When I was a little kid I remember my grandad talking about how he really didn't have a desire to kill anything anymore. He did love taking us and at that time my dad was still pretty ate up with it. Over time I have seen my dad transition into the same sort of mind set but he was still an avid deer hunter into his 50s.

Through my teen years and 20s I was up for anything. I was ready at the drop of a hat to go hunt any animal at any time. I put in a lot of time trapping, varmint calling, deer hunting and all that goes into that. I became obsessed with bird hunting (dove, ducks, geese etc) and it's still my favorite. I would average 2 hunts a week from September through January. Then every weekend in the spring I was calling.

However, I am now in my late 30s and I find myself not as excited as I once was. I really have no desire to shoot varmints anymore but would much rather watch a fox or bobcat do it's thing rather than kill it.

I still love the outdoors and loved kayaking the Devil's a couple years ago. I'm planning on doing the Pecos as well.

I haven't shot a deer in a few years, I've gone varmint calling maybe 5 times in the last 5 years.

I've cut my duck and dove hunting down to just a few times a month.

I just remember how obsessed I was with all of it but now it's become a much smaller part of my life.

Maybe it's just that I don't have the energy anymore?

Sounds like it’s time for you to pass on your knowledge and experience to a younger crowd.

I still want to kill them all, but I have no problem watching others do it, especially my kids.

Most of us who grow up with it start out as stone cold animal slaughterhouses. If you don’t slow down some from that then something is probably wrong with you.
I was still pretty amped up to kill something while I was in my 30s though. Gradually came to value the experience as much taking an animal, then moreso. I am not mad at the whitetails anymore but do try like heck to get a good animal on hunts out west/up north, while at the same time slowing down and enjoying the ride.
I have about decided about the time you finally learn how to really enjoy mountain hunting, you are about too old to do it. 😊

Bird hunting with a wonderful pup has been an unexpected Godsend to me and taught me a whole bunch about just enjoying the moments.

It's not so much you have changed, but it's that the world has changed more drastically than you have.
There was more people living the rural life, and more land was available, less cost, and hunting and fishing was more acceptable and popular as recreation.
The reason a lot of the older guys have lost that desire is that it's just not the same, and those days have passed and won't ever come back, so you live with the content memory of those past hunts.
If you are younger than 50 you probably won't agree, having not experienced what it was like back in the day.

I live on my ranch and my thought process has changed to managing it rather than just taking from it. A few years ago, there were just a few turkeys here and I went on the warpath with raccoons and chicken snakes. 3 days ago in my front yard.

I guess something is wrong with me then.

Some of us will never lose the desire to hunt and kill animals & fish to feed our families. I want to fill my freezer and process/cook that meat with my loved ones and share it.

The older I get, the more I want to hunt/kill animals and teach my kids & grandkids what it's all about from the field to the plate before I'm gone.

I get more excited watching my grandson shooting something more than I ever did when I shot something.

I have mellowed (I guess) to a point that I can enjoy seeing/watching as much as taking/killing, but when I decide to kill a nice buck, it's still a big thrill. Hogs are just a target pest/destroyer to remove whenever seen. Enjoyed teaching my son, and still hunt with him some, and beginning his son now. Seeing their excitement is exciting for me.

I’m sitting in a double ladder this morning with my grandson, he’s trying to get his first deer with a bow.
My grandpa was an avid deer hunter and he never lost the desire to hunt, I even took him when he was in a wheelchair.
I was an avid bow hunter, although I still like to get in the woods, I have lost the desire to kill a deer.
I will shoot a coyote or a hog.
I do enjoy hunting with my grandkids.
I haven’t killed a deer in 6-7 years now.

I still enjoy the hunt but it's mostly about the fellowship and camp than about the kill now. I love taking my son out and he enjoying it as much as I did at that age. In fact, when he graduates from school I'm getting him a lifetime hunting and fishing license as his gift.

I have slowed down a lot. It is more about meat in the freezer any more, I have plenty of heads on the wall.
I often ask the younger crowd that is still in the "kill everything" mode to shoot me a doe and I will go get it and gut it.

Presently, my right knee is slowing me down. 'Probably a good thing, as far as stalking anything goes.

I'm in those whack-a-mole with ailments years. Fun times.

by and large the "hunting camp" era has gone away for most. It started to taper out in the last 20 years and really took a dive in the last 10. I think as many or more people are still hunting in Texas but the deer camp vibe is all but over. And that sucks....hunting in most places has gotten better, but the camp aspect sucks.

I think a large part of it is what you have gotten accustomed to over the years. Like you, I'm middle/late 30's and was really eaten up with it in my teens and 20's although due to financials it kept me from doing much more than whitetail hunting and shooting dove for the majority of that decade, but opportunities to go were pretty frequent. After awhile hunting the same ol' deer on the same ol' place gets boring for most. I'm of the belief if you don't change it up/have a long range goal than you will lose your motivation to continue the sport.

I know a lot of guys who hunted hard in their younger years but they lost their drive once they got into their 50's. The one common denominator all these guys had in common is they were almost exclusively rifle only whitetail hunters. I think they just got bored with the same old same old.

The guys I know who are still going at it hard hunt for multiple species over many different areas and the change up keeps it interesting. I know this is a big part of it for me, new methods, areas and animals to hunt.


I will be a little more picky with my time now, I love to shoot dove but only went twice this year and I was ok with it, whereas i used to go 3-4 times a week. I truly love to duck hunt but If i get in 2-3 good shoots a year I'm perfectly happy with that. But, few things make me as happy as hearing a flock of ducks buzz low over the water before dropping into the spread.

I think I'm coming full circle back again lol. I'm excited as ever now to hunt and take game. I gave up trying to be a bass pro at the age of 24 and got into hunting (I've always thought hunting was more in my heart but bass fishing was a way to make a career)
So in 1993 I got me compound bow and hunted one year with it, put it away and started making self bows/arrows to hunt with. I shot a doe and spike my first year with the compound and it just seemed easy so I made the more challenging way to hunt. I have shot elk, caribou, deer, hog and various small game with my all wood bows but I got tired of passing elk and deer at 25+ yards. Then my 3 boys got into hunting all about 9-10 years old. Between guiding them and still trying to hunt with my primitive toys I went almost 15 years without shooting a wt deer.

Now I'm 53, just got back from a almost 4 week elk hunt with my youngest son (his first elk hunt) and I never took my bow out, I was trying to help him get his elk. I hunt with a compound now and I'm really excited to hunt again and have some kills. As much I as LOVE dove hunting I may miss a lot now going forward as we are going elk hunting every sept. now until I can't physically do it anymore. We averaged 9-10 miles a day on this elk hunt we just got back from from and I loved it.

But I do want trophies on the wall more than ever!

you kill a Elk or Caribou with a self made bow you are a bad mama jamma.

I’ve killed more animals than I could ever possibly recall and I get more pleasure out of watching someone else shoot them now. My wife and father are the main beneficiaries of my hunting skills these days but I take kids all the time. A neighboring kid shot a 159” deer for his first ever deer last year with me and I was way more excited than he was being he didn’t realize what he had actually accomplished until a few days later.

In life we learn, then we teach our skills to others and then we enjoy the results of our labor If your bored with hunting to an extent then take a kid and let him kill something, you will be rejoiced with the same feeling you had as a kid on the night before opening day when you couldn’t sleep and thought all night about that giant 4 point you were going to kill tomorrow…

There was a time when I hunted hard from dawn to dark humping the hills in CO looking for elk and mulies. My whole family would be on the hunt but I rarely saw them since I was always the first one out the tent long before daylight and I was always the last one to come dragging in long after dark with a flashlight in my hand. I'd eat, crash and do it again the next day and would do it until I tagged out or the season ended. Now most of those family members: both grandfathers, father, uncles, some cousins and long time family friends are all dead. I realize now that I was hunting for the wrong reason since I always had to be the one that tagged the biggest animal and usually was. I missed the comradery and the simple joy of being with people I cared about. There was a time on safari in Africa with my father that I insisted that we both have our own PH because Pop hunted too slow for me. I wasn't there when Pop took a really good Kudu.

I wasn't there when he took a very nice Cape Bushbuck, a species I never did take.

I wasn't there when Pop took the biggest Blue Wildebeest I ever saw. I had to hunt elsewhere looking for game.

This really struck home when my father died and I realized there would be no more hunting trips with him. Only then did I understand that the real trophies from a hunting trip are not the horns, heads, antlers and hides. The real trophies are the people you share the trips with. I haven't hunted for any antlers since I buried my father in 2013. I have taken a few bucks as target of opportunities but now I hunt for the memories and for a few does for the meat. I take time to watch the sunrise. I find joy in watching the birds fly and hearing the coyotes howl. I relish the feel of the sun and wind on my face and I wish every season that I could have all those long dead hunters with me in camp once more.

I enjoy hunting with my son but when I hunt alone the loneliness sets in but i try to garner some inner peace knowing folks have lives and this is my choice. I enjoy seeing deer and game and get excited by the thought on taking them but wonder if it's bloodlust or desire of hunting. I don't pursue hunting like I use to and put the thought of "having " to tag out or get something far back in my mind. I think making it a "hassle or expense helps me slow down and not make it a priority. Living the urban life style makes it become special or bothersome for me.

I posted about this recently about being more than six seasons since shooting last buck and not that bummed about it. I've hunted nearly 45 years and harvested 70 bucks or more in that time. I still don't mind harvesting animals, hogs, yotes and turkey, I've just gotten very, very selective with bucks.

Hunting as I knew it as a kid is hard to find in Texas. When I first started hunting back in the 70's, it could take a kid several seasons before they had spent enough time in the woods waiting on the chance to get a shot at a deer. Now all they need do is climb a few steps, sit down in a chair, and just wait for something to show up and eat.

As for how I view the sport, all that's changed since I was a kid is the clear distinction between hunting game animals and just shooting them.

I have typed and retyped my response to this post a half dozen times, and I am not sure this post captures exactly what I feel and want to say. When I was a kid, I drove my dad nuts to take me along with him on hunting trips starting at about 5. I thought I was the luckiest kid in Texas, chasing downed doves and quail that my Dad and his friends shot. My teenaged years were defined by seasons, dove, football, and deer. My 20's I hunted for food. In my mind I needed to hunt to eat. Which, while I was a poor college student and then an even poorer rodeo cowboy my parents would never let me (and most certainly their grandchildren) go hungry. Then, while working for the state prison system I had access to acres and acres of waterfowl habitat on the Trinity river, and I became a duck hunting fool for the next decade. During that time I bet I didn't go deer hunting more than one or two times a year. I left corrections, and by extension duck hunting, Thusly I returned to my deer hunting roots and my passion was reignited, and when my passion waned in my early 40's, I started bow hunting. Then a few years later I began honest to God turkey hunting to the point where all I need is an Osceola for a Grand Slam! I have also discovered traditional bow hunting and enjoy hog hunting with a recurve. At 52, I have taken up traditional muzzleloader hunting with the recent purchase of a Thompson Center Hawken (thanks MoTex), and by the time my physical therapy is done and I am in the woods, I will be excited to leave the inline frontstuffer at home and channel my inner Jeremiah Johnson.
I guess what I am trying to say is every time my interest starts to fade, I find a new way to reignite my passion for hunting and the outdoors, who knows maybe my 60's will bring on an interest in hunting squirrels.

Back in the mid 80" the place we hunted near Caddo lake got 12 LAMPS permits. The landowner required us to fill them all. The most deer we home processed was 14 from that place and 2 from ours. Now most of the folks we supplied the meat too are long gone. Now if I get a buck and a doe, I think that is almost too much work.

As a kid I rifle hunted all the time
Then in my late 20’s and 30’s I mostly only bow hunted
Then in my mid 40’s I bought a hunting ranch and find myself enjoying taking my kids hunting
I find as a ranch owner, I have a more wildlife management mindset
I will keep my ranch and hopefully when I have grandkids (I’m guessing 10 + years from now)
I will pass down the traditions and knowledge of Texas hunting
If it ends up that my daughters (with their husbands) and kids decide to not hunt anymore ,
then I will sell my ranch.