Best Hunting Essay Ever?

[Ben Long]

This essay appeared 40 years ago this month in the first edition of Outside magazine. I stumbled across it a few years later and studied it intently as it was my dream at the time to be an outdoor writer. I still think it's one of the best essays on hunting I've come across. If there are better ones, I'd like to read 'em, so tell me what they are. Enjoy.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2237541/heart-game

 

[Doublecluck]

Thanks for sharing.. I enjoyed reading that.

 

[Khunter]

“as Sitting Bull said, when the buffalo are gone, we will hunt mice, for we are hunters and we want our freedom.”

thanks for postng!

 

[VikingsGuy]

I am not calling it the best essay ever, but this one speaks to me - https://www.fieldandstream.com/articles/hunting/2002/06/why-i-hunt

 

[7mm08mo]

Pretty good reading, kinda the way a mans thoughts go while afield.

 

[TheNorthStar]

Good stuff, thanks for posting. I'm heading to Idaho in a couple weeks for my first out of state adventure and have been toying with the idea of writing about the experience when I get home. Maybe I could run it by you fellas and find out if it's worth submitting anywhere.

 

[Nutrioso]

McGuane is about the best. Thank you for posting. Several of the essays in John Barsness's Life of the Hunt book are also very good. He is known more for his technical gun writing but his philosophy of hunting stuff is excellent.

 

[stillkickin]

Thanks for sharing this one Ben, an absolute classic!

 

[Deleted member 20812]

Thanks Ben, I enjoyed that.

 

[Bulldog0156]

I must be simple. I had a hard time following it because it jumped around, so I didn't really enjoy it.

 

[rtraverdavis]

McGuane is one of the all time greats. The way he writes, sometimes I wonder if noharleyyet is secretly Tom McGuane...

 

[Dinkshooter]

Absolutely one of my favorites. I've read this paragraph 100+ times

"As I took that step, I knew he was running. He wasn't in the browse at all, but angling into invisibility at the rock wall, racing straight into the elevation, bounding toward zero gravity, taking his longest arc into the bullet and the finality and terror of all you have made of the world, the finality you know that you share even with the Princess and your babies with their inherited and ambiguous dentition, the finality that, any minute now, you will meet as well.

 

[Trial153]

I agree excellent

 

[Wrong Burgundy]

Great timing during hunting season to re-read this piece; one of the best for sure. McGuane has a style all his own, and his book An Outside Chance, along with The Longest Silence, are classics to own.

I would throw a vote out for Don Thomas' work as well, and Rick Bass and Ted Kerasote.

 

[Matt R]

This one really stuck with me: "Why should they die for you? Would you die for deer?"...
"If it came to that."

Thanks for sharing and introducing me to McGuane, Ben.

 

[IsaacBrown]

Has someone a hunting essay? I need one for my University and I have no great ideas. I know that this can be called a little bit cheating but need to do everything to find or to write an essay. The main topic is hunting but, I don't know what to tell and what not to tell in an essay. Should I mention killing animals, dead animals and other gross things? I have an update. I found https://essaywriterservice.com/ . I have asked them to write me an essay about hunting and it was really good made. Thanks in advance for everyone.

 

[Huntkook]

Has someone a hunting essay? I need one for my University and I have no great ideas. I know that this can be called a little bit cheating but need to do everything to find or to write an essay. The main topic is hunting but, I don't know what to tell and what not to tell in an essay. Should I mention killing animals, dead animals and other gross things?

Here we go again Welcome to Hunt Talk. No one here is going to divulge their secret essay byline without you properly introducing yourself.

 

[406dn]

I must be simple. I had a hard time following it because it jumped around, so I didn't really enjoy it.

I'm in your camp, more or less. I find his writing to be a bit linguistically contrived,,, kind of how I view anything George Will writes.

I prefer a more conversational style of writing. I'm old enough to have been weaned on Jack O'Connor's outdoor writing. That's more my style.

 

[noharleyyet]

This essay appeared 40 years ago this month in the first edition of Outside magazine. I stumbled across it a few years later and studied it intently as it was my dream at the time to be an outdoor writer. I still think it's one of the best essays on hunting I've come across. If there are better ones, I'd like to read 'em, so tell me what they are. Enjoy.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2237541/heart-game

Mr. McGuane is a master of wordsmithing the human condition via picaresque characters. @Ben Long, I must've been traveling to hunt elk when you posted this 3 years ago. Big Thomas McGuane fan.

 

[44hunter45]

That makes me regret all the time I wasted reading a certain left handed Army Colonel as a kid.