Hunting By Yourself

I have a confession to make - I didn’t go hunting last year. Not once. And, it will never happen again.

Last year was the first time in 43 years that I completely missed an entire hunting season. Even six years ago, when the family lived in Ireland, we managed to get out to snipe hunt with falcons and dogs in the bogs.

Snipe Hunting in Ireland

Even eight years ago, when I was gone most of the year filming the Great Human Race, Billy and I found time to bow hunt in between the filming.

But last year, not once.

Feeling like a hypocrite

The complete absence of hunting in my life last year was quite ironic because over the course of that year, I appeared on multiple podcasts talking about the powerful connection that comes from directly acquiring your own food through hunting. We even offered several “Making the Most of Your Hunt" classes where I taught other people how to field dress, prepare and cook their wild game using a complete nose to tail approach. In fact, I so strongly believe in the powerful connection that hunting provides that I began to feel like a hypocrite for not getting out there myself. But, I still didn’t get out.

Missing the balance

Last year, Christina and I were focused on building our team at the Modern Stone Age Kitchen, writing grants, working on the capital campaign for the Eastern Shore Food Lab, speaking, conducting research and trying to maintain a strong social media presence. And, we worked hard to ensure that we were also maintaining a healthy relationship and balanced family life. Sure, we were super busy and everything we were doing seemed important.

But, the reality was, that I didn’t go hunting because I didn’t prioritize it.

Not being able to find a single time to get out was especially sad when you consider it was my son, Billy’s, senior year in high school. It wasn’t until hunting season was over that the reality of what I missed out on hit me. And, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I missed Billy’s last hunting season at home. My hunting buddy for the past 10 years was going to leave for college and next year, I would be hunting alone.

What happens in the tree stand…

Right now a developer is erecting new houses between our home and the hunting stand where Billy and I hunted for the past 10 years. The construction of these new houses means that we will never be able to hunt in that stand again. That cheap metal hunting stand from Walmart was so much more than the place where Billy shot his first deer when he was eight.

That hunting stand is where we sat, side by side each morning, and experienced the forest as it came alive.

This was the hunting stand where Billy learned how to safely handle a weapon as he transitioned from a BB gun to a crossbow, then to a recurve bow and later to a shotgun.

This is the hunting stand where we excitedly alerted one another to the presence of movement in the distance, attempted to forecast the weather by the look of the clouds and watched while squirrels barreled over one another as they played and sprinted through the dry leaves making a terrible racket.

Since we could see our house from a distance, this is the hunting stand where every opening day of gun season (which always fell on the Saturday following Thanksgiving) we watched as Christina replaced the Fall decorations with Christmas lights and set up the inflatable snowman in the front yard.

It was the stand when, just a few years ago, Billy got in trouble with his driver’s education instructor because it turns out that zooming in from the hunting stand is not considered appropriate behavior for online classes (who knew?) and the entire class had to wait while Billy climbed down from the stand and ran home to zoom in from the house.

And, this is the stand where we watched the sun slowly drop below the trees in the distance each night before climbing down and returning home, sometimes triumphant, sometimes empty handed, but always with stories to share with the family.

Dusk Hunting

It's not about the hunt

You may have noticed, of all the memories in the stand there was only one mention of actually killing anything. That’s not because it was the only deer we shot out of that stand over the past 10 years. Far from it. In fact, we both harvested a large number of deer from that stand. The reality is that so much more than killing happened there.

Life happened in that stand.

We connected with literally everything during the time we spent in it. We learned about our environment, each other and ourselves all while engaging in the same activity that has been a crucial part of the human experience for two million years. This is exactly the experience my father shared with me and I am so proud to have shared it with my son too.

Three William Schindlers

Hunting by yourself again…

Yesterday while driving back from a Father’s Day fishing weekend in Pennsylvania, Billy and I listened to the Luke Comb’s album, Fathers and Sons, he just released. The entire album was fantastic, but one in particular stood out to me. The title of the song was Huntin’ By Yourself.

When reminiscing about hunting with his son, Luke Combs sang:

“He moves too much And he talks too loud But I don’t mind 'cause I’m finding out, even if it’s Just time we’re killin’ It’s never felt more like livin' They’ll make you cuss And wear your patience thin But next thing you know they’re All grown up and then You’re huntin’ by yourself again…”

The days are long but the years are short

As we drove down Route 81 on Father’s Day listening to this newly released song for the first time sitting next to Billy and fighting back a tear, I thought about the weekend we were returning from. Two days earlier, we drove 5 hours to Montrose, Pennsylvania, the same place my dad brought me every year to hunt with his best friend, Jim Smith (Smitty) and Smitty’s extensive network of family and friends. I thought about how we almost canceled because my father couldn’t make it last minute but urged us to go anyhow because we needed the time. And, I thought about how he was 100% right.

We had gone fishing. All day.

We drove on crazy dirt roads that should have been closed, maneuvered kayak’s down steep banks with ropes, and fished in two different locations. Although the final count was somewhere around 9 largemouth bass, 2 chain pickerel, and over two dozen bluegills, not many of them were keepers. Instead of the hyperlocal, wild, self caught meal we planned on cooking that evening, we picked up ground beef from the local Price Chopper and Jimmy’s wife, Rosie cooked up burgers for dinner. As we shared this meal around their table and recalled stories about the day I realized a day of fishing is also powerful.

It’s not just hunting

Any activity centered around slowing down and directly acquiring our food from our environment such as fishing, crabbing and even foraging can provide many of the connections that are missing from our modern lives. As I listened to that song yesterday, I realized how thankful I was that my father urged us to still take the trip. In fact, I couldn’t imagine listening to that song with Billy by my side if we hadn’t gone.

The deep importance of prioritizing time for the truly important things felt profound at the moment and helped me reevaluate my priorities.

Fishing on the lake

4 more years

As many of you know Billy has committed to Washington College to play soccer next year. Washington College is literally ¾ mile away from the Modern Stone Age Kitchen and this means we have at least four more years of hunting together! Looks like I won’t be hunting alone next year after all.

Now, I just need to make sure I get my dad down here too!