Why I taught my Family to Hunt

In the Fall 2015 issue of Pheasants Forever magazine on page 64, there is an article taken from a book.  The book is "Hunting and Home in the Southern Heartland, The Best of Archibald Rutledge."  The article is reprinted with permission.  This section is entitled, Why I Taught My Boys to be Hunters.  And while I understand that Archie was given three boys, I on the other hand was blessed with one of each sex.  And so I have changed the title to "family" instead of boys.

As I read the article, it struck me that I had those same feelings as Archie, as probably did my father and grandfather and uncle and brother and cousin and son and daughter and son-in-law and everyone else who participated with us during our endeavors out of doors.

I would love to provide you with the entire article, but I am not going to type that much.  I would rather you join Pheasants Forever and get your own copy of the magazine.  Or, you could purchase the book noted above ($25 on Amazon, or signed copies from www.jimcasadaoutdoors.com at $30).  I'm going to see if I can find it for my iPad.

Anyway, I wanted to share with you some quotes that really resonated with me:

  • A lot of good people ask, "How can you love nature and yet shoot a deer?"  "How can you bear to teach your children to kill things?"  These parlor naturalists and lollipop sentimentalists, whose knowledge of nature is such that they would probably take a flying buttress for a lovely game bird, are incapable of understanding that it is far less cruel to kill a wild deer than it is to poleax a defenseless cow in a stall.  The cow has no chance; but the deer will win about four out of five chances even with a good hunter.


  • It always seems to me that any man is a better man for being a hunter.  This sport confers a certain constant alertness, and develops a certain ruggedness of character that, in these days of too much civilization, is refreshing.


  • Nature always solves her own problems; and we can go far toward solving our own if we will listen to her teachings and consort with those who love her.


If that doesn't make you want to read the entire book, then you need to get out and hunt some more.

Happy Reading and Great Hunting to you all!



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