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Post being replied to

You raise a handful of interesting questions... by ConnorMacManus

And I certainly don't read your reply as gratuitous at all. The short, direct answer is no - I have not killed anything the size of an elk. And if we're being honest, while I'd like to think I have the fortitude to pull the trigger, I suppose I won't know until the moment of truth.

I've shot plenty of birds and small animals, been around plenty of farm animals during slaughter, but always had shitty luck deer hunting (I just sat in the treestand freezing my ass off, and never had a deer come closer than 40 yards - too far for a clean bow kill). I went bear hunting when I was 13, but missed him - almost certainly due to nerves (as would any normal 13 year old I suppose).

But your point stands - there is a psychological element to large game that simply doesn't exist with smaller prey. Even my father, with probably over 40 deer taken in his lifetime, would tell you his heart still races every time. That's why he goes...

Despite growing up hunting with my father, in my adult life I've had little opportunity to go hunting at all, even less so with my father. My career has taken me all over the USA, and abroad (France) for the last four years, as you've heard before. As such, hunting has taken a back seat for the better part of two decades.

Having moved back stateside only two months ago, this was one of the first things I wanted to plan with my father. It's certainly one of his dreams, not just the hunt itself - but to do it and share it with me. I certainly want to do it with him, because the window of time where he will still be capable of it, it is closing quickly.

So even if I hike around the Bighorns for a week and never come within sight of an elk, it would still be time well spent with my father. But a tenderloin roasting over a campfire would probably make it better...

Museums and great halls all over Europe are filled with paintings and stories of hunting. Hell, the caves are too for that matter. Hunting as a rite of passage has existed for millenia. There's something elemental about it - inside all of us.

I'm hoping to share just a slice of that with the old man while he's still around...