Meat is just the bonus

Hunting is about spirituality, solace, heritage—and challenging new-age vegans from LA

When I first put my hands into a deer’s body just under the ribcage, dipping into the unexpectedly warm pool of blood to get a better angle as I maneuvered the guts out, I knew it was something I would do forever. “Spiritual” is the only way to describe it. There was some sort of exchange, some sort of ancient calling I couldn’t have anticipated, and finally, like Pavlov’s dogs, I heard the call. I was salivating.

I grew up hunting with my dad, but most of those years I killed only small animals—rabbits, maybe the occasional squirrel. When we were deer hunting I was my dad’s sidekick, and always—it never failed—just when I’d be ready to leave the woods and watch cartoons, we’d see a deer. I helped him track wounded ones past dark; I helped him drag some out of the woods. But it wasn’t until I killed one myself that I caught the fever. Since then I’ve killed one almost every year, and my interest in hunting only grows stronger. I look forward to it all year. My dad and I still hunt together, and he’s taught me that you don’t hunt to kill a deer—you hunt to enjoy the solace of the woods. Bringing home meat is just the bonus.

Up until a few years ago the only representation of hunters on TV were the likes of Elmer Fudd (shotgun-toting simpleton), Ted Nugent (ultra-right-wing know-it-all), and the killers in “Bambi” (cold-blooded evildoers). After I left my hometown I kept quiet about hunting. But not today. Now I try to tell everyone.

The truth: There are aware, relatable hunters out there, and they’re now becoming more visible. But like my dad, they’ve always been there. On the small screen, shows like Steven Rinella’s “Meat Eater" and Remi Warren’s “Solo Hunter” have brought like-minded hunters together. Podcasts and Instagram have pulled back the veil to show what real hunters look like, proving hunters aren’t necessarily backwoods hillbillies with hard-ons for killing things; they are your friends and co-workers, they sometimes look like me (brown) or are female. It’s an exciting time to be a hunter, and yet, I still find myself defending it. It’s a strange thing to have to defend something that, for most of the history of human beings, has been as essential as breathing.

Cut to a spring night two years ago in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I was at a swank Santa Fean restaurant with a group of producers. It was our day off from shooting a pilot (which never saw the light of day). This restaurant wasn’t the usual green chili, down-to-earth spot the city is known for—its patrons wore enough turquoise to sink a small ship and expected warm, damp towels at the end of the meal. One of the producers suggested the place—it was somewhere his wife would like, and he wanted us to meet her.

We sucked down red wine and cracked open our menus. That’s when it jumped out from the menu at me, that rare delicacy I always spring for when a restaurant serves it—elk. I’m sure it was farm-raised, but when I order it I pretend I dropped the animal in the mountains out West with a compound bow. I announced my decision to the table. Our friend who recommended the place replied, “Oh, elk is delicious.” His wife, looking at me,
responded, “I’m vegan. I wouldn’t know.”

I told her I was a hunter and promised it tasted good. She put her fingers in the shape of a cross, hissed at me, then shivered in disgust and returned to the menu as though nothing had happened.

Just like that I had been reduced to a vampire, a barbarian, the enemy—because I said I was a hunter. The table was quiet. I realized I’d been offered a chance to engage a new-age vegan from LA about hunting. Would I take the opportunity? Hell to the yeah.

“Why did you hiss at me?” I asked.

“I don’t understand how anyone could murder defenseless animals,” she said.

I rattled off my limited knowledge about conservation, about how the wildlife conservation system in our country is funded by hunters. She muttered something about animals being precious and how hunters were eliminating them. I pointed out that those precious beings are managed by the money gained from hunting and that many once-endangered species had been saved due to this self-funding method. We went back and forth for a few, as the rest of the group listened. Most people in our world, I said, do not have a first-hand relationship with the one inevitable part of the equation in consuming meat: death. I explained my belief that anyone who eats meat should kill their food at least once so they can appreciate what goes into feeding a family.

Having grown tired of it, I opted to kill the argument—but I had one ace in my pocket, one that no new-ager can withstand.

“It’s a part of my heritage,” I said. “My people have hunted deer since they first walked upright on this land.”

She thought this was “beautiful.” My case was closed.

Our server placed my elk in front of me. I cut into it with my steak knife. Blood leaked out onto my plate. I hadn’t dropped it with a compound bow in some Western mountain range, but conjuring images of freezing my ass off in a deer stand back home made the experience spiritual nonetheless.