Like Father, Like Son - A Hunter Is Born

“A Bowhunter is a Hunter Reborn – Forever…” – Michael Patrick McCarty

It has been said that hunter’s are born, not made, and perhaps this is true. Far be it for me, to disagree.

Hunter’s eyes are born of blood, and I, like my father, and his father before him, would seem to prove that out. Well-worn deer trails, mist-filled bogs, and oceans of pitch pines and blackjack oaks were always a large part of our daily landscapes. I cannot help but think that we were all so much better off for our youthful visions.

Just below is a long forgotten photo of my Dad’s first white-tailed deer, taken with a hand-me-down shotgun in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey. As you can see, it was a good one too. He was sixteen years old.

I never did hear the story of that first buck, but I have no doubt that it was a big adventure of some kind. Or at least I would like to think so, knowing my father’s penchant for getting the job done. South Jersey was still a wild place in the 1930’s, and a boy could really stretch out and do some roaming. I surely would have loved to have explored it all back then.

Below that is a photograph of my first big game kill with a bow & arrow, taken not very far away from where my father stood for his photo. I was also sixteen at the time, and I could not have been more excited, and proud.

The doe may have been small, and the picture is now tattered, and faded, but the memory is not. I remember everything about that hunt as if it was yesterday, and it remains a thrill that has not nearly begun to wear off after all of these many years.

There are far worse things in life, than to be born a hunter…

Good Memories!

Mark A. McCarty Sr. With His First Whitetail Buck. Circa 1939

Michael Patrick McCarty With His First Bow Kill Whitetail. Circa 1974

*My father became an avid bowhunter in the 1950’s, and I am sure that he would have hunted his first deer with archery tackle, if he could have. New Jersey did not hold its first special bow & arrow deer season until 1948, only ten years before I was born.

In Memoriam
For Mark A. McCarty Sr.,
United States Army Airborne Ranger
Who Fought and Bled, for Us, in World War II
May You Find Good Trails to Follow

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"One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted". From Meditations on Hunting by José Ortega y Gasset