The 14th. State, ready for archery season

The Dark and bloody ground is one translation for Kentucky. When I think of this, I think of the 14th. State’s historical past, much of which revolves around the game rich land when Native Americans and early explorer’s first roamed this land I call home.

The game is still rich and readily available here, from whitetails, wild turkey, elk and black bear. On Saturday, deer archery season opens in the Bluegrass State and continues through the middle of January. It is something that I look forward to each year.

Grabbing my Osage longbow and quiver full of cedar shafted arrows and pursuing the game of my ancestors red and white. It just seems right, like a genetic effect in my brain, left over from the hunter/gatherer days of old.

Some people ask me why I hunt; others ask me why I hunt using the most primitive of weapons. To the former I explain that meat really doesn’t originate in plastic wrapped packages in the aisle of Kroger. To the latter I tell them that it is my way of traveling back in time to a world that was a lot less complicated.

The Spanish philosopher Jose` Ortega y Gasset said that “One does not hunt in order to kill, but one kills in order to have hunted.” So I will be in the woods before daylight Saturday morning, as I have too many opening mornings to count, doing as those who came before me did.