One more thing

Since I have not posted in a while, I'm overdoing it today.

Since Hudson died, most of my friends knew that I was hesitant to do any more hunting. My experience with that dog taught me much about animals and their relationship to us.

As such, the only deer I had harvested since her death was in 2004, and that experience only solidified what I was feeling at the time...I had out-grown hunting.

Just this year I started to take bowhunting serious again, though I was still not planning to gun hunt. Something must have happened along the way, because my lifelong passion for the hunt had begun to return. And even though I have chosen not to shoot yet during this bow season, I once again felt I was up to the responsibility of harvesting an animal for food and sport. It was a major milestone for me since losing my handicapped dog.

When I pulled the trigger on this years buck, I felt the old familiar rush of excitement and achievement that had been long absent. I literally shook for 5 minutes on the stand after the shot...as all my assumed absent feelings welled up inside me and burst out in a fit of "buck fever" the intensity of which I had NEVER experienced. It was better than any drug I've ever had. Period.

It is now clear that I have come to terms with whatever was holding me back from a sport I so dearly loved. If it ever returns, I will not hesitate to quit once again.