Why We Stay In The Game

I was raised doing it, and there are dang sure lots of reasons to keep on doing it. Sure there are more and more things now days that make it more difficult to do. Loosing places, hot weather, drought, more and more hog hunters every year putting pressure on fewer and fewer places, increased regulation on hunting and raising dogs, ect. ect. But I will never quit for those reasons.

Why I keep doing it.

Getting a rush never was a big deal to me. I was raised hunting with dogs and it is exciting but also just normal for me. Never really has been a rush. Here's why I do it. Working with dogs. Rasing dogs. Continuing a tradition. Maintaining health with good enjoyable, non-repetative physical activity. Spending time with family and friends. Putting food on the the table and the table of others. Teaching the younger generations life lessons throgh taking them hunting. Learning about how hard work pays off. learning how to build and maintain personal relationships or business partnerships through interaction with freinds and landowners. How to work together as a team. Responsibility and how to take care of personal property, exspecially when it is not yours. The circle of life. How to deal with Personal loss. How to stand strong in a difficult situation. Problem solving skills. How to rise up to a challenge. Patience. Planning ahead. Harvesting your own food. Protecting crops. I could go on and on. These are all things I learned about through hog hunting at a young age and all things that I enjoy giving young people the oportunity to learn about. Also, it is good for me to take the oportunity and reinforce those lessons in my self.

I think it is very easy to go overboard. Spend too much money on hog hunting, and get way to wrapped up in it. I personally find very easy to become overly concerned about my success on a hunt. If the dogs don't work how I want them to, Busted bays, or if can't seem to get a hog bayed are all things that can't really get to me and I will let it spoil a hunt more than it should. It has exspecially become appearent to me when I almost dont even enjoy huting with my self over the past year or so. But this drought and not really hunting much has put a good perspective on things for me. When the weather moderates am going to hit the woods as much as I can and be a bit more laid back and patient about things.

A little moderation and going about things in a sustainable way is a good way to approach all things in life. Including hog hunting. Perhaps you need to get back to your roots Bryant and just take a few dogs and a gun. You certainly would loose allot less dogs to hog injuries and with fewer dogs on the ground there is less chance for unusual accidents.

Waylon