Main Street

One thing I’ve tried to do for many years, is, where possible, lend a hand or support initiatives that help retain or introduce young or new hunters to this pastime/lifestyle.

I’ve written plenty in the past about how I feel and perceive providing my own meat vs just buying it from a market. I’d prefer to know where and how it lived. I’d prefer to know where and how it died. I’d prefer to know how it was handled and cared for.

These days, it appears, the act of “making meat” has been delegated to a far deep corner of our brain, where many don’t have to process it or think about it. In short, it’s been eliminated from much of the population’s rationale when buying meat. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s as if the fine-looking T-bones in neatly packaged Styrofoam trays magically got there without anything dying.

Years ago, if my memory serves correct, even those who never felt the call, need, or desire to pick up a shotgun and go rustle up some lean protein, they seemed to, at least, recognize that it was once a living animal, and they were aware how it came to sit in the table in front of them.

I think we’ve lost that connection. And that’s unfortunate in my opinion.

If we take that aspect of providing meat for consumption out of the equation, I think we lose interest in policing how it gets done.

Killing an animal is, and should be, an act taken seriously. Very seriously.

No one knows this more than hunters. No one in the food user group is closer to this than hunters. In hunting households…everyone at the dinner table is aware of how that meal came to be. To ignore the initial act of putting meat in the freezer, does not make you “love” animals more. It just means you have chosen not to recognize it. You simply have elected not own it. In a nuanced term...you have chosen not “to keep it real”.

All of this to say, I think it’s important to keep hunting relevant and main stream. I understand it’s not for everyone. I have no desire to make someone hunt who wishes not to. I do nevertheless, have the desire to provide them with facts about regulated hunting.



One thing, I think will help in this endeavor is the opening of the new Cabela’s store in the heart of a major shopping park in largely urban area. Every time folks (families) drive through this area on their way to buy groceries, clothing, go to a movie, or any of the other retailers nearby they will undoubtedly see the familiar looking store front.

Will it convert throngs of non-hunters into hunters? Likely not…but it will introduce a hunting vernacular back into Main Street. It may well demonstrate there’s no need to “fear” a hunter. It may well show the proverbial Main Street shoppers that folks going to a hunting store look, act, and behave exactly like them. We are not the demons that the Anti crowd have portrayed us as. In a best-case situation, it may facilitate a conversation between parties that may not have had the opportunity to meet face to face before. Often, I find in person conversations are more productive, civil, with a hint more understanding than the popular on-line wars we all see waged every day.

I have seen first hand (many times) non-hunting parents and kids tremendously enjoy a trip through a Cabela’s.

I cannot help but think that will be a benefit to one degree or another to and for Outdoor folks. I honestly think just having hunting and fishing inserted back into the fictional Main Street is a win for us all who are concerned with such things.