hunting

It's been almost two years exactly since I wrote my first article for Simple Good & Tasty, about taking my mother squirrel hunting for the very first time. Over the past two years, I've received some very good feedback about that article and best of all, I ended up meeting Mike Pugsley.

A career musician in his 50s, Mike has been an avid shooter for most of his life but only hunted a couple times 20 years ago. He was interested in getting into hunting and doing some research online when he came across my squirrel article, in which I noted that I frequently take new hunters out and introduce them to the outdoors. After he called, and talked about squirrel hunting, we set up a time to go out. 

My last post for Simple, Good and Tasty was about cooking and eating beaver. I figured it would bring a few juvenile comments, but I didn’t expect to start a debate about cruel hunting practices. One reader took offense to the use of traps in killing the beaver, and it started a good conversation about ethical hunting and trapping practices, and making sure the animals we hunt don’t suffer unnecessarily. 

It’s amazing to me how loud a single leaf falling through the canopy of a forest can be. As I sit quietly in the woods on this September morning, I again notice how loud sounds can be in the forest. It is early in the morning on Saturday, September 15th – the day of the small game opener in Minnesota – and I am sitting in the woods about fifteen minutes south of Burnsville with my newest hunting partner.

It's that time of year again, deer-hunting season is wrapping up. Thousands of Minnesotan's brave the frosty-cold mornings to sit in tree-stands and ground-blinds each year and wait for a big buck or nice doe to come into range. Over opening weekend alone this year, the DNR had approximately 73,000 registered deer. For anyone who partakes in this tradition or just knows someone who does, you are probably painfully aware that hunting can be anything from stimulating and invigorating to totally disappointing and everything in between. There is no debate that even a good, well-seasoned hunter will have to play the inevitable waiting game, which can be hard work in itself. In the end, the hard work and perseverance pay off and there are a lot of freezers out there chuck-full of venison for the winter months to come.