My expectations for my upcoming bear hunting trip are very low.
I will be surprised if I even see a bear.
I’m just looking for some camaraderie with friends. Most of the people that are going out there to hunt, like me, haven’t had any experience hunting bears in the past. It’s all new to us.
I don’t think more than 200 bears will get taken in the state this year. Especially with the way the season is broken into different bear management units. If the east Panhandle unit gets shut down, I don’t see a lot of hunters going to Ocala or to the Everglades.
There’s also a two-day minimum on the hunt. I see it to be implausible that even the quota limits will be met in those two days.
And after that, on any given day, the hunt can be turned off. It’s the hunter’s responsibility to check. I expect the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to issue stiff fines for anybody who breaks those laws.
I have no tolerance for people that won’t follow the law when it comes to hunting. That needs to be a part of this: keep people accountable. The harvest rates are there for a reason, so that we can maintain these populations. If people can’t appreciate that, then they ought not to be hunting.
In “The Wilderness Hunter,” former President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, “In hunting, the finding and killing of the game is, after all, but a part of the whole. The free, self-reliant, adventurous life, with its rugged and stalwart democracy; the wild surroundings, the grand beauty of the scenery, the chance to study the ways and habits of the woodland creatures — all these unite to give to the career of the wilderness hunter its peculiar charm.
“The chase is among the best of all national pastimes; it cultivates that vigorous manliness for the lack of which in a nation, as in an individual, the possession of no other qualities can possibly atone. No one, but he who has partaken thereof, can understand the keen delight of hunting in lonely lands.”
Roosevelt’s words resonate with me. However, he falls very short in one regard: it doesn’t describe my spiritual connection to the hunt.
I believe in the God of creation, who turned that creation over to mankind. Unfortunately, we live in a sinful world, where the wages of sin is death. If we don’t eat, we die.
If I don’t hunt, I won’t die. But when I hunt, I take ownership of my consumption. I take the life. I butcher the animal. I own it. It’s raw, visceral and ugly, but it’s the reality of the world we live in.
It’s more honest than the proxy killing I do when I shop for a steak at the grocery store. I have no blood lust, and I’m horribly conflicted every time I harvest an animal.
I’m sad for the truth of its necessity, and I’m joyful for its sacrifice for my life. Most importantly, the sacrifice of that animal for my temporal physical existence points to the cross and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for my eternal spiritual life.
Nate Kilton is a local businessman and co-owner of the Plant City Times & Observer. He will be participating in Florida’s bear hunting season in Tate’s Hell State Forest.