“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.”  This quote encompasses the very gift that comes from the struggle one may experience when learning how to hunt.  It mentions fish, but I think this translates quite nicely into hunting, as well as into everyday life.  While the natural instinct to hunt might swim through our DNA, we are not born knowing all things hunting.  What many of us are born with though, is the desire to learn how to hunt, along with feasting on our harvest when the hunt comes to a close.  Whether we choose to act on those desires is another story entirely.

The act of learning to hunt is something that brings frustration, excitement, disappointment, and fulfillment all at the same time while you are sitting there scratching your head about what to do next.  Hunting will make you want to just go back home to your nice warm bed followed up by you chomping at the bit to get back out in the mountains.  Those that have hunted a good deal know exactly what I am talking about and those that haven’t will know soon enough.  Each small taste of success, be it a sighting of the animal that you are after or actually filling your tag, act as the driving factors that push us that one more step.  They are the reason we start chomping at the bit to get back out there.  We love the feeling of success and are constantly trying to reproduce it.

The title of this piece is “The “Gift” of Struggle.”  If you haven’t caught onto what the “Gift” is yet, let me enlighten you.  The “Gift” is the struggle itself.  It is what shapes us into who we are and what guides us to the success we desire.  Don’t look at struggle as a negative thing, look at it as a positive and look forward to what you are going to get out of it in the end.  I’ve never heard anyone say they didn’t learn anything from a tough hunt.  I’d venture to say some might have learned more.  Struggle and adversity is just part of the process of learning how to hunt.  Don’t quit because something is too hard, keep pushing through to get that nugget of knowledge at the end of the rainbow.

 I’d much rather someone teach me how to fish, than have someone give me a fish.

Over the years, I have had many folks ask me for help with their hunts and straight up where to go for certain animals.  Most of the time, I am happy to help out, because I know what it’s like to just be starting out.  I’d also be lying if I said I had never been guilty of doing that myself out of desperation and lack of knowledge.  We all seek out those that are more experienced than we are and hope they can bestow any little tidbits of info on us.  I LOVE helping people out, but to a certain extent.  Not just because I have worked hard to learn what I’ve learned, but I feel almost as if I would be robbing someone of what is rightfully their’s to begin with and that is THEIR experience.  That is something that is truly precious and not mine to tamper with.  I’d much rather someone teach me how to fish, than have someone give me a fish.

Joshua Kirchner