By: Ted Nugent
Ahhhhh….. December! At last! This wonderful last month that brings a blazing end to another incredible year that may very well be the best hunting month of all.
Say YOWZA like you mean it!
With sheer joy and a Cheshire grin, I recount the many exciting days, sunrises, sunsets, the many earth shattering deer encounters, the effervescent paths of many mystical flights of many arrows, the humbling spiritual moments of critter recoveries, the sizzling of backstraps on an open fire, all the good, the bad and the ugly of always challenging time afield during our precious hunting season so far this year.
When the deerhunting is all said and done, I believe it really boils down to an amazing series of very special and very diverse hunting memories that we can take with us through life.
And of all the moving memories we are lucky enough to pursue and accumulate, for me the best of the best are the times with special people around those special flame glowing deerhunting campfires.
Sure, at the end of each hunting day, after sitting and waiting and tracking and dragging and loading and gutting and hanging our hard-earned prizes, sometimes there is little opportunity for an actual campfire, but the gatherings around the buckpole or woodstove or just sitting down to the dinner table together are slight yet powerful variations on a campfire theme and we cherish them all.
Since I hunt every day and host and guide 50 to 100 hunters each fall and winter, our extended campfire time reminds us all how this timeless primal hunting life coalesces the absolute best aspects of our very existence.
In a world otherwise gone mad and turned upside where the government, media, Hollywood and academia all scramble to make right wrong and good bad, nothing brings truth, logic and commonsense so powerfully back into focus like a bunch of American hunters around a fire.
Just shooting the breeze and emphasizing the beauty of good, old American “we the people” politics is oh so good for the mind, spirit, body and soul. And believe you me, truth and logic remain common and sensible around every campfire I’ve ever had the privilege to share.
Families from all fifty states and pretty much every Canadian province have blessed me with their intellect, humor, goodwill and decency and profound sense of duty to the good mother earth and our stewardship responsibilities as hunters, fishers and trappers.
As we celebrate our great President Trump’s ongoing draining of the DC swamp with the return of our we the people wild lands in Utah, we are extremely grateful to have a people’s president doing the people’s work so we can properly utilize these rich, magnificent lands and hunt, fish and trap the valuable wildlife resources that are ours to conserve.
With an administration of hunters and hunter supporters, we finally have some in government positions that take us back to the Founding Fathers vision of this unique experiment in self-government, and we are all very pleased to be back on track to make America great again.
Every imaginable political issue has been discussed, debated and scrutinized around our hunting campfires for as long as I can remember, and to see logic and commonsense back into the mix is gratifying and relieving beyond words.
I have participated in political debates most of my adult life, in hallowed government halls, on university campuses, all across the media and in town squares throughout the nation.
It is always around deercamp campfires with working-hard, playing-hard American families, when the stress and hectic burdens of everyday life are all forgotten, fresh from that primal forest or swampland that I have found the most direct reasonableness and passionate articulation of the true American Way, no BS, no political correctness, no excuse making, no whining, no make-believe fantasy nonsense allowed.
With much great hunting still ahead of us for the season, make it a point to extend the joys and soul cleansing attributes of our hunting time by making extra time to communicate around the campfire, literally and at least figuratively.
With the long-running dumbing down of America and the scourge of fakenews everywhere, it will be these genuine heart and soul settings where those of us in touch with the real world can educate others and actually eradicate the damage done by nonstop propaganda and brainwashing by forces to reckon with out there. For example, we can explain to the unknowing how elephants, just like deer, elk, bear, cougar, moose, caribou and all big game must be hunted in order to pay for game wardens, anti-poaching details and keep them in the asset column of regional economies in order to truly conserve the species.
Amazingly, even in our own hunting community there are still some that have fallen for the anti-hunting propaganda and continue to foolishly resist this basic wildlife science 101.
So do like I am doing today; gather up that firewood and prepare a roaring fire of the heart as the sun goes down as we get ready to say good-bye to 2017 with yet more great hunting to be had.
May the embers of the fire in your heart glow stronger and hotter than ever before. America needs a good campfire right now. Light ‘em up!