While visiting with a few friends, I recently met a guy. After a few minutes of small talk, he asked me, “so what keeps you busy?” I pondered the question and offered up my usual elevator statement about my work and family. When asked about what I did for fun, I explained that I was an outdoorsman. Behind his smile was a hint of confusion and I elaborated that I loved hunting – particularly deer. “That’s cool, what do you do the rest of the year?”, he asked.
I could only grin. It was going to be hard to explain.
There are many popular outdoor hobbies and sports. There’s cycling, golf, hiking, and marathons, just to name a few. Heck, the list of indoor hobbies is limitless, with many identifying as coin collectors, weight-lifters – even passionate home brewers of craft beer. Except for very cold climates, most of these and many other activities can be done year-round.
The Hobby Hunter
For some, hunting is a hobby too. Gobs of rifle, shotgun, and bow hunters around the country annually flock to hunting clubs and leases, lodges, and public lands – all for a weekend or two during the season. For some, that’s as much as they can get away with. For others, it’s simply enough to satisfy them. In either case, this is more than okay.
Hunting as a Craft
On the other side of the spectrum lies those who literally spend all year perfecting, planning for, and generally obsessing over hunting. There are few days of the year that they aren’t somehow planning for the harvest of their next whitetail or other game animal. For these unique beings, their hobby is almost treated like a job, albeit a fun one with no pay. As such, terms like 365 Hunter have gotten legs, largely in the world of whitetail hunting.
A Craft Made up of Sub-Hobbies
For simplicity, I’ll continue with the term 365 Hunter. And for this bunch, there are a litany of sub-activities that support their hunting hobby; or craft. Here are a just few of them.
Shed Hunting
The period shortly following deer season marks a special time for many hunters. During this time, whitetail antlers drop and passionate hunters hit the woods in search of them. Starting in February, shed hunting isn’t only a great means of scouting, let’s face it – it feeds the hardcore hunter’s fascination with antlers. At a minimum, it reveals what area bucks likely survived the season. Make no mistake though; it’s both a rite of passage and a hobby.
Shooting
Most hardcore hunters shoot their rifles, muzzleloaders, and bows. These days, there are even those that hunt with pistols, requiring more off-season
practice. In all these cases, shooting is done to stay sharp for hunting season. It’s also done because it’s enjoyable in and of itself. In fact, many ultimately enjoy competition archery and firearm shooting during the offseason; hobbies in their own rite.
Scouting, Stand Prep, and Intel
The offseason entails repairing and moving stands, cutting shooting lanes, and determining bedding areas. Ardent Big game hunters, particularly deer hunters, spend the offseason studying and organizing trail camera images in preparation for the next season. Additionally, they continue to deploy them during this period – especially in the summer months as antlers eventually reach full growth and early season patterns can be determined. Some hunters even kick it up a notch and engage in other strategic activities such as mock scrape creation in anticipation of the pre-rut and rut periods. Though all these endeavors take effort and time, many a hunter would have it no other way.
Nutrition and Habitat Management
During the offseason, many hunters also prepare food plots, deploy free-choice protein feeders, and create and maintain mineral stations. For the 365 hunter there are also timber management activities to tend to such as raising and eliminating canopies and hinge-cutting – all to increase food and browse for whitetails. All this points
to the fact that many hunters are enthusiasts of agriculture, land management, and conservation as a whole.
Wild Game Cooking
Since hunting began, preparing and cooking wild game has been not only a means of sustenance, but a celebrated activity. Most any hunter will attest that the culinary tradition associated with hunting provides a direct connection to the game they hunt. From Uncle Joe’s deer camp venison chili to masterpieces from professional chefs, wild game cooking is an art. It’s also healthy and a great tool for hunter recruitment. As a matter of fact, despite declining hunter numbers, it has experienced a resurgence, with many millennials taking an interest in it. This hobby knows no bounds and truly extends the hunting season.
So, this list far from covers it. There are many other sub-hobbies associated with hunting including knife-making, bow maintenance, and shell reloading. Sure, these activities entail hard (sometimes physical) work but, for hunting junkies, they’re gratifying. Further, they will usually gladly be done in lieu of regular household chores. Survey a few spouses and you’ll see it’s true.
Is hunting a hobby or a craft? As I see it, it represents the latter. It’s much more than an activity, hobby, or sport. Rather, it’s a craft made up of activities and sub-hobbies that enhance a hunter’s skill and success. It’s truly a gift that keeps on giving. I don’t know if the new guy totally understood my long-winded answer but he was patient enough to let me finish. Will he ever take up hunting? If so, will he eventually build it into a craft? Who knows. At a minimum, maybe he’ll take on one of its many sub-hobbies.
