December 1, 2025
Whitetail season in the Midwest was late to develop yet again. Warm air baked in the late summer sun as it made its way down the Rockies and across the plains. Now, well into the season with a couple successful harvests, the cold weather has come full swing and I'm able to reflect.
Every hunter, at least every ethical one, feels a massive wave of conflicting feelings after their first kill. The adrenaline dumps, and reality begins to set in that a life was taken by your hand. For me personally, I've been able to connect with every harvest I've made in an almost spiritual way. To celebrate the life I have taken by feeding my family, honoring the animal with a humane kill, and being truly humbled by what these animals do to survive. It makes me think long and hard about my motivations, my values, and what my part is in the bigger picture of the circle of life.
Some hunters experience it once and never hunt again. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't understand their sentiment. Make no mistake, a life is taken. An animal that has roamed the ecosystem with complete freedom and sometimes lived years this way has been taken by your intervention. Other hunters look at it as a reality of life. If it's not us in the woods, it's the butcher or slaughterhouse before it reaches the neat packaging in the grocery store.
The rationale I've begun to believe in considers my place in the grander scheme. Doing what's harder in almost every measure to secure my meat from the source. To put in the work in the off-season to ensure I can make a harvest in a safe, effective, and most importantly humane manner. For those who don't quit, the desire to not only have future harvests, but to do so in an ethical way should be the driving factor in our quest to become better hunters. A successful harvest feels more like dotting the "I's" on a love letter to nature that I've written all year.
Last year I began to bring something to the forefront of my mind that had been making its rounds since I was a child. These sacred pockets of time I've experienced in not only hunting but also by just being present in the outdoor world need to be shared. It's driven me to pursue capturing these moments in a way that I can share them. The aim in sharing these moments isn't for fame or fortune, it's shared in hopes that it may inspire others to pay attention to the natural world beyond their city limits. To step foot where people don't step often. To truly feel the moment where your phone isn't on your mind, job deadlines and emails fade away, and for a moment you're doing nothing more than participating as a silent observer in the natural world.
It's been a long journey already. Acquiring cameras, software, learning new skills in editing, working out the kinks as I go. A new factor to the dilemma I spoke about above began to introduce itself the more I actually began to take to the fields with the intent to not only make a harvest, but to capture it. On two different occasions this year a doe and her fawn bounded down the field line toward the timber where my tree stand resides. In both moments, a million questions filled my head. Is it humane to harvest a doe with such as young fawn? Where's my camera's focus button? Do i have an arrow nocked? Put simply, it was a disaster. I didn't make a harvest, I captured no moments to look back on, and the confusion of it all took me out of appreciating the moment for what it was.
As the season went on, I spent some time settling myself with what had happened. If I focused on making a good harvest and succeeded in doing so, the day was a success. If all i got were some pictures from afar, that was okay too. At worst, I make the long trek back to the truck with a quiver full of arrows, an empty SD card, and a breath of fresh natural air. It's a long winded way of saying I don't have to capture every moment. I don't have to kill every deer. If I'm out in nature experiencing it in all of it's beauty, I've already succeeded.
The content journey will continue. The push to better myself as an outdoorsman, a hunter, and an observer is a fire well-lit within me. It'll come as it comes, and that's just fine by me.
"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks."
-John Muir
