Big Game Hunting in Tennessee
Reality of Hunting, Keeping It Real
- Details
- Category: Big Game Hunting
- Published on Saturday, 17 December 2011 19:26
- Written by Outdoorsman
You sit at home watching a hunting program on TV and you see those monster bucks taken with a variety of different methods. You see those fields with two, three or more big bucks in there, standing around just asking for you to drop one. The next day you are out hunting and you are all enthusiastic about the day only to find out you didn’t see one blasted deer. Then comes the feelings of being discouraged and ready to give it up. After all why cant you get out and see those deer like that? We have all been there at one time or another and I find myself in that same situation this week.
Hunting programs today give us the illusion that we can just walk out and in twenty minutes find that huge buck we have been after when nothing can be further from the truth. Don’t get me wrong here, I love those shows but your average hunter just doesn’t realize how much time is put into making that twenty minute segment on TV. Starting in the outdoor filming arena myself I have come to realize that you put a lot of time into just being able to get the deer on film let alone the actual kill shot. Until you actually do it yourself, you don’t grasp the reality of it all.
Many times those hunts on TV that you see are done in locations that are loaded with deer, sometimes on hunting preserves but doing it in the wild so to speak is a totally different story. Unless you have access to a location loaded with game you are not going to see those type of days where you can pick the buck you want. The cold reality is there may be days go by not seeing anything at all. When you do see deer you may just see does or small bucks if you are lucky. The point to all this is don’t get discouraged, keep at it and eventually you will succeed.
I love my hunting shows, I like a lot of the guys who create the shows but I personally think its time we begin to show the reality side of hunting the way it is to the average hunter. This is the goal of The Tennessee Outdoorsman and Mitch Smith Outdoors. We want to show the average hunter that despite the fact we cant always get a 180 or larger buck, maybe we wont get anything bigger than a five point but that is reality and we keep digging. I have gone now for over a week with not one sighting of a buck while one was just killed next door that sported a nice 26 inch spread, again that is reality.
It is time we hunters and video makers turn to reality to demonstrate that it isn’t always peaches and cream. I read a post here last week where a man had gotten discouraged and was ready to give up. I know we all have hard times out there but it does get better. It wont all happen in one day or maybe in a week. In my case, this year it has taken the entire season to film one good usable segment, I got lots of deer on film and got two recoveries from hunts gone wrong and again that is reality. I managed to shoot some good footage, lots of bloopers and interesting scenes so I cant complain.
The next time you get discouraged because you don’t see those fields full of shooter bucks, or you hadn’t seen anything at all, think of this article. To those who have children who hunt, let them know its not always easy and we don’t always win the battle when we match wits with a big buck but never give up. Pass it along to every hunter you know and if you know someone in the filming industry, let em know, we need to get back to reality. Good luck to every hunter out there and keep it real!