Written By: Josh Webb
My Dad and Great Uncle teaching me how to shoot a bow
Over twenty years ago a man took the time to introduce a very young boy to hunting for the first time. The young boy was wide eyed and grinning for an entire weekend as he soaked up every second of the adventure that took place in those Hatchie river bottoms near Brownsville, Tennessee. Now, fast forward to today, and that boy is actually typing this article for you all to read and reliving the special memories from that special day which solidified his love and respect for the outdoors forever.
Yep that’s right, I am the little boy in the opening line who experienced his first wilderness sunrise from a two man ladder stand in a long and narrow hardwood bottom in southwest Tennessee. I can vividly remember that day and many more like it through the years that followed. It was a time when camp was truly a camp and the only way to know if your buddy had killed a deer was to drive by his house on the way home to see if there were blood stains in the back of his pick-up truck. That was an amazing time to be a hunter and outdoorsman, mostly because the respect for animals and the land they inhabited was more important than harvesting them. I wish I could say the same for today.
Now, before you get upset, please hear me out. There are a whole lot of people today who have immense respect for the animals we hunt. I am proudly one myself. But it bothers me that on a daily basis I see hunters bashing other hunters for not shooting a “big” buck or killing the occasional hen mallard. Some guys want to make others feel inferior because they don’t have massive expanses of land to manage for proper habitat. Others feel that it is a job well done if they can turn some new hunter away from hunting because they fear the new guy will learn about their hot spot. Now I admit that these types of people have been around forever but the social media craze of today has given many of them a platform that they feel is bigger than life itself. That is something I personally have a major problem with.
No matter what you make of it social media is here to stay and so are the crazy, ego driven “cool” guys. But the truth of the matter is that if we don’t teach the same respect for the land and animals that we love to everyone, then the blame really and truly falls on us as outdoorsmen and women. I am not saying that you should try to become a spokesman for an entire generation.
However, you might think about taking the time you are already spending on social media to spread the goodness of what we love to do. Educate the new hunters on the fact that land management doesn’t only apply to ten thousand acre farms. Let them see the respect you have for the animals in the pictures you post and statuses you update. Reach out to them and support them when they ask questions because whether you like it or not they are the ones who will carry on our tradition. It may be your child, your spouse or someone you met online but regardless they all need the proper guidance when they begin to hunt and fish. First and foremost they need someone to teach them proper respect for the animals and the land they inhabit.
Please take the time this fall to introduce someone new to hunting and let them see the greatness that God lays before us each day.
