Dedicated to Hunting

By: Matt Helmick

​​​Over the last several years I have transitioned from being a recreational outdoorsman, to having hunting and other outdoor activities become part of my everyday life. I’ve become obsessed and dedicated to the hunting lifestyle for several reasons; hunting creates food, it gives me incredible experiences with the natural world, and it challenges my mind, body, and spirit.
 
Hunting Creates Food
One of the most appealing parts about hunting for me, is that the results are tangible. Not only tangible, but nourishing. I killed two bucks last year and harvested about 100 pounds of meat. That’s roughly 55,000 calories and 10,000 grams of lean protein that fuels myself and my family over the course of an entire year. Finishing a deer season with an entire freezer full of protein is my biggest goal every year. Few things are more satisfying for me, then watching my two-year-old daughter chow down on a deer steak or a turkey nugget. 
 
Another awesome part about creating my own food is that my family has to rely on less people to do it for us. Currently, there are meat-packing plants across Kansas and the rest of the Midwest that have been hammered by the COVID-19 pandemic. People are buying up meat at grocery stores at record rates. It’s very satisfying knowing that my family has plenty of meat in the freezer to weather the storm. 
 
Hunting Gives me Incredible Experiences with Natural World
Most of my best experiences with our beautiful planet and its enchanting animals have come during while engaging in some sort of hunting activity. Some vivid memories from last season include a squirrel sniffing my hat in an effort to figure out what I was, an owl landing 5 feet from me while I was sitting in a tree stand, and a massive whitetail buck snort-wheezing 10 yards away from me as the sun was peeking over the horizon. 
 
Hunting has given the motivation and opportunity to explore new places, and see new habitat & animals. I’ve hunted all over Kansas, from the wide-open Flint Hills covered in endless seas of grass, to the thick, muddy creek bottoms in the Southeast, the plateau-covered Red Hills in the Southwest, and the hidden suburban oasis just up the street from my home. I’ve spent time in the high desert of Southwest Wyoming chasing mule deer, and many weeks in the rugged mountains in the Northwest part of the state. 
 
I’ve been lucky to explore many places in our great country, and the cool thing is, I’ve barely scratched the surface. The number of wild places to explore is too numerous to reach them all in one lifetime. I’ve got a bucket list of places to hit in the coming years, including the hilly desert of Southern Arizona, the unforgiving back-country of Idaho, the bass haven that is Lake Okeechobee, the Loess Canyons in Nebraska, and the forests of Maine. I will not see everything there is to see, but I am going to have fun trying. Hunting has not only awakened my adventurous spirit, but it’s also given me the desire to protect the amazing places I have seen, and the animals that live there. I want my daughter, and someday her kids, to be able to have the amazing experiences that I have been lucky enough to enjoy. “Green energy” and “environmentally friendly” are buzz words that are thrown around a lot, but I truly believe that hunting has given me a much greater understanding of the natural world, and how important it is to protect it, than any news article or political debate ever could.
 
Hunting Challenges my Mind, Body, and Spirit
For me, perhaps the greatest appeal that hunting provides is an all-encompassing challenge. Outside of competitive sports, I have yet to find something that so thoroughly tests my mind, body, and spirit. 
 
Mind - Mental Toughness
Achieving lofty hunting goals is not for the mentally weak. Consistently filling tags and my freezer required several years of failure. My first couple years of deer hunting, I rarely even saw a deer. I had no idea what I was doing, and it would have been easy to just quit, or continue struggling. Perseverance and a competitive fire to overcome obstacles and learn new things is what kept me going back to the woods. It is what earned me the experiences and knowledge that I have used to find consistent success in the last couple of years. If you cannot handle failure, take up a different activity. Every single hunter fails more than they succeed. Even on my good years, the number of hunting days that end without a harvest, far exceeds the number of days that end in success. There are plenty of other ways I have been mentally tested by hunting:

• Controlling my racing heart rate and shaky legs as a deer finally walks into bow range
• Hiking 8+ miles in a day without seeing a legal deer
• Getting my truck stuck in the mud
• Losing a piece of gear
• Waking up at 3 a.m. and driving 2 hours to hunt turkey
• Freezing my toes off in a tree stand in December
• Dealing with the doubt and grief that comes from wounding a deer
• Having another hunter ruin an opportunity for me
• Waiting for a turkey to cross onto public land before taking the shot
• Being alone for multiple days

Mind - Intellectual Ability
At a high level, hunting is intellectually challenging as well. You have to learn about the habits and behaviors of the animal you are pursuing, and then try to figure out the best way to get into a position to kill that animal. Where will a deer bed? How can I ambush him? Am I hidden well enough? Is the wind in my favor? There are many good choices that have to be made to enjoy success on a hunt (especially when using a bow). Another less-discussed intellectual challenge associated with hunting is the need to have good organizational skills. I’ve yet to go on a backcountry backpacking hunt, but I have a lot of admiration for the organizational abilities of the guys that spend weeks in the backcountry every fall. They need to have the gear to live, and hunt for days a time, and it all needs to fit into a pack that they can carry. There is not a lot of room for error. For me, good organizational skills allow me to go on a quick hunt before work or hit a fishing hole on my lunch break. Good organizational abilities have also been essential on my trips to hunt in Wyoming. Driving 900 miles and realizing you forgot an essential piece of gear is not fun.
 
Body
Hunting can be very physically taxing. Being in good shape is a key part of the hunting lifestyle for me. Common physical challenges for many hunters include carrying heavy loads, hiking miles through uneven terrain, and operating with a lack of sleep. Some physical challenges I have faced in the last few years include:

• Waking up well before sunrise many times throughout a season
• Packing out a mule deer and all of my gear on my back through thick sage brush
• Constantly climbing trees and setting tree stands
• Loading a 200+ pound buck into the back of my truck by myself
• Routinely hiking 5+ miles per day
• Blood trailing a deer until 2 a.m. and then going to work the next day

 
If all goes well this season, I’ll get to experience the pain of packing an elk out of the mountains for the first time. I love these physical challenges, and they motivate me to stay healthy and workout hard on days I’m not hunting. 
Spirit
Hunting has challenged my spiritually as well. Taking the life of an animal is something I take seriously, and it tested me the first couple of times it happened. I also wounded multiple deer last year by hitting them with arrows in less-than-fatal locations. That was extremely taxing on my mind and spirit. It made me doubt my abilities and decisions, and it pained me to know that I wounded an animal instead of quickly killing it or missing all together. There are other instances that have tested my spirit as well:

• Driving two hours one way four times in two weeks to turkey hunt and wondering if it’s even worth it.
• Blood trailing a deer for hours and feeling like I should just give up before I’ve reached a conclusion.
• Deciding whether or not to shoot a doe that has fawns with it.
• Deciding whether to kill a coyote when I know I will not be eating it. 
• Feeling guilty about being away from my family so I can chase my hunting goals.

 
This section may feel like a downer, but these are real feelings and moral qualms that I (and many hunters) have faced while hunting. One of the reasons why I love hunting is that it forces me to face these spiritual challenges and make tough decisions. It hardens me, tests my integrity, and makes me really think about an action and its consequences before I act. Sometimes the decision is whether or not to pull the trigger. Sometimes I have to choose between going hunting and letting my exhausted wife sleep in while I watch our daughter. I think these challenges make me a better person, husband, and father. 
 
The Fulfillment Hunting Gives Me
Every year I set hunting goals. I dedicate myself to the pursuit of these goals because I love hunting. I love the meat it provides my family; I love the experiences I have with the natural world, and I absolutely love the challenges hunting provides. I’m a competitor. Hunting is a way for me to compete with myself and mother nature. It hardens me, makes me physically and mentally stronger, and forces me to test my morals and integrity. It also forces me to live a more efficient and organized life. Few other passions, if any, can provide so much personal fulfillment. That’s why I dedicate myself to it.