Stoicism is a grounded thinking with wisdom that can elevate how you hunt.  Day one of philosophy class goes something like this, “You are all philosophers, you just don’t know it yet.”  Philosophy at its base is an understanding of life.  Thoughts become principles which guide actions and become years of practice.  We are a part of nature. The founding father of Stoicism Zeno said that peace and tranquility in life came from “living in agreement with nature.” Everything holds a specific role with the orderly and rational system, like cells in a larger organism.  Each ..read more

Aaron Schmaus is a multi-faceted professional with a distinguished background in the military, literature, as an athlete and in videography, and digital marketing. As a dedicated father and husband, he channels his diverse expertise to enrich the experiences of individuals navigating the great outdoors. Through insightful discourse, he sheds light on pivotal issues such as wildlife conservation, veteran welfare, and the intricate interplay between humanity and the natural world. As the esteemed host of The Primitive Republic Podcast, Schmaus delves into a wide spectrum of human experiences, s ..read more

Mark Damian Duda is executive director of Responsive Management. Over the past 35 years he has conducted over 1,000 studies on how people relate to the natural world. He is the author of four books on wildlife and outdoor recreation and more than 150 published articles and peer-reviewed papers. He is a certified wildlife biologist and social scientist and holds a masters degree in natural resource policy from Yale University. Topics Discussed: Social science is why it matters for hunters. Negotiating a place for wildlife on the landscape. How to talk about hunting. (Book link) Words Matter ..read more

If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great. ~Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) Even though hunting is my family legacy and my earliest memories are of the outdoors, I still recall the eagerness and anticipation for my first hunts. I wanted to take my new skills to the mountains to test myself and hopefully find success. There was a jarring reality that quickly showed up when my first, second, fifth, and tenth hunts yielded nothing. The rides home hung heavy with disillusionment; either I was a bad hunter or all the deer were gone. Either way, I was empty handed. What I w ..read more

,And there are new kinds of nomads, not people who are at home everywhere, but who are at home nowhere. ~Robin Davidson The true mountain men of our past likely lived in a paradox of being at home everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. They loved the life far removed from others but traveled just as widely when the fancy suited them. This is a largely romantic idea for us today, forced to be a part of civilization since the collapse of the frontier. Anemoia is the nostalgia for a time never personally known. It is what describes nearly all the hunters I know. If they could find a way to make ..read more

Remembering the hunt is nearly as ancient as the hunt itself. My first piece of taxidermy was a red squirrel that was the size of a obese house cat from a hardwood forest in Tennessee. It was my first time hunting squirrels, on purpose that is. In my youth my .22 rifle had certainly filled my bag, but it was never a serious endeavor. But I knew from my friends eyes that what I had in my hand was a trophy and it needed to be treated as such. I didn’t really have the $100 dollars for the bottom dollar taxidermist who said he could fit me in, but I had six months to save. As it turned out, I rea ..read more

The importance and significance of remembering. I was born into hunting. I do not recall a time when it began, only that it has always been part of our family. My sisters hunted, albeit sharply decreasing as I, their only brother, grew up. Most of my first hunting memories are now obscured by three decades of hunts and the irrevocable effect of time. Even still, they mark great moments in my life. My first gun was a .410 break-action shotgun gifted to me after my grandfather passed along with all of his fishing gear I have long since lost. My first deer was with a lever action .30-30 gifted f ..read more

This seems to be one of those topics that many hunters want to talk about, but don’t know where to begin. Ethics are important because they guide your own behavior afield, but they also inform your decisions on rulemaking and laws passed. Ethics are often cited as deeply personal and as varied as the number of hunters. However, it is when a growing number of hunters who share the same ethic and rally behind it that change impacts the entire hunting community. In 1888, the Boone and Crockett Club, led by Theodore Roosevelt and George Bird Grinnell, adopted a definition of Fair Chase in a time w ..read more

Hunting bonds us to nature as we were always intended to be. As all good students of Ron Swanson do, I eschew places with crowds, so I opt to order my groceries online and have them placed directly in my truck. On this occasion I had forgotten to unload my full body Canada goose decoys which left little room. When I opened the topper, a few dozen heads were staring at the young and clearly not outdoorsy girl who was there to load my bags. “Are those ducks? Why do you have so many ducks?” Again, channeling Swanson, I didn’t want to disclose more information than necessary, so I hesitated a bit ..read more

When expectations collide with reality. The reality of hunting is that we will not fill every tag every time. This seems like an obvious statement bordering on the absurd. However, we approach the next hunt with a particular eagerness and expectation of being able to bring home the big one. Yet, reality sets in on the long trip home with an unfilled license is sobering. Hope turns into disappointment as questions and second guesses grow. Glory tags have earned their status because they are rare and usually reserve a quality of game unheard of elsewhere. The Kaibab mule deer, Henry Mountains bi ..read more