How I Found My Hunting Partner
We met at a rabbit butchering class.
The admiration was mutual, and immediate. She’s a research scientist, obsessed with spreadsheets and processes and always extremely, impeccably well-prepared. When there was no one to teach us how to hunt, we started teaching ourselves.
Along the way our paths crossed with generous ranchers, underground gun dealers, wildlife biologists and chefs, all eager to clear the path a bit for women to join the 14 million plus Americans that take to the wilderness during their seasons. We’ve had a few run- ins with other hunters but overall owe a debt of gratitude to every man that lent space in a walk-in fridge, taught us how to field dress our first elk, or shared a secret hunting spot, all from the genuine love of hunting and the landscapes it invites everyone into.
No doubt, many eyes have rolled at yet another squeaky-clean Jeep from the city, bumping down the dirt roads of our public lands looking for a spot to camp for a few days out of the year. The reality is that the more people that love the natural world and take time to consider our place in it, rather than separate from it, the stronger the movement is to conserve wild places.
Ultimately, we found our own way, a quiet, meditative approach to hunting that honors the landscape, the animals, and the “time out of time” feeling that hunting can give. Some hunts we rack up dozens of miles. But mostly we find a place to sit, to watch, to wait. It’s the stillness and heightened sense of hearing, smell and sight that delineates this time from the rest of the year. There is no housecleaning, no tidying, no desk work, and very little talking. No wonder so many hunters before us have considered this practice a refuge, a kind of sustenance beyond the nourishment wild protein provides. We know where the meat we eat comes from, and every scrap is utilized in our winter cooking, down to the broth from the bones that is the foundation for the soup we'll be eating the following year on our frigid elk hunt.
As city people, it’s easy to stand apart from the natural processes we are all unavoidably wrapped up in. It’s easy for the urban-rural divide to become an abstract us versus them division. For us, hunting is a protected time. To have a good season, the way we practice it, the only thing we have to be is there; watching, listening and acknowledging that we are just humans, in nature, and nothing more.
