I try to experience and explore the natural world as much as I can. Looking back on the outdoor recreation experiences I really appreciate everything, The good and the bad. For the most part I have been deer hunting a lot over the past couple of weeks and when you go out and sit in the woods every morning and night you start to feel more and more a part of the environment.  I have been hunting all of my life but I have just recently started taking advantage of the public lands in my area. This has opened my eyes to a whole new way to enjoy my outdoor recreational sport. It really started to make me think why don’t more people use these lands that are there for their enjoyment. I have found people are discouraged to hunt or use these areas because they are open to the public and they think the resource does not have as much to offer as a private piece of land.  Public land has its own interesting benefits like common minded people are out there with you. It also brings a lot more of the hunting back into hunting when you have to work a lot harder to insure your success. I think it says a lot more if you’re able to go out in nature and not alter any of the surrounding area like you do on private land.  You have more appreciation for the natural routine of the animals and you can’t alter or change it to fit into your schedule. Once you go through all the trouble of getting up at the crack of dawn and hiking all the way in you are in very hilly rocky land that is seemingly unusable to the average person. It’s not, it holds many diverse and different environments and has a dense forest in between the hills and crystal clear streams that runs through the property. You can see where the water goes and the trees follow and create lots of pockets of trees where wildlife live. I personally have not had much luck hunting the weather has not been on my side and the deer have been very nocturnal. When deer hunting the colder and the worse the weather it is better hunting but that’s ok, I just really like to be out there. Hunting is just my way of getting out and interacting with nature and its my favorite thing in the world to hike in to my spot in the morning and set up then sit and wait for the world to just appear in front of your eyes, and watch your visibility increase and hoping that the morning sun will illuminate what you’re there for.  Just getting to watch a deer go through its routine unaffected by your presence, not to say that always happens, but one of the great things about hunting is that your competitor is well equipped for the challenge.  Most of the time the deer outsmart you and you never stand a chance and for me that brings me a sense of great pride and excitement when you do win this intense game of cat and mouse.