There are two outstanding accounts in this issue of Whitetail News that address the personal and compelling question, “Why I Hunt,” that got my adrenaline pumping and touched my heart and soul. If you don’t react to these messages, you live in a different universe than I do.
One is by our good friend, famed musician/outdoorsman Ted Nugent (page 12) and the other is by Jeff McNelis, an eloquent new writer to the Whitetail News (page 19). It struck me how these two accounts could be so different in style and yet so similar in substance, inspiring the same emotions. Nugent’s article is a breathless roller coaster ride that brings you to your feet to salute. McNelis takes you on an intense and beautiful journey that could change the way you look at your outdoor surroundings forever.
Both accounts are compelling and for me they capture what is best in the dedicated and responsible hunter/outdoorsman who has reverence for his sport and his hunting heritage. The kind of outdoorsman that makes up our Whitetail Institute customers I’m proud to say.
And these two gentlemen make me proud to be a hunter. They remind me it is hunters and other outdoorsmen, who have acted to not only protect and preserve our hunting environment and its resources, but to actively promote their improvement. And not just for ourselves, but for future generations. I can’t tell you how many of our field testers talk about their children and grandchildren and their desire to pass down their hunting traditions to them.
When you sense the passion in these two articles by these two dedicated outdoorsmen, it makes you more determined than ever to be a good steward of your environment and all the natural resources you are blessed to enjoy. Those emotions are what will let us prevail over the uninformed antihunting forces that do not understand the beautiful order in nature or who believe as Jeff McNelis does, that it’s worth getting out of bed two hours early (to hunt) even if all he sees is a “stunning sunrise.”
