I know nothing about hunting.
When I was little my dad would take us fishing, which I remember was nice – to drive way out into nowhere, plunk a line, sit there and do nothing. It was peaceful. Even if we never caught anything. If we had caught a fish, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it, besides throw it back. Which seemed like a very long drive out to the woods just to fuck up a fish’s day.
What little I did of fishing, I did even less of hunting. But I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors part. I’d even go as far to describe myself as an environmentalist. I believe our public lands should remain public. We should be able to access and enjoy unspoiled natural spaces. And we should fight to conserve these lands. If not to preserve the endless beauty of the outdoors and its stunning biodiversity, then to preserve the one place Americans visit most to keep from committing suicide.
In addition to being America’s biggest picker-upper, nature, it turns out, is also chock full of valuable resources. Hence the constant push to privatize, or at least lease and tap our natural lands. So just like the delicate balance of a natural ecosystem, our public lands are doomed to a tug-of-war for revenue. Either they’re producing revenue from public use like tourism or hunting, or their resources are harvested.
In response to the increased privatization and exploitation of public lands, hunters and anglers have been a leading proponent in the fight for conservation. This is echoed in the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers mission: Backcountry Hunters & Anglers seeks to ensure North America's outdoor heritage of hunting and fishing in a natural setting, through education and work on behalf of wild public lands and waters.
Hunting and fishing is one of the main sources of revenue that funds natural preserves and helps to keep would-be prospectors at bay. But there has been a steady decline in hunting and the much-needed revenue it provides. Americans just aren’t hunting and fishing like they used to.
Because I knew very little about hunting I wanted to find out more.
I asked my friend, William Lakey to take me out to the woods and show me around some Minnesota hunting. I would go to learn and take pictures. I asked Will because he is my kind of hunter: an outspoken advocate for public lands, sporting safety, and (especially) a proponent of backcountry etiquette.
At first, Will was leery about having me along. He was hunting deer on private land and suggested it might not be best if I took pictures of someone else’s land. This hadn’t even occurred to me. I thought, as long as I’m not taking pictures of people’s things, one parcel of land is indifferentiable from another. But then, I am also remarkably inconsiderate, so I took his word for it and would wait for another opportunity.
He invited me along to his next hunt, this time on public land north of Minneapolis. (I eagerly agreed to join.) He would hunt for squirrels, and I would hunt for pictures.
I was the first to arrive at our meeting spot. There was another car parked in the pull-out. This was a regular spot for hunters. Will guessed the car belonged to another hunter. He said, the owner of the car was maybe a bow-hunter somewhere down the trail patiently waiting for deer (rifle hunting is only two weeks in November, but archery season runs to the end of December). So we should walk quietly and be careful to not scare the animals and ruin their hunt.
From his careful and considerate approach to the hunt, I get the feeling that Will is an exceptional presence in these woods. Much about the way he hunts is informed by awareness and a gentlemanly courtesy. He described, for example, the times he’ll switch out lead shot for bismuth or steel shot when hunting close to waterways. Even though a non-lead shot is much more expensive, it's better to use a non-toxic metal that won’t contaminate watersheds.
The trek out to our spot was, at times, through deep snow. Will walked slow and watchful, keeping an eye out for the other hunter, and squirrels. At one point, he stopped and aimed his shotgun up to the trees. The shot was loud, but not nearly as loud as I’d thought it’d be. In the heavy snow and open clearing, the report was like the snap of a thick, wet branch. It’s response came echoing back to us, small but crisp, from distant hills.
We approached the spot at the base of a tree where a small pine squirrel (the smallest of the Minnesota species) had fallen from a high-up limb. This one, Will tucked in a snowbank (convenient refrigeration) next to where he would hunt for the day.
He propped himself against a tree and, with his gun draped over his arm, watched the forest. He stayed like that for a couple hours, waiting and watching and breathing. He’d stamped a small mat of snow and, aside from plumes of hot breath, he did not move. I stayed nearby, taking pictures. I was probably imposing. Imposing on what is hard to say, but it was something sacred and private – a calmness that comes with the rare ability to just be.
Will taught me how to field dress a squirrel. You kind of hold its tail, and make an incision just above the anus, and below the tail. Pin down the hind legs (Will used his boot against a log) and pull the tail forward, toward the head. The squirrel peeled like a banana. He put the raw nuggets in a small bag and tucked it in his sack. I asked if he’s ever had to field dress a deer. Seeing what it takes just to unwrap this small rodent, I can’t imagine the pain in the ass it’d be to peel and parse a full grown deer.
“Sometimes.” he said. “You'll always want to gut the deer in the field. It's important to gut a deer fairly soon to prevent meat spoilage. But to fully dress the deer, I’ll probably take it home on my cargo rack to skin and chop up.”
“If I'm hunting a long way from the car, it is sometimes necessary to quarter a deer to make carrying it back easier. I did this with an antelope in South Dakota as I was over a mile from the car and it would have been a pain to drag the whole animal that far.”
(This is another area where he’s trying to hunt without lead. Will explained how a lead bullet will fragment as it passes through a deer, leaving lots of fine particles in the guts. The guts are left behind in the field for scavengers, which then consume the lead. The antelope in South Dakota he shot with a copper bullet. He is planning to switch his other rifles over, but they are odd calibers and lead-free options aren't as easy to come by.)
It was twilight. Our time was up. There would be no more hunting for squirrels. And I believed Will when he said our time was up. I imagine if a squirrel were to surrender itself to him a minute past the day’s allowed time, he would probably shoo it away.
Will recalled the other hunter. Because they were probably bow-hunting deer they could hunt for a half hour longer than we could. If true, they were probably still waiting for a deer to show. So rather than trod through their spot, we decided to wait and just be in the woods.
Will resumed his lean at the tree, and I found a frozen log to squat. Will described the immaculately structured rules, regulations and timetables for hunting in Minnesota. He’s clearly done his research, to the point he is an authority for the privileges and the minutiae regulations of enjoying public land. He could recall the dates open for wild turkey, deer and small game down to the minute. He knew the regulations that determine the distance landowners must post their private land signs. He went on and on and, I would discover later, he only scratched the surface. And here, I thought hunting was a year-round free-for-all for a bunch of yahoos.
There are yahoos, of course. And they probably consider the comprehensive regulations of the DNR as killjoy, or worse – the oppressive hand of a tyrannical federal government. I relayed for Will, a story a friend of mine told me about growing up hunting in Wisconsin. It was an anecdote I prefaced with the disclaimer: this was only a second-hand story and, I had no way to confirm if it was actually true.
My friend described growing up hunting in Wisconsin – a place notoriously populated with don’t-tread-on-me’s, who are definitely not keen on the federal government. At a day’s end, hunters would naturally gather at the tagging place to register the deer they'd shot. There were always those who would show up with a trailer literally piled with deer, more deer than they could possibly hope to turn into food.
These were belligerent landowners and the belligerent buddies of landowners who farm a crop and can shoot and kill with impunity any animal who would snack on, or otherwise threaten their crop. They would roll up to the spot just to offer a rough estimate to the day’s slaughter. I’m sure, it was more of a fuck-you to the DNR than any real concern for record-keeping.
It was a disheartening story for Will to hear. (I’m usually good for that.) But to hear it only redoubled his allegiance to his code of conduct and etiquette. There are assholes everywhere. They will happily burn-down their own backyard, if it means thumbing it to any kind of authority (real or perceived). But it is because our natural lands are regulated that they can remain wild and accessible. Without federal oversight, there wouldn’t be any trees, or water, or open spaces or wildlife. There wouldn’t be any hunting or fishing.
And then we were quiet. And maybe because of the thick snow, the land was quiet as well. The acoustic vacuum was like a high pressure, heavy on my eardrums. Without competition, other sounds became accentuated. The breeze was calm, and picked up at random. The crisp air slipped through the trees with a tall sigh, combed by a multitude of needles. Far away, the occasional shotgun cracks and, if I held my breath, I could hear the laughter and the long, throaty shouts from the group ice-fishing on the lake.
When a reasonable time had passed, we packed it in and followed our tracks the way we’d come. No sign of the other hunter, and just the one squirrel for the day. Twilight had slipped away and we navigated by the light of the snow. In the incredible cold, the dry snow creaked like chapped leather under our feet and sounded like a graveled voice imploring with every footstep, “Why, why, why?”