By John Warren
I’m fresh off the most successful venture of my hunting career, having taken five Axis deer on Molokai, one of Hawaii’s rugged gems. Outside of culling hunts, where you leave with nothing but the memory, bringing home this much game in one trip is nearly unheard of. Back in western Oregon, we count ourselves lucky to close a season with just a single blacktail, let alone five animals. To say I’m thankful feels like a sin against the gravity of this opportunity.
I often call this hunt “Alaska light,” but only because of the tiny planes and the towering mountains. The comparison ends there, though. My hunting is steeped in the traditions of the West and my indigenous roots, blended with a potent cocktail of poetry and death. Going into this hunt, my focus was clear: fill the freezer and, if luck allowed, bring home a trophy buck and his cape so my wife can have a nice rug. I managed both—stocked the freezer and took a decent 28-inch Axis, not the biggest, but nothing to scoff at. Yet, what I walked away with was far more valuable than meat and antlers.
As the years pass, I care less about what I’m hunting and more about who I’m hunting with. There’s something sacred in the shared silence, the unspoken bond of the hunt. Outside of a dinner table, hunting with others is the closest thing to church I’ve found. It’s cathartic, a rare place where the world’s clamor fades, leaving only nature and the challenge of holding one’s attention in the stillness. We talk about everything as we scan the mountainsides for deer—conversations that drift between the mundane and the profound, reminding us that in a world fractured by division, the simple act of being present with another human is a radical act of connection. It allows us to bridge the gap and really clutch the present; it must be protected.
Politics, gender, and sexuality never find their way into our conversations. Instead, we talk about our families, our spirituality, the joy of breaking bread, and living with our whole hearts. These are the things that truly matter when you’re face to face. My friend’s wife once said, “It’s hard to hate up close,” I couldn’t agree more. In the wilderness, there’s no screen to hide behind—just your actions and grit laid bare. Americans are hiding right now, lost in the chase for dopamine hits and likes from people whose real names we don’t even know. It’s a sad state of affairs, a hollow pursuit that leaves us more disconnected than ever.
There’s plenty of talk about hunting as a pursuit, a sport, or something to be conquered, but I believe it runs deeper than that. It’s one of the last genuine things left where people from all walks of life can sit side by side and be real, stripped of pretense, connected by something primal and true. It’s where fellowship thrives, untouched by all the reasons we’ve learned to hate each other. Out there, in the simplicity of the hunt, we find common ground that transcends the world’s divisions.
