In case any of you have missed it, Bryan, from over at DeerPhD, has returned.  After a year hiatus, in order to finish out an internship in Clinical Psychology, he has returned and has once again started blogging.

Bryan also has some plans to move back to Ohio and get back to deer hunting as well.  I’m sure – after that much time away from it – that he is ready to get back in the woods and enjoy hunting again.

SimplyOutdoors is glad to see Bryan back.  His blog has been one of my favorites from the start, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Bryan has in store now that he is officially a doctor.

Congrats Bryan, and welcome back.  We’re all looking forward to your upcoming posts.

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I tend to not be very good at conveying how I feel to other people.  I can have a clear concise thought in my head, and am able to put it down on paper, or on a blog, but when I verbally try and explain it to other people, I stumble all over my words.  Public speaking was not created with me in mind.

I felt this with full force yesterday, when I was trying to explain to a co-worker what being a hunter is; what hunting means to me; and why I hunt in the first place, since, obviously, in this day in age, I don’t do it in order to sustain life.   The conversation had many twists and turns, but I really struggled with telling her why I hunt.  I mean there are obvious reasons: enjoying nature, the adrenaline rush that comes with being that close to wild game, the comraderie.  But all of those things I could do while hiking, or playing golf for that matter.

After that conversation, and after reading Holly’s post today, I really started to evaluate what draws me to hunting.  As most of you true hunters know, it is something that is extremely hard to put into words – especially if you’re trying to explain it to a non-hunter.  And an even tougher challenge, and a topic that I’ve written about before, is trying to explain how I can hunt, and kill animals, but still be a die hard animal lover.  It does seem like a complete contradiction.

If you really dug deep, I think you would find that I really started hunting because it was all around me -my brother hunts, my uncle hunts, and my cousins hunt.  It was just a way of life growing up, and eventually grew to be part of me.  Obviously, though, there are plenty of kids out there who grow up around hunting, but ultimately choose not to pursue that activity into adulthood.  So what made me stick with it?

Honestly, I think the main reason is primitive.  From the moment I set foot in the woods with a bow, I felt alive – more alive then I’ve ever felt before.  I also discovered that hunting brought on a heightened sense of awareness – like my senses were on fire.  It also provided a connection back to what humans have been for many years:  a predator!  And I was hooked.

Now, I still realize that I could get those same feelings without actually killing.  I suppose animal photography could stir up some of the same emotions.  But those feelings, and the sure adrenaline rush from them, keep me coming back – while the need to acquire my food the hard way is what ultimately makes me release the string, or pull the trigger.  I could buy my lunch at McDonalds, or pick up dinner wrapped in cellophane, but that doesn’t bring about the same sense of being, and accomplishment, that providing food for the table does.  It makes me feel alive.  And after all, we do have to kill in order to live, don’t we?  And I prefer to have – at least for some of my meals – pure,  low-fat wild food.

Those are the things that keep me hunting.  Not only do you get to experience nature in her purest form, but also, at the same time, you get to provide food for your families table.  The meals that come from hunting, and another animal’s death, ultimately are appreciated more.  They are much more work than simply buying meat at the supermarket, but being connected to that animal – from first encounter, to its ultimate death – helps me to appreciate how precious that animal’s life is.  And while we celebrate being able to eat, and keep living, there is also some sorrow involved.  We are not unaware that a death has taken place; and we are not unaware that an animal’s life has been sacrificed in order to sustain ours.  We were there during that death, and that makes us appreciate our table fare even more, and ultimately allows us – as strange as it may sound – to look at animals with more appreciation.

Hunting is not an unemotional experience.  If anyone ever says that they are kidding themselves.  It is filled with many emotions – good and bad.  That is why I choose to hunt – to experience all of those emotions, and provide food for my family.

Ultimately, I hunt to eat, live, and feel alive.

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A couple of years ago my brother, Jeff, had a pretty good idea and started a Myspace page that included a few of his hunting and fishing exploits.  The idea of having a daily log to keep track of those adventures really started to sound pretty cool.  I had already started my own personal WordPress site, and started to wonder if I could put something together that would help us keep track of our daily hunting, fishing, and outdoor routines.

I sat down over a few nights, and started to put the site together.  The hardest part about the whole thing was picking a domain name.  After mulling a few names over, we finally decided on SimplyOutdoors.  I didn’t want to have the site be strictly hunting and fishing – because we are definitely about more than just those two things;  and I wanted the name to ring true and reflect our love of the outdoors.  I thought SimplyOutdoors accomplished just that.

Honestly, when we first started the site it was only originally intended for our enjoyment, as well as some family members.  At the time we had family in South Carolina, and having the site allowed them to keep up with what was happening in our outdoor world’s up here.  But somehow, and I’m honestly not even sure how it happened, I stumbled across Kristine’s Hunt Smart, Think Safety blog.

After reading her blog a few times, and leaving comments, she of course started to leave comments on our site as well.  At this time, since this was a few years ago, the OBS was only in its’ infancy.  It didn’t take long, though, for me to discover Rex’s Deer Camp Blog, Matt’s Bright Ideas Blog, as well as a few others who were already members of the OBS.

Once I discovered their sites, read the great things they were writing about the outdoors, and figured out what the OBS was all about, it didn’t take more than two seconds to slap the OBS badge on our site.  As I said before, SimplyOutdoors was originally just going to be a journal of our outdoor exploits, but after discovering the OBS I knew that we could definitely contribute to its cause, and be a powerful and positive voice for the outdoors.

Since becoming a member we have had nothing but positive experiences with the OBS.   Its members are truly like a family.  I consider most of them to be my friends, and even though none of us have never met, I think that the things we write about are definitely having an impact on people’s perceptions about hunting, fishing, hiking, etc.  I have seen the OBS blogroll explode since I originally joined, and I glad to see it that way.  And although I don’t have nearly enough time to visit everyone’s blogs, I know that as the membership grows, so will our legitimacy when it comes to outdoor issues.

In a nutshell, the OBS is a community;  a community of bloggers, friends, and people who truly appreciate the outdoors.  We are proud to be one of its members.

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It seems like this week has been slow when it comes to blogs.  Of course, this site is no exception to that rule.  I’m not sure if it is the time of year, or what, but it does seem like everyone’s in a little bit of a lull.  I haven’t been seeing the normal amount of new posts from my fellow bloggers, and the number of comments the last couple of days is way down.  Is this a trend?

I know there are a lot of factors that can contribute to the lull this time of year:  Weather, season’s are closed, ect.  I also think – and let me know if any of you fellow bloggers are experiencing this – that the weather is effecting my brain.  I really just can’t come up with any meaningful posts.  And when I do, I have a hard time finding the ambition to put the post together.

I could blame it on the winter blues, and of course, I could blame it on having a four month old.  But at this point I think I’m going to blame it on Mother Nature.  All of us go through “cabin fever” this time of year, and us bloggers are no different.  How are we supposed to come up with outdoor blog topics, when it is too frigid to even think about venturing outside?  I’m all about hunting in the winter, but not when it’s -25 below.

In a month or so we will see this yearly trend start to change.  All of us will start to come out of our funk, and the temperatures will start to see the 40 degree mark (hopefully).  All this snow will melt off – allowing for scouting and shed hunting – and things will start to get back to normal.  And then turkey hunting is right around the corner.

Are any of you experiencing this “blog slowness”?  Let me know in the comments.

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I don’t plan on doing a post on every new article I publish to Associated Content, but I think that this one is worth mentioning because there have been a ton of different blog posts and discussions that have dealt with this particular topic in the past. I decided that my full opinion and view of the subject needed to be public and Associated Content was an excellent place for that to happen.

So all of you head on over and read the article I wrote on how to bring back the positive image of hunters and hunting. I think it is worth the read and I’m really curious to hear all of your opinions about the piece.

This is honestly the article I’m the most proud of so far. Please take a look.

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