The Suburban Bushwacker: from Fat Boy to Elk Hunter

I've been really keen to join the Steem community since I first heard of it, the day sign ups were paused. 

I've written a fair bit over the last few years mainly on the blogger platform and 1,400,000 readers later google/blogger is yet to by me a beer. I've been blogging for nine years, chronicling my journey from couch potato suburban dad watching the adventure dudes on TV, to becoming a hunter, a bushcrafter, an outdoorsman.  I called the blog 'The Suburban Bushwacker: From Fat boy to Elk hunter'.

You can see my verification post HERE

I've written for a couple of forums and content farms which did lead to one paid writing gig. One. Fortunately I write because I love storytelling, and have a day job, otherwise I'd be foraging for every meal.

Here's how it all began

Raison D'être 

To awake from my comfortable homeostasis, rediscover my physical self and embark on the adventure of reconnecting with the natural world. Fat and lazy as I am, I get the feeling it’s going to be a rude awakening! I live in one of the most highly urbanised societies on earth, and it shows. Mainly around the middle!

Ambition:

Hunt, and kill a massive Elk with a bow. To skin it, butcher it, put it’s meat on the table and in the freezer, hang its skull and antlers on the wall, spread its hide across our bed and love-wrestle Mrs Bushwacker on top of it in its honour.

Between here and there:

Lose quite a lot of weight, gain quite a lot of muscle, develop endurance, learn archery, learn bushcraft and stalking skills, choose then buy (or trade for) all the kit needed to trek out into the wilderness, kill and bring back the body of my noble prey.

Why Hunting?

Ever since I started eating meat again, I was vegetarian for a few years in my teens and early twenties, I have felt a growing need to have an honest (and some would say blood thirsty) relationship with my dinner. 

I’ve noticed a lot of hunters refer to killing an animal as ‘harvesting’, just as there is no polite word for a euphemism, for me killing is called killing. I’ve met too many people who can/will only eat something if its origin is obscured. Fish, but only if it does not have a head, prawns without their shells, chicken but only when it comes from a plastic tray, and then only the white meat. These are people are afraid of their dinner. Our food deserves our respect. On the days when our skill and tenacity overcomes the animals guile and awareness, we earn the right to eat the flesh of another being. If I  cant (or won’t) kill it, gut it, cut it, and cook it what gives me the right to eat it? I believe in celebrating and honouring the life that is taken so we may live. 

Here on Steemit I'll be writing about deer hunting (or Deer Stalking as we call it in the UK), the trials and tribulations of a terrible fisherman, shooting/target sports in the UK, some gear reviews, and I didn't get to be this chubby without eating what I shot - so there'll be some recipes too. 

Hunting and Fishing tales, Target shooting with everything from .22LR[ 25 - 200 yards] to shooting Napoleonic cannon, Archery, Foraging, and Beekeeping.  Punctuated with a few trips to Italy, or Spain and some tinfoil hat wearing libertarianism.

Thanks for reading

SBW