hunting you? And the kill isn’t always clean.
Bon appetit.