Just lost a huge thread to this !@#$#%^&!!! system (got to remember to take my own advice about saving regularly). Had an interesting situation develop in this last large family reunion I attended with my wife & son in eastern North Carolina. At least two of the young men in attendance there were seriously dedicated outdoorsmen. Considering where they live (the Virginia/Washington, DC metroplex) that is a very hard thing to achieve and then maintain. I was fascinated with their intensity and interest in fishing this man-made warm-water reservoir the reunion compound was located on. I had facilitated their pursuits somewhat by adding a pontoon boat to the rental for the week and they were using almost every waking minute to pursue the local fauna (in this case fish, and by my estimation, nothing very special). We discussed the usual subjects associated with the activity (tackle, tactics, bait, etc.) and then I raised the question about what type of hunting they pursued. Their answers somewhat floored me. The net, net of that conversation was this....what I've always taken for granted about my hunting activities they have to almost fight for. The planning, the scheming, the sacrifices and economic liabilities that they have to overcome to just hunt a doe whitetail is daunting to the point of unreasonable. Yet... they pursue it with a fervor (almost religious!) that I probably could have never mustered. The world has clearly changed dramatically since I hit the ground here in the late 1950s. Rural areas have shrunken dramatically and hunt-able game populations arguably don't even exist in many (if not most) of the now vast metroplexes on either coast. Yet here these young men are, desperately pursuing these time-honored traditions. Where does that come from? What drives them to go to those lengths to just have a few scant hours of time afield? Now...both of these young men either come from military families or are active military themselves so "the warrior ethic" is very familiar. One is active Marine Corp reserve, the other is an EMT. Both are early in their careers (and family life) and are just scraping by. After much consideration (& feeling very-much like a glutton that needed to do something decently generous), I have invited both to come out west to see what big game hunting is like out here (arguably before it is too-late to do so, for a number of reasons). Neither will be able to afford out-of-state tags (now $600 for a cow elk tag here in Colorado) so they'll be largely acting as Sherpas, but both jumped at the chance like I'd just offered a painfree trip to Valhalla. What says the cognoscenti here on the subject? Where does this visceral drive to hunt come from?