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LOL! Well I was being silly while thumbing through "Meditations on Hunting", by Ortega y Gassett for something pithy.
Didn't come across anything that condenses well so in a nut shell I would say there are probably as many reasons to hunt and fish as there are hunters and fisherman; food on the table, communing with nature, getting back to our primeval hunter natures, the thrill of the stalk, pride in one's fieldcraft.
I mostly fish these days and pull triggers at the range, but the thrill of the stalk was what I liked.
The feeling of a sucessful ambush or of spotting and breaking the ambush (only in training, I've never "seen the elephant") is very much like that in hunting, all one's senses at the highest pitch, everything one sees and hears takes on a crystalline clarity, heart thudding in the chest, and all is combined with a lethal clarity and focus.
There isn't much else like it. Perhaps it is primitive, but so what? The pursiut of happiness is for you or me to determine not Mrs. Grundy, as long as we aren't harming her.

skepsel

but the thrill of the stalk was what I liked. The feeling of a sucessful ambush or of spotting and breaking the ambush (only in training, I've never "seen the elephant") is very much like that in hunting

I agree. One good reason to learn to hunt is that it prepares you in a small way for the ultimate hunt - warfare Heaven forbid we should ever need those skills for that. But we see today some of our men in arms are having to use those skills in that way. It is *irresponsible* IMO to not learn to do it, in case you ever HAVE to provide for your family in that way.

Being a woman I doubt I'd be any use on a battlefield but if I was in combat the idea of being a sniper comes closest to appealing to me. That or spec ops (Ok, ok I can only fantasize... doubt I'd have the mental discipline to do it.)

But I tell ya, after 9-11 I was regretting not having joined up 13 years earlier when I was 18. Again, I doubt I would have qualified because of medical issues. And at 18 I wasn't interested.